7
Payahuatac's Revenge
Jones gazed up through the skylight at the azure above for a brief moment, hoping it wouldn't be the last time he would ever see anything outside of this tomb. Then he squared his fedora, and cautiously began to descend the stone steps.
It was a long descent. The steps grew darker as he went. He hadn't any flares left, and had lost his torch long ago, and so he had only what little light filtered down from above. But after a time the steps ended in a corridor which, after a short distance, made a right angle bend. Jones followed the passage to the bend, turned, and came upon a blank wall.
His hands went to the wall immediately and he felt along the stones. The archaeologist's hands moved over their surface with practiced efficiency. Jones knew what he was looking for.
"There!" he exclaimed after less than one minute, the smile on his face barely perceptible in the dim light.
He pushed hard on one of the smaller, uppers stones. This had the effect of causing one of the large lower stones to move slightly outward, in his direction. The archaeologist grasped a hold of the larger stone and pulled. The stone was awkwardly shaped, and heavy, and it moved only millimeters with each pull. But eventually it came out and clunked down onto the floor of the corridor, leaving a wide hole in the wall.
"You need to do a better job of covering your tracks next time fellas," he spoke, in reference to the ancient Inca builders, allowing himself a moment of self indulgence. But then it was back to the business at hand.
He squatted down and looked into the opening. A thin point of light emanated, about 25 meters distant, at the far end of a long corridor. The light was faint, but it was there. Jones crawled through the opening, stood up and moved in the direction of the light. Wary of any booby traps, he advanced cautiously.
After a short distance the passage narrowed considerably, the walls drawing inward, closer to him. With each step the distance between the walls diminished until before long he had to turn his body sideways to move forward. The feeling was claustrophobic, and it slowed his progress, especially since his body became jammed more than once as he sidled on, deeper into the tomb. The ceiling also began to grow lower the further he progressed and he had to bend down more and more in order to continue. It was obvious that the builders hadn't intended this passage to be used too often. Jones thought he knew why, and he hoped to confirm it soon enough. Before long, Indiana Jones found himself lying on his side, pulling himself forward along the stone floor of the corridor, now more tunnel than corridor. The efforts of his exertions caused a sweat to break out on his brow, and he breathed deeply, pulling more of the thin Andean air, stale here in this subterranean tomb, into his lungs as he inched forward towards the point of light ahead. The passage finally terminated in a tiny crawl space of blank stone wall. There was barely enough room for him to move, and certainly no room to turn around. If he was going to go back out the way he came, it would be only by snaking himself backward, he knew that. But the floor of the crawl space had a gap in it between the stones, and it was through this gap that the light emanated.
Indy peered down through the gap. There was a chamber immediately below him. The chamber was small, but it was bathed in a shimmering, incandescent light; a luminous, golden fog that permeated throughout. The gap was narrow, just barely wide enough to squeeze through, and Jones could only get through by removing his belt, whip, and leather satchel. This he did, tying them together on to the rope he still carried in his pack, and dropping them down into the chamber before he squeezed his own body through head first.
He landed with a thud on the floor. He now found himself in a very small chamber with a low ceiling. Both floor and ceiling consisted of long stone slabs laid at right angles to the walls. The chamber was lit by an incandescent, golden light that surged up from below through gaps in the stone floor, just as in the corridor above. But the light here was brighter.
Indiana Jones knelt down on the cold stone of the chamber floor and gazed downward through the gap. A moment later a triumphant smile spread across his face as he looked straight into the emerald eyes on the face of the Death Mask of Payuhuatac. The dazzling, jeweled eyes of the mask stared back up at him unblinking, unseeing, unaware of the archaeologist who'd found his way into the Prince's final resting place.
Or perhaps he wasn't so unaware, Jones thought. As he considered the situation, and the path he'd just taken to reach the burial chamber he knew that most probably this had been the route the builders had taken to get out ...after setting the last of the booby traps. Jones couldn't believe that it would be just this easy, and tempered his elation at having found the chamber, with the caution of experience.
He stood up to put his belt back on, replete with Webley in holster and ever-present and reliable bullwhip fastened in the back. Then he knelt back down and again peered into the room below.
The mask sat atop a simple, stone sarcophagus. Indeed it seemed almost out of place in what was an otherwise unremarkable burial chamber. The mask, adorned with gemstones and jade, with its gilded face frozen in a perpetually scowling grimace, sat atop the center of the sarcophagus rather than at the head. The sarcophagus sat atop a simple altar in the center of the chamber which was flanked by two mummies, one on either side.
"Guardians," Jones mumbled.
The walls of the chamber were painted all around with traditional Inca patterns. On each of the four walls were two small, angled gold plated panels. It was from these panels that the golden light that softly bathed the chamber emanated. The concentrated beam of sunlight that had been channeled down into the tomb from the mirrors above, struck the first golden panel, which splashed the light to the others in a chain reaction of luminescence that lit up the final resting place of Prince Payahuatac with the glow of the warm sun, far above. The last of the panels focused the light directly on to the mask so that indeed, 'forever shall the light of the sun shine on the face of Payahuatac'.
"Forever ends today," Jones said, as he finished fastening his line with a double hitch around one of the long stone slabs that formed the burial chamber's ceiling. He then dropped the line down through the gap in the stones. The end of the line fell almost to the altar, its tip swinging just a few inches above the glimmering, scowl of Payahuatac's death mask.
"From now on 'shall the light of a museum display case shine on the face of Payahuatac'."
Indiana Jones squeezed his body through the gap in the stones and slowly descended the hanging rope. With one boot hooked around the other, and the line in between, he slowly lowered himself into the burial chamber. It was no more than five meters down to where the mask sat atop the sarcophagus and in just a few seconds he was positioned where he needed to be to reach it.
Carefully he angled his body until he was nearly perpendicular with the rope. Then with his feet still firmly locked on to the line, he angled himself down further. His upper hand held tightly, letting go for a fractions of a second at a time, inching down to allow him to reach ever further with his lower hand for that which he had come so far to obtain. His eyes shone with determination, but also wariness. They darted about the chamber. His muscles were taut, as ready as could be for what danger may shortly come. The Inca Builders had thus far proven themselves both cunning, and deadly. Jones just hoped he could match that with wits, experience, and reflexes, though he knew the latter of the three weren't exactly what they used to be.
Eventually he was in a position that was very nearly upside down, and his fingers were but inches from the scowling, gilded, bejeweled object of his quest. With one final furtive glance around the chamber he lunged the last few inches and snatched up the prize.
The loud clicking sound he heard as the mask was removed from its position on the sarcophagus elicited a groan from Indiana Jones. A fraction of a moment later he heard something even more ominous, the low rumble of moving stone somewhere behind the wall of the chamber, followed by a hissing that began quietly, but within seconds grew louder.
Frantically he struggled to right himself with his one free hand. The other clutched tightly to the golden prize.
THHHHHHHHHH!!!
The sound of increasing air pressure lent impetus to his efforts.
THHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
But he wasn't quite fast enough.
THHHHHOOOOOOOK!!!!!!!
The heavy dart whistled past his upside-down face so fast that he barely saw it. A gust of wind attested to its velocity.
"Shit!"
THHHHHHHHHH!!
Jones could only curse as he continued his frenetic efforts to right himself on the line. He briefly considered discarding the precious death mask in order to free up both hands for his escape, but before he could make up his mind the Incas decided for him.
THHHHHHHOOOOOK!!!!!!!
CLANG!!!!
The next dart struck the death mask with a power and force that stunned the archaeologist. The object flew from his hand, reflecting alternating, strobe-like flashes of brilliant golden light on to the chamber walls as it twirled through the air. It landed on the floor and wobbled ungracefully on its edge into the corner.
Jones' descent was less spectacular. The jarring impact of the dart as it struck the mask in his hand spun him around in a crazy arc. Not only was the golden mask loosed from his lower hand, so too was the rope from his upper. He fell clumsily, bouncing on his back atop the lid of the sarcophagus before rolling off the edge of the altar and into the cold embrace of one of the guardian mummies.
Jones fell right on top of the stoic, bundled, little sentinel and rolled over. When he looked up he found himself staring into unseeing shiny obsidian eyes, while wrinkled, black, leathery lips pressed against his own. At once he felt disgusted and violated. He pushed the filthy relic away, lifting it off of him.
THHHHHOOOOOOK!!!!!!
Another of the heavy darts was propelled forth from the chamber's walls. It struck squarely into the head of the mummy that Jones now held. Its brittle old gourd exploded in a shower of rancid fragments and time-rotted dust, some of which fell into the open mouth of Indiana Jones.
The archaeologist wretched and spit violently while hurling the remains of the mummy across the chamber. He started to get up, but the hissing sound of another dart prompted him to throw himself back down to the floor. He remained prone as the hissing and whirring of seven more darts cut through the stale, golden air of the burial chamber, whistling overhead on their deadly trajectories.
After a time the volleys of projectiles seemed to come to a stop. But Jones continued to lay prone. He dared not get up off the floor. Instead he crawled his way across the cold stones to reach the corner where the object of his quest, now dented from the impact of the dart, lay.
Indy surveyed the damage to the mask in a few seconds and deemed it irrelevant; might even make for a good story, he thought. As often as not, the strangest of thoughts seemed to come at the strangest of times, and Jones couldn't help thinking that maybe Payahuatac's mask had saved him; purposely blocking the dart. Maybe Payahuatac wanted to be in a museum, wanted to be famous, wanted to be in a museum where the general public could come and view his terrible beauty and marvel at his splendorous, jewel encrusted, old mug.
A new sound, far more ominous than any others he'd heard so far, suddenly interrupted his strange musings and thrust him back to the reality of the situation. With cold clarity he discerned the meshing of huge stone gears coming together somewhere; no doubt coming together to deliver the final death blow to he who dared intrude into the sacred chamber. Jones hurriedly thrust Payahuatac's mask into his leather satchel and prepared for the worst.
All at once the ground beneath him began to tremble violently. The violence of the tremor threw him to the ground. A moment and a half later the floor of the tomb literally began to drop away. Starting near the altar and moving towards him in the corner of the chamber, the gigantic stone slabs that made up the floor began to just fall away. With deafening gnashing and grinding sounds the blocks disappeared below, falling down into an abyss of darkness.
Jones fought his way back to his feet. His eyes searched around frantically as he watched the destruction of the floor moving inexorably towards him. His eyes locked on to his rope, still dangling above the altar. He'd never make the jump though, that was obvious. The distance was at least six meters, and widening by the moment as more of the floor dropped away. But there was nowhere else to run.
He backed himself up against the wall. Perhaps he could wait it out, he thought; perhaps the few square meters on which he stood would be spared the sudden maelstrom of destruction; perhaps not.
More tremors and thunderous crashing shook the chamber as more of the floor dropped away before him. Within a few more seconds Indy found himself with no more than two meters of floor left to stand on. He could clearly see the large blocks of stone dropping into the void, losing sight of them in the darkness long before they landed.
His eyes went back to the rope, which still dangled tantalizingly close, but too far to jump. Then his hand went to his whip. Jones pulled the old reliable bullwhip from his belt and deftly unraveled it. He braced his back against the wall, leaned forward and hurled the sinewy leather with the carefully honed skill that had saved his carcass more than once before.
Despite his skill with the whip though, the rope wasn't a stationary target. Indiana Jones flailed the whip over and over, and though he found the mark every time, as often as not the tip of the leather failed to grip on to the hemp. And the times that it did grip, when he pulled to tighten it, the leather would slip back off.
Another meter of floor disappeared and he was now standing on nothing more than a narrow ledge. With desperation he stroked the leather through the dusty air of the trembling chamber again. Again it found the hemp and wrapped around. But Jones wouldn't get a chance to pull it tight, because the last of the floor gave way beneath his feet, and he plunged downward.
Payahuatac's Revenge
Jones gazed up through the skylight at the azure above for a brief moment, hoping it wouldn't be the last time he would ever see anything outside of this tomb. Then he squared his fedora, and cautiously began to descend the stone steps.
It was a long descent. The steps grew darker as he went. He hadn't any flares left, and had lost his torch long ago, and so he had only what little light filtered down from above. But after a time the steps ended in a corridor which, after a short distance, made a right angle bend. Jones followed the passage to the bend, turned, and came upon a blank wall.
His hands went to the wall immediately and he felt along the stones. The archaeologist's hands moved over their surface with practiced efficiency. Jones knew what he was looking for.
"There!" he exclaimed after less than one minute, the smile on his face barely perceptible in the dim light.
He pushed hard on one of the smaller, uppers stones. This had the effect of causing one of the large lower stones to move slightly outward, in his direction. The archaeologist grasped a hold of the larger stone and pulled. The stone was awkwardly shaped, and heavy, and it moved only millimeters with each pull. But eventually it came out and clunked down onto the floor of the corridor, leaving a wide hole in the wall.
"You need to do a better job of covering your tracks next time fellas," he spoke, in reference to the ancient Inca builders, allowing himself a moment of self indulgence. But then it was back to the business at hand.
He squatted down and looked into the opening. A thin point of light emanated, about 25 meters distant, at the far end of a long corridor. The light was faint, but it was there. Jones crawled through the opening, stood up and moved in the direction of the light. Wary of any booby traps, he advanced cautiously.
After a short distance the passage narrowed considerably, the walls drawing inward, closer to him. With each step the distance between the walls diminished until before long he had to turn his body sideways to move forward. The feeling was claustrophobic, and it slowed his progress, especially since his body became jammed more than once as he sidled on, deeper into the tomb. The ceiling also began to grow lower the further he progressed and he had to bend down more and more in order to continue. It was obvious that the builders hadn't intended this passage to be used too often. Jones thought he knew why, and he hoped to confirm it soon enough. Before long, Indiana Jones found himself lying on his side, pulling himself forward along the stone floor of the corridor, now more tunnel than corridor. The efforts of his exertions caused a sweat to break out on his brow, and he breathed deeply, pulling more of the thin Andean air, stale here in this subterranean tomb, into his lungs as he inched forward towards the point of light ahead. The passage finally terminated in a tiny crawl space of blank stone wall. There was barely enough room for him to move, and certainly no room to turn around. If he was going to go back out the way he came, it would be only by snaking himself backward, he knew that. But the floor of the crawl space had a gap in it between the stones, and it was through this gap that the light emanated.
Indy peered down through the gap. There was a chamber immediately below him. The chamber was small, but it was bathed in a shimmering, incandescent light; a luminous, golden fog that permeated throughout. The gap was narrow, just barely wide enough to squeeze through, and Jones could only get through by removing his belt, whip, and leather satchel. This he did, tying them together on to the rope he still carried in his pack, and dropping them down into the chamber before he squeezed his own body through head first.
He landed with a thud on the floor. He now found himself in a very small chamber with a low ceiling. Both floor and ceiling consisted of long stone slabs laid at right angles to the walls. The chamber was lit by an incandescent, golden light that surged up from below through gaps in the stone floor, just as in the corridor above. But the light here was brighter.
Indiana Jones knelt down on the cold stone of the chamber floor and gazed downward through the gap. A moment later a triumphant smile spread across his face as he looked straight into the emerald eyes on the face of the Death Mask of Payuhuatac. The dazzling, jeweled eyes of the mask stared back up at him unblinking, unseeing, unaware of the archaeologist who'd found his way into the Prince's final resting place.
Or perhaps he wasn't so unaware, Jones thought. As he considered the situation, and the path he'd just taken to reach the burial chamber he knew that most probably this had been the route the builders had taken to get out ...after setting the last of the booby traps. Jones couldn't believe that it would be just this easy, and tempered his elation at having found the chamber, with the caution of experience.
He stood up to put his belt back on, replete with Webley in holster and ever-present and reliable bullwhip fastened in the back. Then he knelt back down and again peered into the room below.
The mask sat atop a simple, stone sarcophagus. Indeed it seemed almost out of place in what was an otherwise unremarkable burial chamber. The mask, adorned with gemstones and jade, with its gilded face frozen in a perpetually scowling grimace, sat atop the center of the sarcophagus rather than at the head. The sarcophagus sat atop a simple altar in the center of the chamber which was flanked by two mummies, one on either side.
"Guardians," Jones mumbled.
The walls of the chamber were painted all around with traditional Inca patterns. On each of the four walls were two small, angled gold plated panels. It was from these panels that the golden light that softly bathed the chamber emanated. The concentrated beam of sunlight that had been channeled down into the tomb from the mirrors above, struck the first golden panel, which splashed the light to the others in a chain reaction of luminescence that lit up the final resting place of Prince Payahuatac with the glow of the warm sun, far above. The last of the panels focused the light directly on to the mask so that indeed, 'forever shall the light of the sun shine on the face of Payahuatac'.
"Forever ends today," Jones said, as he finished fastening his line with a double hitch around one of the long stone slabs that formed the burial chamber's ceiling. He then dropped the line down through the gap in the stones. The end of the line fell almost to the altar, its tip swinging just a few inches above the glimmering, scowl of Payahuatac's death mask.
"From now on 'shall the light of a museum display case shine on the face of Payahuatac'."
Indiana Jones squeezed his body through the gap in the stones and slowly descended the hanging rope. With one boot hooked around the other, and the line in between, he slowly lowered himself into the burial chamber. It was no more than five meters down to where the mask sat atop the sarcophagus and in just a few seconds he was positioned where he needed to be to reach it.
Carefully he angled his body until he was nearly perpendicular with the rope. Then with his feet still firmly locked on to the line, he angled himself down further. His upper hand held tightly, letting go for a fractions of a second at a time, inching down to allow him to reach ever further with his lower hand for that which he had come so far to obtain. His eyes shone with determination, but also wariness. They darted about the chamber. His muscles were taut, as ready as could be for what danger may shortly come. The Inca Builders had thus far proven themselves both cunning, and deadly. Jones just hoped he could match that with wits, experience, and reflexes, though he knew the latter of the three weren't exactly what they used to be.
Eventually he was in a position that was very nearly upside down, and his fingers were but inches from the scowling, gilded, bejeweled object of his quest. With one final furtive glance around the chamber he lunged the last few inches and snatched up the prize.
The loud clicking sound he heard as the mask was removed from its position on the sarcophagus elicited a groan from Indiana Jones. A fraction of a moment later he heard something even more ominous, the low rumble of moving stone somewhere behind the wall of the chamber, followed by a hissing that began quietly, but within seconds grew louder.
Frantically he struggled to right himself with his one free hand. The other clutched tightly to the golden prize.
THHHHHHHHHH!!!
The sound of increasing air pressure lent impetus to his efforts.
THHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
But he wasn't quite fast enough.
THHHHHOOOOOOOK!!!!!!!
The heavy dart whistled past his upside-down face so fast that he barely saw it. A gust of wind attested to its velocity.
"Shit!"
THHHHHHHHHH!!
Jones could only curse as he continued his frenetic efforts to right himself on the line. He briefly considered discarding the precious death mask in order to free up both hands for his escape, but before he could make up his mind the Incas decided for him.
THHHHHHHOOOOOK!!!!!!!
CLANG!!!!
The next dart struck the death mask with a power and force that stunned the archaeologist. The object flew from his hand, reflecting alternating, strobe-like flashes of brilliant golden light on to the chamber walls as it twirled through the air. It landed on the floor and wobbled ungracefully on its edge into the corner.
Jones' descent was less spectacular. The jarring impact of the dart as it struck the mask in his hand spun him around in a crazy arc. Not only was the golden mask loosed from his lower hand, so too was the rope from his upper. He fell clumsily, bouncing on his back atop the lid of the sarcophagus before rolling off the edge of the altar and into the cold embrace of one of the guardian mummies.
Jones fell right on top of the stoic, bundled, little sentinel and rolled over. When he looked up he found himself staring into unseeing shiny obsidian eyes, while wrinkled, black, leathery lips pressed against his own. At once he felt disgusted and violated. He pushed the filthy relic away, lifting it off of him.
THHHHHOOOOOOK!!!!!!
Another of the heavy darts was propelled forth from the chamber's walls. It struck squarely into the head of the mummy that Jones now held. Its brittle old gourd exploded in a shower of rancid fragments and time-rotted dust, some of which fell into the open mouth of Indiana Jones.
The archaeologist wretched and spit violently while hurling the remains of the mummy across the chamber. He started to get up, but the hissing sound of another dart prompted him to throw himself back down to the floor. He remained prone as the hissing and whirring of seven more darts cut through the stale, golden air of the burial chamber, whistling overhead on their deadly trajectories.
After a time the volleys of projectiles seemed to come to a stop. But Jones continued to lay prone. He dared not get up off the floor. Instead he crawled his way across the cold stones to reach the corner where the object of his quest, now dented from the impact of the dart, lay.
Indy surveyed the damage to the mask in a few seconds and deemed it irrelevant; might even make for a good story, he thought. As often as not, the strangest of thoughts seemed to come at the strangest of times, and Jones couldn't help thinking that maybe Payahuatac's mask had saved him; purposely blocking the dart. Maybe Payahuatac wanted to be in a museum, wanted to be famous, wanted to be in a museum where the general public could come and view his terrible beauty and marvel at his splendorous, jewel encrusted, old mug.
A new sound, far more ominous than any others he'd heard so far, suddenly interrupted his strange musings and thrust him back to the reality of the situation. With cold clarity he discerned the meshing of huge stone gears coming together somewhere; no doubt coming together to deliver the final death blow to he who dared intrude into the sacred chamber. Jones hurriedly thrust Payahuatac's mask into his leather satchel and prepared for the worst.
All at once the ground beneath him began to tremble violently. The violence of the tremor threw him to the ground. A moment and a half later the floor of the tomb literally began to drop away. Starting near the altar and moving towards him in the corner of the chamber, the gigantic stone slabs that made up the floor began to just fall away. With deafening gnashing and grinding sounds the blocks disappeared below, falling down into an abyss of darkness.
Jones fought his way back to his feet. His eyes searched around frantically as he watched the destruction of the floor moving inexorably towards him. His eyes locked on to his rope, still dangling above the altar. He'd never make the jump though, that was obvious. The distance was at least six meters, and widening by the moment as more of the floor dropped away. But there was nowhere else to run.
He backed himself up against the wall. Perhaps he could wait it out, he thought; perhaps the few square meters on which he stood would be spared the sudden maelstrom of destruction; perhaps not.
More tremors and thunderous crashing shook the chamber as more of the floor dropped away before him. Within a few more seconds Indy found himself with no more than two meters of floor left to stand on. He could clearly see the large blocks of stone dropping into the void, losing sight of them in the darkness long before they landed.
His eyes went back to the rope, which still dangled tantalizingly close, but too far to jump. Then his hand went to his whip. Jones pulled the old reliable bullwhip from his belt and deftly unraveled it. He braced his back against the wall, leaned forward and hurled the sinewy leather with the carefully honed skill that had saved his carcass more than once before.
Despite his skill with the whip though, the rope wasn't a stationary target. Indiana Jones flailed the whip over and over, and though he found the mark every time, as often as not the tip of the leather failed to grip on to the hemp. And the times that it did grip, when he pulled to tighten it, the leather would slip back off.
Another meter of floor disappeared and he was now standing on nothing more than a narrow ledge. With desperation he stroked the leather through the dusty air of the trembling chamber again. Again it found the hemp and wrapped around. But Jones wouldn't get a chance to pull it tight, because the last of the floor gave way beneath his feet, and he plunged downward.