The Adventures Of Indiana Jones (39 page)

Shorty appealed to the Celestial Ministry of Time, to contract the length of his stay here. He sat on the ground, near tears; picked up a handful of dirt, let it sift through his fingers. “Grounded out,” he whispered.

He didn’t sit for long. A leather thong flayed his back; only the hot shock of it prevented him from screaming in pain. The guard moved on; Shorty got back to work.

He and two others strained at a large rock wedged in the wall, blocking the way the tunnel was to go. They pulled, they levered it; finally it gave. It came loose, rolled down a short incline—and Short Round gave an involuntary shout.

They’d exposed a vein of molten lava. Thick with itself, barely moving, it hissed like a wary cobra.

The children shouted, pointing until the guard came; then he whipped them brutally for being so stupid and noisy. His eyes reflected the glowing venom of the nearby vein.

Suddenly the small fissure spurted out a tiny bubble of steam, spewing a fine spray of lava over the guard’s legs.

He shrieked, fell to the ground, tried to rub the melting ore off his skin. The odor of burning flesh filled the tunnel.

As the children watched him, a strange thing happened. His face actually relaxed, shed its hardened edges. His eyes, which had so easily reflected the blood-tones in the lava just a moment before, now dimmed with human frailty, and seemed to come alive. To remember.

He stopped moaning; his eyes came to focus on Short Round. The man looked almost thankful; he seemed on the verge of tears, as if realizing he’d only been having a nightmare and now he was awake.

He pleaded forgiveness to Short Round—in Hindi, then in English.

Other guards appeared suddenly They grabbed this fallen comrade, dragged him out of the tunnel. He struggled against them, though, trying to break away. Trying to stay awake.

He didn’t want to return to the nightmare of Kali.

Short Round watched with dawning comprehension as the wretched guard was pulled out of sight by his brethren mindslaves. “The fire,” Short Round whispered to himself. “The fire makes him wake up! I can make Dr. Jones—”

Before he finished articulating his discovery, he lifted a heavy rock. The other children observed him fearfully as he hefted it with defiance, afraid he was going to lob it at the last retreating guard, thereby earning them all more lashes. He didn’t heave it at the guard, though; rather, he smashed the rock down on the leg-chains that bound him to the other kids.

The ankle-iron was rusty, he figured; it couldn’t withstand all that much battering. None of the guards really expected any of the children to actually
try
to escape—after all, where could they go? Short Round smiled grimly with his newfound knowledge. Knowledge was power, Dr. Jones had always told him.

With this power, he would free Dr. Jones.

Repeatedly he brought the rock down on his rusting shackles as the other children stared nervously.

Short Round was determined to escape. And unbeknownst to the guards, he had somewhere to go.

The wind thrummed over the cavernous ceiling, joining the atonal incantations of the multitude gathered in the temple. Mola Ram warbled in counterpoint to the tumultuous chanting. The Maharajah sat upon his dais, weaving, transfixed in the smoke and favor.

Chattar Lal still stood beside Indiana. “Do you understand what he tells us?” he prodded the neophyte.

Indiana nodded dully. “Kali Ma protects us. we are her children. We pledge devotion by worshipping her with offerings of flesh and blood.”

Chattar Lal seemed pleased. His student was coming along so quickly.

A scream prevented his response though—heartrending, terrified, rising out of the fume-clogged shadows.

Indiana watched emotionlessly as Willie was brought out. She was dressed now in the skirt and halter top of a Rajput maiden, draped with jewels and flowers; held fast by two priests, she wailed, struggling to break free, sweating, crying, swearing, spitting: she knew the fate that awaited.

Chattar Lal motioned toward her to Indy. “Your friend has
seen
, and she had
heard.
Now she will not
talk.”

As she was dragged before the statue of Kali, she saw Indiana. “Indy! Help me! For God’s sake what’s the matter with you!”

Indy stared at her impassively while her wrists were manacled to the square iron frame that hung from the tireless arms of the fearsome stone goddess.

The sorceress hissed at him Indy help me for god’s sake what’s the matter with you, but he could only smile at her treachery. Everything was red now, but in negative, so what was dark was light and what was light was dark; but all red. Except the sorceress: she was black.

Black and buzzing, as if ten thousand hornets comprised her substance. Zzzzzzzzhhhh, she screamed at him,.

Ssshhh, he thought, you’ll wake the serpent. But Kali was here, now. Kali’s inspiration alone would quiet the buzzing, still the serpent in his chest. Only through pain and torture and sacrifice to Kali Ma would the buzzing cease, would the serpent sleep.

Indy looked down at his feet. A live boa constrictor slithered over the stone floor, heading for someplace dark. Indy stooped, picked it up, caressed its head: they were spiritbrothers, now. He held the snake to his chest, near its cousin who slept there—held it so Willie could see him with his new family.

She couldn’t believe what was happening. “Indy,” she begged. “Don’t let them do this to me. Don’t do this.” But he didn’t move a muscle to help her. He just kept petting the damn snake.

She was going to die.

She was going to die horribly. Painfully. Alone.

They had taken hold of him somehow; she could see that clearly enough. But how? He’d always been too arrogant for his own good, but she’d actually found that kind of cute—sometimes, at least. Could arrogance account for this . . . possession? Possessed, that’s how he looked.

Or maybe this was just the final stage of a powerful seduction, seduced by the fortune and glory he was always after. She could understand seduction—those diamonds were certainly alluring—but this seemed a little over the edge.

Magic?

She didn’t know, or care. She only knew she was about to die, and she didn’t know why and didn’t want to, and hated him for it, and was afraid.

The priests shackled her ankles to the basket.

“Stop it, you’re hurting me!” she screamed. “You big lousy dirty ape.” Rage foamed at her lips, then dissolved again into supplication. “Be nice, fellas. Come on.” And when this had no effect, the distress call again: “Indy!”

Mola Ram circled her as the front of the frame was closed, wedging her, spread-eagled, in the wafer-thin cage. Indiana looked away from her, to gaze adoringly at the face of the monstrous goddess above them. He dropped his snake to the floor; it crawled into a corner.

The priests tore off Willie’s necklaces.

“You got some kind of nerve!” she roared. “I knew you thugs were just a bunch of cheapskates! You’re saving these trinkets for someone—well, she’ll never look as good as me!” She was defiant now, contemptuous.

Mola Ram came before her. He seemed pleased with her insolence. He bowed slightly, then raised his hand, tauntingly, toward her heart.

Icy chills coursed through her, to watch the High Priest’s fingers approach her chest. She’d seen this part before; it terrorized her to envision it now. Her knees turned to water. If she hadn’t been held up by shackles and meshing she’d have crumpled to the ground. All her fine brazen boldness shriveled in the face of this wizard’s advancing hand. She fell to bargaining. “Wait. Not yet. Please. I’ll do anything. I know a lot of politicians and important industrialists. I was a personal dinner guest of Chiang Kai Shek. I know people who work for Al Capone.” A surrealistic thought struck her, and she laughed absurdly. “In fact, do you have a cousin named Frank Nitti, he lives in Chicago, you know you could be his brother.”

Mola Ram sneered at her rantings. Heinously, he brought his hand closer. She felt his icicle fingers touch the cloth over her breast. There was a sickening pressure, like a finger pushing into a throat, or a thumb over an eye: nauseating pressure, intrusive, unexpected, violating.

She swooned.

In the half-lit tunnel, Short Round set a measured beat, stone against iron, trying to crack his bonds. He’d seen it done just this way in
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
, except it was harder to do than to watch. His arm was growing tired, his despair strong. What would Indy and Willie do without him? What if the Wheel of Transmigration separated them in the next life? It well might; there was no predicting the roll of the Wheel.

The other children continued to watch him. He wouldn’t have minded some help, but they looked so weird standing there—like ghosts, or worse—that he decided concentrating on his task was the best bet. He thrust his fatigued arm down one more time, knocking stone against iron. And the clasp broke. Just like that: he was free.

The other children stared darkly at him, in wonder, in disbelief, in unanticipated
new
belief. This was freedom, here, in their midst.

Furtively, Short Round peered about. He was out of bondage none too soon, it seemed. At the tunnel mouth, a guard was approaching. In the torch-lit shadows, Short Round took a chance. He dove, rolled across the tunnel to a mine car full of rocks being pushed along the rails by two chained slaves.

The guard lumbered past, unsuspecting. Using the mine car as cover, Short Round crouched, walking along with it, up and out of the pit.

The other children from his chain gang watched him escape, but said nothing.

Up in the temple, Willie came out of her swoon to see Mola Ram walking away. He hadn’t plucked out her heart; he’d just been toying with her! Tears of hope sprang to her eyes. Maybe all wasn’t lost yet.

She struggled fiercely to break her bonds, pulled and tugged at her wrists—and good God, it happened: with all the lubricating sweat, she managed to extricate one slender wrist from the manacle that strapped her to the sacrificial frame.

She reached out her free left arm imploringly to Indiana. “Indy, help us! Snap out of it. You’re not one of them. Please. Please come back to me. Please, come back to me.”

Indy walked over to her cage, reached out slowly, took her hand in his. She grasped his fingers tightly. He brought her hand up to his lips, kissed it. They stared deeply into each other’s eyes.
Yes, yes,
Willie thought,
he’s come for me.

Resolutely he lifted her hand back to the iron frame, wrapped the shackle around her wrist, snapped it shut, locked the cage door in place. Then he bestowed a knowing look upon Mola Ram, who smiled, nodded, began chanting again.

Willie was aghast. “No. What’re you doing? Are you mad?”

He just stared at her, as if from a long way away

She spat at him. She had never hated anyone so much. She would not beg again. She hoped he burned in hell.

The sorceress demon spat; from her black mouth, it, sparked and flared. The buzzing was intensely loud now. It almost drowned out the fluttering, which had returned. The spit seared like fire, hissing in the flesh of his face, hissing with the serpent in his chest, the serpent awake now, uncoiling . . .

But Kali would put it to rest. If he only gave himself to Kali, lost himself in Kali, quelled the buzzing fluttering hissing with the soporific drone of the name of Kali Ma.

Calmly, hollowly, he wiped her spittle from his face; walked away from her, joined the congregation in its febrile chanting: “Mola Ram, Sunda Ram, jai ma Kali, jai ma Kali . . .”

Chattar Lal and Mola Ram exchanged a satisfied glance, gladdened at the sight of the cold-hearted betrayal.

The chanting grew louder.

The wind blasted on, its abominable yowl.

Short Round raced up the next tunnel, then flattened himself against a wall, panting. He peeked around the corner. Just as he’d remembered: this was one of the holding caves. There on the floor in one corner were Indy’s whip, hat, and bag. He ran in, picked the things up; put the hat on his head, the bullwhip on his belt, the bag over his shoulder . . . and felt, for all the world, like a miniature Indiana Jones. He pulled himself erect and marched upright into the adjacent tunnel. There, two guards saw him. They immediately gave chase.

Now he
really
felt like Indiana Jones. He tore out into this level of the excavation, running full throttle, dodging guards, outdistancing his lumbering pursuers, weaving among the scores of slave children who watched this elusive boy in amazement.

He darted in a narrow side tunnel, losing the guards on his tail. Up a twisting shaft, Short Round climbed, coming out on another level. Stealthily he crawled through an access tunnel; warily he peered back into the main pit.

Twenty yards away, he saw a tall, wooden ladder leaning against the wall, its top perched against a ledge that fronted a warren of burrows. Other tunnels pierced the rockface up and down the length of the ladder. From the lowest of these, a child emerged, carrying a sack of rocks. He stepped out onto the ladder, climbed down carrying his load.

When the boy reached the bottom, he nearly collapsed from exhaustion—then jumped in shock to see Short Round running toward him at top speed. Shorty motioned him to keep quiet. Incredulous, the boy simply gaped at Short Round as the furtive escapee leapt to the ladder and began to scramble up. Just like James Cagney in the last scene of
Public Enemy.
Short Round hoped it wasn’t going to be his own last scene, as well.

He was already fairly high when the guard spotted him. The guard chased him up the ladder. Children in nearby alcoves stopped working to watch as Short Round ascended higher and higher, the angry guard closing the distance between them.

Twenty feet above the top of the ladder, a wide overhang of rock jutted out far into the center of the great pit. Twenty feet out from the wall against which the ladder teetered, a rope hung in space, straight down from the overlying shelf, dangling from a small hole in that partial ceiling.