The headlamps cut two slivers of light into the unforgiving pitch-darkness ahead. We proceed cautiously along a narrow corridor wide enough to admit two people walking abreast. Logan is by my side, and the echo of Smith’s steps behind us tells me the creepiest guard ever is following suit.
Besides being black as night, the confined space is also eerily quiet, except for the sound of our feet dragging on the floor. When the flutter of a sudden rush of wings flies past us, it scares me witless.
“Aaargh!” My scream bounces off the stone walls. “What was that? Something hit me in the face.”
“Just bats,” Logan says.
“Just bats?” I repeat. “’Cause that’s so comforting.”
“It’s an abandoned, dark cave.” Satan scoffs. “What did you expect?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Should I look forward to pits filled with snakes, too?”
“Please, this is not a literal Indiana Jones movie.” Logan pivots, blinding me with his headlamp. “I doubt the place is booby-trapped.”
I stop walking and raise a hand to shield my eyes. “Hey, point that thing some other way,” I say, and when he does I add, “You doubt we’ll find booby traps, or are you sure we won’t?”
Logan stops a step ahead and turns back to me, orienting his light toward the wall. “Again, this is not a movie, so it’s improbable—”
“Ah, but not impossible!”
“Listen.” Even if I can’t see under the light’s glare, I know he’s rolling his eyes. “If the statues outside are any indication, this should be a place of worship. Like a church. How many churches do you know with booby traps?”
“Still, I’d rather not have my head cut off by giant rotating blades dropping off the ceiling.”
Logan shakes his head. “You really watch too much TV. Worse we’re going to find is a maze.”
“And you’re not worried we’ll get lost?”
“No. Because I’m marking the way in.” He directs the flashlight beam toward the wall to his right, illuminating a small arrow he must have drawn in white chalk. “But if you’re too afraid to come along,” Logan continues, “you can pass your headlamp to Smith and head out. No one’s forcing you to be here.”
I purse my lips. “I’m not staying behind.”
“Okay, then.”
Without further comment, Logan moves forward.
I follow him, but now I trail a few steps back. Just in case…
In the darkness, it’s hard to tell distances. But when, so far as I can judge, we’ve gone some fifty paces, the obscurity gives way to a faint light. Another minute, and we enter the most wonderful place I’ve ever seen.
An atrium vast and tall like a hall in a cathedral, only windowless. The dim light comes from above, presumably through shafts connected with the outer air and driven into the roof, which arches away a hundred feet above our heads. We’re standing in an enormous single aisle, loftier and wider than any church I’ve visited. Running in twin rows down the length of the nave are gigantic pillars that shine even in the semi-darkness. Contrary to the exterior of the temple, they appear to be made of solid gold. No matter how impossibly heavy they must be, they soar up to the distant ceiling with a delicate beauty. The tops of the pillars are decorated with sculpted capitals, and the main posts are carved with flowers and leaves that climb up and around to the head of each column.
I try snapping a few pictures of the place, but the images that appear on my camera screen are only a poor imitation of the magnificent chamber. No matter how many times I adjust the exposure and focus, nothing comes even close to the real thing.
As we make our way further into the temple, three more pillars take form at the end of the aisle, placed horizontally across its width. Only, as we draw closer and the shapes get better into focus, they transform from simple cylindrical columns to three colossal forms standing upon huge pedestals of dark rock. With human bodies and monstrous faces, each gold statue measures about thirty feet from the crown of its head to the pedestal, and they’re separated by a distance of about forty paces.
Logan points his flashlight at the figure furthest to the left, and whispers, “Garuda.”
The statue has the torso and arms of a man, and the wings, head, beak, and talons of a bird of prey.
“Hum, who’s this charming fella?” I ask.
“Garuda,” Logan repeats. “The legendary bird-like creature, a guardian with the power of traveling anywhere.”
“So he’s one of the good guys?”
“They all are.” Logan shifts his gaze, along with the beam of his light, to the statue in the center. “This is Yasha. He or she…” Logan lowers his sights to the sculpture’s chest area. “She, then… is another guardian deity, mostly benevolent.”
“Mostly?” I ask. “What does she do when she gets angry?”
Logan gives me a cheeky grin. “She devours nosy travelers.”
Smith knocks on the statue’s feet. “Well, at least the man-eating bitch is made of solid gold. Hollow by the sound of it, but it must still weigh a few tons. Pity they didn’t make smaller versions we could bring home as souvenirs.” The soldier lets out a low chuckle.
Logan scowls at him. “Everything we find here belongs in a museum.”
“Yeah, sure, Professor.” Smith shrugs. “Just saying the bitch’s valuable.”
The boys are still glaring at each other, so, to defuse the tension, I ask, “And what about the last one?” I stare up at the third statue, illuminating its devil face. “He doesn’t look friendly to me.”
“That’d be Mock,” Logan says. “He is a monkey god of justice.”
“So we shouldn’t expect to turn buffet with him.”
“No. But even Yasha… I’m pretty sure she isn’t here to eat anyone. I think she’s in her nature-fairy capacity, to protect rather than attack. They’re a powerful trinity of guardians.”
“And what are they supposed to guard?” I ask.
“Very good question, Miss Knowles.” Logan turns to me, and then back to the statues. “Why don’t we go find out?”
Our lights cut through the darkness behind the colossi, but they meet no wall. The main aisle seems to open on a smaller cave, same as a lesser chapel that opens out of a great cathedral.
“Shall we?” Logan asks.
I nod and follow him to the end of the vast and silent cavern, where we find another doorway—not arched as the first at the entrance of the temple, but square at the top.
“Rather ghastly,” I say, peering into the dark passageway.
“Come on, don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet now?” Logan teases, and politely makes room for me to take the front. “Ladies first?”
“Hell no.”
“All right.” Logan chuckles and once again leads the way into darkness.
This passage is smaller, and we have to proceed single file. Logan in the vanguard, me in the middle, and Smith taking the rearguard. The only sound is that of our feet scraping the dusty floor, and I can’t help being overcome by some unaccountable bad presentiment. Like something evil is awaiting us on the other side of the tunnel.
After about twenty paces, I’m beginning to feel claustrophobic when, thank goodness, we reach a wider space. We’re in a gloomy, rectangular room forty feet long by thirty across, and about thirty-five feet in height. This area doesn’t have natural lighting like the main hall, but at least there’s enough room to breathe, giving my mounting cabin fever a rest.
The last thing I want to do is admit to Satan that I’m scared. So I concentrate on our surroundings. It doesn’t take long for my eyes to grow accustomed to the dimmer light and make out the contents of the new chamber.
The center of the room is taken over by a massive stone table with a gold figure lying across its length. A reclining Buddha.
The statue is on his right side, head resting on a cushion with an arm folded underneath.
Even if the surrounding atmosphere has a slightly grim feel to it, the figure looks serene.
Still on edge, I babble the first thing that comes into my head. “Great place to take a nap, I guess.”
“This is a representation of Buddha’s last illness,” Logan says. “He is awaiting death to enter nirvana.”
“Cheery.” I chuckle nervously. The statue reminds me of the reclining Buddha I saw in the Wat Pho temple in Bangkok.
“This is a work of art,” Logan says, circling around the table to inspect every inch of the sculpture. “Centuries-old, as ancient and beautiful as his guardians outside… Same artist, I reckon.”
“So you think the jolly demons outside are there to protect him?”
Smith regales us with one of his rare conversational pearls. “Nothing else of value in here, Doctor?”
“Nothing else?” Logan gapes, shocked. “This is the discovery of the century! The beauty, the craftsmanship it must have required to sculpt something so magnificent—”
“All right, Professor,” Smith interrupts, “no need to get all worked up. I was just wondering if we should search for a hidden treasure chamber or something.”
For the first time, I notice the room is a dead-end: stone walls all around and nowhere else to go. Logan seems to realize it at the same time I do, because he spins on his feet to examine each of the walls in turn. I follow his lead and brush my fingertips on the stone of the left wall. The entire surface is carved with decorations similar to those on the pillars outside. But whilst the two side walls are flat, the one at the back has a wide, square recess in its middle. Just tall enough to fit a man.
That’s where Logan stops his focus and beam of light.
“Well, well,” Smith says. “What do we have here… If it doesn’t look like the entrance of a secret passage.”
In synchrony, we all approach the blocked opening.
Logan traces its corners with his fingers. “Definitely a separate slab,” he says. “There must be a hidden mechanism somewhere to activate it.”
I cross my arms and raise a skeptical eyebrow. “Really? Kind of a heavy door to move without a power source.”
“Indeed,” Logan agrees. “A stone like this must weigh at least twenty or thirty tons. But, contrary to booby traps, secret passages were pretty common in ancient buildings. They were triggered by a wide number of counter-weight mechanisms that relied on simple balance principles to move even the greatest masses.” Still searching the stone with his hands, Logan adds, “All we have to do is find the switch.”
“If you say so,” I reply, even more skeptical.
Arms crossed over my chest, I lean against the side of the cave to watch Logan in his fool’s errand, but as my shoulder comes in contact with the wall, the rock doesn’t stay put.
A carved disk about ten inches in diameter sinks inward, then stops with a loud click.
And then the stone door begins to move.