Hunt at World's End (5 page)

The high priest shouted orders and the men in the skull masks ran toward Noboru’s hiding place. Gabriel gripped his Colt and charged out of the woods. He was tempted to try to take down some of the men from behind, even up the sides a bit, but instead he headed straight for the lever. He had to stop Joyce’s cage from going into the fire before he could deal with this wouldbe army of the dead.

As he ran, the cage continued its descent toward the flames. On either side of the bowed tree trunks, massive stone counterweights slowly lifted into view, giant tablets carved with hideous, leering faces.

The high priest turned suddenly—Gabriel figured the man must have heard his racing footsteps or spotted him out of the corner of his eye. He frantically barked out a new order and pointed. Four of the masked men broke away from the group heading for Noboru and moved to intercept Gabriel, shouting and swinging their swords above their heads.

Gabriel pulled the trigger of his Colt on the run, knocking the closest of the charging swordsmen off his feet. He smashed mask-first into the ground.

Shots rang out from Noboru’s hiding place as well, as the remaining men reached the edge of the jungle. Two of them fell before the others swarmed into the trees.

Gabriel kept racing for the lever. There were three men still coming at him, and the fastest of them caught up with him when he was two yards short of his goal. The man swung his sword in a wide arc, and Gabriel desperately ducked below it. He swung out with his free hand, burying it deep in the man’s belly. But the next swordsman was right behind him, leaping over his fallen comrade’s body as the man collapsed.

Gabriel fell back, the descending blade narrowly missing him. He continued retreating as the swordsman aggressively bulled forward. The nearest of the posts planted around the perimeter of the clearing was just steps behind him—he could feel the heat from the flames on his back—and he ducked behind it as the blade swept toward his head again. The sword buried itself deep in the wood of the post. As the swordsman tried to yank his blade free, Gabriel threw himself against the post, striking it as hard as he could with his shoulder. The bowl at the top wobbled, then toppled over, showering the man with burning oil. He screamed as his robe burst into flames. He relinquished his sword and staggered blindly away, leaving a flaming trail behind him.

The last of the four swordsmen immediately took his place. He slashed at Gabriel, who leapt to one side, trying to circle around toward the lever again. He heard the gears turning and the links of chain slowly paying out; he could hear Joyce’s muffled screams from within the cage. There was no more time. He swung his Colt up and put a bullet through the forehead of the man’s mask, snatched the man’s sword out of his hand as he fell, and ran all-out for the lever.

As Gabriel neared it, he saw Noboru in the distance, being dragged from his hiding place. The older man
was empty-handed; one of the robed men had seized his gun. But Gabriel knew that didn’t mean he was unarmed. Demonstrating that he’d kept up his combat training even in retirement, Noboru twisted suddenly out of their grasp and in the same fluid motion pulled the long knife from his ankle sheath. He drove it into one masked man’s chest, grabbing the man’s sword with his other hand as he drew his own blade out. When another of the men rushed him, Noboru blocked the man’s thrust with the sword and slashed across his throat with the knife. A spray of blood stained the man’s mask a dark red. Seeing two of their fellows fall in quick succession, the others hesitated, took a step back. Noboru pressed his momentary advantage, letting loose with a martial shout and rushing them with both blades swinging mercilessly.

Gabriel, meanwhile, slid to a stop beside the lever, holstered his Colt, and—with Joyce’s cage less than a half dozen feet above the fire and sinking lower—reached out to take hold of the metal pole. But before he could close his fist around it, a sword sliced toward his arm. He jumped back, turning to face the second swordsman, who’d apparently recovered from the punch to the midsection that had taken him down earlier. Gabriel swung his sword around with both hands on the hilt, but his opponent parried and came back with another thrust. Gabriel knocked the blade aside, then stretched out a leg and kicked the lever back into its upright position. Behind him, the chains halted their descent and the massive counterweights shuddered to a stop. Gabriel swung his sword at his adversary’s neck, but the man met his blade and, kicking out with one sandal-clad foot, shoved the lever forward again. The gears groaned back into motion and the cage started to lower once more.

They chopped at each other, the clash of metal ringing in Gabriel’s ears as he struggled to push the swordsman back. He maneuvered around until the lever was at his back and as his opponent’s blade swept through the air beneath his chin, Gabriel fell backwards against the lever, shoving it to the “off” position. Then he let go of his sword, spun, and grabbed the lever in both hands. He twisted it mightily and yanked it out of its socket. Swinging with all his strength, Gabriel smashed it into the side of the masked swordsman’s head, like a home run hitter aiming for the fences. The pole may not have been a regulation Louisville Slugger, but it packed plenty of heat. The man staggered back, back, teetered on the edge of the flaming pit—and was gone, his passage marked only by a momentary rush of flame and ash from below.

Gabriel looked to the side. The wooden cage was no longer overhead—it was right next to him, and Gabriel could look directly through the side of it into Joyce’s terrified eyes. She was on her knees, and her forehead was glistening with sweat. For that matter, so was his. Her eyes went wide suddenly as she stared past him.
“Ook ow!”

Something slammed into him from behind, knocking him to the ground. He rolled onto his back and saw the high priest standing above him, staff in hand, his eyes flashing with rage. He spun the staff so that the bronze blade at its end was pointing at Gabriel’s chest. Gabriel rolled, and the blade sank into the ground behind him. He grabbed the sword he’d dropped and scrambled to his feet.

The high priest pulled the blade free and charged him, holding the staff like a bayonet. Gabriel parried with the sword, knocking the staff aside, but the man kept coming, striking at him with the side of the staff
and trying to bring the blade around for another thrust. Gabriel knocked it aside each time, stepping backward to buy some room, until he felt the intense heat of the fire pit at his back. He knew he must be close to the edge—he could feel the heat melting through the heels of his boots.

The high priest thrust his staff at him again, and this time Gabriel swung his sword down from above, driving the bronze blade to the ground. As it jabbed into the dirt, Gabriel lunged forward, grabbed hold of the shaft, and pulled it toward him, wedging one foot against the base to serve as a fulcrum. The high priest made the mistake of clinging to the staff stubbornly—as Gabriel had hoped he would—and went up in the air as Gabriel dragged the staff toward him. By the time the high priest realized he should have let go, it was too late: Gabriel had pivoted, and the man was dangling by his hands above the pit.

“Stop!”

The voice came from twenty yards away, the opposite end of the clearing, and Gabriel looked up to see Noboru with a curved sword at his throat, each of his arms held in the tight grip of one of the skull-face acolytes.

“I’m sorry, Gabriel,” he called. “I tried—”

“Silence.”
The man holding the sword to his throat shouted to Gabriel: “If you let him drop, your friend dies. Both of your friends, and then you.” His accent was thick—but Gabriel had no difficulty understanding what he was saying.

What Gabriel was having difficulty doing was keeping the staff from sinking in his arms. The high priest wasn’t a small man, and that damn headdress must have weighed fifteen pounds by itself. He tried not to let the strain show in his voice. “And if I don’t?” Gabriel
called. “If I let him go? Free, I mean. Let him go free, not let him go into the pit.”

There was some angry muttering among the robed men, but the one who had spoken silenced them with a gesture. “If you let him go, we let you go.”

“You first,” Gabriel said. The man didn’t lower his sword. “You’d better make up your mind fast. I don’t know how much longer he can hold on.”

The high priest’s hands were clutching and re-clutching the staff sweatily. He cried out in the unrecognizable tongue they’d spoken in earlier and instantly the men released Noboru’s arms. The one holding the sword reluctantly lowered his blade.

“Get over here,” Gabriel shouted and Noboru darted over, covering the distance between them in seconds. He took hold of the shaft of the spear just above where Gabriel was holding it, and together they dragged it over till the high priest was over solid ground again. He let go and collapsed in a heap. His robes were singed and smoking.

“Now, get out of here,” Gabriel shouted, pulling his Colt again. He aimed it at the high priest, who scuttled backward on his hands and heels. “Go.” He trained his sights on one after another of the men till they’d all faded into the darkness of the jungle. The sound of their footsteps receded as they fled.

“I feel terrible,” Noboru said, “I should never have let them—”

“Feel terrible later,” Gabriel said. “Right now I need you to keep an eye out for them, make sure they don’t come back.”

He raised one foot carefully and smashed his heel against one of the cage’s upright slats—but instead of the wood splintering as he’d hoped, the cage as a whole swung farther out over the pit. Inside, Joyce moaned.

“Careful,” Noboru said, glancing over. “That chain’s going to give.”

He was right: as the cage swung, the heavy chain shifted ominously in the narrow track that held it, and one end of the cage dipped precariously toward the flames.

There was no more time. Gabriel holstered his gun and jumped for the nearest link of the chain. It burned his palms as he caught it but he held on and pulled himself up until he was standing on the uneven upper surface of the cage. It was slanting like a barn roof and hot as hell. He could only imagine what it felt like for Joyce inside. Straining to keep his balance, he made his way to the far side—the side the cage’s door was on—and lowered himself hand-over-hand till he was level with the padlock. Letting go with one hand, he pulled his Colt and struck the padlock with its butt. The lock didn’t budge.

“Come on,” he muttered and tried again.

The cage shook and dropped some more. He could feel the fire beneath him. Through the bars, Joyce stared at him. “Oo ih,” she said, sounding exasperated. “
Oo
ih!”

What?

Oh. Shoot it.

Gabriel said, “Move back,” needlessly—Joyce had already sensibly crawled to the farthest corner she could reach—and took aim. The hasp of the lock flew apart as a bullet plowed through it. He yanked the remnants loose and tossed them aside, then unlatched the door and stuck an arm inside. Joyce tumbled into it and he hoisted her up onto his shoulder. The cage shifted again, dipping lower.

“Gabriel!” Noboru shouted. “The chain!”

Gabriel didn’t look to see what the chain was doing.
It wouldn’t be anything good. Instead, he jumped, pushing off against the cage. They were in midair for a moment, and then there was solid ground beneath them, and they were rolling across it, Joyce beside him.

He looked back and saw the cage swinging wildly toward the trees. Above it, the chains groaned and, as the cage started swinging back, jumped their tracks. The giant wooden box came crashing down, smashing into the edge of the pit. It broke into pieces, the largest of which plunged directly into the fire; but the next largest kept going, spinning through the air toward them, its jagged edges aimed directly at Gabriel’s face. He fell forward, taking Joyce to the ground beneath him, and the deadly slab of wood passed overhead, just inches away. It caromed off the trunk of a tree seconds later.

Gabriel looked down at Joyce. She was grimacing through the gag. He tugged the filthy strip of cloth out of her mouth, and she took in a huge breath gratefully.

Gabriel rolled off her, got to his feet and helped her stand with one hand under her arm. Noboru had retrieved his knife and used it now to carefully cut through the ropes at her hands and feet. She rubbed her wrists, grimacing in pain.

“We’d better get out of here,” Noboru said. “They could come back at any time.”

But Joyce wasn’t listening. She turned to Gabriel. “How could you? How could you leave me in that cage and walk away? I could have died!”

“You still might,” Gabriel said. “Now get moving.”

They made their way out of the jungle warily, but didn’t encounter any of the robed men. Gabriel led the way back into the center of the village and banged on the door of the guesthouse until a window lit up on the top floor. Merpati leaned her wizened face out to see who it was, frowning until she spied Joyce. She exclaimed then and disappeared back into her room. There was the muffled sound of footsteps racing down the stairs, and then the front door burst open.

Merpati rushed out and clamped her skinny arms around Joyce, whispering nonstop in Bidayuh. There were tears in her eyes, Gabriel saw. She seemed reluctant to release her, and even when she did, she held onto one of Joyce’s wrists as she led them inside. Joyce made a remark to her in the same language and a smile appeared on Merpati’s face. She said something and tugged Joyce into the kitchen.

“She’s going to cook something for us,” Joyce said. She eyed the small pile of vegetables and spices Merpati was assembling on the counter with a look only five days in a cage can inspire. “She says we should clean up first.”

Joyce led the way upstairs, followed by Noboru; Gabriel brought up the rear. He saw Noboru wince once as they climbed, when he brushed the banister with his right arm. The sleeve of Noboru’s shirt had been sliced
open and looking closer Gabriel saw a still-wet streak of blood below.

“You’re hurt.”

“Not too bad. You should see the other guy.”

“I did,” Gabriel said. They reached the landing and turned toward Joyce’s room. “Did they teach you how to fight like that in Intelligence?”

“Surprised that a man my age can still take care of himself?”

“If you couldn’t,” Gabriel said, “you’d never have made it to your age.”

Joyce opened the door to her room. “Damn it,” she said, eyeing the mess.

“Worse than you remembered?” Gabriel said.

Noboru crossed to the bed and sat down to inspect the wound on his arm. “Do you have any bandages?”

Joyce shook her head. She picked up a white tank top from the floor and handed it to him. “Here, use this.” Noboru nodded his thanks and tied it around his arm.

“Who were those people in the jungle?” Gabriel asked her.

She squatted in the middle of the room and started pulling up one corner of the carpet. “They’re a cult, quite an old one. The Cult of Ulikummis,” she explained. “They’re mostly Georgian, Russian and Ukrainian by birth, but they’re spread out all over the world. Their presence here is actually a good sign. It means I’m close.”

“There’s nothing good about those people,” Noboru said.

“Ulikummis,” Gabriel said. “I’ve heard that name before.”

“One of the gods of the Hittite Empire,” Joyce said. “Ulikummis was the enemy of the storm god Teshub.”

Joyce folded the rug over, clearing a portion of the wooden floor beneath it. She started digging her fingernails into the floorboards. Noboru shot Gabriel a curious look.

“When the Hittite Empire collapsed in 1160 B.C.,” Joyce continued, “most of their people stayed put in what is now Turkey, but some of the religious orders fled north into what became Russia. Over the years, they gave the appearance of assimilating into the local culture, but they kept the old religion alive in secret cults. Most of these cults are gone now—all but one, really. The Cult of Ulikummis was pretty ruthless and basically they slaughtered all the others. Thousands of people were killed, many of them in ritual sacrifices like the one they were planning for me. The only reason I’m still alive is that they were waiting for the full moon before performing the sacrifice.”

“Why did they come after you in the first place?” Gabriel said.

Joyce blew a lock of blonde hair out of her eyes. “They thought I had something that properly belongs to them.”

“Do you?” Gabriel said.

“If they didn’t find it.” She located the floorboard she’d been searching for and pried it free. She reached into the hole in the floor. “Ah.” Joyce straightened, pulling something wrapped in an oilcloth out of the hole. She stood, put the object down on top of the dresser and gently unwrapped it.

In the folds of the oilcloth was a flat, circular object with intricate designs cut into its golden surface. It wasn’t a single solid piece but rather seemed to be made up of several concentric rings set one inside the next, with a protruding bit in the center, like a handle or a knob. The sharp, angular designs along the outer rim
were cuneiform symbols, Gabriel realized, and had been cut all the way through, like stencil letters—light shone through them from underneath. The bit in the center was shaped like a starburst, each of its three arms a different length and each tipped with a small jewel. Two of the gemstones were green, one red.

“This,” she said, lifting it carefully out of its swaddling, “was known as the Star of Arnuwanda.” The gold glittered in the lamplight.

SOA.
The acronym in Joyce’s journal entry.

“Arnu—?” Noboru said.

“Arnuwanda the Second. He was king of the Hittites around 1320 B.C., and supposedly the last custodian of the Three Eyes of Teshub. Shortly before he died, he had this device constructed to his specifications. Then he had the man who made it for him executed. He didn’t trust anyone to know how it worked, for fear that they might use it to find the Three Eyes.”

Noboru looked over at Gabriel. “Do you know what she’s talking about?”

“Some,” Gabriel said. “The Three Eyes of Teshub are these legendary jewels that were supposed to unlock an ancient hidden weapon of the Hittites. But the jewels themselves were also hidden, or lost, or something.”

“Cast to the three winds,” Joyce said, “by Teshub himself. But the Star is supposed to show their resting place. Teshub spoke to Arnuwanda in a dream and told him how to build it.”

“Thoughtful of him,” Gabriel said. “Where did you find the thing?”

“Not me. My uncle. He dug it up in Turkey last month. He didn’t trust the locals he’d hired, he thought they might try to steal it for the gold, so he shipped it to me for safekeeping.”

“And you brought it to Borneo,” Gabriel said. “Does he know?”

“Not exactly.”

“How not exactly?”

“He thinks I’m still in the States. I asked Michael not to tell him about the grant.”

“And Michael agreed?” Gabriel asked.

She shrugged. “I told him I didn’t want to worry Uncle Daniel, that he’d be anxious for no reason. Remember, Michael just thought I was going to be studying in a library.”

“Yeah,” Gabriel said. “You sure fooled everyone.”

“Are you going to tell me you’ve never told a lie when you’ve been on the trail of something big?” she said. She returned to the oilcloth and pulled out a second item, a folded piece of paper. She kicked aside a pile of clothing to clear a space on the floor, then opened the paper and spread it out. It was a copy of an ancient map of the eastern hemisphere with penciled-in grid lines crisscrossing over the crude drawings of continents and landmasses, dividing the map into little squares. Cuneiform symbols similar to the ones on the Star appeared in many of the squares.

“This is an enlargement of Arnuwanda’s map,” Joyce continued. “The cult has one too. It’s easy enough to get, you can copy it out of any book on ancient Anatolian history. Without the Star it’s nothing. But
with
the Star…here I’ll show you. Hold your flashlight above the Star and shine it down.” Gabriel pulled the flashlight from his belt and switched it on. He positioned the beam to shine through the Star so that its shadow fell on the map.

Gabriel smiled. “The symbols.”

“Exactly,” Joyce said. The beam passed through the cuneiform symbols around the perimeter of the Star
and projected them onto the map. “It’s Nesili, the language of the ancient Hittites. Now check this out.” She gripped the starburst shape at the center of the device and turned it. It clicked along a hidden track and as it did the outer perimeter rotated in the opposite direction. She kept turning it, apparently trying to align the symbols from the Star with those on the map, but the ones on the map were printed in a different order—they didn’t match.

“How confident are you,” Gabriel said, “that it’s the real Star?”

“Oh, it’s real,” Joyce said. “This is just Arnuwanda being a sneaky bastard.” She kept turning the starburst slowly, one click at a time. “Obviously it’s a puzzle of some kind, and for the longest time I had no idea what the key could be. But I had a lot of time to think in that cage.”

Gabriel kept his eyes on the map, trying to find a pattern to the symbols.

“The legend says that when Teshub scattered the Three Eyes around the world, he gave each for protection to a different one of the three natural elements,” Joyce continued. “Earth, water and…well, no one’s sure what the third one is. In the earliest translations of the legend, they couldn’t decipher the difference between earth and whatever the third element is, so they called it ‘loose earth,’ but that was just a way of saying ‘We don’t know what this symbol means.’ Unfortunately the original tablet the legend was carved on was destroyed centuries ago, and ever since we’ve only had those faulty translations to work from.”

“You think the three elements are the key to making this thing work?” Gabriel asked.

“I do,” Joyce said. She pointed to one of the Nesili
symbols. “This is the one that means ‘earth’—ordinary earth, like dirt or soil.” She turned the starburst until the symbol was directly opposite her on the rim, then held the Star so the projected image lined up perfectly with an identical symbol on the map. The beam from Gabriel’s flashlight passed through one of the tiny green jewels and hit the map with a virescent pinpoint.

Right in the center of Borneo.

Joyce said in a hushed voice, “Arnuwanda made several trips to Borneo. I’ve been convinced for years that one of the Eyes of Teshub had to be here. This just confirms it.” She dug through the piles on the floor. While Gabriel held the Star and flashlight steady, she turned up a pencil, a scrap of paper, a protractor and a compass from the pile by the bed. “If I can just figure out these coordinates…” Squatting next to the map, she quickly jotted down notes, muttering to herself and estimating measurements.

A knock at the door made her spring up. She grabbed the map and the Star and rapidly covered them both with the oilcloth. Gabriel approached the door with one hand on the grip of his Colt. He turned the knob and pulled the door open.

Merpati stood in the doorway. She held a tray with a big plate of steaming dumplings on it.

Joyce ran over and took the tray from her. “My god, food.” She grabbed a dumpling and jammed it into her mouth. Her eyelids fluttered.

Gabriel nodded his thanks to Merpati and closed the door after she had left. He turned to Joyce, who was shoving another dumpling into her mouth. “I take it the cult didn’t bother feeding you.”

She shook her head, chewing. “Rainwater and roots,” she said around a mouthful. She swallowed and added,
“They didn’t want me to die before the sacrifice, but they didn’t go out of their way to keep me fat and happy either.”

Gabriel picked up a dumpling and bit into it. Warm, salty liquid flowed onto his tongue, flavored by the scraps of pork and scallion nestled inside the dough. Noboru came over and helped himself. It had been a while since they’d eaten, too.

The Star of Arnuwanda lay untouched under the oilcloth until the plate had been emptied. Gabriel wiped his fingers on the sides of his pants and picked it up, turned it this way and that under the light. “It’s quite a find,” he said, finally. “And your figuring out how to use it—it’s impressive, Joyce.”

She walked over to him, a slight swagger to her step. “You don’t know how I used to dream about hearing those words come out of your mouth. When I was fifteen and sixteen and hearing about the things you were doing. When I was twenty or twenty-five, for that matter. The great Gabriel Hunt, impressed.”

“Well, I am. Once we’ve gotten it and you both home, I’ll want your help identifying the three locations—”

“My
help
?” She snatched the Star out of his hands. “At home? What are you talking about?”

“I think it’ll be safe for us to sleep here tonight,” Gabriel said, “though we should probably sleep in shifts, in case our faceless ghosts make another attempt.” He looked over at Noboru, who nodded. “Then tomorrow we’ll drive you to the airport, you can take the Foundation’s jet back to the States…”

Joyce was shaking her head. “Who the hell do you think you are? You think you can walk in here and take this away from me?”

“We’re not taking it away from you, we’re sending it back with you—”

“I don’t mean the Star, goddamn it! I mean the find!”

“The find nearly got you killed tonight,” Gabriel said.

“And? How many times have
you
nearly gotten killed? How would you feel if when it happened some big hero swept in and carried you to ‘safety,’ i.e. the sidelines, while other people finished what you started?”

“Any time someone wants to save my life,” Gabriel said, “that’s fine with me.”

“Sure,” Joyce said. “But you wouldn’t fly home afterwards and leave the rest of the expedition to someone else.”

No, Gabriel said, to himself. But to her he said, “I promised Michael I’d get you home safely.”

“Don’t you think I should have a say in this? Jesus. You’re worse than they are.” She began wrapping the Star up again. “You want to put me in a cage, too. At least the cult respected me enough to try to kill me.”

Noboru stepped forward, put one hand on Gabriel’s arm and one on Joyce’s. “If I may—”

“What?”
Joyce snapped.

“I think she’s right,” Noboru said.

“Oh,” Joyce said, as Gabriel snapped,
“What?”

“If this cult operates internationally, she won’t necessarily be safer in the U.S. than here. As long as they think she has this thing, they’ll keep coming after her. And if we send it back with her, they’ll be right. Meanwhile, if that map’s correct, what everyone’s looking for is somewhere around here. If we’re going to have to face them somewhere, better to do it where we can put an end to it.”

“Thank you,” Joyce said, with a tone of satisfaction. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”