5: The Empty Archway
The echo of the pebble’s passage reverberated down the winding cavern. Because the toecaps of Philip’s shoes weren’t that thick, and because the stone had been very hard, Philip hobbled, having just kicked the blasted thing, following Eve through the tunnel. Eve had brought a torch with her and subsequently led their expedition into the mountain. He wasn’t in the best condition now for this, what with having a stinging foot and a bag on his back so heavy that it was taking up most of his energy. Wary of the time, Philip checked his watch for the tenth time in so many minutes.
“So how long will Alf let us stray into the caves?” he questioned, starting to feel a bit anxious.
“Oh, we’ll have a few hours, don’t worry,” she answered matter-of-factly.
On they went, deeper into the heart of Auyantepui, never knowing what lay ahead. Shining metals and gems, worn away by time and water, were visible in the cracks in the earthy walls. They glimmered in the light of phosphorescent fungi, and this light reflected off these ores, guiding them ever closer to their goal.
With the absence of adults and certain safety, and his macho act in front of Eve forgotten, Philip’s childhood fear of the dark (for it was dark, even if light glittered off the walls) grew monstrously within his pounding torso, rearing its ugly head to send a new wave of terror through every fibre of his body. Eve felt none of this, her persistent strut marshalling Philip, who desperately did not want to be left in solitude, contained by these ancient walls. It was soon after this that both realised that the path was sloping upwards. Philip could smell fresh air replacing the putrid, stale air of the underground maze, but that didn’t make the bag on his back any lighter. Golden light was growing brighter and brighter. Their path was so steep now that they were forced to climb the last stretch instead of walking it. Scrabbling on the loose handholds, their heads broke the surface of the peak and entered the outside world once more.
Beams of sunlight fell to the earth, so intense that without any cloud cover they could shine far into the tunnel. Shielding their eyes with the backs of their now grubby hands, Philip and Eve took in their surroundings. All around them trees had sprung from the earth, creating a dense forest up above the cloud line. The trees rose into the clear sky, making the teens feel like specks, insignificant. But dominating even the trees in the sky was one massive stone pillar. Without the need to look at one another, they strode on, mindlessly compelled to find this feat of ancient architecture. Its origin was lost in the thicket of trees, but the duo twisted their way around the wide old trunks, untouched by man, blindly, guessing the direction of the alien structure. Philip didn’t know why Eve was persevering, but he was driven on by his determination to get past this mental blockage and hallucination that was Gryal. Gryal couldn’t exist, it was illogical, and he had to convince himself that this was so. There was no abnormal activity going on.
They tried to walk in a straight line, so as to be able to find the tunnel again easily and quickly if needs be. To Philip the forest was starting to look symmetrical, areas ahead of them looking just the same as those behind. Hope was draining from both of them. The pillar always seemed to be far away. But their arrogance of youth meant that they would not turn back. And then the trees began to thin. The gaps between them were widening so much that the adolescents no longer had to pick their way over tree roots; they could walk on flat ground again.
Philip and Eve burst out suddenly into a clearing. The canopy of the trees that surrounded the open space bent to create a dome, obscuring most of what lay in front of them from above, with only the central pillar rising above the leaves. There, filling the clearing, was the most mystic and primordial temple the world had never seen.
*
Stark nodded at Mordrin, who rotated the dial clockwise as far as it would go.
“The machine is in standby,” he read aloud from the screen before him.
*
Philip and Eve stood there gawping for a few more seconds. It was the shape of the temple that had them astounded, not to mention the unknown pictographs and the fact that they’d just discovered a lost temple in the middle of nowhere. It was on a raised platform that extended in regular steps till it reached its maximum width, and then mirrored itself, retracting in regular steps. At the points of maximum width and maximum height long slices of stone stuck out, pointing to exactly north, south, east and west, and upon each of these slices stood a great column, twice as tall as a house. Resting on the tops of these columns were interlaced beams, forming an octagonal ring. And in the centre of the raised platform was a stone building. The size of your average home, it had been made in the shape of a cube. Protruding from the roof of this building was the solitary pillar they had seen reaching into the sky.
Carved into the structure were hieroglyphics and pictographs Philip had never seen before. It didn’t look like any written language of any tribe discovered at any point in history. In some respects, they seemed inhuman, the work of another sentient race. Over the innumerable centuries it must have been there, vines had crept up its walls, spiralling up the pillars, and slithered across the base. Human curiosity not letting them leave, the two hauled themselves onto the raised platform. Here they could see an entrance in the cube-shaped building.
It was a sweltering day, with the sun still high in the sky, so Philip and Eve couldn’t wait to get into the cool shade of the inner temple. The panels that made up the outer layer of the cube had a door-sized hole in them, presumably the entrance. No light entered the hole; it stopped on the threshold, blocked somehow by the inky blackness. Throwing caution to the wind, they entered.
Thankfully Eve still had her torch, so they were able to see the cobwebs misting over the extravagant and abstract drawings that were on every surface of the inner sanctum. By the light of her torch, Philip was able to make out alien scripture, an alphabet of jagged lines and triangles. Behind the writing, and dominating most of the four walls, were gigantic circular diagrams, divided up into squares by gridlines, with blue, red, white or black dots every so often. Many of these strange circles overlapped like Venn diagrams.
Growing from the walls, floor and ceiling were thick, root-like plants which weaved their way across their corresponding surfaces, all leading out of the entrance and into the open air. It was these, Philip presumed, that climbed the outer walls. They all seemed to be pulsating ominously, in the dark they could almost be mistaken for veins leading to a heart in the centre of the structure. He and Eve stepped over these plants and, with painstakingly slow steps, so as not to set off any traps like in the movies, they moved further from the threshold into the unknown. Their only guide, save Eve’s weak torch, was a glow around the centre of the room.
Tripping once or twice over more roots, the pair came across a rock embedded in the stone floor, carved into a triangular prism. On the longer sides were holes down to what must be lower levels of the complex. Metal rods bent in a similar pattern to that of a spider’s web covered the holes, preventing anyone falling into its bright depths. The glow, it so happened, was emanating from here. Peering down through the mesh, Philip and Eve gazed into the caverns beyond, but not properly seeing anything, the light being so intense. Philip straightened up first.
“Do you think we should be heading back?” he wondered aloud.
Eve straightened at his side, “I don’t know. We shouldn’t stay too long.”
Philip opened his mouth, but the unmistakable sound of stone grinding across stone blocked their ears of any other sound. Turning to the back wall, they saw what each had visualised in their heads. The largest of the circles had retracted into the wall and rolled aside to reveal a second chamber.
“Maybe just one more section,” was Philip’s not-so-truthful solution.
Leaving the dusty, graffitied hall behind, and not looking at Philip falling face first into a knot of vines, Eve lurched at the lip of the cliff a few centimetres after the chamber’s threshold. She stumbled backwards, not wishing to plummet to her death, and collided with a spluttering Philip.
“Bit of advice,” Philip coughed, “don’t bite the roots.”
“I got that, thanks.” Still not really paying attention, Eve inched back away from the edge.
From what light the torch gave off, she observed that this pit was surrounded by eight walls, four of which (including the one she was standing in) had doors, the wall opposite her and the two on either side of the octagonal shape, like the points of a compass. While keeping a firm grip on the doorframe, she stared into the fissure. Now she looked more closely, she saw thin staircases spiralling down along the outer walls. There was a small gap to the left between her and the top of the nearest staircase.
“Come on Philip.”
Philip just continued to retch.
“Stop moaning. You said ‘just one more section’.”
Not waiting for a reply, she grabbed his arm and dragged him onto the lip.
“See the step? Good, jump on three. One, two, three!”
Philip flung himself into the air, giving himself to the breach. Eve, who had gone back to looking into the pit, was brought back to her senses by a dull ‘oomph’ to her left. Cocking her head to the side, she saw in the corner of her eye the silhouette of Philip spread-eagled on the flight of stairs. She hadn’t seen the floor of the pit, but with her torch Eve had seen numerous levels and platforms on the way down. A little more gracefully than Philip, Eve bounced onto the top step. As she landed Philip got shakily to his feet. By the time he was steady once again, Eve was tapping her foot on the stone step incessantly. He was mirroring her disapproving glare. Picking a dislodged piece of rock, he held it up in front of her face.
“Before you make me do that again, let’s just see how deep this place is.”
And so Philip let the rock fall from his grasp. There was an instant thud. Surprised, the two looked down. Carefully, Philip lowered his leg over the stair. It touched the ground easily.
“See,” Eve perked up at this point, “It wasn’t that hard.”
She skipped the final few stairs and landed nimbly on a hard floor. The moment she did so, torches in brackets were alight, illuminating the scene. It wasn’t a floor. It turned out that they were standing (or in Philip’s case, lying) on a bridge, leading to a circular platform in the centre of the room. Around the uneven walls were what looked like rows of seats, similar to what you find in a Victorian operating theatre.
Far below was the glow they’d seen from above. They weren’t thinking of the time any more. They had forgotten that they were supposed to be getting back. The lonely archway on the platform ahead was what filled their minds.
Shifting their weight slowly, the intrepid, or maybe pig-ignorant, duo crept towards the transfixing edifice. Though they did move tentatively across the bridge, it still cracked and groaned, small chunks falling away here and there. This area wasn’t structurally sound, but it was safe enough for them to get to the other side. Safe enough for them to get back, however, might be another matter entirely.
Now they were closer, Philip and Eve could see that the archway wasn’t anything special. There were pictographs around the edges, just like the ones on the outside of the temple, but apart from that, it was a regular, ancient, crumbling archway. It was probably big enough to fit a jeep through, but nothing larger. It stood upon a pedestal, raising it above the shiny platform, and there was a ramp connecting the two levels of ground.
A little distance to the side of the pedestal, a round table stood, as old as the archway, with a viscous gel layering its top. None, however, dripped over the edges.
It was now that Philip noticed the ominous silence, the silence you get when something is trying desperately not to make a sound. This place was eerie, if not downright terrifying. Once again, Eve stared down over the lip into the chasm.
“This is wrong,” Philip indicated.
Eve sighed, deciding to play along, “What is?”
“The architecture. It’s not like any known, or that I’ve seen at least. Do you know what this could be?”
Eve smiled, “Another attraction my father could use to get more money off tourists?”
Philip spoke fast, trying to keep up with the rapid cacophony of thought going on in his head, “No, well, probably, though I’d hope not. No, this could be evidence of a civilisation predating the Incas and Chancay, even maybe the Norte Chico.”
“Really.”
“I only say that because it does seem to be a derivation or branch of their constructs, what’s left of them anyway. Though its state of preservation challenges that,” Philip was lost in his own little world of ancient artefacts.
“I’m sure,” she said without any emotion.
Philip came out of his daze, “You’re not listening to me, are you?”
“You seem to be the expert.”
“You’re fat and ugly and have no friends.”
“You’re probably right. Hey, have you got a camera on you?” she called over her shoulder.
Philip tore his gaze from the archway.
“Uh, yes,” he confirmed.
He rolled his eyes and swung his bag off his shoulder, which was a great relief to his spine, and unzipped the front pocket. After a minute of rummaging, he produced a new camera. Gingerly, he handed it over to the girl.
“Put the strap around your wrist so you don’t drop it!” he warned her frantically. “It was a birthday present.”
“Whatever,” she said, exasperatedly.
Carefully, so as to not get an earache from the boy’s complaints, Eve pointed the lens into the void. The camera was good quality, she mused, the picture was very clear. Philip was done scrutinising the archway and came over to join her.
“I’ll have the camera back now, if you don’t mind.”
Patiently, she slipped the strap off her wrist and passed the item back to its owner.
“What a view,” were the words that escaped from Philip’s mouth.
Down below, somehow suspended, were massive rings, each getting larger as they lowered into the earth. It was unthinkable how any ancient civilisation could have achieved anything of this magnitude.
But now the magic of it had passed. There was nowhere left to explore, as far as they could see. This was the only other chamber. Both assumed that they should be getting back. And on their way back they passed the round table, which for a second glinted. Philip paused mid-stride. Eve continued for a few steps, not realising she was walking solo, and then stopped as well.
“Philip?” she asked, nervously.
“Don’t worry, it’s nothing,” Philip reassured her.
He leant over the table, one hand on either side, examining the puzzling gel. He could have sworn that the gel was deeper than the table. The bottom of the gel was shaped like the inside of a bowl; it looked as if it should have come out of the base of the table. But when Philip checked, it did not. He also saw that the gel was only a few millimetres thick. It must be an illusion, he rationalised. The gel only had the 3D effect of going deeper than it did. Multi-coloured dots floated around in the liquid. Just to prove that it was an illusion, Philip stuck his fingers in, and his hand, and his forearm.
To Eve, it seemed that Philip was being sucked into the table! For his arm went in the top, but did not come out the bottom. From Philip’s point of view, the gel was bending around his hand, so that he never truly touched it. Further and further he reached, until...rumble. Philip froze. And there is was again louder this time. And this time, the platform itself shook, cracks running down the edges.
The light at the base of the pit flared suddenly. Eve was no longer looking at Philip. She was watching in horror as the rings lit up as one, lightning crackling between them. All of a sudden, lightning burst forth from the archway. The pictographs began to glow, as if they were red hot.
Philip wrenched his hand from the gel, but that didn’t stop the rumbling.
*
Mordrin was hunched over the panel, watching the data scrawling across the screen.
“Power to fifty percent,” he read aloud.
“Uh-oh,” Stark groaned, “What the hell does he think he’s doing!”
Mordrin sprinted from his panel to Stark’s on the far side of the room.
“This had better not be about the Mancynn,” he panted.
“Um...”
“Get out of the way!” Mordrin shoved Stark out of the chair and sat down.
It only took him a few seconds to realise what was going on. He slammed his fist on the controls.
“Damn it! He was in the room when the portal overloaded!”
“Is...is that bad?” Stark ventured.
“Only if you don’t want Gryal biting your head off because the Mancynn is dead.”
“What can we do?”
“Nothing,” Mordrin said, blankly, defeated.
*
Suddenly, the rumbling stopped. Philip and Eve got up from their crouched positions and scampered towards each other. They met in front of the archway. Looking into it, they saw nothing. That is to say, they saw blackness, not even the opposite wall. The space within it was empty.
A block of stone fell from the ceiling between them and the pedestal. In unison they screamed and ran across the bridge away from the monolith of rock. Now more and more rocks were falling around them, many into the abyss.
Philip couldn’t get them out of there via transit, he couldn’t clear his mind, it was panicking too much. But maybe he didn’t have to; they were nearly at the other side of the bridge. Just a few more metres, one more metre, he was there! Eve was a few steps behind him. A rock landed on the middle of the thin bridge, which shattered under the strain. Her cry was almost inaudible over the rock fall. Philip had lunged, and caught her hand. But this heroic manoeuvre wasn’t going at all to plan. She was heavier than he was strong, and Philip found himself slipping over the edge with her. They would both perish in this unknown temple.
“I can’t hold on,” he shouted to her.
“Help me!” she screamed, seemingly oblivious to what he had concluded.
“Eve! Can you hear me?!” She nodded, “Good. Do you see that foothold to your left? I need you to swing yourself to it. Hurry!”
Eve tried to swing herself to the left, but only succeeded in dropping slightly further.
“Come on Eve! I will not be responsible for your death!”
Tears were running down her cheeks now. Again she tried, she had to. Her foot connected with the rock, and fell away again.
“Come on Eve!” Philip was painfully aware of how far he was slipping, “This time! You’ll do it this time!”
Philip could see her counting under her breath. And she swung, this time onto the foothold.
“Perfect! Now, there’s a handhold to your right. Can you reach it?”
Eve nodded and grabbed hold.
“Eve, listen closely. To get up, you’ll have to let go of my hand and climb up yourself. Can you do that?”
She shook her head, a whimper coming out through her tears.
“Eve,” his voice was starting to shake now, “you have to do it. I’m going to let go now. Are you ready? Okay: one, two, three!”
Quickly he pushed himself back, away from the edge and to safer ground. Sure enough, Eve’s arm appeared over the lip of the cliff. Hurriedly, Philip helped pull her completely over. She was quivering all over, and he couldn’t blame her. But there wasn’t much time.
“We have to move,” he told her, shaking her by the shoulders as he did.
Eve took a deep breath and kept herself still.
“You’re a good friend. Let’s go,” she agreed.
The main chamber above wasn’t as badly affected, but the ground was still treacherous. Here and there sections of the ground were falling away into the chaos that ensued underneath. The mysterious bolts of lightning were in here now, filling the air with an unholy crackling.
The pair could see the world outside through the door at the other end of the hall. It too was busy with lightning. Even so, it was a relief to be outside again, but they still had to keep moving. The entrance to the caves had been straight ahead from the clearing. All they had to do was reach it. It was then that the temple was enveloped by a ball of energy. Inside the sphere was a typhoon of green lightning and burnt rock. It sounded like a maelstrom, but when it died down, there was no damage to the trees, and the clearing was empty, no sign of the temple, save a small hole in the ground...and two small bodies.
*
They heard the click clack of his bones scraping past each other before he came through the airlock.
“What the hell were you doing?!”
“It’s okay sir. The shields are raised and there’s no sign that the boy got...” Mordrin stammered.
With a violent wave of Gryal’s hand, Mordrin was thrown against the wall, denting the console. There, he slumped on the floor. Gryal turned to Stark in a flurry of cloak and bone. The poor man shrank, or maybe Gryal grew, as the skeleton stood over him, conjuring up a fireball in each hand.
The fattest of the Brethren Lords tried to explain his actions with a burst of hasty, desperate words, “We only had a short window of opportunity to eliminate the archway before the gap in the inter-dimensional barrier sealed itself and the signal would be cut off. Who knows how long we would have had to wait before another gap opened...”
“Give me your Hexagon,” Gryal barked.
Stark dared a glance at the Supreme Lord, “What?”
“Give me your Hexagon!”
Stark obliged, withdrawing his personal Hexagon from his lapel.
“Now,” Gryal turned to the door, “You can start your penance by getting me to the Tower nearest the boy. His trust in us cannot be damaged.”
*
Round and round the rotor blades went as the rescue helicopters flew over the uncharted plateau. Rodriguez, who had been at the hotel all the while, had been quick to get to the helicopter as soon as Alf had radioed him. Canaima National Park’s own helicopter had also arrived in good time in response to Rodriguez’s phone call. For the past ten minutes, these two vehicles had been scouring the forest, with a few extra passengers of course.
“Where is he?! Where is he?!” Beth had been sobbing throughout the flight.
Her husband patted her on the shoulder comfortingly, “I’m sure he’s okay.”
The party had heard the explosion from the caves and had hastily met up behind the waterfall. It was then that everyone had realised that the two adolescences were gone. Groups of three had searched the caves, with no success, and it was concluded (almost immediately by Beth herself) that they had been near the cause of the sound.
But because no one had seen the location of the disruption, it was extremely hard to locate anything in the dense growth of trees. The sun was getting low in the sky, and the pilots were getting restless. The one who had the misfortune of being Beth’s pilot turned around in his seat.
“I have...had a...a...how you say...message from Rodriguez’s heli-copter that there is...no sign of the boy.” English wasn’t his first language, and it was showing.
Beth clamped her hand to her mouth, “No!” she gasped.
“I’m...sorry,” the pilot was struggling with words, hoping not to say the wrong thing.
The co-pilot put a hand to his earpiece, listening to the incoming message, “Wait,” this man’s English was better, “They’ve got something.”
The two helicopters had begun to circle a clearing just visible through the trees. Lower and lower they went, until they were down to the grassy earth. Some feet away were the seemingly lifeless pair. But though the passengers could not see it from where they were, Philip’s and Eve’s chests were rising and falling gently. Rodriguez swung down from his copter, looking around in wonder.
“Do you realise,” he laughed over the slowing rotors, “that these two are maybe the first people to walk on this ground. No science or exploration has ever set foot in this place.”
“Enough of the chit-chat,” called the co-pilot, “We have to get them to a hospital!”
Beth came running past them both, her tangled hair flying behind her, “Philip! Oh, Philip!”
The distressed mother fell to her knees by her unconscious son, where she shook him, rather pathetically. The co-pilot watched from over Beth’s shoulder.
“Is he breathing?” he suggested, “Try the kiss of life.”
“There’s no need for that!” cried Philip as he sat bolt upright.
“Philip!” exclaimed Samuel.
Eve’s eyes fluttered open, “What’s with all the racket?” she complained groggily.
Rodriguez turned his gaze to Eve.
“Eve! You’re okay!” he said soppily.
“Yeah, now you notice,” she muttered, and then aloud she called over to him. “Dad, don’t talk to me like a child!”
Samuel joined his wife by Philip.
He whispered into her ear, “You can let go of him now.”
Her hands snapped off her son, like she was afraid that she was hurting him further. His body was covered in bruises and scratches. Samuel took her place at Philip’s side, staring at him intently.
“Now son, what happened?”
Everyone in the clearing was deadly silent. All wished to hear how the two teens had arrived at the top of the plateau.
Philip thought for a while, and then said, “I don’t know.”
It was the truth. He, nor Eve it turned out, had any idea of how they’d got there.
“Well, you must remember something,” his father encouraged.
Philip looked him in the eye, “The last thing I remember is walking into the tunnel by the boulder behind the waterfall.”
The adults looked at one another, and then to Alf, who said very quietly and tentatively, “Kid, there are no boulders behind the waterfall. The walls, floor and ceiling are as smooth as can be, worn down by the water. If there had been such a thing, I would have noticed by now on my various visits here.”
Nobody spoke for a while, everyone staring in different directions.
Finally, Rodriguez announced, “Sun’s going down pretty fast. We’d best be getting back to the posada. We can discuss this in further detail in the morning.”
In a mixed group they filed back into the helicopters. Philip navigated around his parents to Eve, who was just looking fixedly at a shroud of trees on the edge of the clearing.
“Do...do you remember anything,” Philip queried.
“Look, I told you back riverside, what makes you think I want to be friends with you?” She never took her eyes off those trees.
“We did just experience paranormal activity together.”
“It may only have been a coincidence that we appeared next to each other, nothing else. I hardly know you.”
And with that, Eve climbed aboard the other helicopter to him and was flown away. For all she knew, he could’ve set all of it up. She couldn’t trust him. However much that boy wanted it, they would not be friends, not in the foreseeable future.