Raiders Of the Lost Ark

by Campbell Black

  The passageway twisted and turned as it bored deeper into the interior of the Temple. Every now and then Indy would stop and look at the map, by the light of the torch, trying to remember the details of the lay­out. He wanted to drink, his throat was dry, his tongue parched-but he didn't want to stop. He could hear a clock tick inside his skull, and every tick was telling him, You don't have time, you don't have time...

  The two men passed ledges carved out of the walls. Here and there Indy would stop and examine the arti­facts that were located on the ledges. He would sift through them, discarding some expertly, placing others in his pockets. Small coins, tiny medallions, pieces of pottery small enough to carry on his person. He knew what was valuable and what wasn't. But they were nothing in comparison to what he'd really come for- the Idol.

  He moved more quickly now, the Peruvian rushing behind him, panting as he hurried to keep up. And then Indy stopped suddenly, joltingly.

  "Why have we stopped?" Satipo asked, his voice sounding as if his lungs were on fire.

  Indy said nothing, remained frozen, barely breath­ing. Satipo, confused, took one step toward Indy, went to touch him on the arm, but he too stopped and let his hand freeze in midair.

  A huge black tarantula crawled up Indy's back, maddeningly slowly. Indy could feel its legs as they inched toward the bare skin of his neck. He waited, waited for what seemed like forever, until he felt the horrible creature settle on his shoulder. He could feel Satipo'spanic, could sense the man's desire to scream and jump. He knew he had to move quickly, yet casually so Satipo would not run. Indy, in one smooth mo­tion, flicked his hand over his shoulder and knocked the creature away into the shadows. Relieved, he began to move forward but then he heard Satipo's gasp, and turned to see two more spiders drop onto the Pe­ruvian's arm. Instinctively, Indy's whip lashed out from the shadows, throwing the creatures onto the ground. Quickly, Indy stepped on the scuttling spiders, stomping them beneath his boot.

  Satipo paled, seemed about to faint. Indy grabbed him, held him by the arm until he was steady. And then the archaelogist pointed down the hallway at a small chamber ahead, a chamber which was lit by a single shaft of sunlight from a hole in the ceiling. The tarantulas were forgotten; Indy knew other dangers lay ahead.

  "Enough, Senor," Satipo breathed. "Let us go back."

  But Indy said nothing. He continued to gaze toward the chamber, his mind already working, figuring, his imagination helping him to think his way inside the minds of the people who had built this place so long ago. They would want to protect the treasure of the Temple, he thought. They would want to erect barri­cades, traps, to make sure no stranger ever reached the heart of the Temple.

  He moved closer to the entrance now, moving with the instinctive caution of the hunter who smells danger on the downwind, who feels peril before he can see signs of it. He bent down, felt around on the floor, found a thick stalk of a weed, hauled it out-then reached forward and tossed the stalk into the chamber.

  For a split second nothing happened. And then there was a faint whirring noise, a creaking sound, and the walls of the chamber seemed to break open as giant metal spikes, like the jaws of some impossible shark, slammed together in the center of the chamber. Indi­ana Jones smiled, appreciating the labors of the Tem­ple designers, the cunning of this horrible trap. The Peruvian swore under his breath, crossed himself. Indy was about to say something when he noticed an object impaled on the great spikes. It took only a moment for him to realize the nature of the thing that had been sliced through by the sharp metal.

  "Forrestal."

  Half skeleton. Half flesh. The face grotesquely pre­served by the temperature of the chamber, the pained surprise still apparent, as if it had been left unchanged as a warning to anybody else who might want to enter the room. Forrestal, impaled through chest and groin, blackened blood visible on his jungle khakis, death stains. Jesus, Indy thought. Nobody deserved to go like this. Nobody. He experienced a second of sadness.

  You just blundered into it, pal. You were out of your league. You should have stayed in the classroom. Indy shut his eyes briefly, then stepped inside the chamber and dragged the remains of the man from the tips of the spikes, laying the corpse on the floor.

  "You knew this person?" Satipo asked.

  "Yeah, I knew him."

  The Peruvian made the sign of the cross again. "I think, Senor, we should perhaps go no further."

  "You wouldn't let a little thing like this discourage you, would you, Satipo?" Then Indy didn't speak for a time. He watched the metal spikes begin to retract slowly, sliding back toward the walls from which they'd emerged. He marveled at the simple mechanics of the arrangement-simple and deadly.

  Indy smiled at the Peruvian, momentarily touching him on the shoulder. The man was sweating profusely, trembling. Indy stepped inside the chamber, wary of the spikes, seeing their ugly tips set into the walls. After a time the Peruvian, grunting, whispering to him­self, followed. They passed through the chamber and emerged into a straight hallway some fifty feet long. At the end of the passageway there was a door, bright with sunlight streaming from above.

  "We're close," Indy said, "so close."

  He studied the map again before folding it, the de­tails memorized. But he didn't move immediately. His eyes scanned the place for more traps, more pitfalls.

  "It looks safe," Satipo said.

  "That's what scares me, friend."

  "It's safe," the Peruvian said again. "Let's go." Satipo, suddenly eager, stepped forward. And then he stopped as his right foot slipped through the surface of the floor. He flew forward, screaming. Indy moved quickly, grabbed the Peruvian by his belt and hauled him up to safety. Satipo fell to the ground exhausted. Indy looked down at the floor through which the Peruvian had stepped. Cobwebs, an elaborate ex­panse of ancient cobwebs, over which lay a film of dust, creating the illusion of a floor. He bent down, picked up a stone and dropped it through the surface of webs. Nothing, no sound, no echo came back. "A long way down," Indy muttered. Satipo, breathless, said nothing. Indy stared across the surface of webs toward the sunlit door. How to cross the space, the pit, when the floor doesn't exist?

  Staiposaid, "I think now we go back, Senor. No?"

  "No," Indy said. "I think we go forward."

  "How? With wings? Is that what you think?"

  "You don't need wings in order to fly, friend." He took out his whip and stared up at the ceiling. There were various beams set into the roof. They might be rotted through, he thought. On the other hand, they might be strong enough to hold his weight. It was worth a try, anyhow. If it didn't work, he'd have to kiss the idol good-bye. He swung the whip upward, seeing it coil around a beam, then he tugged on the whip and tested it for strength.

  Satipo shook his head. "No. You're crazy."

  "Can you think of a better way, friend?"

  "The whip will not hold us. The beam will snap."

  "Save me from pessimists," Indy said. "Save me from disbelievers. Just trust me. Just do what I do, okay?"

  Indy curled both hands around the whip, pulled on it again to test it, then swung himself slowly through the air, conscious all the time of the illusory floor un­derneath him, of the darkness of the pit that lay deep below the layers of cobwebs and dust, aware of the possibility that the beam might snap, the whip work itself loose, and then . . . but he didn't have time to consider these bleak things. He swung, clutching the whip, feeling air rush against him. He swung until he was sure he was beyond the margins of the pit and then he lowered himself, coming down on solid ground. He pushed the whip back across to the Peru­vian, who muttered something in Spanish under his breath, something Indy was sure had religious signifi­cance. He wondered idly if there might exist, some­where in the vaults of the Vatican, a patron saint for those who had occasion to travel by whip.

  He watched the Peruvian land beside him.

  "Told you, didn't I? Beats traveling by bus."

  Satipo said nothing. Even in the dim light, I
ndy could see his face was pale. Indy now wedged the handle of the bullwhip against the wall. "For the re­turn trip," he said. "I never go anywhere one way, Satipo."

  The Peruvian shrugged as they moved through the sunlit doorway into a large domed room, the ceiling of which had skylights that sent bands of sunlight down on the black-and-white tiled floor. And then Indy noticed something on the other side of the chamber, something that took his breath away, filled him with awe, with a pleasure he could barely define.

  The Idol.

  Set on some kind of altar, looking both fierce and lovely, its gold shape glittering in the flames of the torch, shining in the sunlight that slipped through the roof-the Idol.

  The Idol of the Chachapoyan Warriors.

  What he felt then was the excitement of an over­powering lust, the desire to race across the room and touch its beauty-a beauty surrounded by obstacles and traps. And what kind of booby trap was saved for last? What kind of trap surrounded the Idol itself?

  "I'm going in," he said.

  The Peruvian now also saw the Idol and said noth­ing. He stared at the figurine with an expression of avarice that suggested he was suddenly so possessed by greed that nothing else mattered except getting his hands on it. Indy watched him a moment, think­ing, He's seen it. He's seen its beauty. He can't be trusted. Satipo was about to step beyond the thresh­old when Indy stopped him.

  "Remember Forrestal?" Indy said.

  "I remember."

  He stared across the intricate pattern of black-and-white tiles, wondering about the precision of the ar­rangement, about the design. Beside the doorway there were two ancient torches in rusted metal holders. He reached up, removed one, trying to imag­ine the face of the last person who might have held this very torch; the span of time-it never failed to amaze him that the least important of objects en­dured through centuries. He lit it, glanced at Satipo, then bent down and pressed the unlit end against one of the white tiles. He tapped it. Solid. No echo, no resonance. Very solid. He next tapped one of the black tiles.

  It happened before he could move his hand away. A noise, the sound of something slamming through the air, something whistling with the speed of its movement, and a small dart drove itself into the shaft of his torch. He pulled his hand away. Satipo exhaled quietly, then pointed inside the room.

  "It came from there," he said. "You see that hole? The dart came from there."

  "I also see hundreds of other holes," Indy said. The place, the whole place, was honeycombed with shadowy recesses, each of which would contain a dart, each of which would release its missile when­ever there was pressure on a black tile.

  "Stay here, Satipo."

  Slowly, the Peruvian turned his face. "If you in­sist."

  Indy, holding the lit torch, moved cautiously into the chamber, avoiding the black tiles, stepping over them to reach the safe white ones. He was conscious of his shadow thrown against the walls of the room by the light of the torch, conscious of the wicked holes, seen now in half-light, that held the darts. Mainly, though, it was the idol that demanded his at­tention, the sheer beauty of it that became more apparent the closer he got to it, the hypnotic glitter, the enigmatic expression on the face. Strange, he thought: six inches high, two thousand years old, a lump of gold whose face could hardly be called lovely -strange that men would lose their minds for this, kill for this. And yet it mesmerized him and he had to look away. Concentrate on the tiles, he told himself. Only the tiles. Nothing else. Don't lose the fine edge of your instinct here.

  Underfoot, sprawled on a white tile and riddled with darts, lay a small dead bird. He stared at it, sickened for a moment, seized by the realization that whoever had built this Temple, whoever had planned the traps, would have been too cunning to booby trap only the black tiles: like a wild card in a deck, at least one white tile would have been poisoned.

  At least one.

  What if there were others?

  He hesitated, sweating now, feeling the sunlight from above, feeling the heat of the torch flame on his face. Carefully, he stepped around the dead bird and looked at the white tiles that lay between himself and the Idol as if each were a possible enemy. Sometimes, he thought, caution alone doesn't carry the day. Sometimes you don't get the prize by being hesitant, by failing to take the final risk. Caution has to be married with chance-but then, you need to know in some way the odds are on your side. The sight of the Idol drew him again. It magnetized him. And he was aware of Satipo behind him, watching from the door­way, no doubt planning his own treachery.

  Do it, he said to himself. What the hell. Do it and caution be damned.

  He moved with the grace of a dancer. He moved with the strange elegance of a man weaving between razor blades. Every tile now was a possible land mine, a depth charge.

  He edged forward and stepped over the black squares, waiting for the pressure of his weight to trig­ger the mechanism that would make the air scream with darts. And then he was closer to the altarpiece, closer to the idol. The prize. The triumph. And the last trap of all.

  He paused again. His heart ran wildly, his pulses thudded, the blood burned in his veins. Sweat fell from his forehead and slicked across his eyelids, blinding him. He wiped at it with the back of his hand. A few more feet, he thought. A few more feet.

  And a few more tiles.

  He moved again, raising his legs and then gently lowering them. If he ever needed balance, it was now. The idol seemed to wink at him, to entice him.

  Another step.

  Another step.

  He put his right leg forward, touching the last white tile before the altar.

  He'd made it. He'd done it. He pulled a liquor flask from his pocket, uncapped it, drank hard from it. This one you deserve, he thought. Then he stuck the flask away and stared at the idol. The last trap, he wondered. What could the last trap be? The final hazard of all.

  He thought for a long time, tried to imagine him­self into the minds of the people who'd created this place, who'd constructed these defenses. Okay, some­body comes to take the idol away, which means it has to be lifted, it has to be removed from the slab of polished stone, it has to be physically taken.

  Then what?

  Some kind of mechanism under the idol detects the absence of the thing's weight, and that triggers- what? More darts? No, it would be something even more destructive than that. Something more deadly. He thought again; his mind sped, his nerves pulsated. He bent down and stared around the base of the al­tar. There were chips of stone, dirt, grit, the accumu­lation of centuries. Maybe, he thought. Just maybe. He took a small drawstring bag from his pocket, opened it, emptied out the coins it contained, then began to fill the bag with dirt and stones. He weighed it in the palm of his hand for a while. Maybe, he thought again. If you could do it quickly enough. You could do it with the kind of speed that might de­feat the mechanism. If that was indeed the kind of trap involved here.

  If if if. Too many hypotheticals.

  Under other circumstances he knew he would walk away, avoid the consequences of so many intangibles. But not now, not here. He stood upright, weighed the bag again, wondered if it was the same weight as the idol, hoped that it was. Then he moved quickly, pick­ing up the idol and setting the bag down in its place, setting it down on the polished stone.

  Nothing. For a long moment, nothing.

  He stared at the bag, then at the idol in his hand, and then he was aware of a strange, distant noise, a rumbling like that of a great machine set in motion, a sound of things waking from a long sleep, roaring and tearing and creaking through the spaces of the Temple. The polished stone pedestal suddenly dropped-five inches, six. And then the noise was greater, deafening, and everything began to shake, tremble, as if the very foundations of the place were coming apart, splitting, opening, bricks and wood splintering and cracking.

  He turned and moved quickly back across the tiles, moving as fast as he could toward the doorway. And still the noise, like desperate thunder, grew and rolled and echo
ed through the old hallways and passages and chambers. He moved toward Satipo, who was standing in the doorway with a look of absolute ter­ror on his face.

  Now everything was shaking, everything moving, bricks collapsing, walls toppling, everything. When he reached the doorway he turned to see a rock fall across the tiled floor, setting off the darts, which flew pointlessly in their thousands through the disintegrat­ing chamber.

  Satipo, breathing hard, had moved toward the whip and was swinging himself across the pit. When he reached the other side he regarded Indy a mo­ment.

  I knew it was coming, Indy thought.

  I felt it, I knew it, and now that it's about to hap­pen, what can I do? He watched Satipo haul the whip from the beam and gather it in his hand.

  "A bargain, Senor. An exchange. The idol for the whip. You throw me the idol, I throw you the whip."

  Indy listened to the destruction behind him and watched Satipo.

  "What choices do you have, Senor Jones?" Satipo asked.

  "Suppose I drop the Idol into the pit, my friend? All you've got for your troubles is a bullwhip, right?"

  "And what exactly have you got for your troubles, Senor?"

  Indy shrugged. The noise behind him was growing; he could feel the Temple tremble, the floor begin to sway. The idol, he thought-he couldn't just let the thing fall into the abyss like that.

  "Okay, Satipo. The idol for the whip." And he tossed the idol toward the Peruvian. He watched as Satipo seized the relic, stuffed it in his pocket and then dropped the whip on the floor.

  Satipo smiled. "I am genuinely sorry, Senor Jones. Adios. And good luck."

  "You're no more sorry than me," Indy shouted as he watched the Peruvian disappear down the pas­sageway. The whole structure, like some vengeful deity of the jungle, shook even more.

  He heard the sound of more stones falling, pillars toppling. The curse of the idol, he thought. It was a matinee movie, it was the kind of thing kids watched wild-eyed on Saturday afternoons in dark cinemas. There was only one thing to do-one thing, no alter­native. You have to jump, he realized. You have to take your chances and jump across the pit and hope that gravity is on your side. All hell is breaking loose behind you and there's a godawful abyss just in front of you. So you jump, you wing it into darkness and keep your fingers crossed.