Excavation

Henry reached to her hand, sensing her pain, needing support himself. His cold fingers wrapped around hers. Where words failed, simple human contact soothed. She leaned into the professor’s side. “Oh, Sam…” her voice cracked.



Norman knelt across from Sam’s body. Behind him, Denal stood quietly. The naked boy was now covered in Norman’s poncho, leaving the photographer only a pair of knee-length breeches. Norman cleared his throat. “Maggie, what about the temple?” he said softly. “Maybe… maybe it could…” He shrugged.



Maggie raised her teary eyes. “What?”



Norman nodded to Sam’s body. “Remember Pachacutec’s story.”



Horror replaced sorrow. Her eyes widened. She pictured the Sapa Inca’s pale body and remembered what lay in the neighboring valley. She slowly shook her head. The temple held no salvation. She could not imagine giving Sam’s body over to it.



Henry spoke, his voice coarse with tears. “Wh… what temple?”



Norman pointed toward the volcanic wall. “Up there! Something the Incas found. A structure that heals.” Norman stood and exposed his knee. He told of the injury he sustained.



The professor’s face grew incredulous. He turned to Maggie for confirmation.



She slowly nodded her head.



“But Sam’s d… dead,” Henry said.



“And the king was beheaded,” Norman countered. He looked to Maggie for support. “We owe it to Sam at least to try.”



Henry stood as another grenade exploded, and gunfire grew heated again. The weapons fire sounded much closer. “We can’t risk it,” he said sternly. “I need to get you all into hiding. It’s our only hope of surviving.”



Maggie had stopped listening after the word hiding. A part of her wanted to agree with the professor. Yes, run, hide, don’t let them catch you. But something new in her heart would not let her. She stared at Sam’s still face. A single tear sat on his cheek. She reached with a finger and brushed it off. Patrick Dugan, Ralph, her parents… and now Sam. She was done hiding from death.



“No,” Maggie said softly. She reached and took Sam’s Stetson from where it had fallen in the damp grass, then swung to face the others. “No,” she said more forcefully. “We take Sam to the temple. I won’t let them win.”



“But—”



Maggie shoved to her feet. “No, Professor, this is our choice. If there is even a chance of saving Sam, we attempt it!”



Norman was nodding. “I saw a stretcher in the helicopter when I got the rope to tie up the monk.”



Maggie glanced to where the man who had shot Sam still lay unconscious in the grass. His breath was ragged, his pallor extreme. He would probably die from the blow to the skull, but as an extra precaution, they had lashed his legs and arms. They stopped at gagging him, mostly because of his labored breathing. Her chest tightened with anger at the sight of him. She glanced away, to the helicopter. “Get the stretcher!”



Norman and Denal hurried to the chopper’s open door.



Henry stepped to her side. “Maggie, Sam’s dead. Not only is this wrong, it’s likely to get everyone killed.”



Maggie stood up to the professor. “I’m done hiding in ditches,” she said. She remembered Sam’s scathing words last night when she resisted eavesdropping on the shaman and the king. She had tried to justify her reluctance, but Sam had been closer to the truth. Even then, fear had ruled her—but no longer. She faced Henry. “We’re doing this,” she said firmly.



Norman and Denal arrived with a khaki-colored army stretcher, ending further discussion. Henry frowned but helped lift Sam onto the stretcher. Soon they were under way. Henry stopped only to grab the monk’s pistol from the weeds and stuff it into his waistband.



With the four of them, Sam’s weight was manageable. Still, the climb up the switchback seemed endless. Maggie’s nagging fear and the need for speed stretched time interminably. Once they reached the tunnel, she checked her watch. Only twenty minutes had passed. But even that was too long. The jungle gunfire had grown ominously silent.



“Hurry,” Maggie said. “We need to be out of sight!”



With straining arms and legs, they trundled into the gloom of the passage.



“It’s just a nit farther,” she encouraged. “C’mon.”



Ahead, the torches still glowed at the entrance to the gold chamber, though now they just sputtered. As they pulled even with the temple, Maggie heard the professor gasp behind her. She turned, helping to lower Sam.



Henry gaped at the chamber, his face a little sick. “It’s el Sangre del Diablo,” he mumbled, setting Sam down.



Maggie knew enough Spanish to frown at his words. “The blood of the Devil?”



“It’s what the abbot’s men have come searching for. The mother lode—”



Norman interrupted, “We need to get Sam in there. I’m sure there’s a time factor involved in this resurrection business.”



Henry nodded. “But what do we do? How do we get it to work?”



They all looked at each other. No one had an answer.



The photographer pointed into the chamber. “I don’t have an operator’s manual. But there’s an altar. I’d say first thing is to get Sam on it.”



Henry nodded. “Let’s do it.”



They hauled Sam up, each person grasping a limb, and eased him onto the gold altar. Maggie’s skin crawled as she stepped into the chamber. It was like a thousand eyes were staring at her. Her fingers brushed against the altar’s surface as she placed Sam down. She yanked her hand away. The surface had felt warm, like something living.



With a shudder, she retreated from the room, along with the others. Standing in the passage, they all stared, transfixed, waiting for something to happen, some miracle to occur. It never did. Sam’s body just lay on the altar. His blood dripped slowly from his chest wound and down the side of the altar.



“Maybe we waited too long,” Maggie finally said, breaking the room’s spell.



“No,” Norman said. “I don’t think so. Kamapak took half a day to get Pachacutec’s decapitated head here, and the temple still grew him a new body.”



“Sort of,” Maggie countered. She turned to Norman. “What did Kamapak do after bringing the head here? Was there any clue?”



Norman answered sullenly, “All he said was that he prayed to Inti, and the god answered.”



Maggie frowned.



Henry suddenly stiffened beside her. “Of course!”



She turned to the professor.



“It’s prayers! Concentrated human thought!” Henry stared at them as if this was answer enough. “This… this gold, Devil’s blood, whatever the hell it is… it responds to human thought. It will mold and change to one’s will.”



Now it was Maggie’s turn to lift her brows in shock, but she remembered the transformation of Sam’s dagger. It had changed as their needs dictated. She remembered how it had transformed in her own hands, when she had been so desperate for a key to the necropolis’s gold statue. “Prayers?”



Henry nodded. “All we have to do is concentrate. Ask it… beg it to heal Sam!”



Norman dropped to his knees, drawing his palms together. “I’m not above begging.”



Henry and Maggie followed suit. Maggie closed her eyes, but her thoughts were jumbled. She remembered the pale beasts in the next chamber. What if something like that happened to Sam? She clenched her fists. She would not let that happen. If prayers worked, then she’d let the others pray for healing. She would concentrate on keeping the temple from making any additional “improvements” in the man.



Bearing down, she willed it to heal Sam’s injuries, but only his injuries. Nothing else! She strained, knuckles whitening. Nothing else, damn you! Do you hear me?



Denal suddenly gasped behind her shoulder. “Look!”



Maggie cracked open her eyes.



Sam still lay upon the altar, unmoving, but the ball of webbed strands above the bed began to unwind, to spread open. Thousands of golden stands snaked and threaded from the nest to weave and twine in the air. Tips of the strands split into even tinier filaments, then these split again. Soon the threads were so fine, the room seemed filled with a golden fog. Then, like a heavy mist settling, the golden cloud descended over Sam’s body. In a few seconds, his form was coated from crown to toes with the metal, making him a sculpture in gold. And still the gold seemed to flow. Like some shining umbilical cord, a thick twined rope connected the golden statue of Sam to the node above the altar. The cord writhed and pumped like a living structure.



Maggie felt slightly sickened at the sight. She stood up; Henry and Norman soon followed.



“What do you make of it?” Henry asked. “Will it work?”



No one answered.



“How long it will take is the better question,” Norman said. “I don’t think the army down there is going to give us all day to hang around.”



Henry nodded. “We need to think about setting up a defense. Is there another way out?” The professor glanced down the tunnel toward the other caldera.



“Not that way,” Maggie said.



Henry turned back around and rubbed at his tired eyes. “Then we’ll need weapons,” he mumbled. “I spotted an extra case of grenades in the helicopter, but…” The professor shook his head sourly.



Norman spoke up. “Grenades sound good to me, Doc. Preferably lots of them.”



“No,” Henry said dismissively. “It’s too risky to go back down there.”



“And it’s too risky not to,” Norman argued. “If I’m quick and careful…”



Denal added, “I go, too. I help carry. Box heavy.”



Norman nodded. “Together, it’ll be a cinch.” He was already stepping away with the boy.



“Be careful,” Maggie warned.



“Oh, you can count on that!” Norman said. “The National Geographic doesn’t offer combat pay.” Then he and the boy were off, hurrying down the corridor.