The Adventures Of Indiana Jones (37 page)

Tearfully the boy hugged Indy. Shackled as he was, Indiana could not return the embrace. Below them, in the quarry, he heard children being whipped. It was the foulest sound he’d ever heard. He had to get out of here.

Shorty stepped back and began scolding him. “You promise to take me to America. This doesn’t happen in America. I keep telling you: you listen to me more, you live longer.” It was outrageous! Indy, caught like a Little Thunder.

Indy nodded, smiling. He wondered if Shorty could talk him out of his irons. If Willie were here, she could for sure.

Short Round pointed to one of the boys beside him. “This is Nainsukh, from that village. He speak pretty good English for a foreigner. He say they bring him here to dig in the mines.”

“But why?” Indy asked.

“Children are small,” said Nainsukh. “We can work in tunnels.”

“Why are you two locked up, then?”

“Now we are too old—too big to crawl into the little tunnels—” The boy’s throat choked with emotion; he had to stop speaking.

“What they do to you now?” Short Round asked, his pupils dilated in fear of the answer.

“I pray to Shiva to let me die,” wavered Nainsukh, “but I do not. Now the evil of Kali will take me.”

“How?”

“They will make me drink the blood of Kali. Then I fall into black sleep of Kali Ma.”

“What’s that?” Indy stopped him.

The boy steeled himself against the vision of what he was going to be forced to do. “We become like them. We be alive, but like in nightmare. You drink the blood, you not wake up from nightmare of Kali Ma.”

Indy and Short Round saw the terror on the child’s face. Shorty fervently spoke the name of the God of the Door of Ghosts. Indy vowed revenge, in the name of these nameless children. Suddenly there was a clanking noise. Indy saw two guards unlocking the door to the cell.

Nainsukh and the other boy yelped, ran to the back of their cage, trembled in the darkness like trapped animals awaiting the inevitable.

The guards weren’t there for the children, though; they were there for Indy and Short Round. They unchained Indiana, marched the two friends out of the cell, up the winding path that curved around the sides of the mine pit, down a long dark tunnel. At the end of the tunnel, a thick wooden door opened. The prisoners were shoved inside.

They stumbled into the chamber. It was the chamber of the High Priest, Mola Ram.

The place was a gallery of terror. Ritualistic statues and grisly icons covered the walls, slating down like all the eyes of Evil. The rock itself seemed somehow deformed. Small fissures perforated the floor, leaking red steam, filling the cave with a putrid essence. It made Indy want to choke.

In one corner, an iron pot was filled to overflowing with burning coals and strange incense. It was tended by an androgynous man with painted lips, thin arms, delicate hands, a face rank with madness. He stirred the coals, humming a twilight melody.

Across the room stood the most grotesque statue Indiana had ever seen. It could only have been nightmare-spawned; it was the stone effigy of Death.

Twice human size, its head was formed into the shape of a skull—but a skull too big in back, as if malformed, or hydrocephalic, with its jawbone dangling open too wide, in a demented grimace. A candle burned in each eyesocket, and atop its forehead.

Its body was no skeleton body, however. It was a woman’s body, but also mutant: no neck, no arms, asymmetric breasts, legs that fused into a morbid, lumpy base.

Candlewax ran down its stone head, out of its eyes into its nasal cavity, down its hanging jaw, like drool, over its stumpy shoulders, down its swollen breasts—candlewax, and, Indy could see now, just beginning to congeal: fresh blood.

Beside the foul thing stood a giant, bearded Thuggee guard, grinning insanely, wearing bracelets of human hair. It was the same guard Indy had thrown the rock at, the one who’d caught it. Now he’d caught Indy; now he was going to get even.

And in the center of the room, crosslegged, his eyes closed, sat Mola Ram.

This was the first opportunity Indy had to see him up close. He was a loathsome sight. His bison-skull headdress cradled his brow; affixed to its center was a shrunken human head. His face was hideously painted in some occult design. His teeth were bad; his eyes were sunken. His sweat smelled of rotting flesh.

His eyes opened; he smiled. “I am Mola Ram. You were caught trying to steal the Sankara Stones.”

“Nobody’s perfect.” Indy smiled in return.

The stones began to glow. He hadn’t seen them before, but there they were, near the base of the statue—glowing, seemingly in response to the High Priest’s state of agitation.

Mola Ram’s eyes glazed over as he stared, absorbed, at the pulsing crystals. “There were five stones in the beginning,” he said. “Over the centuries they were dispersed by wars, sold off by thieves like you.”

“Better thieves than me,” Indiana said modestly. “You’re still missing two.”

“No, they are here,” Mola Ram protested. “Somewhere, they are here. A century ago, when the British raided this temple and butchered my people,” he decried, “a loyal priest hid the last two stones down here in the catacombs.”

Suddenly Indy realized what this treachery was all about. “That’s what you’ve got these slaves digging for, these children.” The anger started to churn within him again.

“They dig for gems to support our cause,” Mola Ram assented, “and yes, they also search for the last two stones. Soon we will have all five Sankara Stones, and then the Thuggee will be all-powerful.”

“Can’t accuse you of having a vivid imagination,” Indiana jibed.

“You do not believe me.” The High Priest focused on Indy now. “You will, Dr. Jones. You will become a
true
believer.”

He gave a sign. The guards clamped an iron collar around Indiana’s neck, dragged him over to the Death statue, and chained him to it, his back pressing into its front, the chains stretching from his neck and wrists around behind the idol’s backside. He could smell the blood that stained its chin.

He was afraid. This fevered air, these maniac priests—anything could happen. He wouldn’t show his fear, though; he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. These fanatics thrived on fear, fear and suffering. He would not sate their lusts. And he would not give Short Round cause to despair, for the boy still stood, trembling, near the front of the room. He would set an example for Short Round, show him dignity could rise above defilement, even in a place as degraded as this . . . if you were strong of heart.

The giant guard strode forward, up to Indy.

Indy grinned ferociously. “Hi. I hate a bully.”

The guard also smiled. He’d witnessed such bravado many times; he knew it was futile.

The door opened. In walked the young Maharajah. Behind him came the boy Nainsukh, who’d recently shared Indiana’s cell. The child looked different now, Indy noticed, becalmed as a ship on a windless sea. In his hands he carried a human skull.

Mola Ram turned to the Maharajah Zalim Singh. “Your Highness will witness the thief’s conversion.”

The Maharajah stood before Indiana with a look of concern. “You will not suffer,” he reassured the thief. “I recently became of age and tasted the blood of Kali.”

Indiana was not reassured. He saw Mola Ram take the skull from Nainsukh. It was a laughing skull, still covered with frayed skin, its nose half-rotted away, eyes nearly gutted, leathery tongue flapping out askew. Mola Ram brought the skull over to Indy.

The huge guard grabbed Indy’s face, forced his head back against the slope of Death’s breast, and forced his mouth open.

Before Indiana knew what was happening, or had a chance to react, the High Priest was tipping the gruesome skull forward, pouring blood from its mouth, cascading down the sluice of its tongue . . . into Indy’s mouth.

Shorty screamed from across the room. “Don’t drink, Indy! Spit it out!” He cried with all his spirit to Huan-t’ien, Supreme Lord of the Dark Heaven, who lived in the northern sky, to drive the evil winds from this room; he cried to The Shadow, who knew what lurked in hearts like these; he cried for immediate deliverance; and he just cried.

Indy was disoriented for a moment. He’d been expecting torture, or magic spells, but not drinking. He gagged on the foul liquid before he spat it out all over Mola Ram.

The High Priest backed off in anger. Warm blood dripped down his face, over his mouth. He licked his lips. He spoke to the Maharajah in Hindi.

Zalim Singh took a small doll from his pocket. The figurine wore pants, and a tiny rough-hewn hat. Its skin was lighter than the skin of most local dolls; the features painted carefully on its face appeared decidedly Western. It looked arguably like Indiana Jones.

The Maharajah held it up to Indy’s face, to show him, then wiped the doll over Indy’s body, where it soaked up his sweat and dirt and fleshy oils. And then the Maharajah began to dip the doll in and out of the flames that rose from the pot of coals in the corner.

Into the fire went the doll . . . and into spasms of pain went Indy. His body felt aflame, as if his very brain were being consumed. He screamed, he screamed.

“Dr. Jones!” wailed Shorty. Just to watch such a horror contorted the boy’s heart nearly to stopping. He let out a series of Chinese invectives, ran up, kicked the Maharajah hard. The little monarch fell, dropping the doll. Indy slumped forward.

Short Round dove for Indy’s whip, but was thrown down to the floor by one of the guards. Mola Ram gave commands. The chief guard picked up Indy’s whip.

Indiana was unchained momentarily, then was turned around and rechained facing the statue, pressed to it, his cheek pushed down on its horrid, bloodsticky breast, his gaze staring directly up into its gargoyle face.

He felt a cold noise garble through his chest.

Nainsukh went to refill the skull with fresh blood. Mola Ram began to chant. Shorty picked himself up, ran at his guard, punching, but he was quickly subdued by priests, quickly strung up against the far wall, in chains.

And then the two of them were whipped. First Indy Shorty cried to watch it. Then Shorty.

“Leave him alone, you bastards,” Indiana muttered through his haze. This was the lowest. For this, he would exact a proper price.

So they left Short Round alone; went back to whipping Indy. The leather ripped through his shirt, tore open his skin. Blood was soon soaking the splayed tatters of cloth and flesh. Indy tried to keep his mind closed. He breathed harder—the candles in Death’s eyes blew out. This seemed to infuriate Mola Ram even more.

“You dare not do that,” the High Priest intoned. Nainsukh returned with the second skull full of blood, gave it to Mola Ram.

Indy was turned around again, once more with his back to the idol. The giant guard pried open his slack and weary mouth, and pinched shut his nose. Once again, Mola Ram poured the bloody elixir from the laughing skull into Indiana’s mouth.

“The British in India will be slaughtered,” said the High Priest as he poured. “Then we will overrun the Moslems and force their Allah to bow to Kali. And then the Hebrew God will fall. And finally the Christian God will be cast down and forgotten.”

He finished pouring. The guard clasped down Indy’s mouth. Indy gagged, sputtered, choked, held his breath . . . and finally swallowed.

“Soon Kali Ma will rule the world,” pronounced Mola Ram.

Willie stumbled through the secret tunnel entrance, back into her room. Insects covered her totally, from her flight down the caves. She knocked them off, holding her breath, doing what she had to do to save herself. And to save Indy. She’d have plenty of time later to break down—she hoped.

She managed to stagger to her feet, headed for the door, rushed out of her room. Down the corridors of the deserted palace she flew, looking for help in the lightening shadows; the dawn was not far off.

In the first open courtyard, she stopped, panting heavily. She called out. Nobody answered. Desperately, she backed down the next hallway, stilling sobs. Paintings lined the walls here; the grand portraits of the Maharajah’s forebears. They seemed to be lurking, now: spying on her from another time, in this cold hour of the late night. Slowly she paraded through this sinister gauntlet. At the end, something moved in the corner of her eye. She turned . . . one of the faces! She gasped—it was a mirror.

But then the face was behind her in the mirror, moving again. She whirled once more, her hand ready to strike. It was only Chattar Lal, the Prime Minister.

“Oh, my God, you scared me!” Willie exhaled with relief. “Listen, you’ve got to help. We found this tunnel—” She grabbed his shoulder, for support, and to try to communicate the urgency of the situation to him.

Captain Blumburtt rounded the corner at that moment. He nodded politely to Willie, but spoke to Chattar Lal. “Jones isn’t in his room.” Then, to Willie, “Miss Scott, my troops are leaving at dawn, if you’d like us to escort you as far as Delhi.”

Willie felt pale. “No, you can’t go! Something awful’s happened. They’ve got Short Round and I think Indy’s been—”

“What?” blurted Blumburtt.

Willie nodded excitedly. “We found a tunnel that leads to a temple below the palace! Please, come with me, I’ll show you!”

The two men exchanged dubious looks. Outraged, frustrated, unraveling, Willie clutched Blumburtt by the arm and began running down the hall to her room.

Chattar Lal accompanied them. “Miss Scott, you’re not making any sense,” he said condescendingly.

Her teeth started chattering. “Hurry. I’m afraid they’ll kill them. We saw horrible things down there—a human sacrifice. They dragged in this poor man, and this other man reached into his chest and ripped out his heart.” She covered her face with her hand, to make the image go away. The two men looked at each other even more skeptically.

“Who?” pursued Blumburtt with the utmost tact.

“The priest,” she rasped. “They’ve taken Short Round, and Indy’s gone—I don’t know where Indy’s gone. Right beneath my bedroom there’s this gigantic cathedral—a temple of death. There’s some kind of cult down there, with the sacred stones Indy was searching for.”