Cave Dogs (Pachacuta Book 1) Page 13

  Jason said, ‘What if we “borrow” one of the Rock-Eaters. Set it on as high an angle as it will go, and as fast as it will go, and just trudge along after it. Eventually it has to reach the surface. Simple as that.’

  It did seem simple really, and a wave of hope, of excitement broke over me. Could it be that simple? Could we be just a few hours from being out of this oppressing system of caves? Away from the dangers of war, and the threat of the Amatuas.

  Jenny said, ‘They’ll come after us. As soon as they find out we’re missing. And when they find the mikhuy gone and a brand new hole in the wall, they’ll be right after us.’

  ‘So we blockade the tunnel behind us,’ Jason was thinking on his feet.

  ‘With what?’ Phil asked.

  ‘Rock dust, boulders, whatever we can use. I don’t know until we start.’

  ‘It’s a better option than staying here,’ Jenny felt.

  ‘So when do we go?’ I asked.

  ‘Now,’ said Jason. ‘What’s holding us back.’

  Fizzer suggested, ‘Give it a couple of hours. The Runa don’t have nights and days, but there is a communal sleeping period. There’ll be less people around then.’

  Jenny gestured towards the outer chamber of our quarters, where two Kuimata stood guard. ‘We seem to have acquired an appendage that we’ll have to get rid of first.’

  Phil said, ‘Plus there’s Turiz and the rest of the Jason Kirk fan-club waiting somewhere outside for us.’

  ‘The Var-shavi,’ Jason said. ‘We’ll ask for a trip to the var-shavi and see if we can slip away from there.’

  It sounded a bit of a loose plan, but his confidence gave us confidence.

  ‘I will be so glad to see the sky again,’ I said.

  ‘Even if it’s raining,’ Fizzer laughed.

  ‘Even if sheets of fire burn in the air, with a sound like the crash of great rocks together!’

  I laughed too, and the surge of hope was almost palpable.

  ‘What do you think the Sapa meant by “spears of fire”,’ asked Jenny, who never asked anything without a reason.

  ‘Rifles,’ Phil responded. Having completed his basic training in the part-time Territorial army, he was now an expert on all things military. He was probably right though.

  Phil continued, ‘I’d guess something like the old flintlocks, from around the sixteenth century, or maybe even earlier. The black powder used to flash as the gun fired. That would seem to a primitive culture like a spear of fire.’

  ‘So Fizzer’s idea that these people’s origins are above ground is gaining some credibility,’ Jenny said thoughtfully.

  Phil said, ‘It’s just a theory, the flintlocks, I wouldn’t put too much store in it without some other evidence. Demons that kill with just a look sound more like fantasy to me.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Jenny was quite clear, ‘That part I did understand. And it wasn’t a “look”. The king said their touch, and their breath. When Europeans encountered primitive cultures during their voyages of discovery, and their “conquests” they brought all sorts of diseases. Smallpox was one of the worst, and the most virulent. The Sapa said the touch of the demons, or their breath, would make your body start to rot, that could easily be smallpox. And you would then become contagious. You would have the touch and the breath of the demons.’

  ‘So you think…’ Jason started, but stopped. It was a profound realisation, an epiphany.

  ‘I’ve suspected it for a while,’ Jenny said, ‘I think we’ve found an ancient race of people driven underground, maybe by the invasion of their lands by European explorers. Maybe the Dutch, or the English, or the Spanish Conquistadors.

  I think they blocked all entrances with great Kepa stones, and retreated to a life without sunlight. My guess is that they were already quite comfortable underground, and simply cut off the “above-world”, declaring it a hell, full of hairy-faced demons.’

  ‘Beards were a fashionable item in the sixteenth century,’ Fizzer said, ‘It could be true.’

  ‘I’m not so convinced,’ Phil said, stroking Jenny’s arm disarmingly. He had a way of making you feel stupid even when you weren’t. ‘If there were great Kepa stones blocking entrances to the under-world I’m sure mankind would have discovered them by now.’

  Tupai spoke then, and he had so rarely spoken since he had lost his hearing aid that it had a greater impact than if anyone else had said it.

  ‘Are you kidding me, Phil? Haven’t you seen the shape of those things? They’re pyramids!’

  An hour and a half later, by my still-functioning watch, we asked to visit the var-shavi. I am sure the King had his own, although I suspected it was not quite as ornate as that of Taytacha-Raki with its gold and black crystals. I felt the Sapa Taytacha would have a more functional, utilitarian var-shavi. He seemed more that kind of person.

  There was no var-shavi in the palace for guests. I suspected because of the height inside the mountain. It would be difficult to pipe water from the underground rivers up thirty or more levels of city. So we were escorted to a communal facility a few levels lower.

  The events that followed are written up in the history books as though six brave heroes were off on a mighty and self-sacrificing quest. But it wasn’t like that at all. It was just a bunch of scared teenagers, deeply frightened, desperately wanting to get home, trying to steal a ride out of the prison we were trapped in.

  Pyramids.

  The Jesus Rock was a Kepa Stone and that wasn’t a pyramid. But maybe it had been, once. There were many smaller boulders surrounding it. It was conceivable that over many years, boulders crashing from the ceiling of the Mangapu Cavern had chipped away at the Jesus Rock, broken pieces off it, until its shape was no longer recognisable. It was possible.

  Pyramids.

  If the great pyramids of the world were actually massive plugs, blocking entrances to a subterranean world, then that raised more questions than it answered, for some pyramids were thousands of years old. And they were in places around the world many thousands of miles from New Zealand. Were there underground connections between these places? What about mummies? There were many theories about mummies, but here was another: were the bodies of kings mummified and entombed so that their spirits would remain and help guard the entrance against demons?

  Pyramids!

  The guards followed us to the var-shavi, but did not enter, as was the custom if you were not bathing.

  It was pathetically easy to ditch them at that point. We just walked into the var-shavi, following Jason, who led us to a low opening on the far side. I don’t think he knew where he was going, he was just following his nose. The var-shavi was deserted, I think most of the Runa were in their sleeping period.

  The opening took us into a room into which a large stream flowed, pouring through a massive heating channel before passing into ducts which took the water out into the baths of the var-shavi.

  We waded into the channel, lifting our robes to keep them dry. It was hot but bearable.

  The channel entered the room through another low opening. We ducked under that to pitch blackness beyond. Whether there was a path, a river, we could not tell.

  ‘Who’s idea was this?’ asked Phil cynically, but even as he did so a strong light flicked on. Jason had removed the lamp from one of the helmets and brought it with him, showing greater presence of mind than any of the rest of us. He had more than justified our faith in him, I thought, although once actually getting back to the surface would be a better result altogether.

  It was a channel that we were in, stretching ahead into the swallowing blackness, beyond the reach of the beam from Jason’s torch. To the left side of the channel, a smooth rock pathway followed its course. To the right was just wall.

  Jason stepped up onto the path and we followed.

  ‘This could go anywhere,’ Phil said loudly, after a while. ‘How are we going to get to the Rock-Eaters from here?’

  Jason said, ‘Keep silent, it won’t take the Kui
mata long to realise that we’ve gone, and your voice will travel for miles down a tunnel like this.’

  He turned to me though and whispered privately, ‘He’s right though.’

  ‘No choice now,’ I said, and he nodded.

  Every now and then Jason turned the light backwards down the path. After a while I realised why. Our wet footsteps gradually petered out as our feet dried, and after a few metres there were no signs at all.

  After half a kilometre, dead straight, the man-made channel made an abrupt turn to the right. A noise was gradually growing on the edge of my consciousness, but only after we turned the corner did it become clearly audible. A low, deep-seated throbbing. Not a natural cave noise.

  Jenny heard it too, ‘What’s that?’

  I shook my head, behind her in the darkness.

  Fizzer said, ‘It’s a pump of some kind. A large one.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Jenny whispered.

  ‘I’ve been listening to it for the last ten minutes, listen carefully, you’ll hear the rush of the water in between the throb of the turbines.’

  I had only just become aware of the sound. Fizzer had been listening to it for ten minutes! I listened carefully and he was right, I could just discern the water behind the slow, deep throbbing.

  Then came another noise, much clearer, and far easier to identify. Shouts and splashes from the tunnel behind us.

  ‘Quick as you like guys,’ Jason said. We hadn’t been dawdling, but we hadn’t been running either, too dangerous in the darkness even with the light of Jason’s torch ahead of us.

  ‘There’s a light up ahead,’ Fizzer said suddenly.

  I couldn’t see anything. Jason turned off the torch for a moment and we stumbled along in the darkness. Behind us the splashing had stopped, and I guessed that the Kuimata, like us, were up on the rocky path.

  Fizzer was right, although God knows how he knew. A soft green glow fell from the tunnel wall onto the path about a hundred metres ahead.

  Jason turned the torch back on. ‘We’ve got to make the bend before they turn the corner behind us,’ he said.

  What bend?

  We scurried, as quietly as we could, to the light, which was, as I suspected, an opening in the wall of the tunnel leading to a small nan, lit by roof-shili. Probably an access way for maintenance or cleaning of the channel. The floor of the nan was dust-free: unnecessary this deep inside Contisuyo.

  Jason went straight past it.

  ‘Hey,’ said Phil in a hoarse whisper.

  ‘They’ll be looking for us that way,’ Jason pointed out the obvious without stopping.

  Ahead the throbbing, pumping noise was growing louder and the swoosh of the water was clearly audible with every stroke of the pump. Jason was right about the bend in the tunnel, and we continued around it.

  ‘Stop!’ said Fizzer, so we did. ‘Breathe quietly,’ he said, although it was probably unnecessary as the pump noise was loud enough here to cover any small sounds we might make. Jason switched off the torch.

  Behind us a small shimmering of bouncing shili light and the sound of running footsteps. We needn’t have worried; both disappeared, presumably through the opening into the nan.

  Phil, standing next to me, started to speak, but no sound emerged as Fizzer roughly clamped a hand over his mouth. After a moment the light re-appeared and the footsteps continued for a few seconds. Then they did exit into the nan, soft footstep sounds continued from outside the tunnel for a moment.

  ‘OK,’ Fizzer said.

  Jason switched the light back on and we scurried forwards.

  ‘How did you know they were still there?’ Jenny asked.

  ‘I could hear them breathing,’ he said.

  I wished I had his ears.

  ‘I wonder why they didn’t bother to check this part of the tunnel?’ Phil said ominously.

  We found out why a few minutes later. It was a dead end. A cave filled only with a large pumping station.

  ‘Any more great ideas?’ Phil asked.

  At the tunnel bend behind us a wavering green glow appeared again.

  ‘They must have decided to check it anyway,’ said Fizzer.

  Water emerged from the pump through three large pipes. The flow was not steady, but gushed or trickled, in rhythm with the throbbing sound.

  Jason, as quietly as he could, waded into the deep pool at the base of the pump and crossed to the other side, where there was just enough room to squeeze past the machine. Maybe he was hoping we could hide back there. Instead he gave us an urgent whisper, ‘This way, hurry!’

  I hoisted my robes to keep them dry and waded through the waist high pool. The light at the other end of the tunnel was growing brighter.

  At the rear of the pump was a vertical shaft down which ran three pipes.

  ‘Think you could shimmy that?’

  I nodded, grasped hold of the closest pipe, latched my legs around it, and tried to shimmy down. I was wrong. I couldn’t. The surface of the pipe was a smooth substance, maybe plastirock, slimy with moss or lichen. I tried to shimmy, but I just slid, like a fireman down a pole, only the pole was about three times the diameter.

  Unsure of what I would find at the bottom, or maybe halfway down, I clutched the pipe tighter and succeeded in slowing my descent a fraction. A very small fraction.

  I would have yelled a warning to those above me, but I was too busy trying to hold onto the pipe. In a way the slide was exhilarating, like a roller-coaster ride at a fun-park. But it was far more terrifying, more so the longer it went.

  And it went on forever.

  I am not sure how many metres, how many stories, how many levels of this great city that I plunged, squeezing the life out of the pipe to little effect, then suddenly it was over, my feet hit water and I had not time to draw a breath before I was deep underwater in an inky-black underground lake.

  The pipe stopped a few feet underwater, but I kept going, a few metres anyway, before kicking back for the surface. So much for keeping my robes dry!

  I kicked up on an angle, putting some distance between me and the pipes, conscious that other bodies were going to come hurtling down any second. I broke the surface of the lake, treading water and gasping for breath. I could hear noises above me as my friends slid down the frictionless pipes, and something large brushed past me under the water.

  It didn’t touch me, but it passed close enough that I could feel the displaced water of its passage. I froze, and started to sink. Whatever it was it had been big. I could feel the muscles of my legs and arms twitching in nervous fright. What was it? A shark? No, the water was fresh. An alligator? There was nothing to do in the darkness but to be afraid and there was little time for that as one by one my friends plunged out of the sky into the blackness of the lake.

  Jason bubbled back cheerily to the surface beside me, ‘That was fun!’ he said.

  I said urgently, ‘There’s something alive under the water, and it’s big.’ A thought struck me, ‘They’re big.’

  The smile disappeared and Jason pulled the torch out from within his robes and flicked it on. Thank God it had survived the drop. He played it around on the walls. A tunnel led away from a rocky shore, not fifty metres from where we had landed.

  He tucked the light back in his robes and we swam in that general direction, stopping occasionally to check our progress with the torch.

  Once I was conscious of a large presence gliding through the lake beneath me, but just kept swimming. It hadn’t attacked yet, and what else could we do.

  We made the shore and scrambled over the rocks, not feeling safe until we had put a few metres between the water and us.

  Jason shone the light on the face of each of us in turn, asking ‘Are you alright?’

  We all nodded.

  ‘What in hell’s name was that?’ asked Phil, his face as white as that of the Runa.

  Nobody answered.

  There was a soft rippling noise from the lake and Jason shone the light out across the wate
r. A smooth dark patch in the water was the first thing I saw, then two eyes, shining in the light of the torch. A curious head slowly lifted out of the water and we finally met the great serpent of Ukhu Pacha. Well, one of them anyway.

  The head was shaped like that of a large snake, an anaconda perhaps, only wider and flatter, also bigger. Much bigger.

  The head of the serpent was at least half a metre across and over a metre long. The mouth looked large enough to swallow a human being whole, and I said so.

  ‘Well it didn’t, and it had the opportunity,’ Jenny pointed out.

  ‘Maybe it’s a vegetarian?’ Fizzer offered.

  ‘Maybe it just ate,’ I said.

  Its eyes were out of proportion to its size, in the same way that an elephant’s eyes seem tiny in its oversized head.

  The head raised itself a few metres out of the water and we all slowly backed away up the tunnel, conscious that the long neck could easily reach across the few metres of rocky shore and snatch us from our place of safety. But I think it was just getting a better look.

  After a moment it turned and rippled away across the lake, the head still high and proud above the water. Jason’s light caught great loops of the enormous body as it disappeared into the blackness.

  ‘Maybe that’s why they didn’t check the tunnel,’ Phil suggested.

  Jenny was staring at the coils of the great beast as it retreated.

  ‘I know what that is,’ she said slowly. ‘I know it.’

  ‘How could you?’ asked Phil uncomprehendingly. But she was right, I recognised it too, the way the body rippled through the water behind the great head. I had seen photos.

  ‘It’s the Loch Ness Monster,’ Jenny said.

  Fizzer whistled softly between his teeth, and even Tupai gave a small gasp of surprise.

  Phil said uncertainly, ‘We’re a long way from Scotland.’

  Nobody answered him. We all knew that wasn’t what Jenny had meant.

  The tunnel led to a darkened nan, and that to a small kindril. Another nan, shili-lit this time, took us to a great Nan, one of the major passageways.