City of the Beasts (26 page)

But on the heights of the
tepui
, the body of Nadia began to call her back, reclaiming her. Oxygen flowing to her brain carried with it a sensation of physical reality. The water she'd drunk furnished the energy she needed to move. So finally Nadia's spirit made the reverse journey: again it flew like an arrow through the opening in the void back into the glorious dome where it floated a few instants in limitless white, then passed into the form of the eagle. It fought to resist the temptation to glide forever on the wind and with a last effort returned to the body of the girl. Once again, Nadia was sitting on top of the world, looking all around.

Nadia was at the highest point on a large mesa, encircled by the silence of the clouds. Although she could not see the true height or expanse of where she was, it was her impression that the hollow center of the
tepui
was small in comparison with the size of the mountain that contained it. The terrain she could see, partly smooth rock and in other places covered with thick growth, was rough, with deep crevices. She felt sure that it would be a long time before the steel birds of the
nahab
explored this place, because landing here would be unthinkable even for a helicopter, as was the near impossibility of walking across that irregular surface. She felt her confidence weaken. She could look for the nest the rest of her days without finding it among all these fissures, but then she remembered that Walimai had pointed out exactly where to climb. She rested a moment, then started off, up and down, from rock to rock, driven by some unknown force, with a kind of instinctive certainty.

She did not have to go far. Fairly near, in a cleft among large rocks, she found the nest, and in it the three crystal eggs. They were smaller, with more sparkle, than the ones in her vision. Wondrous.

Taking a thousand precautions to keep from slipping into one of the deep fissures where she would have broken every bone in her body, Nadia crawled to the nest. Her fingers closed over the gleaming perfection of one crystal egg, but she could not pick it up. Surprised, she tried a different one. She could not move it, either, nor the third. How was it possible that objects the size of a toucan's egg should weigh so much? What was happening? She examined them closely, turning them over and over. She could see that they were not glued or screwed down; just the opposite, they seemed almost to be floating on their cushion of twigs and feathers. Nadia sat down on a nearby rock, confused by why that was, unable to believe that this whole adventure, all the effort it had taken to get here, was for nothing. She had found the superhuman strength to climb like a lizard up the internal walls of the
tepui
, but now that she was finally at the top, she didn't have the strength to budge the treasure she had come to find.

Nadia hesitated quite some time, upset and with no idea of how to solve this puzzle. Suddenly it came to her that the eggs belonged to someone. Maybe the Beasts had put them there, but they might also belong to some fabled creature, a bird, or a reptile like the dragons. If that were the case, the mother could appear at any moment, and when she found an intruder near her nest she would launch an attack with justifiable fury. She couldn't stay there, she decided, but neither did she intend to give up the eggs. Walimai had said that she could not return with empty hands. What else had the shaman told her? That she had to be back before nightfall. And then she remembered what the witch man had taught her the day before: the law of giving and receiving. For everything you take, you have to give something in return.

She looked herself over. She didn't have anything to give. All she had was her T-shirt, her shorts, and the basket strapped to her back. As she checked her body, she saw for the first time the scratches, bruises, and cuts inflicted by the rocks as she had climbed the mountain. Her blood, in which the vital energy that had allowed her to reach this goal was concentrated, was probably the only valuable she possessed. She stepped closer, holding her injured body so her blood would drip onto the nest. A few red drops splashed on the soft feathers. As she bent over, she felt the talisman on her chest and realized in a flash that this was the price she would have to pay for the eggs. No, she thought. To sacrifice it meant giving up the prodigious powers of protection she attributed to the carved bone, the shaman's gift. She had never had anything as magical as that amulet. It was much more important to her than the eggs, whose purpose she could not even guess. No, she couldn't give up her talisman, she decided.

Nadia closed her eyes, completely spent, as the sun filtering through the clouds began to change color. For an instant, the hallucination of the
ayahuasca
dream she had experienced during Mokarita's funeral returned, and she was once again the eagle soaring through a white sky, gliding on the wind, light and powerful. From above, she saw the eggs glittering in the nest, just as in the vision, and she experienced the same conviction she had then: Those eggs would save the People of the Mist. At last she sighed and opened her eyes. She removed the talisman from her neck and placed it in the nest. Then she reached out and touched one of them; this time she lifted it with no effort at all. The other two were equally easy to take. She placed all three carefully in her basket and was ready to climb down the way she had come up. There was still sunlight in the clouds; she realized that the descent would have to be very quick if she was to be back before nightfall, as Walimai had warned her.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Water of Health

AS NADIA WAS climbing to the top of the
tepui
, Alexander was wiggling down a narrow passage into the womb of the earth, a closed, hot, dark, throbbing world like his worst nightmares. If he at least had a flashlight! He had to grope his way, sometimes on hands and knees, sometimes scooting forward on his belly in total shadow. His eyes could not adjust because the darkness was absolute. He held out a hand, felt along the rock to estimate the direction and width of the tunnel, then moved forward inch by inch, slithering like a snake. The farther he went, the narrower the tunnel seemed to grow, and he feared he would not be able to turn around to go back. The supply of air was choking and foul; it was like being buried. His jaguar attributes would not be any help; here he needed a different totemic animal, maybe a mole or a mouse or a worm.

He stopped more than once with the intention of turning back before it was too late, but each time he kept going, spurred by memories of his mother. With every minute that went by, his chest grew tighter and his terror more intense. Again he heard the mute galloping of his heart that he had heard in the labyrinth with Walimai. His crazed mind ran through the list of dangers that lay in store, the worst of all being buried alive in the entrails of this mountain. How long was this tunnel? Would he make it to the end or meet defeat along the way? Would there be enough oxygen or would he suffocate?

Alexander simply collapsed facedown, bone weary, moaning. His muscles were tense, blood was pounding at his temples, every nerve was raw with pain. He couldn't think, he felt as if his head was going to burst from lack of air. He had never been so afraid, not even during the long night of his initiation among the Indians. He tried to remember what he had felt when he was hanging from a rope on El Capitán, but it wasn't comparable. Then he was at the top of a mountain, now he was deep inside one. There he had been with his father; here he was absolutely alone. He gave in to his despair, trembling, beyond exhaustion. For an eternity, darkness penetrated his brain and he lost his purpose, voicelessly summoning death, defeated. And then as his spirit faded into the shadows, his father's voice cut through the fog in his brain, first as a nearly imperceptible whisper, then more clearly. What had his father told him so many times when he was teaching him to climb?
Be calm, Alexander. Seek your center, that's where your strength is. Breathe. When you inhale, you are charged with energy, when you exhale, you rid your body of tension; relax. Don't think. Obey your instinct
. This was what he himself had counseled Nadia as they were climbing to the Eye of the World, how had he forgotten?

He concentrated on breathing: inhale energy, ignore the lack of oxygen; exhale terror; relax, reject the negative thoughts paralyzing him. "I can do it, I can do it…" he repeated. Gradually he returned to his body. He visualized his toes and relaxed them one by one, then his legs, his knees, his hips, his back, his arms, down to the tips of his fingers, his neck, his jaw, his eyelids. Now that he could breathe more easily, he stopped sobbing. He located his center, a red, vibrant place at the level of his navel. He listened to his heartbeats. He felt a tickling on his skin, then warmth through his veins, and, finally, strength returning to his senses and his brain.

Alexander uttered a cry of relief. After a few seconds, the sound bounced against something and came back to his ears. He remembered that this was the principle of bats' sonar, what allowed them to find their way in the dark. He repeated the cry, hoping it would indicate distance and direction, and that way he could hear with his heart, as Nadia had so often told him. He had found the way to navigate in blackness.

The remainder of the journey through the tunnel passed in a state of semiconsciousness in which his body moved on its own, as if it knew the way. From time to time Alex connected briefly with his logical brain and with a spark of intelligence deduced that the air filled with unknown gases must be affecting his mind. Later he would think he had lived a dream.

When it seemed that the narrow passageway would never end, Alexander heard the sound of water, like a river, and a mouthful of warm air reached his gasping lungs. That renewed his strength. He pushed forward, and at a turn of the tunnel noted that his eyes could make out something in the darkness: a light, at first very faint, slowly growing stronger. He pulled himself on, hopeful because there was light and air. He was in a cave that must somehow be connected with the outside because it was weakly illuminated. A strange odor met his nostrils, persistent, slightly nauseating, like vinegar and rotten flowers. This cave had the same formations of glittering minerals he had seen in the labyrinth. The clean facets of these structures were like mirrors, reflecting and multiplying the faint light that penetrated from outside. He was at the edge of a small lake fed by a stream of white water that reminded him of skim milk. Coming from the tomb where he had been, that white lake and river were the most beautiful things he had ever seen. Could this be the fountain of eternal youth? The odor was sickening; he thought it must be from some gas emitted from the depths of the Earth, maybe a toxic gas that dulled your brain.

A whispery, caressing voice caught his attention. Surprised, he saw something on the far shore of the little lake, maybe twenty feet away, and when his pupils adjusted to the new light of the cave, he glimpsed a human figure. He could not see it clearly, but the form and voice belonged to a girl. Impossible, he said, sirens don't exist. I'm going nuts. It's the gas, the smell. But the girl seemed real enough: her long hair swished, her skin radiated light, her gestures were human, her voice was seductive. Alex wanted to dive into the white water and drink till his thirst was satisfied and to wash off the dirt that covered him from head to foot, as well as the blood from the scrapes on his elbows and knees. The temptation to go to the beautiful creature calling to him, and to give himself to that pleasure, was unbearable. At the moment he started toward the apparition, he saw that she looked exactly like Cecilia Burns: the same chestnut hair, the same blue eyes, the same languid movements. Some part of his brain warned him that the siren was a mirage, a creation of his mind, like the filmy jellyfish floating in the pale air of the cavern. He remembered what he had heard about the mythology of the Indians, the stories Walimai had told them about the origins of the universe and the River of Milk that contained all the seeds of life but also decay and death. No, this was not the miraculous water that would restore his mother to health, he decided; this was a trick of his mind to distract him from his mission. There was no time to lose, every minute was precious. He tied his T-shirt over his nose, battling the penetrating, dizzying fragrance. He turned toward a narrow ledge that ran along the edge of the lake and followed the stream out of sight.

Alexander took that path, leaving the lake and the miraculous apparition of the girl behind. He was amazed that the pale light persisted; at least now he was not dragging himself along in the dark. The aroma was growing fainter, and before long it vanished. He walked as fast as he could, bent over, trying not to bang his head against the ceiling of the cavern, and concentrating on keeping his balance on the narrow overhang, fearing that if he fell into the river below he might be dragged away by the current. He regretted that he did not have time to investigate that white liquid that resembled milk but had the smell of salad dressing.