Excavation

Sam glanced behind him and surveyed the spread of valley. Below, the village, half-covered in jungle, was barely discernible. Then suddenly a series of small fires climbed the rocky ridge off to the left, reaching to the lip of the volcanic cone. The signal fires. “Good going, Norman,” he wheezed quietly.

Maggie joined him. “Let’s hope your uncle gets here soon,” she said, eyeing the fires. Then she nudged Sam toward the tunnel. “Let’s get going.”

Kamapak struck a torch to flame and led the way inside. The tunnel was wide enough for four men to walk abreast and seemed to stretch straight ahead. No curves or turns. The walls around them were smooth volcanic stone.

“A lava tube,” Maggie said, touching the stone.

Sam nodded and pointed ahead. The darkness of the tunnel had seemed at first impenetrable. But as Sam grew accustomed to the gloom, he noticed a vague light coming from far ahead. Sunlight. “Norman was right,” he said. “The tunnel must connect either to another valley or a cavern open to the sky.”

Before Maggie could respond, Kamapak stopped ahead. The shaman lit two torches embedded in the right wall. They framed a small cave that neither Sam nor Maggie had noticed in the darkness. Kamapak knelt before the entrance.

As flames blew forth, a glow from the side chamber reflected back the torchlight into the main tunnel. Drawn like moths, Sam and Maggie moved forward.

Sam reached the entrance first. He stumbled to a stop as he saw what lay in the side chamber. Maggie reached his side. She tensed, then grabbed the Texan’s upper arm. Her fingers dug in tightly.

“The temple,” she whispered.

In the neighboring cave stood a sight to humble any man. The space was as large as a two-car garage, but every surface was coated with gold-floor, ceiling, walls. It was a virtual golden cavern! And whether it was a trick of the light or some other property, the golden surfaces seemed to flow, whorling and eddying, sliding along the exposed surfaces but never exposing the underlying volcanic rock. In the center of the room’s floor was a solid slab of gold, clearly an altar or bed. Its top surface was contoured slightly, molded to match the human physique. Above the altar, hanging like a golden chandelier, was a fanciful sphere of filigreed gold, strands and filaments twined and twisted into a dense mesh. It reminded Sam of a spider’s egg sac, more organic than metal. Even here the illusion of flowing gold persisted. The entwined mass of strands seemed to wind and churn slowly in the flickering torchlight.

“Where’s Denal?” Maggie asked.

Sam shook his head, still too shocked to speak. He pointed his serpent-shaped knife at the central altar. “No blood.”

“Thank God. Let’s-” Maggie jumped back a step.

A small spiral of gold filament snaked out from the mass above the altar and stretched toward Sam. “Don’t move,” Sam mumbled, freezing in place himself.

The thread of gold spun through the air, trailing like a questing tentacle. It seemed drawn toward Sam’s extended dagger. Finally it stretched long enough to brush against the gold serpent, touching a fang. Instantly, the golden sculpture melted, features dissolving away, surfaces flowing like warm wax. The hilt grew cold in Sam’s grip as heat was absorbed from it. Then the gold reshaped itself, stretching and sharpening, into the original dagger.

The questing filament retreated, pulled back into the main mass like a reeled in fishing line.

Sam held the dagger before his eyes. “What the hell just happened?”

Maggie found her tongue, crossing into Sam’s shadow, keeping his wide shoulders between her and the gold cave, the temple. “It’s not gold. It can’t be. Whatever your blade is made of, it’s the same as the temple. What the Mochico called sun gold. Some metal culled from meteors.”

“But it almost seems alive,” Sam said, backing away with her.

Kamapak rose to his feet, eyes full of awe for Sam. He mumbled something at Sam, then bowed his head.

“I don’t think we should tinker with it, Sam. Let’s find out what happened to Denal, and leave this until more experienced scientists arrive.”

Sam nodded dully. “This is what Friar de Almagro saw. It’s what must have scared the man into sealing off this caldera. The Serpent of Eden.”

“That an’ the decapitated head of Pachacutec,” Maggie mumbled.

Sam turned to her. On the way to the temple, Maggie had told him how she had eavesdropped on Norman and Sam’s fireside conversation, knew the fabricated story of Inkarri. “You don’t buy into that nonsense of the beheaded king, do you?”

Maggie glanced down. “There’s something I didn’t tell you, Sam.”

“What?”

“I wanted more time to think about what I saw before speaking.” She glanced up at him. “I sneaked into the courtyard after you an’ Norman were dragged away. I saw Pachacutec without his robe. His body was…was wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was like-”

A scream suddenly echoed down the passage, cutting off the conversation. Sam and Maggie froze.

“Denal!” Maggie gasped out as the cry echoed away.

“He’s alive!”