Anthony Horowitz - Evil Star

And then it happened again.

Another Indian appeared, stepping out of a doorway, pushing a heavy cart laden with food and drink. He was wearing white trousers and a dark jacket but no shirt. Nor did he have any shoes. Long hair hung down, obscuring most of his face. He stopped in the road, completely blocking it and it seemed to Matt that he had acted quite deliberately. He had known they were coming and wanted to give them more time. The policemen began shouting. One of them was trying to push past. The Indian nodded and smiled at the two boys. With renewed strength, they set off the other way.

Something was happening in Cuzco. Someone was trying to help them. First it had been the old woman, now it was the food seller. But who were they? How had they even known that he and Pedro were there? Matt wondered if he was imagining things. And no matter how many people tried to help them, he still couldn’t see how they were going to get away.

They turned another corner and suddenly Matt knew where they were. This was one of the most famous streets in the city. Just a few hours earlier it had been filled with tourist groups and guides; now it was completely empty, lit only by the glow from the sky. One side of the street was lined by old Inca walls, ten metres high. Matt recognized the huge stones, slotted so ingeniously together. Pedro was leaning against one of them, panting for breath.

“Which way?” Matt asked.

Pedro shrugged. Either he was too exhausted to talk or he had come to the same conclusion as Matt. There was no way out so it didn’t matter where they went.

They started forward, slowly, making their way down the deserted street. They could hear shouting all around them, disembodied voices flitting like night creatures, everywhere. Only one thing was certain. Their pursuers were getting closer all the time.

And the street led nowhere. It was blocked by a tall metal gate that had been swung across the end, and locked.

There was no way back. Matt could hear footsteps rushing up behind them and knew that the police were only seconds away. He no longer had the heart to run or to hide. He reached out and rattled the gate. It was too high to climb. Pedro had given up too. He was looking angry and exhausted – the bitterness of defeat obvious in his eyes.

“Amigos!”

The voice came from just behind them. Matt turned. Incredibly, there was a young man standing in the street just a couple of metres away. He was wearing a red-and-mauve poncho, jeans and a woven hat that had flaps hanging down over his ears. He seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

And Matt was sure he knew him. For a strange, unnerving moment, he was sure it was Micos. But Micos was dead. So who…?

“Amigos,” the man repeated. “Come quickly!”

Amigos. It was the one word of Spanish that Matt knew.

Friends.

The man gestured. Matt looked past him and saw an incredible sight. Part of the wall had swung open, revealing a secret door with at least seven sides. It was impossible to imagine the hinge mechanism that had made it work but when the door was closed it would be completely invisible. Matt and Pedro had just walked past it without realizing it was there. Millions of tourists must have done the same. Matt took a step forward. There was a passage inside the wall. He could just make out a narrow corridor but it ended almost at once in total blackness.

“No.” Pedro shook his head. He was afraid.

The man spoke to him quietly and quickly in Spanish, then turned back to Matt. “The police will be here very soon,” he said. “If you want to live, you must trust me. Come now…”

“Who are you?” Matt asked.

The man made no reply and Matt understood. He wasn’t prepared to talk about this, not now. An amazing secret – this hidden door – had been revealed to them. It had to be closed before the police, or anyone else, saw it.

Pedro was looking at him, waiting for him to make a decision. Matt nodded. The two of them stepped inside the wall. The man followed. The door swung shut behind them.

Blackness.

Matt couldn’t hear anything apart from the sound of his own breathing. He stood in pitch darkness and it occurred to him that he could have died – that death might not be so different from this. He had been cut off from the city of Cuzco the moment the wall closed. There was a slight dampness in the air that clung to his skin, but apart from that he felt nothing. He had to force himself not to panic, to avoid the thought that he might just have been buried alive.

Then the man in the poncho turned on an electric torch and the light sprang out to reveal a narrow corridor with a staircase leading down. They were inside the wall. The great stones were on both sides. Where did the steps lead? Matt couldn’t even begin to guess.

The light also showed the face of the man who had come to their rescue. Matt had only glimpsed him in the street and the earflaps of his hat had concealed much of his face. Looking at him more closely, he saw that he did bear a very close resemblance to Micos – although without the scar. He was also slightly thinner, with a narrow chin and the beginnings of a beard. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-two or twenty-three years old.

“Who are you?” Matt asked again. He wondered if his voice would carry out into the street. But that was impossible. The walls were at least a metre thick.

“My name is Atoc,” the man replied. His accent was strange. There was a hint of Spanish in it but also something else, some sort of native Indian.

Atoc was the name that Micos had spoken just before he died. He had wanted to get a message to this man. His brother? Matt hoped not but that would explain why they looked so alike.

“What is this place?” he asked.

“It is an old, Inca passage. Very secret. Very few people know.”

“Where does it lead?”

“I take you somewhere safe where Salamanda cannot find you. There are friends waiting but it is far and there is still much danger. Police looking everywhere. We cannot talk now.”

Atoc turned to Pedro and spoke briefly in Spanish. Once again, to Matt’s ears his accent sounded strange. Presumably he was translating what he had just said. Pedro nodded. A decision had been made.

“This way,” Atoc said. He swung the light at the stairs. “We go down. It will be easier soon.”

They began to climb down. Matt tried to count the steps but after twenty-five he gave up. The walls were very narrow, pressing in on them from both sides, and he could feel the weight of the earth pushing down from above. There was a heaviness in his ears and the air was getting cold. He could only see a few steps at a time. The torch wasn’t powerful enough to light much more. But as they reached the bottom with a second passageway bending round ahead of them, he became aware of a strange, yellow glow, coming from somewhere just out of sight. They began to walk forward and soon Atoc switched off the torch. The way ahead was lit, but not by an electric light. Matt turned the corner and gasped.

The passage ran on for as far as he could see, with flames burning in small silver cups set into the walls, about twenty metres apart. They must have been fed by a hidden oil supply. But it was the walls themselves that caught the light, magnified it and reflected it back. The walls were lined with sheets of what looked like brass, but – Matt somehow knew – were actually solid gold.

How much gold was there in the world? Matt had always thought it was precious because it was rare and he remembered what he had heard outside the temple of Coricancha. The Spanish conquistadors had looted the city. They had been mad with greed. They had taken all the gold they could lay their hands on. Or that was what they had thought. But now he could see that they had found only a fraction of what was there. Tons and tons of it must have been used to make this incredible route far below the city. It was stretching ever further into the distance, picking up the light from the lamps, turning night into day.