Uluru - Inside Kantju Gorge
February 17, 2010
0925 Hours Local Time
All the soldiers and Mendoza shone their torches ahead as they walked, occasionally sweeping to the side to examine the walls beside them. Not that they cared, but there was Aboriginal art thousands of years old covering the smooth sandstone walls. Lily however was fascinated.
There were paintings of snakes, paintings of wallabies, and paintings of black canine creatures chasing them. It seemed that the same story was repeated over and over as the hall went on. Luckily for Lily, this story was one she knew, thanks to a class project she did with her friend Alby Calvin recently.
Ahead of Lily, Mendoza's light breached a cavern. It was easily thirty metres wide, and roughly square in shape. In each corner there was a pool of water five metres in diameter, fed by a trickling stream originating from the roof ten metres above them.
Carved into the floor at the entrance of the brick red chamber was a giant wiggly line five metres long. Slightly beyond that, was ancient text carved into the ground.
"Little girl, come here. This is what I need you for." Mendoza ordered, and a Mossad man pushed Lily towards the carving.
"What does it say?" Mendoza inquired.
"Dayah Minyah…carpet snake." Lily answered.
"How is that significant? And how do we continue?"
"Well the Dayah Minyah people are part of an Aboriginal Dreamtime story…in the story they came to Uluru from the waterholes of the southeast."
"Idraulico, bring me your compass."
Compass in hand, Mendoza led the thirteen-strong group to the southeastern pond. He shined his halogen torch down into the murky depths and saw that about two metres down into the water there was a hole that was two metres in diameter.
"Did anyone bring any diving equipment?" Mendoza asked, clearly frustrated at this unexpected challenge. Muniz stepped forward, removing a pony bottle from his combat gear.
"Grabbed this off the Kiwi's plane. Here, scope out the tunnel." Muniz said, turning towards one of his Mossad men and throwing the small air tank to him. The Mossad man dived into the water and swam into the tunnel.
Three minutes later he was back.
"It's not very far. You only need to hold your breath to make it to the other side. It's 60 metres tops." He panted, slightly out of breath.
"Then we all go unaided. Give the tank to the girl to use just in case." Mendoza ordered.
One by one the thirteen people swam through the comparatively large tunnel, all emerging in a pond similarly sized to the one they entered through. Looking around with torches, the group found they were in the centre of a room forty metres wide and long, and five high.
The group emerged from the water and stood on the stone surface around the pond. As their collective weight combined, the edge of the pond sunk ever so slightly.
"Did you feel that?' Iolanthe whispered to Jack.
"We just activated some sort of trap, I bet. Do you see anything?" Jack whispered back.
Gunfire erupted around Jack and Iolanthe. The Mossad men were shooting at something several metres away. The torches on their weapons revealed the men's target.
"Snakes! Hundreds of them!" Lily shouted.
"Where do we go? Look for the clue, girl!" Mendoza commanded.
"Wait a minute! These snakes – they're dead. Hold your fire!" Muniz said, puzzled by the failed trap system. "They only seemed to be moving because they were sliding off of the piles of other snakes, look."
The group looked around and saw that the Mossad leader was right. Several piles of dead snakes littered the floor under holes in the ceiling above them. Some snakes were still falling out and sliding off of the piles.
"Something must have eaten their food supply." Lily observed, looking around. Under the glow of one of the Mossad's torches, she saw an engraved clue in the floor nearby.
"Mala…the wallaby people. Forget the snakes, we can continue now. Head for the north western corner of the room." Lily said, glaring at the man who had ordered her around.
Arriving at the north western corner, the group noticed that not a single snake lay nearby. At the centre of the snake-less area, truncating the walls in front of them was a stone wall a three metres wide and reaching to the ceiling covering what was presumably an entrance into the flat wall behind it.
Next to the slab, about two feet away, was a trigger stone jutting out of the wall. It was a foot square, and seemingly suspended two metres above the ground by something inside.
"We must have to lower the stone to release the slab." Jack thought aloud.
"You two, do it." Muniz demanded of two of his smaller Mossad underlings. They approached the trigger stone and attempted to pull it down, having to hang from it to do so. With a short period of resistance, the stone began to lower. Consequently, the stone wall raised into the wall it was set into. The tunnel behind it was merely a metre high.
"West, you head in first. Muniz, you follow him. The girls will go after, followed by myself and the rest of the soldiers. Your two men activating from the stone will remain here so we can exit later." Mendoza commanded, sounding remarkably self important considering not five minutes before he was screaming at the sight of a hundred dead snakes.
The group crouched and awkwardly navigated the small tunnel. For over a hundred metres they walked, hunched over and knees bent.
"You know, in the Dreamtime story, the women weren't supposed to head into the trials at Uluru." Lily whispered to Iolanthe.
"You don't think they can detect whether or not women are present in the chambers, do you Lily?" Iolanthe asked, slightly worried about the small cramped space.
"I sure hope not, because in the story a giant hairless dingo was conjured by sorcerers to attack them."
"Well that's good. I thought you might have said something that was real." Iolanthe chuckled, amused by the seemingly far-fetched tales of the ancient Aboriginal Australians.
After several minutes of crouched walking, the group emerged in a chamber that, unlike the rest of the rooms so far, was silver. The Mossad torches shone off the metal coloured stone, and came to rest in the middle of the room, where upon a metal pyramid rested a purple hued pillar.
"The Primori Rexus…I've found it…" Mendoza gasped. He walked along the twenty metre path to the pyramid, which rose ten metres above the floor. In each of its four silvery sides was a set of stairs that would take one to the pillar above.
Mendoza ascended the stairs, and reached for the pillar, but on the last step, he had a sinking feeling. Confused, Mendoza looked below and saw that the step on which he stood had lowered to match the height of the step before it. Suddenly, a grating of stone on stone was heard and a loud growl petered out from somewhere in the chamber. All of the soldiers turned, shining their torches in the direction of the sound. All of them saw at once the bloody stains around the three metre square opening to the left of the pyramid.
Two Mossad men crept towards the opening, guns trained on the darkness beyond and ears straining for another growl. The other two took their comrade's flank, heading in a long arc around the pyramid. The Italian soldiers stayed to prevent Jack, Iolanthe and Lily from running.
The flanking of the Mossad men proved to be their undoing. Iolanthe spotted movement near them, and from the shadows leapt a huge creature. Its sharp claws tore into the man it landed on, and its razor-sharp teeth easily bit the head off of the man standing next to him, before either could even scream.
The surviving Mossad men and Muniz began shooting at the creature. Muniz couldn't believe his eyes. He was shooting at a seven foot tall, black, hairless dog!
"Its the Kurpannga!" Lily screamed, and Iolanthe instantly knew what she was talking about. Suddenly those Dreamtime stories didn't seem so far-fetched.
The Kurpannga bounded across the room with great speed, the bullets merely hindering its progress. It clawed through one of the Mossad men who had headed towards its den, while the other rolled out of the way. He fired several shots into the monstrous animal's chest before he too was slashed.
The Kurpannga bit into the dying man's leg when a fwoomping sound nearby drew its attention. A second later an explosion ripped through the Dreamtime creature, and it flew metres into the air before landing on its neck with a horrible sickening crack.
Muniz looked at his kill with pride, and removed the spent cartridge from the M203 grenade launcher joined to the barrel of his M4A1 assault rifle. A smell of burning flesh permeated the air.
Above the group and safe from danger Mendoza had retrieved the Primori Rexus from its mount at the summit of the pyramid. He headed down to the group and surveyed the surviving people: Jack, Iolanthe, Lily, Muniz and his two Carabinieri soldiers.
"Well it seems we have some losses. Not that it matters, now I have the Primori Rexus. Muniz, you can take the first part of your payment now if you like, I will wait for you in the plane. Uomini, vieni con me." Mendoza announced. He left the room, his two Carabinieri following behind him.
Jack stared at Muniz. "I can guess what this part of your payment is."
Muniz smiled evilly. "Oh I bet you can. Here's your reward for such an accurate guess. On your knees."
Muniz pointed his M4A1 at Jack, who very unwillingly knelt down, looking at Lily and Iolanthe. "You two as well. I didn't ask for you, but I'll take it as a bonus." Muniz commanded. Lily and Iolanthe did so. Just as Muniz was about to fire, a voice sounded out from the entrance to the chamber.
"Your payment has been denied, Muniz!" He turned towards the source of the interruption and his gun was impacted by a bullet, which ricocheted and grazed Muniz's neck. Muniz slumped to the ground, bleeding profusely. Jack turned to see his savior and could only smile.