Mutt shuddered.
Cemetery or scorpions?
As darkness fell back over the cemetery, Mutt made his decision.
He pulled out his switchblade, flipped it open, and headed after the professor.
When he ducked inside the crawlway, he saw that Jones was already a good distance down the tunnel. Mutt hurried to catch up, scrabbling on hands and knees. The place smelled moldy and earthy. Cobwebs tickled the back of his neck. Ants and roaches skittered over his hands. Finally he reached Jones. Relief swelled through him—until the ground buckled beneath his knees.
The lower half of his body plunged into a hole. He clawed for a grip on the side of the rocky dirt floor, but more and more of his world crumbled. He fell deeper, sliding.
A hand gripped the collar of his jacket and yanked him back up. He beached onto a solid section of the tunnel. He lay flat, gasping.
“We’re on a promontory. This whole cliff is eroded underneath. Be careful.”
Jones set out again and quickly vanished around a corner in the passageway. He took the light with him. Mutt caught his breath and called out after him, “Thanks for the advice!”
With no choice, Mutt set off after him. The light was the only thing keeping the scorpions and his terrors at bay. He followed after the professor, balanced between wanting to keep up and fearful of the ground under his hands and knees. He tested each section of the floor cautiously.
As he edged around the corner, he glanced up to see how far the professor had gone—and came face-to-face with three skeletal figures.
A scream escaped him before he could stop it.
The figures crouched upright in niches, their arms and legs bound to their chests. Skeletal eyes stared back at him. Mouths hung open in their own silent screams.
The professor called back to him, “Keep it down, will ya, kid!”
Mutt tried to force his heart to stop pounding. “Their skulls, man! Did you see their skulls?”
Jones returned reluctantly. He held the lantern up to illuminate one of the skeletons. Its skull was misshapen. He reached out and gently turned it. The back of the cranium was elongated into an egg shape.
“Just like Oxley’s drawings in his cell,” he said. “We’re getting close.”
He headed out. Mutt stuck close to his backside. “Who or what are they?”
“Human,” Jones said. “Most likely Nazca royalty.”
Mutt remembered Jones’s story of how the tribes used to bind the skulls of royal infants to mimic the gods. “Maybe this is what those skeletal warriors outside were guarding,” he offered.
“And maybe something more,” Jones said cryptically. “Come see.”
Ahead, the professor jumped down into an open space. The roof was high enough to allow them to stand upright. The chamber was as large as a two-car garage. It smelled less moldy, more dry and heavy, weighted with a strange expectancy.
Mutt climbed down and joined Jones. He began to step forward, but the professor blocked him with an arm.
“Don’t touch anything.”
Remembering the scorpions, Mutt obeyed.
“This is incredible,” Jones whispered under his breath.
He lifted his lantern, revealing footprints crossing the dusty floor.
“Somebody else was here. Recently.” He leaned down to study the prints. There were two complete sets. “Two people.”
Mutt knelt and measured both sets with an outstretched hand. “Same size.” He craned up at Jones. “Could have been the same person . . . came here twice.”
“Not bad, kid.”
The professor raised his lantern higher, stretching the light. Mutt could just make out more niches and corpses in the back wall, about the same size as the Nazca royalty out in the tunnel. But the shapes were indistinct and covered with dust and sand.
“Stick with me,” Jones warned and set off across the chamber. “Step where I step.”
Mutt noted that the professor was carefully matching his stride to the dusty footprints on the floor. Mutt did the same. One behind the other, they crossed the floor and safely reached the other side.
Mutt stepped out next to the professor. He studied the closest niche. It definitely seemed to hold a body, but it was hard to make out, as each niche’s figure was wrapped in something like a cocoon. Through the dust, Mutt noted a glint of silver. There was a strange bite of electricity in the air. He could taste it on his tongue. Curious, he took a step closer, but Jones placed a restraining hand on his shoulder.
Jones counted the niches, pointing his lantern toward each. “. . . five . . . six . . . seven.” He set the lantern on the floor. “It must be Orellana and his men.”
“Only one way to find out,” Mutt said.
TWENTY-TWO
INDY APPROACHED the nearest niche. Reaching carefully, he pinched and fingered the burial shrouds. He shook the material. Sand and dust fell away, revealing pure silver underneath. Definitely not cloth, but not metal either. Indy recognized the material: It was identical to the shroud that had wrapped the mummified remains found inside the coffin stolen from Hangar 51.
But what lay hidden here?
Indy peeled back the layer only to discover another one beneath.
“Like unwrapping a Christmas present,” Mutt said, breathless with anticipation.
Indy parted another layer, then another. He found himself holding his breath. The small hairs on his arms stood on end, not with fear, but from some strange emanation that crackled from the shroud as he parted each layer.
At last, Indy reached the heart of the cocoon. He saw what the layers of burial shroud hid and stepped back. It was indeed a body, but one perfectly preserved, as if the figure had just fallen asleep. A man sat with his arms crossed, his legs pulled to his chest. His head tilted, eyes closed, as if in slumber. The skin looked soft, the beard full. Even the frill of cloth around the neck looked worn but free of any decay.
Indy ran a finger along a breastplate of armor inscribed with the Spanish Cross. The body also wore an ornate scabbard and a tall, conical helmet.
“The conquistadores,” Indy said. “It truly is them.”
Mutt leaned closer. “It looks like they died yesterday.”
“But it’s been over four hundred years.” Indy touched the silver shroud, sensing again the strange energies. “The wrappings must have preserved them.”
Studying the conquistador, Indy noted that the figure clutched a solid gold dagger with a ruby-and-emerald-encrusted pommel. With great care, he slipped it from the man’s dry fingers. Turning, he edged the dagger more fully into the lantern light, admiring it. He noted the filigreed inscription in Spanish, perhaps the owner’s name. He wondered about the dead man. Who had he been? What sort of life had he lived? How had he come to be buried here?
Lowering the dagger, Indy began to slip the artifact into his satchel.
Mutt cleared his throat. “I thought we weren’t grave robbers.”
Indy realized what he’d been about to do: standing knee-deep in a grave, holding a dead man’s riches. “I was going to put it back.”
“Uh-huh.”
Indy turned back to the conquistador. But the man’s body had disintegrated. Everything organic, even the clothes, had withered to dust in the space of ten seconds. All that was left were the bones.
“Ick,” Mutt commented.
Indy knelt down and pulled up a section of the metallic cloth. “I’ve seen this kind of stuff before,” he mentioned. “Ten years ago at some kind of crash site.”
And again a few weeks ago in Nevada.
He grabbed a section of the soft metal and crumpled it into a ball, then tossed it back down. It unfolded all by itself and returned to its original shape.
“Whoa!” Mutt edged nearer. He pointed his switchblade, but it was torn from his fingers and snapped up against the wrapping. “Double whoa!”
“Whatever it is, it’s highly magnetized.”
“Ya think?” It took some effort, but Mutt pull
ed his knife free and stuck it in his boot for safety.
“Wherever these conquistadores stole the skull from, they must have taken this wrapping along with them.”
“But that’s not all they took,” Mutt said and pointed near the corpse’s feet.
A small chest lay open, overflowing with jewels and gold coins. Indy dropped to a knee and picked up a handful of coins. He examined them as they sifted through his fingers. There appeared to be some from all over the globe. He spotted a bust of Athena on one, a Corinthian helmet, an Eye of Horus.
“Greek, Macedonian, Egyptian,” he mumbled. “What are they all doing here? From so many eras? So many corners of the world?”
“Were they also stolen from Akator?” Mutt asked.
Indy straightened. “I don’t know.”
He moved to the next niche and quickly unwrapped the cocoon there. He found the same thing: a perfecdy preserved body of a four-hundred-year-dead Spanish explorer, who immediately decomposed to dust and bone upon air contact.
Mutt had moved a few niches away and called out, “This one’s already been opened!”
Indy joined him. “What did I say about sticking to my side?”
“Man, lighten up.” Mutt pointed to the floor. “I followed the footsteps like you did.”
Indy frowned. “Well, at least you’re learning . . .”
He turned his attention to Mutt’s discovery. The kid was right. The mummy had already been opened. He parted the loosened layers of shroud to reveal a skeletal figure decked out in full armor—chest plate, helmet, even a death mask. But here the armor had been crafted of solid gold.
“It’s Orellana himself.”
“How do you know?” Mutt asked.
“All the gold. They called Orellana the Gilded Man. Everything he wore was made of gold, even—” Indy stopped himself and furrowed his brow.
“What’s wrong?”
“Something’s not right.” Indy pointed to the golden mask. “Spaniards didn’t wear burial masks.”
He reached up and ran his hand along the edges of the mask.
“Careful,” Mutt warned.
Indy glanced back and gave him an I-know-what-I’m-doing look, then closed his fingers around the mask and pulled it slowly. Behind it was the skull of Orellana, frozen in a horrible death shriek. Though it was only bone, the shape screamed terror and pain. There was a wrongness that disturbed.
“Put it back, put it back,” Mutt said.
Indy considered doing just that—until he noted a brilliant gleam that reflected the lantern light. It came from behind Orellana’s skull, framing it in a halo of brilliance.
Crouching, Indy grabbed the body by its golden shoulders. He pulled the torso and head forward and passed them to Mutt. “Here. Hold this.”
Mutt obeyed, wearing a sickened expression, nose-to-nose with Orellana’s corpse.
Behind the body, hidden in a niche not unlike those in the cemetery wall, rested a large skull, twice the size of an ordinary man’s. And unlike any real skull, this one had been sculpted of brilliant clear-blue crystal. It captured every bit of lantern light and reflected it back with a beauty a thousandfold richer.
Indy reached for it, but his fingers hesitated. He remembered all the tales Oxley used to tell of these strange skulls, of killing curses and paranormal powers. Forcing down these superstitious fears, he studied the skull more closely. It appeared to be cut from a single piece of pure crystal, perfectly transparent, yet multifaceted.
Curiosity finally overcame caution. Indy’s fingers touched the skull’s polished surface, and the light dimmed fractionally. Scooping it out, he carefully lifted it free of the niche.
Mutt shouldered Orellana’s body back into its niche with a shudder of revulsion.
Indy lifted the lantern and held the skull in front of it. The fiery light cast a prism through its crystalline surfaces and concentrated it back out through its oversized eyes, like a laser beam. It hurt his head to look into that gaze, like staring into an eclipsing sun. He turned the crystal skull in his fingers and discovered the cranium to be egg-shaped, like the corpses outside.
“No tool marks,” he murmured to himself. “No evidence of a lapidary wheel. Unbelievable.”
He brought the skull closer to his nose. What’s that . . .?
Deep within the cranium there appeared to be a second crystal, embedded in the brain cavity, opal in color, shimmering through a prismatic series of hues, almost seeming to flow like liquid.
Turning it again, he examined its every surface.
“A seamless piece of quartz, cut against the grain. That’s not possible, not even with today’s technology. The stone would shatter.”
Mutt joined him, studying the skull at his shoulder. “You think it’s the one from Akator?”
“Maybe. The conquistadores must have looted the rest of this stuff along with it, then headed for their ships on the coast. Got this far before they died or were killed. The locals must have wrapped ’em in the stolen shrouds and buried ’em.”
Indy finally lowered the skull and returned his attention to the dusty floor and its footprints. He knelt at the edge. He pointed to the footsteps, tracking them.
“Then a few hundred years later, Oxley finds the skull, takes it away . . . maybe to Akator, maybe he found that place, too—but then he returned it here.”
Mutt stirred. “Return. Like he wrote on the wall.”
“Makes no sense,” Indy mumbled. “He hid the skull right back where he found it. Why?”
Mutt suddenly grabbed his arm, squeezing hard. “L . . . look!”
Indy glanced over and watched Orellana’s skeletal arm rising, reaching for the skull. A surge of superstitious fear flooded through him, but he calmed himself. He slowly raised and lowered the skull. The arm tracked his movements.
Ah . . .
“It’s alive, man!” Mutt said, dancing back. “Give it back the skull!”
Indy reached forward and tapped the golden armor still strapped to the skeletal arm, the vambrace and rerebrace. He pointed to all the gilded surfaces and fastenings.
“It’s the metal in the armor,” he explained. “It’s just being attracted to the skull.”
“But crystal ain’t magnetic, man.”
“Neither is gold,” Indy conceded. He studied the skull with a frown and lifted it again before him. What is this thing?
He found himself gazing into those eyes again. Though it still hurt his head, he kept looking, wanting answers, needing to know its secrets. The light blazed out of the skull’s eyes and into Indy’s. It felt like a searchlight burning into his skull. Deep in that brilliance, Indy sensed . . . something . . . something he could almost grasp.
“Hey—” Mutt said behind him.
Indy barely heard him. It sounded as if the kid were calling to him from down a deep well.
“—somethings hap—”
Close . . . so close. All he needed was a moment longer . . .
“—pening, man. Ground’s trembling. We must—”
Fire burned into his skull. Almost there . . .
“—get the hell out of here! NOW!”
TWENTY-THREE
MUTT GRABBED the professor’s elbow and yanked his arm down. The skull tumbled from Jones’s fingers and landed in a pile of soft sand, its crystalline eyes blazing toward the ceiling.
Jones swung around. “What do you think—?”
Mutt fell back from him. The professor’s eyes glowed in the darkness, shining with their own inner fire. Frightened, Mutt bumped into Orellana’s body behind him.
Jones blinked and pressed his fingertips against his forehead as if warding away a fierce headache. The light in his eyes faded as he glanced around, but his eyes also grew huge. “Shaking . . . ground’s shaking!”
“Man, what do you think I’ve been trying to tell you?”
Across the floor, sand vibrated and small pebbles bounced. Larger rocks rattled against one another. The bones of the skeletons shook as if f
rightened.
Jones twisted toward the exit and pointed. “Out! Now!”
Mutt stepped to obey—but the floor gave way under him. His legs were swallowed into a widening fissure. With a sharp holler, he slid, plummeting within a cascade of sand and rock. His hands scrambled for some purchase. His fingers found something hard and clamped to it.
Still, his body continued to fall. Blinded and choked by dirt and sand, he coughed and spit. Then his plunge stopped. He jarred to a halt, hanging by one hand, his fingers still tight on whatever he’d grabbed. A last slide of rock and dust washed past around him and away.
Mutt looked down—and gasped.
He was dangling five hundred feet above the desert floor. A flash of lightning ignited the Nazca lines below: a spider, a monkey, a lizard.
Mutt tore his eyes away and stared up.
A shrieking skull looked back down at him. Orellana. Mutt had grabbed the conquistador’s ankle—or rather, the lower end of his armor. Lantern light showed Jones clutching the gold plates of the skeletons arms. The professor must have caught the corpse as Mutt dragged it with him through the hole.
Mutt tried to pull himself up.
Bits of Orellana’s skeleton shook out of its armor and spun down toward the desert floor to shatter far below: femur, ankle bones, ribs. The armor was hollowing out.
“Stop wiggling already!” Jones yelled down at him.
Mutt’s motion and weight were beginning to widen the hole in the burial chamber’s floor. Rocks and sand fell, along with more bones. He stared overhead. The entire promontory was fissuring and cracking. Large sections fell away, tumbled, and exploded upon impact with the desert floor.
Desperate, his heart hammering, Mutt met the professor’s eyes.
“Stay calm, kid! I’m going to pull you up!”
Stay calm?
More stones fell as another section of the hole’s lip collapsed. Amid the new rockfall, a spark of brilliance flashed from out of the wash of sand and stone, reflecting the lantern light above.