The Adventures Of Indiana Jones (67 page)

Donovan shrugged. “We’ve already tried every possible route. There’s no entrance. It’s solid rock.”

For someone who was as conniving as he was, Donovan wasn’t much help when it came to practical matters. He would be better off allowing someone else to find the Grail Cup, and then stealing it, she thought.

“Then, I suppose we make our own entrance.”

“How do you propose to do that?”

“I guess you’ve never worked with explosives.”

He regarded her a moment with an icy stare that even the desert heat couldn’t counteract. “I don’t suppose that I have.”

Not surprising.
She turned and walked back to the supply truck. She felt his eyes on the back of her head. Let him worry, she thought. She would lead him to the Grail, then she would watch, and at the right moment, she would act. The Grail would be hers, or she would die. Period.

Indy, like his three companions, was wearing a hat draped in white cloth and trying to get used to the way his camel moved. It was nothing like riding a horse or even an elephant. This was something completely unique—a steep dip, a rise, another dip, another rise, but the camel’s lope never felt quite even. He couldn’t grasp the rhythm and suspected you had to be born into a nomadic desert life to ever feel comfortable on one of these creatures.

The white cloth and his hat helped some against the relentless heat, but they didn’t assuage his thirst. He thought of water, bottles of it, rivers of it, cool and endless. He thought of sliding into a pool, soaking his feet in cool, wet mud.

Sallah had recovered Indy’s horse, and the four of them had backtracked—two to a horse—to where they had last seen Donovan’s caravan. There had been no sign of either Donovan or Elsa. But they had found tire tracks, several abandoned camels, and even a couple of canteens of water.

Indy had urged his father and Brody to stay behind and wait while he and Sallah pursued Donovan on horseback. But neither would listen to him. Both insisted they were okay, and could continue on. They could all go on the camels, Henry had said.

They rested only a short time, attending to their cuts and bruises and discomforts. Indy had found a pair of pants among some of the supplies left behind, and they fashioned their headwear. Finally, they climbed onto the camels, and set off across the desert.

Without the map they would never be able to locate the place where the Grail Cup was hidden, Indy thought. But the route was clearly marked by the tracks left behind by the remaining vehicles of the caravan. Indy guessed that Donovan and Elsa believed he and his group were dead, because otherwise they wouldn’t have been so careless about leaving a trail. So let them believe it. It might prove to be his group’s only advantage.

A distant explosion resounded through the pass, snapping Indy to attention.

“What was that?” Brody asked.

“The secret canyon,” Henry exclaimed. “They’ve found it.”

Indy recalled the words from the Grail tablet.
Across the desert and through the mountain to the Canyon of the Crescent Moon, broad enough only for one man. To the Temple of the Sun, holy enough for all men.

He urged his camel to pick up the pace. “Let’s keep moving.”

When they arrived at the site of the explosion, rocks were strewn about, and a gaping hole in the cliff led into a narrow canyon. Its walls were high and steep, the color of ocher.

Indy passed his canteen around. They were all weary, hot, and sore, but they knew they couldn’t waste any time. Henry, who had taken off his jacket, led the way into the canyon. His shirt was open at the collar, and his hat was pulled low over his eyes. He didn’t look like a medieval scholar now, Indy mused. If anything, his father looked like an aging adventurer who was secretly having the time of his life as he valiantly sought to fulfill his greatest desire.

As Henry entered the canyon, his camel stopped, snorted, and tried to back away. He cursed the beast, slapped it on the rear with his hand, and finally convinced it to move ahead.

They all experienced similar resistance from their camels as they followed single file behind Henry. Brody’s animal was the most stubborn, and Indy finally was forced to dismount and pull it through. Once inside the canyon, the animals calmed down. It was the humans who felt wary, out of their element.

The farther they progressed, the narrower and steeper the walls became. The place was eerie, too still, too tight, too hot. The camels’ hooves echoed, and the sound of them, Indy thought, had a strange quality, although he couldn’t have said exactly what.

The air was more refined, as if they were at a higher elevation. Indy was light-headed and felt the dull throb of a headache. The light was different here, too, less harsh, gold against the stark canyon walls on either side of them.

He didn’t like being here, he didn’t like the feel of the place. None of them did—except for Henry. He was the optimist of the group, and why not: the project that had dominated his life was near fruition. The Grail wasn’t in his hands yet, but it was close enough for him to imagine that it was. He actually seemed to be enjoying himself.

“Marcus,” Henry said, “we’re like the four heroes of the Grail legend. You’re Percival, the holy innocent. Sallah is Bors, the ordinary man. My son is Galahad, the valiant knight. And his father . . . the old crusader, Lancelot, who was turned away because he was unworthy, as perhaps I am.”

“I’m an old sot who’d rather be home safely with a nip of Scotch at hand,” Brody replied. He was clinging to his saddle for support and glancing around, uncertainty etched in every line of his face. His fretting expression, Indy thought.

But Henry didn’t seem to hear him. He nodded to himself, musing over his comparisons. Then he turned to Indy. “But remember, it was Galahad who succeeded where his father failed.”

Terrific, Indy thought. It was just the sort of responsibility he didn’t want. “I don’t even know what the Grail looks like, Dad.”

“Nobody does,” Henry replied. “The one who is worthy will know the Grail.”

Like King Arthur and Excalibur. As if this was all some sort of glorious quest, not a dangerous predicament. It annoyed him. In his father’s mind, they had been elevated to the ranks of crusaders.

While Henry gazed ahead expectantly, Indy looked down at the dirt. They no longer needed the tracks of the vehicles, but the fact that they were there, inches inside either wall, kept him cognizant of the fact that they weren’t alone.

“Look!” Sallah burst out, and pointed.

They stopped and stared. The narrow canyon led into a broad, open area like an arena, and carved into one of the rocks on the far side was a spectacular Greco-Roman facade. Wide steps led up to a landing with massive columns, and beyond them was the entrance to a darkened chamber. The Temple of the Sun, Indy thought.

“Let’s go,” Henry said eagerly.

The camels complained again, but the men spurred them on, and they grudgingly trotted ahead, crossing the open area and stopping in front of the temple steps. Indy stole a glance at his father: his expression was rapturous, struck with a childlike wonder. Even Indy was awed by the sight, but not as his father was. Henry’s elation swept out of him in waves, like an odor. It was infectious.

“Monumental,” Brody uttered.

“Built by the gods,” Sallah mumbled.

Indy understood. In the presence of a structure of such grand scale, it was easy to think that it had been built for immortals twice their human size and strength.

For a long time none of them moved from the bottom of the steps. The temple had
that
sort of magic about it. But Indy finally broke the spell. He looked down at the ground again and saw the tracks crisscrossing behind them. So what had happened to the vehicles?

He squinted to the west, where the sun hovered low over the wall of the arena. Among the shadows he made out the shape of a troop carrier, a supply truck, an auto, and several horses.

He motioned toward the temple. “Come on. Let’s take a look. But keep quiet.”

He led the way, followed by Henry, Sallah, and Brody. Slowly they ascended the steps toward the dark entrance. As they reached the top, Indy glanced back, making sure the others were still behind him. Then he pressed on into the temple.

It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness. But then he saw someone standing directly in front of him—a knight dressed in armor, a magnificent Herculean figure that was two, no, three times, his size.

Indy stopped, stepped back, then smiled as he grasped the obvious. The knight was carved from an enormous block of stone.

The interior of the temple was ringed with exact copies of the stone sentinel, and beyond them was a ring of massive pillars. Indy relaxed and pointed at the knights. Then he heard something, a sound within the temple, and his senses instantly snapped to attention. His muscles tensed; he twitched nervously. In his fascination with the temple, he had momentarily forgotten that Donovan and Elsa were somewhere ahead of them.

He motioned for the others to follow and to remain as silent as possible. They slipped from one pillar to the next until they were close enough to see what was taking place in the center of the temple.

A soldier from the sultan’s force, armed with a sword, cautiously climbed a set of stone stairs toward an arched opening in the back wall of the temple. Standing at the base of the steps, watching the soldier, were Donovan and Elsa. Behind them were several Nazis and more of the sultan’s soldiers.

Elsa: Indy watched her. He noticed how she concentrated intensely on the soldier’s progress.

She probably assumed Indy was dead. He was just another man from her past. Disposed of, forgotten. Despite everything she had said, it was obvious that her love affair was with the Grail, with its history and legends. Men were simply means of achieving her goal.

It didn’t add up. There was something more, there had to be. It was something he wasn’t seeing. Then he realized that perhaps it was simpler than it appeared. Maybe she believed the legends. Maybe she had convinced herself that the cup was actually a source of immortality.

And what about Donovan? He had discussed the myth with Indy. Did he actually believe it? He must. After all, he hardly needed to endanger his life to obtain another artifact. Sure, he was working with Elsa, but he wasn’t about to let her claim the cup. Indy was sure of that.

He looked up at the soldier, who was nearing the top of the steps under the arch, and then saw something else. A body. A few steps away from the man was another of the sultan’s soldiers, and near the sprawled corpse was something else. Indy leaned forward, trying to make it out.

Oh, God.

It was the soldier’s head.

“Keep going,” Donovan urged the soldier. “Keep going. You’re almost there.”

Elsa shook her head. “It’s not possible.”

The soldier stopped a step away from the body.

“Keep going,” Donovan yelled.

The man took the next step under the arch, and it was his last. A loud whooshing sound like a sudden gust of wind swept through the temple, and suddenly the soldier’s head was cleanly severed from his neck. It tumbled toward the steps, bounced down, and rolled toward Donovan and Elsa.

Donovan motioned to one of the other soldiers, who ran over and picked up the head. He turned and tossed it in the direction where Indy and the others were hiding. The head rolled within several feet of them. The mouth gaped open; an expression of horror was frozen on its features.

Indy looked away.

“The Breath of God,” Henry said softly.

At first Indy wasn’t sure what he meant. Then he remembered the three challenges from his father’s Grail diary. The Breath of God . . . What where the other two? He couldn’t think clearly now. He touched his pocket, where he kept the diary. It was still there. He would need it to reach the Grail. But right now he needed to find a way to get past Donovan and his entourage.

Then he heard Donovan order one of his Nazi guards to get another of the sultan’s soldiers.

“Helmut, another volunteer.”

The Nazi pointed to one of the soldiers, but the man shook his head and backed away. Two of the Nazis grabbed the soldier and dragged him forward.

“No-no-no!” he shouted, struggling to free himself.

They shoved him, and he stumbled up the first couple of steps. He turned; his eyes were globes of terror. The Nazi guard named Helmut pulled out his Luger and aimed it at the soldier.

Reluctantly he turned and started the deadly climb to the top.

Out of the corner of his eye, Indy saw Brody look away in disgust, unwilling to watch another decapitation. He didn’t care to see the slaughter any more than Brody did. He felt like a spectator in a Roman coliseum, but he didn’t know what else they could do. They needed a plan of attack, but . . .

Brody tapped him on the shoulder. “Uh, Indy.”

The lines on Brody’s face were so deep, they looked like shadows. Indy touched a finger to his lip, but then he saw what Brody had seen. A few feet away a Nazi soldier held his revolver on them.

“
Raus! Raus!”
he yelled, gesturing frantically with his gun, indicating that they should move.

Just then three more Nazis surrounded them, each with a rifle. Indy realized they had probably been hiding near the entrance and had been watching them since they walked into the temple. The Nazi with the pistol searched them for weapons and confiscated the guns Indy and Sallah were carrying.

They were pushed forward into full view of the others, their hands raised above their heads. The sultan’s soldiers swung around and fixed their rifles on them. Indy saw Elsa spin on her heels, gaping at him. Her mouth seemed to quiver slightly. Donovan walked toward them, hiding his surprise behind a broad smile. He made it appear as if old friends had just arrived in town, guests for dinner, and he was the host.

“Ah, the Jones boys . . . and not a moment too soon. Welcome, welcome. We can use your expertise. I’m so happy you’re still alive.”

“You’ll never get the Grail,” Henry exploded. “It’s beyond your understanding and capabilities.”

“Don’t be so sure about that, Dr. Jones.” Donovan spoke between gritted teeth. “You’re not the only expert on the Grail in the world.”