Mola Ram was growing more disturbed. He moved carefully through the disorder, toward the Sankara Stones on the altar.
Another priest attacked Indy, swinging his incense burner. Indy doubled over, then stood up under the priest, letting the man’s own momentum carry him over, and into the crevasse. There was a hissing flash; the priest was no more.
Short Round stood with his back to a wall, holding several guards at bay with a torch in one hand, a knife in the other.
The executioner crawled to his wheel, went back to lowering Willie. She was only yards away from the spumes of fulminating lava now. The heat was so intense, her clothes began to smoke; her eyelashes began to singe. Her consciousness reached the limits of its strength; her life began to shimmer. Random images flitted through her cooking brain; ancient memories, silvered feelings. The last thought that trickled by before she blacked out entirely was, In olden days a glimpse . . .
Indy knocked the executioner off the platform once more. As he was beginning to crank the cage up out of the brew, a priest attacked him with a pole. He grabbed the pole, threw the priest off its other end, into the pit.
He fenced a guard with the pole, finally bashing him unconscious. This brought him near the altar, where he noticed Mola Ram bending over the stones. Indy broke the stick over Ram’s back.
Mola Ram fell forward. Indy raised his half-stick to finish the job on Ram, when the High Priest looked up, smiled . . . and disappeared through a secret trapdoor at the base of the altar.
Indy swore, threw the stick away, raced back to the wheel, and began to crank it, once more slowly raising the cage in which Willie’s unconscious body was still trapped, still smoking.
Chattar Lal appeared behind him, dagger upraised.
“Indy, lookout!” shouted Short Round, still swinging his torch.
Indy turned in time to dodge Lal’s dagger thrust; the two men struggled beside the wheel. Below, the iron frame creaked lower; the brake was on, but worn thin.
By now the congregation across the crevasse could see something was awry. They stopped chanting, began dispersing in increasing panic. The little Maharajah was one of the first to leave, surrounded by a cadre of his bodyguards.
Indy, breaking free from Chattar Lal, managed to hold the wheel steady. Lal attacked him again. Indy blocked the knife, stunning Lal, knocking him against the wheel.
The wheel turned; Chattar Lal was caught in its spokes. His leg was partially crushed in the gears; but he managed to free himself, and crawled away.
Shorty jumped up on the platform, holding the last guard back with his torch as Indy once more put the brake on—though it didn’t feel like it would hold for long. Then Indy stood up, but the guard ran away. Indy and Shorty frantically began turning the wheel, raising the cage.
When the iron frame was out of the pit, suspended at floor level, Short Round stayed at the wheel, holding it with all his strength, while Indy ran to the edge of the pit and pulled the basket over solid ground.
“Give me some slack,” he called to Shorty. Short Round turned the wheel a bit; Indy lowered the cage to the earth.
He released Willie’s bindings, stared anxiously at her unconscious form. “Willie, Willie. Wake up, Willie.” He could hardly remember the specifics of the Nightmare anymore, only the feeling of sickening terror, and a few flitting images: huge scavenger birds, hungry snakes (ugh! snakes!), a demon-child who was Shorty but wasn’t, and Willie as a malignant sorceress bent on eating his soul. And he’d tried to kill her, he remembered, had laughed to see her lowered into the pit for Kali’s pleasure. Thank God it was over; over, awake, back among the living.
Willie moaned, moved her head, fluttered her eyes.
“Willie!” he said happily.
She opened her eyes, saw him over her . . . and slapped him. Tried to, anyway; her hand was so weak, it barely grazed his cheek.
Shorty flinched all the same.
Indy just grinned. “Willie, it’s me. I’m back, I’m back, Willie.” And then he sang: “ ‘Home, home on the range, where the deer and the antelope play.’ ”
Willie had never been so glad to hear such bad singing in her life. As the fresh air and foul voice revived her, she was crying, coughing, laughing, all at once. She didn’t see Chattar Lal with the knife until it was almost too late.
“Look out,” she choked.
Indy whirled. Falling backwards, he kicked the dagger from Lal’s hand. Lal was on him in an instant.
They rolled around the floor. Willie was too weak to move; Shorty stayed by his post at the wheel.
The antagonists scuttled near the edge, then away. They pushed apart; both men stood, Indy between Lal and the pit. Willie inched away from them, toward the wheel.
Lal began wailing in Hindi: “Betray, betray, you betray Kali Ma. Kali Ma shall destroy you.”
Then he lunged.
With the strength of madness, he flew into Indiana, attempting to take Indy with him in a glorious suicidal plunge.
He knocked both of them back onto the sacrificial frame. Their combined momentum scraped it along the floor, swung it out over the pit, where it dangled precariously.
Indy broke from Lal’s grip, leaping away, slamming against the inner upper lip of the shaft, hanging on to the precipice . . . as Willie threw off the brake with all her returning strength. The crankwheel whined, and the frame sank like pig iron.
Fell and tumbled, with Chattar Lal riding it all the way.
The splash of molten lava. To Willie, it sounded like sweet revenge.
Indy looked down. Chattar Lal’s body briefly exploded into flame. The flesh was gone in an instant; there was a momentary glimpse of skeleton; and then all was consumed and obliterated by the broil.
Indiana pulled himself back to safety. Willie sat up; Shorty ran over. They huddled there a moment, quiet, in each other’s arms. Glad to rest, to be together, to be alive.
The temple was empty now, and silent, except for the bodies of unconscious priests and the hissing of the liquid fires.
Indy walked over to the three Sankara Stones at the base of the altar. They weren’t glowing anymore. Shorty brought his bundle over to him: hat, whip, bag, shirt. Indy put the stones in his bag, the bag over his shoulder; the whip on his belt; the shirt on his wounded back.
Then he walked over to where Short Round’s cap still lay on the floor. He picked it up, dusted it off, set it ceremoniously on Short Round’s head.
Then he put on his own hat.
And all was right with the world.
Shorty smiled loudly at his old pal. “Indy, my friend.” No matter what else happened now, that existed still, and would forever exist, like the stars.
Willie got her legs back and walked over to them. “Indy, you’ve got to get us out of here.”
Indy looked around this place of evil, heard the distant rumblings of the mine cars full of rocks, the clandestine tortures, the whimpering of innocents . . .
“Right. All of us,” he muttered.
They moved off, toward the chamber behind the altar.
In the mines, a remarkable thing had begun to happen. The children had seen the face of freedom.
Dozens of children had actually witnessed Short Round’s miraculous exploit. Then rumor of the feat had spread to scores of others:
One had escaped.
One had escaped.
One could escape.
It put an edge to their work now. They watched their guards through lowered lids, instead of lowering their heads altogether. They shuffled their feet from surliness or indecision, rather than from exhaustion. Some even counted their numbers, and the number of the guard.
When Mola Ram fled the fighting at the altar, he hurried down to the mines. He told the chief guards what was taking place. He directed some of them back up to the temple, to help with the battle; he told the rest to be on the alert for the three heathens, who might try to escape by fleeing this way, through the mines.
He told no one to be on the
alert for a slave rebellion.
A chain gang of five children trudged with effort down a dark tunnel toward an empty mine car. The little girl at the end of the line fell.
The guard at the tunnel mouth saw this as an obvious case of malingering. He stormed in furiously, yanked her to her feet, raised his strap to beat her. At the top of his swing, he saw Indy rise out of a shadow. Indy crashed his fist into the guard’s jaw; the guard went down and out.
Short Round took the key from the guard’s belt and quickly unlocked the leg-irons on the slave children as they stared in silent awe at these proceedings. When they were free, Indy showed them how to shackle the guard to the mine car.
That’s how it began.
These five jumped another guard in another tunnel—he was so surprised he didn’t even shout before he was knocked unconscious with rocks—liberating five more. And then there were ten.
It was like a chain reaction. Dozens were roaming the tunnels at will before the remaining guards even knew anything was amiss. Then it was a free-for-all.
The alarm was given. Guards tried to herd the manacled kids to a central cell. Indy stopped many, though; he’d bring one down with his whip and the free children would pelt him with stones, or he’d punch one cold and Willie or Shorty would take his keys.
Every guard that fell freed more children.
The power was infectious. Guards were on the run. Willie would crack them senseless with a spade; Shorty tripped them with chains; bands of ex-slaves pushed them from ledges or off ladders; baskets full of rocks were emptied onto the heads of fleeing guards.
Finally, the guards were just massively outnumbered by their prisoners. And, of course, outclassed.
When all were free, with the mine guards routed, the children stood in a great pack, looking around with a lot of exhilaration, and not a little surprise.
Short Round stood before them, the true inspiration for this revolt in the first place. “Come on, follow me!” he called out, leading them, cheering, toward the exit. It was a children’s crusade.
Indy and Willie followed. The troop encountered an occasional guard on the way—either trying to stop them or trying to flee—but the children stormed right over them, overwhelming any opposition by sheer weight of numbers and momentum.
Up the winding path they marched, their own masters at last. Through the last tunnel, up to the top of the excavation, into the room behind the altar . . .
Into the temple.
Deserted now. Only the wind hummed its lonely melody; only Kali stood there to watch.
Indy, Willie, and some of the bigger children tore down a long wooden plank from the altar, one of the decorative elements flanking the giant statue, carved with myriad hideous figures of Kali and her atrocities. When it had fallen to the ground, they carried it to the edge of the natural chasm separating the altar from the rest of the temple, the last barrier to freedom.
They planted one end firmly on the edge, upended it for a moment it looked as if they were erecting a flagstaff—then let it arc down across the crevasse, until its other end rested on the far precipice.
It formed a narrow plank over the churning lava.
Children kept arriving. The altar side was already filled to overflowing; kids were teetering on the brink.
Indy started them running across the plank to the other side. Below them fire bubbled, flaring with occasional outbursts of molten spray. But none of the children faltered. One by one they ran to the far side of the temple, toward the palace, toward freedom.
After a while, though, Indy noticed the plank beginning to smoke, from the constant, intense heat that rose. The children were yelping as they ran, now, the hot, dry wood scorching their bare feet. Indy sent them packing faster and faster; the wood smoldered progressively, white smoke turning black.
Finally the plank burst into flame at two points. Indy urged the last kids on, shouting them across as they leapt over the flames. The plank cracked as the last child scrambled to the other side. When Shorty stepped out onto it, it burned through completely, flaming into the pit. Indy and Willie caught him by the collar at the last moment and dragged him back from the fall.
On the other side, some children turned to wait for their deliverers.
“Go! Go!” Indy called to them.
So they went.
Out the rear exit of the temple, up a hundred twisting stairs, through a dozen secret passages, out a dozen secret entrances to the palace.
Through the palace corridors they ran, hundreds of fleeing children, wearing hundreds of unchained smiles. They crossed courtyards, crossed bridges when they came to them, crossed foyers and exterior portals and entrance ramps and gateways.
And then it was the open road, the jungle, the mountain passes.
They were free.
“Now what are we going to do?” asked Shorty as the last liberated slave child disappeared out of the temple.
“Go the long way,” Indiana suggested. As always, just making it up as he went along.
They trotted back into the room behind the altar, then on to the top of the quarry. Indy looked at one of the small, empty gondolas sitting unattended on its rails.
“Those tracks have got to lead out of the mines,” he reasoned.
He moved forward, to the top of a circular path.
“Where are you going?” Willie asked suspiciously.
“To get us a ride.”
About half of the mine cars were moving at various speeds along the rails, pulled along by underground cables. Some were full of rocks; some were empty. Indy went for an empty one.
As the trolley rolled in to the central collection terminal, Indiana ran alongside it, holding on, trying to stop it, getting half-dragged. All at once the car stopped, seemingly of its own accord.
It wasn’t of its own accord.
Indy jerked to a halt and looked up to see a giant guard stopping the cart with his arm. A really giant guard. The same guard he’d tangled with twice before. He hadn’t done too well either time. Okay, then, so it was a grudge match.
Indy started to throw a punch, then thought better of it. Instead, he stooped for a piece of timber and smashed the guard in the head. The timber splintered. The guard didn’t move. This looked serious.
He grabbed a sledgehammer out of the truck, swung it into the giant’s left ribs. The titan only smiled, belched, tore the hammer out of Indy’s hand, tossed it aside. Then he wrapped his left arm around Indy’s waist. Then he punched Indy’s belly in.
Indy hit the dirt. He bounced right back up, kicking the giant in the face, but the colossus barely rocked. This looked really serious.
The guard seized Indy again, punched him twice in the chest, once in the throat, dragged his head along the side of the mine car, then lifted the unfortunate adventurer into the air.
Shorty lashed the big ape with Indy’s fallen bullwhip. There was a CRACK and a yowl: the lummox dropped Indy into the mine car. Shorty flayed the giant again, but the brute just grabbed him and flung him far away.
The mine car started moving, pulled up a long slope by its cable. The giant jumped in. In a moment, the two men were bashing away at each other, riding up the hill.
Willie followed the cart along at a distance, sometimes watching the fight, sometimes throwing rocks at the guard (when she could get a clear shot), sometimes looking for an empty, freely moving car on a rail that didn’t dead-end.
Indy had found a weak spot at the giant’s neck and was doing his best to batter it with an iron bar. But every time he started pressing his advantage, horrible pain would wrack his body and he’d crumple again to the guard’s pummeling.
“What’s the matter with him?” Willie shouted to Short Round.
Short Round saw the problem; he pointed up. There, on the next ledge higher, stood the Maharajah. He was jabbing his turban pin into his Indiana Jones doll.
The mine car reached the top of the slope and tipped over, dumping Indy and the giant out with a pile of rocks ont
o a moving conveyer belt. The giant picked up a spade. Indy raised a pickax to parry, but dropped it as the agony seared through his face. He rolled over just in time to avoid being brained by the giant’s blow.
On the shelf high above, the Maharajah twisted his pin in the face of the little figurine.
Willie found an empty car that appeared to lead out to one of the exit tunnels. “I got one, Indy, I got one! We can go home now!”
Indy wasn’t listening, though. He was alternately dodging punches or swinging a kerosene can against the guard’s head.
Shorty, meanwhile, had made his way to a thin waterfall that cascaded down from the Maharajah’s level. It poured into a revolving wheel of buckets, the function of which was to bring full buckets of water up to the top tier. Shorty jumped onto a full bucket at the bottom, rode it up to the higher level, jumped off again. He ran across the ledge; moments later, he was battling the evil Prince. The doll skittered across the ground.
Indiana skittered across the conveyer belt, wrestling with the guard. He could see the end of the line now: a great iron wheel that crushed every rock and boulder that passed under its momentous turning. The conveyer fed the crusher endlessly; it was insatiable.
Willie threw rocks at the giant. The giant pounded Indy and sometimes threw rocks back at Willie. Indy kicked at the giant or blasted him with the kerosene can as Short Round struggled with the Maharajah in mortal, twelve-year-old combat. With each passing second Indy was conveyed nearer to the jaws of the stone-crusher.
Shorty got the Maharajah by the throat. The Maharajah stabbed the turban pin deeply into Short Round’s leg. Shorty winced in pain, rolling away, holding his leg. This prince was more of a streetfighter than he looked. But that was fine; Short Round was no debutante.
The giant grabbed Indy’s arm, but the sleeve tore off. As he twisted back off-balance, the huge man’s sash got snagged by the iron roller. He desperately tried to crawl away against the relent less tugging. But it had him. He screamed hideously as his body was pulled under the crusher, feet first, and pulverized.
Bloody rock dust crunched out the other side
Up on the high level, Short Round stumbled to a near wall, grabbed a torch; he turned as Zalim Singh rushed him with a knife. Shorty crouched and extended his arm; the Maharajah impacted himself on the burning tar.
The Adventures Of Indiana Jones Page 32
