Matthew Reilly - Temple

The arrow was held by a very angry looking native who had stepped out from the curtain like foliage to the right of the shrine. He held the arrow poised in his longbow, its drawstring stretched taut back to his ear. Van Lewen made to raise his G11, just as the forest all around him came alive and out of it stepped no fewer than fifty natives. Nearly all of them brandished bows and arrows, all of them aimed squarely at Race and the others. Van Lewen still had his gun up. Doogie didn’t. He just stood rooted to the spot a few yards away, frozen. An uneasy standoff materialised. Van Lewen—armed with a gun that could kill twenty men in an instant—facing off against the fiftyplus natives armed with bows and arrows that were all ready to be fired. There are too many of them, Race thought. Even if Van Lewen did manage to get a few shots off, it wouldn’t be enough. The natives would still kill them all, so over whelming were their numbers.

‘Van Lewen,’ Race said. “Don’t…’

‘Sergeant Van Lewen,’ Nash said from over by the altar, where he stood with an arrow poised next to his head.

‘Lower your weapon.”

Van Lewen did so. As soon as he did, the natives immediately moved forward, seized the Americans’ highpowered weapons. An older looking man with a long grey beard and wrinkled olive skin stepped forward. He didn’t bother carrying a long bow. He appeared to be the chieftain of this tribe. Another man walked at the chieftain’s side and as soon as he saw him, Race blinked in disbelief. This second man wasn’t a native at all, but rather was a stout looking Latin American man. He was deeply tanned and dressed in the manner of the Indians, but even the liberal doses of ceremonial paint that he wore on his face and chest couldn’t hide his decidedly urban features. As the chieftain glared at Nash—standing in front of the shrine like a thief caught with his hands in the till—he growled something in his native tongue. The Latin American man at his side listened attentively and then offered some advice in reply.

‘Hmph,’ the chieftain grunted.

Race stood next to Renée, the two of them surrounded by five arrow bearing Indians. Just then one of the Indians stepped forward—curious— and touched Race on the cheek, as if testing to see if his white skin was real. Race pulled his face away, jerking it clear. As he did so, however, the Indian shrieked in astonishment, causing everyone to turn. He hurried over to the chieftain, shouting, ‘Rumaya! Rumaya!’

The chieftain immediately came over to where Race stood, with his white adviser behind him. The old chieftain stood before Race, appraising him coldly while at the same time the Indian who had touched Race’s face pointed at his left eye and said, ‘Rumaya. Rumaya.’

Abruptly, the chieftain grabbed Race’s chin and turned it hard to the right. Race didn’t resist. The chieftain evaluated his face in silence, inspecting the triangular brown birthmark situated underneath his left eye. Then the chieftain licked his finger and began rubbing the birthmark, as if testing to see if it would come off. It didn’t.

‘Rumaya…’ he breathed. He turned to his Latin American adviser and said something in Quechuan. The adviser whispered something in return, keeping his voice low and respectful, to which the old chieftain shook his head and pointed emphatically at the square shaped pit that had been carved into the wall of the moat. Then the chieftain turned on his heel and barked an order to his people. The Indians quickly herded everyone except Race into the bamboo cage between the trees. For his part, Race was shoved toward the muddy pit adjacent to the moat. The Latin American adviser fell into step beside him.

‘Hello,’ the man said in heavily accented English, taking Race completely by surprise.

‘Hey there,’ Race said. ‘You, ah, want to tell me what’s going on here?’

‘These people are the direct descendants of a remote Incan tribe. They observed that you are possessed of the Mark of the Sun—that birthmark under your left eye. They think you might be the second coming of their saviour, a man they know as the Chosen One. But they want to test you first to be sure.’

‘And how exactly are they going to test me?’

‘They will put you in the pit and then they will open the gate that separates it from the moat, allowing one of the caimans to enter the pit with you. Then they will see who survives the subsequent confrontation, you or the caiman. You see, according to their prophecy—’

‘I know,’ Race said. ‘I’ve read it. According to the prophecy the Chosen One will bear the Mark of the Sun, and be able to fight with great lizards and save their spirit.’

The man looked at Race askance. ‘You’re an anthropologist?’

‘A linguist. I’ve read the Santiago Manuscript.’

The man frowned. ‘You’ve come here looking for the Spirit of the People?’

‘Not me. Them,’ Race said, nodding over at Nash and the others as they were placed inside the bamboo cage.

‘But why? It’s worthless in monetary terms—’

‘It was carved out of a meteorite,’ Race said. ‘And now it’s been discovered that that meteorite was made of a very special kind of stone.’

‘Oh,’ the man said.

‘So who are you?’ Race asked.

‘Oh, yes, I’m very sorry, I completely forgot to introduce myself,’ the man said, straightening. ‘My name is Doctor Miguel Moros Marquez. I am an anthropologist from the University of Peru and I’ve been living with this tribe for the last nine years.’

A minute later, Race was shoved down a thin sloping path that descended into the mud. The path was bounded on either side by high earthen walls and it ended at a small wooden gate that opened onto the pit. As soon as Race arrived in front of the gate, it slid open—pulled upward by a pair of Indians standing on the ground above—and he stepped tentatively out into the pit that adjoined the caiman infested moat. The pit was roughly square in shape and it was big— about thirty feet by thirty feet. It was lined on three sides by sheer muddy walls. The entire fourth wall, however, was comprised of an enormous gate constructed of a latticework of bamboo ‘bars’. Through it, Race could see the dark waves of the moat outside. To make matters worse, the floor of the pit was covered in a layer of black water—water that sloshed freely in through the crisscrossing bars of the bamboo gate from the moat outside. Its depth where Race was standing was about knee deep. Its depth in other parts of the pit was indeterminate. Well, this is new, Will. What the hell did you do to get yourself into this situation ? Just then, a rectangular section of the enormous bamboo gate—a gate within the gate was raised by some Indians standing at the rim of the pit and immediately a wide opening was created in the middle of the larger gate between the pit and the caiman infested moat.

Race watched in horror as the gate was lifted higher and higher, making the opening wider and wider. After a few moments it reached its zenith and stopped and there followed a long silence. The inhabitants of the village now lined the rims of the pit and peered down into it, waiting for the arrival of one of the caimans. Race patted his pockets for any weapons he could use. He was still wearing his jeans and Tshirt and the kevlar breastplate that Uli had given to him at the mine, and of course, his glasses and Yankees baseball cap. No weapons, except for the grappling hook that hung from his belt. Race grabbed it, It had a length of rope attached to it, and at the moment its four silver claws were retracted, lying flush against the hook’s handle like an umbrella in the closed position. He looked at it for a moment, thinking. Maybe he could use it to climb out of here—