by Peter Ackers
71
Marcellus felt a ball of anxiety inside his stomach that he thought was going to burn a hole in him, drop out of his body and scorch its way deep into the earth, lost forever, taking with it all his dreams.
Then he saw his men, and their guns, and after that he just saw red. How far he’d come. How much he’d suffered over the years, waiting for a break. How much he’d begged his father to share with him the secrets of the diary, which the old man had tried to translate alone, seeking the help of no one. All that waiting and suffering was not going to be for nothing, dammit.
He had wished his father dead. He had been glad when the old man had finally gone and the diary had come to him. If he could be so cold to his own blood in order to move a step closer to immortality, then what was his reservation about sorting out this bunch of unknown intruders?
There wasn’t one.
He stood up, eyes wide with anger. His men, crouched, hidden amongst the mangrove roots, looked up at him. He pointed at the intruders. “For every one of those bastards left alive five minutes from now, I take one million pounds off your reward.”
At first there was silence from his men. They just stared. Some were puzzled as to what he meant; others tried to read his face for signs of a joke. In the end, it took the actions of a greedy, young and trigger-happy man to set things going. He aimed his gun and fired a series of shots through the jungle. Overhead, a thousand birds took to the air, the collective noise of their flapping wings like that of a great wave smashing a beach. A hundred metres away, everyone reacted. Fire was returned. Of course, by this time every single man in Marcellus’ employ with a gun was shooting.
72
As ex-soldiers, Marcellus’ men hadn’t seen proper combat for a long time. Gabrielle’s, however, were mercenaries with a long list of battles on their C.V.s, including most recently the unsuccessful one on Plum Island. Their expertise quickly shone through as they gained the upper hand, moving in close enough to their attackers so that a few unarmed battles broke out. Someone in Marcellus’ group got panicked enough to start tossing grenades about. They had asked for them and Marcellus had obliged without thinking of the damage that could be done. The damage this day was that two of Gabrielle’s choppers exploded and lit up the dark sky, not to mention the river water and earth that flew into the air.
Gabrielle was tasting immortality already, it seemed. Having had enough of watching this gunfight, she calmly walked off into the jungle, carrying her treasure. No care for the bullets flying around. She sat on a fallen tree not twenty metres from the nearest man with a gun and opened the chest. In her captivation with what might or might not be inside, she hardly heard the gunfire around her.
She opened the lid. The inside of the lid was mirrored, and she stared at her own reflection, not really liking the expression. Was that fear? Intriguing.
Finally she looked down, at the contents of the waterlogged treasure chest.
73
It was quite dark by the time they got back to the site where Marcellus’ choppers had landed. Despite Jacky’s warnings about using light, it had become so pitch black in the jungle that flares had been essential. Consequently, the insects had come and they had teeth. Red welts were evident all over Leo’s face and she continually made her displeasure known. She moaned about the cold that had settled with the disappearance of the sun. Jacky tried to shut her voice out.
Leo climbed inside one of the Land Rovers to get away from the flying monsters. Jacky went over to the four motorbikes tied together near a tree. He inspected them.
He untied them and wheeled two away, doing so in the dim light from a flare that he had tossed on the ground so the insects leave him alone. He started both bikes up and got on one. The engine warmed him immediately.
He waved to Leo, who waved back. He waved for her to come over, and she stuck two fingers up at him. So he spun the handlebars and turned on the headlight, splashing the Land Rover with light. Inside, Leo moaned as big flying things attacked the glass. She stabbed the horn, but they remained. She quickly got out of the vehicle and ran to Jacky.
“Are you trying to get me eaten?” he said.
“We’re taking the bikes. Otherwise, it’s a long walk or an impossible drive. Stop being a girl.”
“Are you joking? Let’s wait until morning.”
“Bad guys might come before then. I’m going. Catch up if you’re coming.”
And with that the bike roared away, lurching and bumping over the uneven ground as Jacky weaved through the trees.
“Wait!” Leo shouted. she got on the other bike and followed the receding beam of Jacky’s vehicle.
74
Jameson took his boss’s hand and hauled him deep into the cover of the jungle. Like lovers running through a sun-drenched field of daisies, they bolted through the wet flora hand-in-hand. Marcellus was fit, awesomely so, and Jameson highly overweight; still, it was the ex-soldier who had to stop for his panting boss after just fifty yards. Marcellus collapsed against a tree, swiping at large insects that were attracted to his sweat. Behind them, the gunfight was still raging, the sounds still heavy on the ears even at this distance.
Fear was making Marcellus exhausted, Jameson knew.
“Wait here, I’ll go back to -“
“No, stay,” Marcellus interrupted, grabbing Jameson’s hand again, clutching it tightly in both his own.
“You’re right,” Jameson said, sickened by this show of fear much as one might be repulsed by internal organs on show. “The men can handle themselves,” he lied. “Let’s get back to the camp and wait for them.”
75
“All dead,” replied the mercenary, Carlos, who had assumed command in Angelo’s absence.
“Are you sure?” Gabrielle said. “Your face doesn’t look as confident as your voice sounds. Turn over all the face-down bodies. Put a bullet in each forehead.”
“A few escaped into the jungle,” Carlos said nervously. “Should I send a team?”
“All dead, yet a few escaped into the jungle? Are we talking zombies?” Carlos’s mouth moved, but no words would come. She didn’t make him suffer long: “Here, share this amongst your men.” She handed over the small chest. Carlos took it, eyeing his suspiciously. He peeked inside; his eyes widened. Gabrielle watched him run off and distribute the contents amongst those men of his who weren’t dead. They reacted as would anyone being given jewellery made valuable by age: glee.
“Some for the fallen,” Gabrielle called out, feeling a rare moment’s pity. She went over, grabbed a fistful of jewellery from the chest and sprinkled it amongst the bloodied, lifeless bodies. Then she ordered the men to kick the bodies of the corpses - friend and foe - into the river. When this was done, Gabrielle watched the rushing water sweep the bodies away.
“What’s our next move?” Carlos said afterward.
Gabrielle was staring into the river, thinking. Thinking how daft she’d been to believe that the treasures of a convict a hundred years ago would have been anything more than a box of trinkets. Wondering if they should return to the prison to search for more clues. No, better yet, they’d take to the air and fly about in the choppers, searching the ground for clues, for more enemies. Yes, they’d do that.
She waved away the annoying man like a curious fly. Carlos went.
76
“Behold the Bifurquer de Destin,” Jacky said. “The Fork of Fate.”
“I am beholding,” Leo said, but she wasn’t impressed.
They were stood at the riverbank. Behind them, their bikes sat cooling after the long ride. Leo’s muscles ached, those in her forearms throbbing. For the last two hours, they’d roared through the thick rainforest as fast as the rough landscape would allow, and had managed to cover almost thirty miles. They’d passed two villages and skimmed by the edge of a small town.
Leo’s head hurt and she couldn’t concentrate; it had been a nightmare journey through a black and bumpy world filled with the echo of engines. Maybe that was why she failed
to see what was so special about the place that had Jacky so intrigued.
There was a roughly triangular-shaped island in the centre of the river, covered like most of this country by greenery. Between each side and the riverbank there was only a fifteen metre gap. Where it was forced through these thin alleys, the Oyapock became a frothing stream of water that literally hummed with power. Jacky wondered how any boat, especially an ancient one, could navigate safely through either of those channels without smashing itself to pieces. The dark made the river seem all the more terrifying.
“Remember the drawings on the cell wall? The fork?”
Leo just looked at him.
“This is it. It was in a travel book. Our biggest clue yet.”
“So the chap’s buried on that little island? I thought there’d be a big pyramid or something.”
“Would Mudammiq really have remained hidden all this time if that were so?”
“So how do you know, anyway? That stuff on the wall didn’t exactly make sense to me.”
“Someone had written ‘La Chaise’ on the wall. Someone else had changed it to Lachesis? It was just a case of a bored man locked in a cell defacing a wall. It wasn’t meant as a clue or anything.”
“So maybe it isn’t a clue at all. What is this La Chaise thing? This Lachesis?”
“La Chaise was a famous French Jesuit. The Jesuits sent missions to South America in the 1600s. Obviously, the guy in the cell originally was a Jesuit, but not La Chaise himself. And Lachesis - well, Lachesis was one of the three Fates in Greek mythology. He used a spindle to spin out the thread of human life. He decided how long it would be, and thus how long a person would live.”
“And why is that a clue?”
Jacky stared at the island. “If it is, I’m thinking neither Marcellus nor Gabrielle will be happy chappies when this is all over.”
“I’m still confused. Relevance between this island and that cell wall?”
“The Fork of Fate, this island, was so named by the French because when you got here, the current took over. If it swept you to the left - well, look how much more rapid the river runs on that side. You had a better chance at survival if your craft was swept to the right. This was where Fate was tested. I’m thinking that a man like Mudammiq, with his plans for immortality, wouldn’t want to risk everything on the unpredictable current of a foreign river. I’m guessing that they sailed no further. Besides, does either of those channels look wide enough to accommodate a boat the size of one that would be needed to cross oceans and carry many men and equipment?”
“Forget oceans for now. If that’s our place, how to we get across?”
Jacky had to admit that on that one he was stumped.
77
Marcellus collapsed into the back seat of a Jeep, panting. He was aching all over.
They had just gotten back to camp. Jameson was currently piling what dry wood he could find for a fire. Marcellus was going to give that man a serious pay rise when they got back home. Lately, the man had displayed stamina that belied his weight and a loyalty that plucked at the heart strings.
His thoughts were interrupted by Jameson’s voice, calling him to come and look at something.
“I was going to siphon petrol from one of the motorcycles for the fire,” the chief of security said. “Look.”
Marcellus didn’t need it explaining. Two of the bikes were missing. He had no doubt it was Jacky and Leo.
“Perhaps they found clues, came back to tell us and found us gone,” Jameson said.
“Perhaps they plan to cheat us,” Marcellus offered instead.
Jameson considered this. “They’ve left tracks. We could follow. Politely ask them if that’s true.”
“Get some guns,” Marcellus snapped.
78
Leo and Jacky stood at the point that was closest to the western point of the base of the triangular island. Below them, rushing water. The bank of the island was ten metres away and steep. Jacky noticed this.
“If we jump and don’t make it, then it’s hello death.”
Leo stared, aghast. “We can’t make that. Carl Lewis couldn’t make this jump.”
“But Evil Knievil could.” Jacky turned and walked back to their bikes. Leo watched him. When she realised his plan, she groaned.
“You’re mad!”
“You don’t want to believe what those doctors say. Step aside, please.”
“No. You’re being stupid. Let’s . . .”
“It’s only ten metres. These are off-road bikes. There’s a slight incline. The landing’ll be tough, but hey, no idea’s perfect.”
“I have one. It involves two hunks and my bed back home. Thank you.”
Jacky shook his head. He got off the bike, but left the engine running. He came, took Leo’s hand, and dragged her. She thought he was simply moving her aside. Instead, he made her sit on the bike.
“I can’t ride as well as you. At least let me write my will first.”
“Write it on the other side,” Jacky said, and climbed on the bike in front of her. She clutched his waist hard.
“Which other side?” she moaned. “The same one John Lennon’s on?”
Jacky didn’t answer. In three seconds he had started the engine, gunned the throttle and urged the bike into motion. It shot forward so abruptly that Leo was almost left standing.
Twenty metres later, they hit the incline and then the ground dropped away. Leo saw only the black behind her eyelids, however; heard only the guttural moan that came from her own mouth, even above the roaring water raging below her. She barely felt the landing, so smooth was it. But she felt the sharp pain of the undergrowth on the other side cutting into her legs as the bike tore through it, felt the bike tilt to one side and then skid. Then she and Jacky were on the ground, rolling. They came to a stop suffering nothing more damaging than dizziness.
She opened her eyes to see that they were tangled in the thick undergrowth, she, man and bike. Jacky was smiling at her. He got up and dusted himself off.
“No John Lennon,” he said. “I guess we made it.” He reached down. Leo took his hand and was helped up.
“There’s no clear space this side. How do we get back?”
Jacky shrugged. “We’ll cross that lack of a bridge when we come to it,” he joked.
79
They walked for a short while and then stopped. Leo looked for a fallen tree to sit on; there was nothing. They all stood tall and erect and splendid. The soil must be good here, she thought. She leaned against one instead, watching as Jacky extracted something from his backpack. It looked like a laptop computer, but wasn’t even half as big as the smallest she’d ever seen.
“What you got?” he asked.
Jacky fiddled with it. “A little toy borrowed off the French government, courtesy of the good reference of a friend of mine.”
“Donkey Kong? Cool. Let’s have a go.” Leo came and stood by Jacky’s side, watching as he played with the machine. At his urging, a photo of South America appeared on the screen. It zoomed in on the Oyapock River, and then on a small dot that Leo assumed was this island.
“Are they satellite photos?”
“Indeed. High above us floats a satellite called Spot II. The French Government was kind enough to let me have a go with it. Spot II doesn’t orbit like other satellites, it retains a fixed position over South America. They have eight up there, each one in a different location, so the whole world is covered. And it even works well in the dark. This contraption allows me to play around with its lenses.”
“Cool. Can I have a go of the one over Europe? There’s a bar in Spain that I’d like to ray-blast out of there.”
“Oh look, a bare spot.”
“On this island?”
“On the back of the crown of your head. You’re going bald, girl.”
Jokingly, Leo clutched the back of her head and looked up, shaking her fist at the sky, at the satellite high above that sky.
“Near the middle of this isl
and. A circular bare spot about ten metres across. This way.” Jacky put the device back into his backpack and started walking. Leo followed.
He stopped soon afterwards and put his face close to a tree. Leo looked too. There was a mark on the tree, a picture of a humanoid figure, slightly demonic. But the mark itself seemed natural, for it was nothing more than discolouration of the bark, as if it had grown that way.
“Wow,” Leo said. “Ancient graffiti?”
Jacky shook his head. “It looks like it has grown like. Could just be a natural mark that coincidentally looks like a demon.
“Don’t think so,” Leo said. “Check this.”
She was pointing at another tree. It bore a similar kind of mark, although the figure was different. In fact, there was a mark on every tree. Jacky counted Seven different “pictures”.
The island was only about a hundred metres long, so they found the centre quickly and easily. Here, there was no undergrowth, no trees. Instead, there was a perfectly round pond, about two metres in diameter. The water was clear and tinged green and very still; the edge of the pond was lined with brick.
They approached cautiously. Leo was staring at the water itself, surprised and puzzled by its calmness despite the wind, and by its colour; Jacky, however, was focussing on the thing that floated in its centre.
Now Leo noticed it. “What’s that?”
About the size of a football, it was a white decahedron, each face decagonal. It floated in such a way that only one face showed above the surface of the pond, but the clarity of the water allowed the pair to see the rest of the submerged object. Jacky knelt by the edge of the pond and leaned forward. He could see shapes drawn onto each face, one in each corner of each face. A hundred shapes. Those that were submerged were of course too blurred to read, but the ten displayed above the surface were perfectly clear.
Cuneiform.
“This is it,” Jacky croaked, his voice almost catching in his throat. “My god, I think we’ve found it.” Once more, he explained to Leo exactly what cuneiform was. “A hundred different characters. That doesn’t exactly cover the entire language, but I reckon it’ll be enough.”
“Enough for what?” Leo asked.
“To answer our questions.”
“Now I’m lost.”
“But how does it work?” he asked himself. He steadied himself with his left arm and reached out with his right, hoping to grab the object. But when his fingers got close, the object sank beneath the surface. It didn’t sink to the bottom, though; it just hung there, ten inches below the flat surface.
When he withdrew his hand, the object returned to the surface, displaying the same face as before.
Again Jacky tried to grasp it, and again it sank away from his touch like a frightened animal. This time he reached further, his fingers touching the cold water, but the object simply receded further. It wouldn’t let his flesh any closer than ten inches.
It floated on the surface once more. Jacky made a quick grab for it, but speed, it seemed, could not fool the thing.
“It doesn’t like you,” Leo said.
“It seems to react to something. Like two magnets of similar polarity. Possibly heat from my fingers."
He reached into his backpack and removed a pad and pen. He jotted down the ten characters displayed on the visible face, then made a quick translation.
“Symbols of greeting,” he explained. He got to his feet and began to pace in the clearing, staring at what he'd written. “Together they read nothing, but alone each is a kind of greeting word or term. It’s as if the thing is saying hello, like a welcome mat or something. But why won’t it show the other faces? How are we supposed to spin it round if we can’t touch it -“
“Jacky,” Leo called. He looked. Leo was knelt on the edge of the pool, staring at him. In her hands she held the object. She was stroking it.
“It likes me,” she joked.
Jacky dropped his pad. “How did you . . .“
He reached for the object, and it skipped out of Leo’s hands, dropping into the pond once more, where it floated into the centre and stopped. Again, the face of greeting was the one it displayed.
Leo jumped to her feet. “Bloody hell, what is that thing?”
“The Babylonians were fussy about what women could and could not be allowed to do. This must be payback. I think this is a job for the female of our team.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“This thing is obviously here to guide us. Reach in and give it a spin.”
Nervously, Leo did just that. And this time when the object settled, the visible face was a different one. Jacky snatched up his pad. This time he jotted down the shape of the symbol located in the corner of the decagon that was closest to him, instead of noting all ten.
“Again,” he said. Leo spun the object again, and four seconds later Jacky copied down the shape of the cuneiform symbol at the bottom, the closest. As he worked at translation, a grin spread on his face.
80
“Erib-biti becomes in fall of the Seven in the sight of Nushku, who will reign in the bedimming of Sin in Heaven. The repentant may pray to Ea. Only through the Ordeal may any be judged.”
“I think I understood it better before translation,” Leo said a moment or two later. “Perhaps there’s more?”
Jacky studied his notes. “No, you saw for yourself, the object began to show the welcome face over and over after a while. This is it. I have an idea what it means.”
“Beans spilleth.”
“Well, Erib-biti means ‘temple entrant,” usually a priest. But I think in this case it means anyone who wishes to enter. The ‘Seven’ must be the Seven Evil Gods -“
“Are you sure it’s not the Seven Really Nice and Kind Gods?” Leo asked hopefully.
“Sorry. Quite evil. I’m thinking that the marks we found on the trees could be meant to represent those Seven Evil Gods. Next, Nushku. God of Fire. Sin was the God of the Moon. Ea was the God of Water and master of magic.”
“None of that helps.”
“Sin was bedimmed by the Seven in Heaven. The Babylonians thought that's what an eclipse was. They also thought rivers and fires were gods. The Ordeal was, I think, something to do with a person accused of something jumping into a river to be tested. Something like that. Also, the fork symbol of this place. A fork of lightning was the symbol of the god Adad, God of Weather, controller of the floodgates between Heaven and Earth.”
“Lots of references to weather and water and all that crap. But what does it all mean? Tune in this time next week to find out, folks.”
Rubbing his forehead, Jacky bent to sit down - then stood straight back up, realisation dawning on his face. “Water. We have it right here.”
“Oh yeah, rivers have some. Good thinking,” Leo said sarcastically.
“No, right here. This pond. The repentant may pray to Ea, God of Water.”
Leo stared at the pond. “Something to do with that spinny ball?”
“I don’t think my being unable to touch it has anything to do with being male. I think it’s because it senses I have done wrong in my life.”
Leo grinned. “What?”
“I have killed. I have robbed. I have cheated. And I think I’m supposed to repent.”
“Fair enough,” Leo said, although she didn’t really buy any of this. A floating ball that moved away from someone’s touch she could fathom - but one that could read a person’s soul? Noooo. “So how do you do that?”
In answer, Jacky jumped into the pool.
Its frigid temperature threatened to steal away his breath, but Jacky managed to keep his mouth closed. He found that his vision was surprisingly good beneath the surface. He hung there, watching as the object adorned with cuneiform markings revolved, some ten inches below his feet.
He kicked with those feet, upending himself. He reached for the ball but it sank away. He kicked with his feet and moved his arms, swimming down, deeper, following the ball into the depths.
Despite the increasing depth, the light got no dimmer. The flooded shaft suddenly ended, but there was a circular hole in one side which the ball passed through and which was just big enough to allow Jacky to squeeze though. He found himself inside a square chamber about three metres wide. Surprisingly, he could still see as well as he could just below the surface. There was nothing he could see that was creating light, though. Perhaps the water itself?
The chamber was lined with stone. The floor was featureless, but in each wall was a circular hole: the one that had delivered him here and three others, all identical. And in the ceiling was a bas-relief depicting a humanoid creature that was so obviously not human, with its over-large hands and abnormally wide head, that it must be a demon or a God.
Ea.
Jacky stared up at the carving and wondered how on earth he was supposed to pray to this thing underwater. Not only did he not know what to say, there was no way to say it underwater without giving up his breath.
He stared at the over-large ears and saw that one had a hole in it.
He swam up and put his eye to the hole. Beyond it was a tiny empty chamber with - could it really be? - a flame. A chamber the size of a shoebox and a flame that seemed to float there.
Could that flame have been breathing for nearly three thousand years? If so, it was being fed by air from the world above for sure.
Jacky put his mouth to the hole in Ea’s ear and breathed. The air he sucked in was fresh; further proof it was coming from the world above.
He knew what he had to do. He had to breathe a prayer, but without the use of words.
He blew out the flame.
The chamber shivered slightly as, from high above, there came what sounded like thunder and felt like a major earthquake. Jacky was suddenly very scared.
81
He broke the surface and sucked in a deep breath. Leo was sat by the side of the pool, looking less than comfortable.
“What was it, what happened?” he spluttered.
Leo just looked at him for a few seconds. “I’m not sure,” she finally croaked. “But I don’t believe in coincidences when Jacky Jackson goes exploring and weird, loud shit happens. Did you pull another bloody lever?”
“Only a small one,” Jacky replied with a wink. “Now, what happened?”
“Somewhere that way, a big loud thud, like something big falling. Too much like a big dinosaur’s footstep for my liking.”
Jacky hauled himself out of the pool. Water ran off him and pooled around his feet. He caught Leo looking him up and down.
“I don’t suppose you have a towel?”
Leo shook her head.
“Then I’ll run it off.” He broke into a jog, heading through the trees in the direction that Leo had suggested the sound emerged from. Leo got up and followed.
It took them about a minute to reach the northern tip of the island, effectively the apex of the triangle. It was here that they discovered the cause of the earlier rumbling.
“Wow, they get Sky TV,” Leo said, staring at the object that had risen from the ground.
Jacky just shook his head, smiling to himself.
A number of trees lay flat around a large metal concave dish on a pillar set into a circular stone plinth. The dish was tilted at roughly 50 degrees. It certainly wasn’t for picking up Sky TV, but Jacky couldn’t figure its use.
The dish was propped at its current angle by a pole between its bottom lip and the plinth. The pole looked to be made of a substance like hard clay, black in colour. There was a second pole next to the first, but this terminated about a foot below the lip of the dish. Strange.
The plinth looked to be resting on the ground, but closer inspection showed this wasn't the case. Jacky could see a gap, and empty space. Some kind of shaft that the plinth had risen through. Somehow, the plinth and dish were was designed to show themselves upon the extinguishing of the flame in the hole behind the bas-relief. Well, he’d done that, and here it was - but why?
“So, intrepid adventurer, what now?”
“Now? I don’t know.”
Leo went to the dish, stepping over one of the trees that had been felled when the object rose. She stood at the edge of the hole and reached out. The dish was set solid; it didn’t move at her touch.
“I expected it to spin,” she explained.
Jacky counted the felled trees, but they didn’t number seven as he’d hoped - he remembered his translation of the cuneiform.
“Kept well,” Leo said, stroking the shiny surface. “Still shiny. Got a comb on you?”
Shiny. Was that it? Was it to reflect something? The angle it was tilted at didn’t make sense if that was the case.
The sun.
“Silly me,” he said. Leo looked at him. “The Babylonians worshipped the sun, just like any other ancient civilisation. Before they knew it was just hydrogen and carbon. Lots of mechanisms, traps, secrets and things use the sun’s power. Most commonly, reflecting it.”
“So now what? It’s not doing anything.”
“I guess now we just wait. Until morning. See what the sun brings.”
She was pulling a grin he didn’t trust. “What dirty idea is brewing in that cranium?”
Twenty minutes later they were lying beneath a quickly made blanket of leaves, hugging each other.
“Just for warmth, remember,” Jacky said. “Don’t try anything, don’t touch anything, and don’t loosen anything.”
“Scout’s honour,” Leo replied.
“You were a scout?”
“No.” That grin again.
82
Jacky woke to find the sun on his face. Leo was already up, sat watching the dish - which wasn’t doing anything different than before, even with the sun now in the sky.
“Did you touch me in the night?” he said. She spun to find him looking at her.
She got up. “Of course. Sleep well?"
"I had this nightmare that I was stuck on a tiny island in South America. How long you been awake?"
"A while. Didn’t want to wake you. I was eager to see what happens with this disc thing. Nothing has.”
Now it was morning, the bowl of the disc was bright, catching the sun.
“Judging by the angle, the sunlight is reflecting back into the sky," Jacky said.
“The sky? That’s not much use to us.”
“No. I don’t think this contraption’s reason is to point our way forward. It’s something else entirely.”
“You know, if we dropped that thing on its side, it’d make a great wok. Nice and hot.”
“Maybe we’ll have stir-fried tree later. But for now we just wait.”
Jacky adopted the Lotus position and closed his eyes. Leo watched him for a few seconds then she too sat.
Jacky seemed not to mind the wait, for it gave him time for some meditation, which relieved the aches in his mind and body. Leo, however, did not have the patience of a saint. She fidgeted and talked the entire time, constantly telling Jacky about aspects of her life gone and life to come.
Jacky opened his eyes, remembering his translation of the cuneiform message. “In the sight of Nushka. Erib-biti becomes in the fall of the Seven in the sight of Nushka.”
"Do what?"
Jacky suddenly got a little scared. He stood up and Leo rose with him. “I’m thinking that the key here is not light but heat. Remember the trees? The carvings? Pictures of the Seven Evil Gods, who must fall. I’m also thinking that these trees need to fall. I’m also thinking I don’t like the sound of the last part - the part involving the Ordeal.”
“So what do -“
He stopped as they heard a creaking sound. They both watched as the black pole propping the dish at its current angle gave in, weakened by the heat from the sun. It snapped, and the dish moved. The lip clanged against the second, lower pole, its angle now steeper.
The reflected beam of light was now aimed into the trees. The concentrated beam of sunlight had a temperature of thousands of degree
s. The trees in its path burst into flame. Despite the recent rains, they burned as if dead and dry. The wind played a part in the fire’s spreading and soon everywhere they looked there was a conflagration.
“Run, come on,” Jacky shouted over the roar or the fire.
“Well, the Seven are falling,” Leo shouted back.
They ran as fast as they could through the trees, hoping to keep ahead of the spreading fire.
“Where are we going?” Leo called to his.
“I think it’s time we undertook the Ordeal.”
They emerged from the trees at the end of the island. The river was below them, flowing fast and furious. Not the kind that anyone would joyfully leap into. But there was little joy to be gained from the alternative that was death by burning.
“This ain’t judgement!” Leo shouted. “This is the execution. I ain’t committing suicide!”
“Then we’ll make it murder,” Jacky answered, and pushed her off the edge. He jumped in after him, and they were both swept downriver, sucked beneath the surface.
83
Surprisingly, the water wasn’t so murky that Jacky couldn’t see the riverbed rushing by just a few metres below his as he tumbled over and over, sucked by the current.
He was able to notice that this channel running along the side of the triangular island was curved. Above the waterline, the riverbanks were jagged as they should be, but here below the surface, the bed and the walls were so smooth it couldn’t purely be because of water corrosion: man had had a hand in this.
Leo was in front of him, desperately trying to swim upwards. He caught a clear glimpse of her face and knew from the expression that she couldn’t hold her breath for much longer.
The riverbed was surprisingly free from debris and natural growth, which made the thing looming ahead of them that much more visible. It seemed to be a large plant trailing thick green tentacles. They reached upwards in the water, floating, but somehow resisted the pull of the current because the plant did not bend with the direction of the flowing water. It lazily danced as if this were a still lake instead of a fast and furious river.
The tentacles caught Leo as she was pulled into them. They snared her so securely that Jacky found it hard to believe she’d naturally become entangled - yet also found it hard to accept that the tentacles had tried to grab her.
The body of the plant, he noticed, was set into the mouth area of a gigantic face carved into the riverbed. There was a jagged hairline and eyebrows and a nose and chin - and in each riverbank, just below the waterline, a hole representing an ear.
Just as Jacky was about to slam into Leo and also become ensnared, the tentacles parted. Leo was yanked out of his path and he was swept by her, tumbling over, nothing now between him and a long, lifeless trip to the Amazon.
Pressure on his scalp and suddenly he was no longer sailing with the current. Leo had grabbed his hair. The current was so strong that it felt as if he were hanging dead weight from his hair; it made his eyes water and he gritted his teeth. He closed his eyes, trying to clear his mind so he could think of a way out of this mess.
Then suddenly he was being pulled by the current again. He opened his eyes but could see nothing but blackness.
He was slammed hard against something, then something else slammed into him. Leo. There was a little more light now, allowing him to see vague shapes: the shimmering black surface of the water, stone walls, Leo treading water beside him, and a shaft above them which terminated at a circle of light some twenty metres overhead.
Mineshaft, his mind said. Then: No, not possible.
Leo reached out and grabbed something on the wall. An iron ladder, he saw. Leading up and out of this shaft. His mind was clearing now, allowing logical thought to return. Obviously, they had entered one of the ears of the stone face and it had brought them here, into a well of some sort with a ladder that offered a chance for escape. But on which side of the river? Were they back on the island?
He looked up. The sky was bright and blue. If they were deep inside the island, the sky above would have been tainted with flames, or at least with thick black smoke. Obviously, then, they were not inside the island.
Leo looked dazed and was bleeding from a cut on her forehead. Jacky put an arm around her and kissed her full on the lips. It had the effect of a shot of adrenaline: she seemed to jerk wide awake, shrugging off her disorientation. He looked at her, at her shadowy face, and she smiled back.
“You saved my life,” he said. “What’s your favourite pub back home?”
She looked puzzled, but answered the question. “Hare and Hound.”
“Okay. You and me and a couple of pints of ale. When we get back. My treat.”
"Going rate for saving a life, is it? A pint of ale?"
"A bag of crisps as well."
"Deal."
Jacky pointed up. “Now climb.”
Invigorated by the thought of a date with Jacky, Leo climbed.
84
Jacky hauled himself over the lip of the stone-lined well and flopped onto the grassy ground. Leo was beside him, panting. He sat up.
They were on the Brazilian side of the Oyapock River, about thirty metres from the bank. Close enough to be able to hear the roar and feel the heat of the inferno raging all over the island. The entire top of the island was aflame, every tree burning. It was an awesome sight. They had survived it, but Jacky could not find joy.
“I should have died in that river,” he said.
“Don’t say that.”
“Remember that ball that kept moving away from me? It was the same with that plant that you became entangled in. It parted for me. It was going to let me go past.”
“The Ordeal, eh? You were judged. So you’ve killed, so you’ve got a black soul. Your heart’s fine. Why let some stupid myth get you down?”
“Down?” Jacky said, standing. “I’m not down. I’m angry. I’m going inside that tomb and no Ordeal, no Seven Evil Gods, will stop me.”
Leo sat up. “I thought the Gods were the trees? Remember the marks on them?”
“Just a representation. I’m thinking that what we’ve been through has been designed to test a person’s worthiness to enter the temple. My presence here has made whatever magical powers controlling things think that we’re here for negative reasons.”
“Oh God, I know what’s coming. Are you saying that if it was just me and my pure white soul, I could waltz right on in? But because you’re here, all sorts of traps have been activated? Involving Seven Evil Gods?”
“Exactly.”
“This gets worse.”
Jacky looked genuinely surprised by this remark. “Worse? No, this is just starting to get good." He pulled his pistol and checked it for water damage. He had a grin on his face that she he was enjoying all this. This was what he lived for.
“I’m dating a masochist,” Leo moaned, and flopped back down on her back.
85
The forest fire raged for a few hours before it showed any signs of abating. Once it began to wane, though, death was quick in coming. The flames had run out of food and they simply vanished, leaving behind a black, smoking mass of land.
As if the land realised what was needed to clean things up, rain suddenly appeared, a thick, hard downpour that had soon washed away most of the soot and all of the smoke. Jacky found himself looking at something quite amazing.
The fire had not only cleared all the trees and undergrowth, it had also burned away the top layer of soil, soil that Jacky believed was intended by the tomb’s designers to be combustible. With its vanishing there was revealed a large square platform of stone, scorched black, with a six-feet wide gash in the middle, running north and south.
Jacky hauled Leo to his feet and pointed. Her jaw dropped.
“The entrance?” she croaked.
“The entrance,” Jacky confirmed. “The letterbox.”
“Pardon?”
“It was mentioned in Henry Wren’s diary.”
He had skimmed through it during the previous night while laying under the blanket of leaves. “No mention of fire or burning or anything like that. Just a description of the entrance: a letterbox that they were delivered through.”
“The rest of the clue is probably in the other diary. Like I said, all the clues are there, just split between those two journals. Want to take some time out to have a proper read through?”
“No, I like surprises.”
“I figured as much,” Leo said. “But how do we get over there? No bridges, no bike this time.”
“Let’s look at the river this side.”
They approached the bank and stared down. Nothing. Jacky looked left and right. “There’s one chance,” he said. “Obviously, as the channel on each side of the triangular island thins, the water becomes faster - as we found out. Swimming across the thinnest point would be impossible - we’d be swept downriver. But if we were to enter the water at a point somewhere upriver of the island, where the current is weak, we could swim into the centre of the river and the current would take us right into the apex of the island. Follow?”
“In theory. But if we missed the apex . . . “
“True. But I don’t think we would. We can both swim, can’t we? Care to risk it?”
“I’m beyond caring. Let’s do it.”
A hundred metres upriver from the apex of the island, Jacky and Leo walked into the water and started to swim. The current immediately took them, but its caress was soft. With enough effort, they found that they could even go against the current. They swam out into the middle of the river, by which time both were exhausted. From there it was a simple matter of relaxing and letting the river carry them towards the island, with minimal compensation for the slight direction changes by the current.
Jacky washed up against the bank and a few moments later Leo was beside him, panting. She flopped on her back in the mud.
“That was stupidly easy. Why didn’t we do that originally? No, let me guess, the bike stunt was more dangerous and so it had to be done?”
“We didn’t have a skateboard,” Jacky replied. “Come on.”
They climbed the bank. Once they were firmly on top of the scorched island, the taste and stench of burning was so heavy that Jacky's eyes ran with water. Leo nearly coughed herself to death.
They walked towards the centre, towards the “letterbox”. They passed a hole in the ground lined with stone, just like the one they’d emerged from on the other side of the river. Of course, Jacky realised, there had been two ears on the stone face on the riverbed. Two exits, one each side.
They planted their feet firmly on the blackened stone platform.
The letterbox was not a deep and gaping chasm as Jacky had first thought: there was a set of stone steps going down, beginning at the north end and descending all the way to the south end, where they terminated at a hole cut into the earth. It was about the size and shape of a doorway and was lined with stone to prevent collapse.
“Seems to me, this stone block is nothing more than a frame or support inserted into the ground to prevent the collapse of a cavity below The tomb will be cut into the earth, more than likely. But after so many years, we can’t be sure how sturdy it is. Tread carefully.”
They descended the steps, Jacky leading. At the bottom, he carefully poked his head inside the doorway cut into the earth, then, apparently thinking entry was safe, stepped through. Leo followed.
The rough walls of the passage beyond seemed to glow with their own radiance, giving enough illumination to see by. Jacky put his hand on one, discovering that it wasn’t as cold as it should have been.
“Some kind of solid resin. It glows, look. Negates the need for torches. Amazing. I never read about anything like this used by the Babylonians.”
“Magic?”
“Possibly.”
The passage sloped slightly down, gradually getting steeper. When it started to get very steep, there was a hand-support on each side: metal posts spaced every eight feet with hemp, old and frayed in places, strung between them. The floor was chipped from here on to provide friction to shoes. Jacky and Leo progressed carefully, holding onto the hand-supports.
They stopped as the walls ended and the slope suddenly dropped sheer away.
“Now what?” Leo said.
There were two final support posts, one each side, jutting not straight up but forwards at a forty-five degree angle. The worn hemp hung down into the chasm. Jacky took a firm hold on one of the angled posts. He leaned out as far as he could, straining to see down, see what was below. What he saw shocked and delighted him.
“Wow. Those Babylonian architects were certainly busy-bodies. This is awesome.”
She could see child-at-Christmas glee on his face. This was what he lived for. She wanted to know what he saw. “What’s down there?”
“A big cave, enormous. The walls glow, I can see clearly. There’s water at the bottom, but it isn’t the sea - we’re below sea-level already. Must be a contained pool.”
“Anything else?”
“Oh, just one more thing: a gigantic temple.”
“You’re joking.”
“Nosir. A massive ziggurat. Pyramidal. Three stages. Two main tiers and the high temple on top. Must be sixty metres in height.”
Jacky pulled himself back up.
“The high temple, is that the tomb?”
“Possibly. Ziggurats were never designed to be tombs, though. They were the seats of deities. But if it’s true that Mudammiq came here to be reborn an immortal, then he would be considered a deity, and I’d have to say that the high temple is indeed his final resting place.”
Leo beamed.
“But there’s a major problem in getting there.”
The grin vanished. “What problem?” Leo asked.
“The ziggurat is upside down.”
“What?”
He held out his hand. Leo took it, puzzled. Jacky swung her round him and almost over the edge. Leo moaned, but he had a tight hold of her, and he had a foot on one of the support posts so he wouldn't overbalance.
Leo couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
“Temples are dedicated to Gods,” Jacky explained. “By making a major change in the design, in this case building it upside-down, the gods couldn’t sense it. Quite secret.”
Leo saw that the stone path they had followed curved right underneath itself and continued as a smooth lane in the rough ceiling of the vast cave. There were more support posts, with the hemp strung between them. It was as if a giant hand had taken the path and folded it in two.
More shocking was the ziggurat. The path terminated at large entrance doors set in the massive building, which depended like a sculptured behemoth stalactite. The high temple atop the second tier hung some ten or so metres from the shining pool of water Jacky had mentioned.
For the life of her, Leo could neither understand how the heck anyone would be able to reach the temple nor why it was designed this way. Hell, they had even continued the rope support rail on the underside!
“These Babylonians,” she said, “were they bloody spiders?”
86
“A big iron ball that’ll roll down this slope and squish us.”
“A secret door directly into the tomb,” Jacky countered.
“Slime coming through these chips in the floor so we slip off and die.”
“I can’t think of anything else. I’ll stick with the secret door.”
“Then I win. We leave the lever alone. Step up.”
Leo stepped back. Jacky looked at the small lever in the wall, the lever they’d spotted half a minute earlier. It was coated in the same resin as the walls, which had contributed to is near-invisible status.
Jacky approached the lever, but he was filled with apprehension. Leo and her fear of strange levers! He looked at her, like a toddler who knows he is about to do something his mummy wouldn't like. She shook her head. Well, why risk it when there was another route open to him?
<
br /> “You win,” he said. “Even though it'll probably just bring us a set of steps or a path to get to the ziggurat. But now there's only one way to get there, and I don’t think you’re up to it.”
Leo thought about a rebuke, but Jacky read her face.
“Don’t be embarrassed to want to back out. This isn’t the kind of thing I expect that you do every day. Mind you, neither is it for me - I like Sundays off.”
Jacky grabbed the end of one of the support posts that was planted at a forty-five degree angle and swung out over the chasm. Below him, there was another angled post like a mirror image of the one above it. Jacky slid eight inches down the rope between them and put his feet on this lower post. He looked up at Leo.
“You know, I should really be offended that you'd prefer me to do this rather than pull a lever. I bet it opens a staircase that'd let us walk right on up to the door in comfort. I've been in places like this before. Seen a lot of stairs. Pulled a lot of levers."
"I know you're good at this climbing thing. At least I know what's coming."
"Given the acoustics of this cave, if I shout you’ll hear me. If you hear a scream, it's just me falling to my death. Don't touch that lever while I'm hanging around down here. See you soon.”
He slipped his feet off the post and slid further down the rope, until he was able to wrap his hands around the post. Now he hung from the upside-down ramp, feet kicking air seventy metres above the still water below.
“I hope the rope holds!” he heard Leo call from up above, beyond the lip.
He groaned. “Thank you for that extra worry, Leo.”
Hand-over-hand, Jacky began to monkey-swing along the rope-rail. He closed his eyes so he didn’t have to watch the distance passing timelessly; instead, he counted the posts he passed, knowing there were thirteen between him and the upside-down double entrance doors of the ziggurat. One, two, three - they passed slowly, more slowly the further he got, which meant he was slowing. His weight was straining his shoulders and forearms, while the old, worn hemp was painful in his hands.
He wished for an anti-gravity atmosphere so he could stroll up this path upside down. He wished for suction boots. He wished for James’s Rocket Belt. And when the fire in his shoulders got almost unbearable, he wished for his warm bed back in Surrey, a billion miles from this ancient temple hidden deep in a river island in South America.
He reached out a hand, and it smacked stone. His eyes opened. He had made it: his feet kicked at the wall beside the double doors.
He swung his legs up and hooked them over the rope, then let go with his hands. He hung upside down and hugged his arms to his chest so the build up of lactic acid would subside. He hung that way for almost a minute, until he felt he again had the power to continue. The fire in his shoulders had gone, but there was new pain behind him knees, where the rope dug in.
He drew his gun, almost dropped it, and took careful aim in the dim light.
The report of the .45 calibre pistol seemed to echo around the cave for an eternity, threatening never to cease. But slowly it did, and when silence once more reigned, Jacky removed his hands from over his ears. So quickly had he thrown them there when the boom of the gun exploded throughout this subterranean world, he had smacked himself in the temple with the gun. A trickle of blood ran into his hair.
But blood and aching ears were the worst of it; the best was that the iron key-lock on the double-doors was shattered.
Jacky grabbed the rope with both hands, unhooked his legs from around it and swung down, backwards, forwards, and kicked. Another resounding boom, this one not a tenth as loud, and one of the doors, the nearest, creaked open. Back he swung, forward again, this time at an angle, and then let go of the rope.
He landed with both feet on top - the bottom from his perspective - of the doorframe, steadying himself with both hands, one on the frame, the other on the other door.
Now that his hearing was returning, he could hear a voice repeating his name. Leo.
“I’m fine,” he called back, hearing the fear in his own echo. “Relax. Back soon. No toucho levero!”
Leo made a response, but he didn’t hear it; his attention was focussed instead on the interior of the large room beyond the doors.
It was square. The floor - which was about eight feet above his head - was composed of glazed blue tiles; there was a wide staircase leading up to another set of doors in the far wall that Jacky believed gave into the next level of the edifice. Far below was the ceiling, from which hung four chandelier-type constructions made of crystal that glowed, like the cave’s walls, with their own luminosity. Except they didn’t hang: they were flopped against the ceiling, held there by gravity. Between the ceiling and floor, four walls adorned with intricate bas-reliefs, each wall depicting a different kind of scene: war, fertility, everyday-life, and gods and goddesses.
But Jacky hardly noticed any of these details because he was studying something else inside the room, something taller than him and depending upside-down from the floor. A statue of some creature.
And it was a creature: roughly humanoid in shape, but there the correlation with man ended. The beast had a head like a dog with over-large nostrils and monstrous teeth; clawed hands and feet; and a stomach that gaped open, revealing curled intestines. But none of this was real: the creature, intestines included, looked crafted from the same resin that lined the walls of the cave. It glowed slightly, making the statue easy to see in the gloom. It was right in the centre of the room, facing the door, and its head was roughly level with Jacky's. He stared at its upside-down head.
Jacky didn’t recognise this beast. It wasn’t one of the Seven Evil Gods. But he recalled that numerous Babylonian texts had reported many more than seven bad guys.
The glow from the statue combined with the light from the crystal chandeliers was adequate for Jacky to see clearly the best places to put his hands and feet on the bas-relief as he began to climb down the wall, towards the ceiling.
He turned his head as a creaking sound met his ears. What he saw he should have expected: why else would the demon be here, just hanging from the floor?
It was moving. An animated statue, or something given life by some kind of magical property within the luminous resin. Or worse, an actual creature with the resin for skin or flesh.
He froze, clutching the bas-relief, watching as the creature took a step, then another, then three more in quick succession.
It ran at him - ran across the floor that was now a roof. It ran and he was sure that it was actually running, not walking; running, which meant that both feet were coming away from the tiles - yet it didn’t fall. There was no suction involved here. It wasn’t like a spider that could walk upside-down.
This threw Jacky's brain into turmoil. It was as if this world were not upside-down to the demon but the right way up, and it was Jacky who was upside-down. Two worlds with opposing laws of gravity.
But the thing was coming, so he shut off these thoughts and started to climb down quickly, digging his feet into carved mouths, placing them atop sculptured shoulders, grabbing ears and spears and wrists with his hands. He looked up just as the demon reached the wall below him and swiped a clawed hand above its head. The claw smacked the bas-relief and broke a warrior’s helmet. Dust rained onto Jacky’s head.
Despite being created from hardened resin, the demon managed a yelp of anger and hate. Then it jumped. Jacky's brain said it should have come crashing down on him, but that didn't happen. Opposing gravities. The beast hooks claws into the bas relief above the doors began to climb down the wall after him. Again, upside-down, so that when it looked up and he looked up, their eyes met, six-feet apart.
Jacky climbed down as quickly as he could, not watching the demon, trying not to listen to its screeching. When he was three metres from the floor - which was actually the ceiling, he jumped, landing hard, rolling. He came up with his pistol pulled. The beast continued after him, filling the air with its high-pitched voice. His head was
still trying to work this weirdness out.
He backed off as the beast's intestines snaked out lightning quick, like a number of whips, reaching for him. But he was out of range and receding. He nearly tripped on one of the curled chandeliers.
The beast had now climbed as high - or low - as it could; it clung to the wall just two feet from what to it was the ceiling. Upside-down. Head swivelled round, eyes boring into him. He was sure it blinked now and then, as if its resin eyelids could moisten the wet black balls beyond. He wondered if it had real eyes, if it could even see. Maybe it was his smell, his aura, his soul it could taste or sense.
Jacky fired at the demon. The bullets chipped away pieces of resin from its chest and one leg, and broke off an ear, and the beast roared. But it was not hurt; the roar was anger.
One of its intestines snaked out and found the closest chandelier. The demon swung out in an arc using its guts, pulled itself closer by retracting the whip-like lengths, and caught the chandelier with its clawed hands.
Under the beast's weight, the chandelier rose from the ceiling, the chain holding it in place pulled tight. It was quite a strange sight that made the basic laws of gravity contradict themselves, and once again made Jacky’s head spin as his logical brain tried to interpret what his eyes were relaying.
The chandelier swung as the beast seemed to handstand from it, legs kicking. Its intestines reached for him again and he backed away some more.
He looked at the beast, which seemed helpless as it swung from the chandelier. It looked away from Jacky for the first time. It threw its gaze down, towards the floor of the room, and Jacky realised that the beast knew fear. This is its ceiling, remember, he told himself. He remembered how it had had to climb the wall upside-down; how it had run across the floor. All these things went into his mind and were compacted into a simple answer that made him smile. Gravity was gravity, and momentum universal. He lowered his gunsight from the beast's face and took aim at the chain holding the chandelier to the ceiling. And took a few steps forward. The beast wasn't watching him, and he stepped far within the reach of its intestines.
He fired once, twice, and the chandelier was free. The swinging beast began to fall - upwards, taking the chandelier with it.
But the demon let go a mere nanosecond later. The chandelier fell back to the ceiling - Jacky’s floor - and the demon’s clawed hands grabbed his gun arm by the wrist. Jacky let out a scream of shock and pain as he was wrenched off the ceiling by his arm. He started to rise as the weight of the falling beast pulled him. The gun was aimed up, right into the demon’s face, and he pulled the trigger instinctively, repeatedly. One eye popped, spraying goo all over him. Another bullet shattered the shoulder of the arm it held him by. The arm broke loose and he was free, his upward movement suddenly checked by his own world's gravity .He found himself falling towards the ceiling - his floor - landing, tumbling. He came to rest on his back, staring up, watching as the demon slammed hard into the floor high above him. It smashed into a hundred pieces, which scattered across the glazed blue tiles and then lay as if glued there.
Jacky realised his right arm was sticking up, pointing at the room's floor. The beast's hand was still around his wrist, the weight of its big arm pulling on him. He swapped his gun to his left hand, stuck the barrel against the solid resin thumb pressing on his right wrist, and fired. Shards of the shattered substance sprayed everywhere, and the beast's arm flew as if propelled high above him, smashed on the room's floor and stayed there. He noticed fine dust floating around him, but moving away, upwards. He was enthralled by all this, but got quickly back on track.
“Six more of these bad-asses? Lucky me,”
87
Leo sighed; she never would have thought that hunting out lost tombs of Babylonian kings seeking immortality could be so boring. But that didn’t mean she envied Jacky’s position, climbing around on a big building that hung upside down.
“Hello, Leo.”
Leo looked round. Higher up the path stood a short man, quite fat, and a taller man. Once her eyes had focussed, her jaw dropped.
“Theodore?”
Marcellus stepped forward. He didn’t look pleased to see his old Tae Kwon Do friend. Further proof, the gun held by Jameson, the gun aimed right at Leo.
“How did you find us?”
“Us?” Marcellus said. “So Jacky is here. No doubt off exploring. And he left you behind?”
Marcellus spotted the lever that Jacky and Leo had argued over. He approached it. Leo moved in front of the lever.
“Wow, no, don’t touch that. We don’t know what it does.”
Marcellus seemed fascinated by his surroundings. He felt the walls, and peered over the edge into the chasm, and then stroked the lever.
“This place is quite amazing,” he said, moving Leo aside with his forearm.
“Yep. But hell, don’t touch that lever. Methinks it activates a trap.”
Marcellus scoffed at this theory. “Don’t be silly. It’ll be for a secret door or something.”
And with that, he pulled the lever.
From inside the cave there emerged a deep rumbling sound.
88
The first benefit he’d found about this place’s being upside-down: the door that led into the next level of the ziggurat was high in the wall, obtainable by a steep staircase, which meant that from where he stood on the ceiling, he could reach it. It was a simple case of reaching over his head and twisting the handle. Unlocked, this door swung outwards, giving into a sloping passage that curved up (down in Jacky’s position) and around the space between the inner and outer walls.
Jacky stood on the top of the doorframe and peered into the thin passage. The slope was actually the ceiling of the passage, while above his head was a set of steps. Of course, he couldn’t take the stairs and was forced to jump onto the ceiling.
Immediately gravity took him and he slid on his butt down the slope, like a kid on a helter skelter, scraping against stone as he curved around the outer wall. He zipped past a small door in the inner wall, then another, then a third, until he reached the end of the stairway where there was a fourth. He had completed one full revolution of the ziggurat.
He grunted as he slammed against the wall at the end, feet outstretched to break his descent.
The upside-down door was on his left. He grabbed the handle. This door opened towards him as well. He stared at the circular room beyond, this interior of the second level of the ziggurat.
The three doors he’d passed were below him: one to the left, one to the right, one straight ahead. Four doors; north, east, south, west, he guessed. Each door, which was situated at a different height, opened onto a staircase no wider than the door, and with no hand-rail, that led up to the top of a tall pillar, five feet in diameter, in the centre of the room. On top of the pillar a bust of a head, too large to be life-like but shockingly real in its detail. It was not a bust of god nor demon, and Jacky instantly took this to mean that it must be the king himself, Shamash Mudammiq. But it just lay there, not on any kind of pedestal.
At the zenith of each flight of steps stood statues made of resin, which Jacky didn’t like the idea of. The thing he’d just fought had been crafted out of that stuff, and look what had happened!
The four statues were looking down their respective steps as if waiting to challenge any who might climb towards the bust. Each was different in design. The one guarding the longest flight of steps, which ascended from the lowest door, the first he’d passed on his slide, was a hideous, muscled monster with two faces, one on the front, one on the back. The second was a statue of a goddess Jacky recognised: Lamashtu, who stole babies from wombs and preyed upon nursing mothers. The third statue depicted a man with ten outstretched arms, each of which had a closed fist. The fourth, the one at the top of the short flight Jacky faced, was a beast with massive ears and a long tongue that hung so low out of its big mouth as to curl by its feet.
His research suddenly came back to him. He knew what a
ll this meant. It was a test of one’s purity. When ascending the outside flight of steps, the door a person entered through to seek forgiveness from the King or a God depended upon the kind of person he or he was. The first door was for violent criminals and traitors, who had to face the power and wrath of the muscled God whose name was Manag. The second door was for adulterous women, who would face Lamashtu and lose their babies. Third: to face Ishtani was the recourse of thieves, who would have to steal a single chance to live from one of the god’s ten hands, the other nine of which held pain, suffering and death. And lastly, the fourth door, the highest, was for priests and other proper erib-biti, who had only to pass the test of speaking the truth to the ears of the Goddess Quui.
Of course, with the ziggurat upside down, Jacky was able to jump down onto the ceiling and avoid the steps altogether. As he got closer, he noticed that the four flights of steps weren't connected to the pillar. Not even close. Each terminated at least a foot short, meaning a step across nothingness to stand upon the pillar.
He walked under the frozen statue of Quui, a good metre separating their heads. Maybe it was because the goddess didn’t see him; maybe the test was activated by feet on the steps. Jacky didn’t know and didn’t care. He was just glad that he made it into the centre of the room without incident.
Lamashtu was one of the original Seven Evil Gods; he figured the other three were also included. Counting the one he’d left in pieces, that made five. Five down, two to go.
Now that he was closer, Jacky was able to examine the bust a little better. He tilted back his head and stared up at it, still moving forward.
The bust itself was not solid, but hollow: he could see this through the eyes and nose and mouth. It was lined with some kind of worn cushiony material within, as if the bust was designed for wearing, like a helmet.
Looking up and stepping forward, he didn’t notice the hole until it was almost too late. One foot stepped out into mid-air and he stumbled, fell, just managing to avoid toppling through a circular hole in the ceiling.
He rolled aside and stood up. The hole, three feet wide, was directly above the helmet. He remembered how the stone steps weren't connected to the pillar and put two and two together. Once someone put on the helmet, the pillar would rise. Whoever stood there would be inserted through the hole and into the next level of the ziggurat.
But there were only two levels and the high temple on top.
That hole, Jacky realised, led into the high temple - into the tomb of the king.
