Temple (8 page)

Frighteningly loud musket fire rang out all around us as Renco
dropped down onto his behind and slid feet-first through the narrow
gap between the boulder and the floor.
My slide was somewhat less graceful. I dived headfirst onto the
dust-covered floor and wriggled clumsily on my chest through the
gap and out into a stone-walled tunnel on the other side.
I was getting to my feet just as Renco kicked the helmet out from
under the boulder and the great square-shaped stone completed its
sealing of the doorway with a loud whump.
I sighed, breathless.
We were safe. For the moment.
'Come, we must hurry,' said Renco. 'It is time we farewelled this
wretched city.'
Back in the alleyways. Running posthaste.
Renco led the way, with Bassario behind him and me last of all. At
one point in our runnings, we came across a stockpile of Spanish
weapons. Bassario took a longbow and a
quiver full of arrows; Renco, a quiver, a rough leather
satchel—into which he placed the idol—and a sword. For my own part,
I took a long glistening sabre. For indeed, although I may be a
humble monk, I hail from a family that has bred some of the finest
fencers in all of Europe.
'This way,' said Renco, charging up a flight of stone steps.
We hurried up the stairs and came to a series of uneven roofs.
Renco hastened out across the rooftops, hurdling low dividing
walls, leaping across the small gaps between the different
buildings.
Bassario and I followed until at last Renco fell to the ground,
behind a low wall. His chest heaved as he breathed, rising and
falling quickly.
He looked out over the low wall above him. I did the same. What I
saw was this:
I beheld a wide cobblestone plaza filled with perhaps two dozen
Spanish troops and as many horses. Some of the horses were
freestanding, while others stood harnessed to a variety of wagons
and carts.
On the far side of the plaza, set into the outer wall of the city,
stood a large wooden gate. This gate, however, was not indigenous
to Cuzco, but was rather an ugly appendage affixed to the city's
stone gateway by my countrymen after the city had been
seized.
Positioned directly in front of the enormous wooden gate was a
large flatbed wagon drawn by two horses who faced in toward the
city, away from the gate itself. Motmted on the back of this wagon
was a sizeable cannon pointed in the other direction.
Nearer to us, at the base of the building on which we now sat,
stood about thirty miserable-looking Incan prisoners. A long length
of black rope was threaded through the steel manacles that each
prisoner wore around his wrists, bind ing all of them together in a
long dejected row.
'What are we going to do now?' I inquired of Renco anxiously.
'We're leaving.'
'How?'
'Through there,' said he, indicating the gate on the far side of
the plaza.
'What about the sewer entrance?' said I, thinking it to be the most
obvious escape route.
'A thief never uses the same entrance twice,' said Has- sario. 'At
least, not once he has been detected. Isn't that right,
prince?'
'Correct,' said Renco.
I turned to appraise the criminal Bassario. He was infact a rather
handsome man, despite his grimy appearance. And he smiled broadly,
his eyes twinkling—the smile of a man happy to be part of an
adventure. I could not say that I shared his joy.
Now Renco began to rummage through his quiver. He pulled out some
arrows whose points had been wrapped in cloth, creating round
bulbous heads.
'Good,' said he, looking about himself and finding a
lighted torch hanging on a nearby wall. 'Very good.'
'What are you planning to do?' I inquired.
Renco did not appear to hear me. He merely stared out at three
horses standing unattended on the far side of the plaza.
'Renco,' I pressed, 'what are you planning to do?'
At which point Renco turned to face me and a wry smile crossed his
face.
I stepped out into the wide-open plaza with my hands folded inside
my saturated monk's cloak, my sodden hood pulled low over my wet
hair.
I kept my head bowed as I crossed the plaza—stepping deftly aside
as clusters of soldiers ran past me, ducking quickly as horses
wheeled about in my directiondesperate not to sport any
attention.
Renco guessed that the soldiers in the plaza would not yet know
that a renegade Spanish monk—me—was aiding the Incan raiding party.
As such, so long as they did not notice my soggy clothing, I should
be able to get near the three unattended horses and bring them over
to a nearby alleyway where Renco and Bassario could mount
them.
But first I had to clear a passage to the gate, which meant getting
the flatbed wagon with the cannon on it out of our path. That task
would be harder. It required that I 'accidentally' scare the two
horses harnessed to the wagon.
Thus I carried concealed within my sleeve one of Renco's sharply
pointed arrows, ready to—God forgive me—surreptitiously jab one of
the poor creatures as I walked past them.
I crossed the plaza slowly, careful to keep my eyes averted, not
daring to lock eyes with anyone.
As in the other plazas around the city, this one had stakes driven
into the ground all around it. Severed heads were impaled upon
them. The blood on the heads was fresh and it trickled down the
stakes to the ground. My fear was
extreme as I passed them—such would be my fate if I didn't get out
of Cuzco soon.
The gate came into my view and with it the flatbed wagon that stood
in front of it. I saw the horses and tightened my grip on the arrow
inside my sleeve. Two more steps and-
'Hey! You!' barked a coarse voice from somewhere behind me.
I froze. Did not look up.
A large soldier with a pot belly stepped in front of me, so that he
stood in between myself and the two horses. He wore his pointed
conquistador's helmet perfectly and his voice was laced with
authority. A senior soldier.
'What are you doing here?' said he and curtly
Said I, 'I am sorry, so sorry… I was trapped in the city and
I…'
'Get back to your quarters. This isn't a safe area. There are
Indians in the city. We think they're after the Captain's
idol.'
I couldn't believe it. I was so close to my objective and now I was
being turned away! I reluctantly made to leave when suddenly a
strong hand landed on my shoulder.
'A moment, monk—' the soldier began. But he cut himself off
abruptly as he felt the dampness of my cloak.
'What the-'
Just then, a sharp whistling sound filled the air around me and
then—thwack!—an arrow smacked into the big soldier's face,
shattering his nose, causing an explosion of blood that splattered
all over my face.
The soldier dropped like a stone. The other soldiers in the plaza
saw him fall and whirled about, searching for the source of the
danger.
Suddenly a second whistling sound filled the air, and this time a
flaming arrow flew down from one of the darkened rooftops
surrounding the plaza and shot low over the flatbed wagon in front
of me and slammed hard into the big wooden gate behind it.
Shouts filled the air as the conquistadors opened fire on the
shadowed source of the arrows.
I, however, was looking at something else entirely.
I was looking at the cannon on top of the flatbed wagon, or more
particularly, at the fuse protruding from the breech
of the cannon on top of the flatbed wagon.
The fuse was alight.
The flaming arrow—I did not know at the time, but I understand now
that it was Bassario who fired it—had been so well aimed that it
had lit the fuse on the cannon!
I did not wait for what would happen next. I just ran for the three
unattended horses as quickly as I could, for no sooner did I reach
them than the cannon on the flatbed wagon went off.
It was the loudest noise I had ever heard in my life. A monstrous
blast of such intensity and power that it shook the world under
me.
A billowing cloud of smoke shot out from the cannon's barrel and
the big wooden gate in front of it snapped like a twig. When the
smoke cleared before it, a gaping ten-foot hole could be seen in
the lower half of the giant gate.
The horses harnessed to the flatbed wagon bolted at the sudden
thunderous blast. They reared on their hind legs and took flight,
galloping off into the alleyways of Cuzco, leaving the damaged gate
wide open.
The three horses I had been charged with procuring reared too. One
of them bolted and ran off, but the other two calmed quickly as I
held them firmly by their reins.
The Spanish soldiers were still firing blindly up into the shadowy
rooftops. I looked up into the darkness. Renco and Bassario were
nowhere to be seen—
'Monk!' someone called suddenly from behind me.
I turned and saw Bassario come running up with his longbow in his
hand.
'Well, you couldn't have fouled this up any more, could you, monk?'
said he with a smile as he leapt up into the sad dle of one of my
horses. 'All you had to do was scare the horses.'
'Where is Renco?' I inquired.
'He is coming,“ said Bassario.
Just then a series of shrill, angry screams swept across the plaza
and I turned instantly—and saw the row of manacled Incan prisoners
charge as one at the Spaniards in the plaza.
The Incans were free, no longer joined together by the long length
of black rope!
Then suddenly, I heard a death scream and saw Renco up on one of
the rooftops—standing over a fallen conquistador, hurriedly taking
the fallen man's pistol, while six more Spaniards hustled up the
stairs on the side of the building, chasing after him.
Renco looked down at me and cried, 'Alberto! Bassario!
The gate! Go for the gate!'
'What about you!' I called.
'I'll be right behind you!” Renco called back as he ducked under a
musket shot. 'Just go! Go!“
I leapt up into the saddle of the second horse.
'Come on!' Bassario cried, kicking his horse.
I spurred my own steed and shot off the mark, turning the beast
sharply so that it charged toward the gate.
It was then that I turned in my saddle and saw a most amazing
sight.
I saw an arrow—a pointed arrow, not a flaming one— soar across the
plaza from one of the rooftops. Trailing behind it, wobbling like
the undulating body of a snake, was a long length of rope—black
ropethe rope that had bound the row of Incan prisoners
together!
The arrow shot over my head and, with a firm smacking sound, lodged
in the intact upper half of the big wooden gate. No sooner had the
arrow hit the gate than I saw the entire length of rope behind it
go taut.
And then I saw Renco at the other end of the rope—up on one of the
rooftops standing with his legs splayed wide, with his newfound
satchel draped over his right shoulder— saw him lash the leather
belt of his Spanish pantaloons over it, and grab hold of the belt
with one hand. Then I saw him leap off the roof and swing—no,
slide—down the length of the rope, over the entire plaza, hanging
onto the belt with one hand.
Some Spanish soldiers opened fire on him, but the dash ing young
prince just used his free hand to pull his pistol from his
waistband and fire it at them while he slid at incredible speed
down the rope!
I spurred my steed on, increased her speed, and pulled her in at a
full gallop under Renco's rope just as he reached the end of his
slide. He released his grip on the belt and dropped down perfectly
onto the rump of my horse.
In front of us, Bassario leapt like a seasoned horseman through the
enormous hole in the wooden gate. Renco and I followed close behind
him, riding double, vaulting through the gate amid a hail of wild
gunshots.
We burst out into the cold night air—riding hard across the massive
stone slab that formed a bridge over the city's northern moat—and
the first thing I heard as I raced across that bridge was a roar of
total and utter jubilation from the hoards of Incan warriors in the
valley before me.
'How's it going?' a voice said suddenly.
Race glanced up from the manuscript and for a moment was
disoriented. He looked out through the small window to his right
and saw a sea of snow-capped mountains and an endless expanse of
clear blue sky.
He shook his head. He'd been so absorbed in the story that he'd
forgotten he was on board the Army cargo plane.
Troy Copeland stood in front of him. He was one of Nash's DARPA
people, the hawk-faced nuclear physicist.
'So, how's it going?' Copeland said, nodding at the bun dle of
paper in Race's lap. 'Found the location of the idol yet?'
'Well, I've found the idol,' Race said, flipping through the
remainder of the manuscript. He was about two-thirds of the way
through it. 'I think I'm about to find out where they took
it.'
'Good,' Copeland said, turning. 'Keep us posted.'
'Hej6' Race said. 'Before you go, can I ask you some thing?'
'Sure.'
'What is thyrium-261 used for?'
Copeland frowned at the question.
'I think I have a right to know,' Race said.
Copeland nodded slowly. 'Yes… yes, I guess you do.' He took a
breath. 'As I think you were told before, thyrium-261 is not
indigenous to Earth. It comes from a binary star system called the
Pleiades, a system not far from our own.
'Now, as you can probably imagine, planets in binary star systems
are affected by all sorts of forces because of their twin
suns—photosynthesis is doubled; gravitational effects, as well as
resistance to gravity, are enormous. As such, elements found on
planets in binary systems are usually heavier and denser than
similar elements found here on Earth. Thyrium- 261 is just such an
element.
'It was first found in petrified form in the walls of a meteor
crater in Arizona in 1972. And even though the speci men there had
been inert for millions of years, its potential
sent shockwaves throughout the physics community.'
'Why?'
'Well, you see, on a molecular level, thyrium bears a striking
resemblance to the terrestrial elements uranium and plutonium. But
thyrium outweighs both of these earthly elements by an order of
magnitude. It is denser than our two most potent nuclear elements
combined. Which means it is infinitely more powerful.'
Race began to feel a sense of dread crawling up his spine.
Where was Copeland going with this?
'But like I said, thyrium has only ever been found on Earth in
petrified form. Since 1972, two other samples have been discovered,
but again both of those specimens were at least 40 million years
old. Which is of no use to anyone since petrified thyrium is inert,
chemically dead.