Excavation

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.

Henry returned to staring at the temple. He mumbled, “The structure must be using geothermal heat as its energy source. This is amazing.”

“More like horrible. I can see why Friar de Almagro called this thing the Serpent of Eden. It’s seductive, but beneath its charms lies something foul.”

“The Serpent of Eden?” Henry furrowed his brows. “Where did you come by that expression?”

“It’s a long story.”

The professor nodded toward the temple. “We have the time.”

Maggie nodded. She tried to summarize their journey, but some parts were especially painful to recount, like Ralph’s death. Henry’s face grew grim and sober with the telling. At the end, Maggie spoke of the beasts and creatures that haunted the neighboring valley. She explained her theory, finishing with her final assessment. “I don’t trust the temple. It perverts as much as it heals.”