Gold of the Gods (10 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Beck was back on the beach, staring out to
sea. The hut, the Kogis, Mama Kojek – all
were gone. And something inside him had
changed too. Yes, it was still him all right.
Still Beck Granger standing here thinking
his own thoughts. But he had entered a
different world.

His eyes scanned the horizon nervously.
Just a few hundred metres out to sea,
beyond where the surf was breaking, was a
sight Beck had never witnessed before outside
the pages of a history book. Two
Spanish galleons were anchored in the bay,
their pennants fluttering in the breeze.

For a moment he stared at them in disbelief,
unable to move a muscle; unable to
quite believe what he was seeing. But something
else had caught his eye now: rowing
boats were being lowered into the water
from the decks of the ships and Beck could
hear the gruff shouts of the crew over the
sound of the waves. The men in the boats
were shouting up to those on the ships as
chain gangs loaded supplies over the rails.
Meanwhile, pairs of oars were emerging
from the sides of the rowing boats as they
bobbed up and down in the swell.

And now another more precious cargo
was being lowered slowly and carefully
down to the men in the boats. The objects
were long and thin, and before each one was
handed down, powder from a leather pouch
was poured into one end before being
rammed home with a long stick. With a
shock of recognition, Beck realized what
they must be.

Turning their prows towards the beach,
the rowing boats were soon coming fast
towards him. Near the back of the first boat,
Beck could see a man, who was clearly the
commander of the boat, shouting orders.
Sitting calmly while the men around him
rowed, he fixed his eyes on the mountains
beyond the beach.

Spread over his knees was a parchment
and he was moving his head from side to
side, scanning the land ahead of him. As the
boats came closer, Beck was able to make
out the man's features in more detail. He
reeled back in shock. The profile of that
long, straight nose was unmistakable.

Then Beck heard a shout. The men at the
front of the lead boat were pointing in his
direction. And they did not look friendly. A
glint of steel flashed in the sunlight and the
oarsmen redoubled their efforts as the boats
changed direction and headed straight
towards him.

Beck felt his legs sprinting up the beach,
along the path through the mangrove
swamp towards the village. He could see the
villagers standing outside their huts,
nervously awaiting his return. The white of
their long tunics gleamed in the hot
sunshine as anxious faces peered at him.
The men of the village were shouting now.
Women and children were gathering in the
village clearing and Beck could hear the
screams of the children as they grabbed hold
of their mothers' tunics. Above the
commotion he could hear the sound of a
baby crying.

Panic began to spread and the women
and children were soon running out of the
clearing towards the safety of the jungle and
the mountains beyond. The men were
clutching spears and had spread out across
the path beyond the entrance to the village,
crouching among the trees behind the line
of the mangrove swamp.

At last a tense silence fell. Beck was kneeling
on the path in front of the villagers. And
then he saw what his heart most dreaded.
The commander himself was advancing
along the path towards him. The man's
beard was more ragged than in his portrait
and the eyes more cruel. But Beck knew for
sure now who he was looking at.

His legs felt weak as he tried to rise from
his crouching position in the undergrowth.
He could see every detail now, every slight
change of expression, on the man's face.
Behind him, the men from the rowing boats
were strung out in a line, scanning the
horizon nervously from right to left. And
then, as the arc of the man's gaze crossed his
own, Beck froze. There was no doubting it
now. He was staring into the eyes of the
twins' ancestor, the famous conquistador,
Don Gonzalo de Castillo.

For a moment no one moved. Beck's ears
were burning and he could hear every sound
in minute detail. The sailors were breathing
heavily and he could hear the chink of chain
on metal. Behind him, in the forest, the call
of a hummingbird sounded like a song from
an opera. In front of him, a tiny bird with
bright yellow feathers and a hooked beak
was flitting among the white flowers of the
mangrove swamp.

Gonzalo raised his arm, his palm facing
towards Beck as if giving a sign of peace. In
response, the men of the village slowly
began to stand, the points of their spears
facing towards the sky and no longer
towards Gonzalo and his men. Suddenly
there was a flash, followed by a bang and a
puff of smoke. At once the sounds of the
jungle fell away, drowned out by the noise
of screaming and shouting. Gonzalo had
turned to face his men and was mouthing
angry words that Beck could not hear above
the noise. Then he felt an agonizing pain in
his left shoulder like the blow from a
hammer; his body crumpled and he
dropped to his knees.

All around him was chaos. Musket
muzzles flashed every few seconds as
Gonzalo's men disappeared behind clouds
of smoke. And now somebody was dragging
him back along the path towards the village.
His shoulder had gone numb and he could
feel blood seeping through his fingers as he
tried to cover the wound with his hand. He
was among the palm trees near the entrance
to the village when the arms that were
pulling him suddenly went slack and a Kogi
man fell down beside him. His eyes were
closed and his head hung limp, slumped on
his chest.

Beck dragged himself towards the trunk
of a nearby tree and lay against it, breathing
heavily. Some villagers lay writhing on the
ground beside him, circles of bright red
spreading out over their white tunics. A
woman with a young child in her arms, her
face contorted in grief, was pulling at his
arm as other villagers tried to drag her away,
pointing desperately towards the forest.

Beck's head swam, and for a while he lost
track of what was going on around him.
When he came to, Gonzalo's men were
running past him into the village. Flames
were leaping from the thatched roofs of the
huts and acrid smoke was billowing into
the sky.

And now Beck was being pulled along
the ground once more. But this time it was
Gonzalo's men who were dragging him,
shouting, cursing and spitting. His shoulder
felt like it was being stabbed repeatedly with
a knife; then he was thrown roughly to the
ground in the centre of the clearing. He
watched helplessly as Gonzalo strode into
the burning village and one of his men
pointed towards where Beck was lying.

Gonzalo was standing over him now,
staring down into his face. Beck could see
every detail of the conquistador's features.
The painting in the ballroom of the Casa
Blanca, the statue in the square and the
portrait at the hacienda had caught the likeness
well. But there was something they had
all missed. The nobility of the features
had gone; cruelty curled on Gonzalo's lips
and glinted in his eyes.

Now he was kneeling down beside Beck,
clutching something in his fist. As he lifted
his arm, a gold chain flashed in the sunlight.
The familiar features of the toad amulet, its
eyes bulging, its stomach bloated, its mouth
gaping, stared back at him.

For a moment Gonzalo dangled it in
front of Beck's face. Then he knelt closer
and whispered in his ear.

'
Perdido no más
,' he said.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Beck was drifting in and out of sleep. After
his journey in the world of Aluna, the
muffled chanting of the Kogi Mamas had
soothed his troubled dreams and the slow,
rhythmic beat of a drum calmed the
thump,
thump, thump
of his racing heart. Now, the
distant babble of voices had lapsed into
silence once more.

Beyond his closed eyelids, he could dimly
see the light of morning and smell the freshness
in the cool air. The raucous crowing of
a cock broke through the quiet and he
realized that a voice he recognized was calling
his name. For a few delicious moments
Beck thought he was back home again on
Uncle Al's farm in the country. Aunt Kathy
was calling him down to breakfast and he
could smell frying bacon and freshly baked
bread.

But now someone was shaking him and
gently slapping his cheek and he sat up with
a start. '
Buenos días
, Señor Granger,' said the
voice. 'Sleep well?' It was Christina.

Beck wiped the sleep from his eyes and
looked around. Sunlight was pouring
through the entrance of the hut. But everything
had changed since the previous
evening. The Mamas had gone and he and
Christina were alone. In a pot hung over a
fire, something that looked like thin
porridge was bubbling gently.

Christina handed him a bowl full of the
steaming gruel. 'Tasty,' she said, raising her
eyebrows to the heavens. 'Not!'

'But probably the best meal we're going to
have in a long while,' replied Beck. 'So we'd
better make the most of it. Where's Marco?'

'He's talking to the villagers,' said
Christina, nodding her head towards the
door. 'The Kogi found us yesterday after
you disappeared. We waited and waited,
and then a group of villagers appeared out
of nowhere and brought us here.'

She smiled timidly, as if unsure whether
to go on. 'It was as if they knew we were
there. They told us everything, Beck. About
how the Kogi are the Elder Brother and we
are the Younger Brother. And the story of
Gonzalo stealing the toad amulet from the
Lost City. And how his men burned down
the village in revenge when they couldn't
find it again.'

Beck nodded. 'They told me too.' He
paused and took a deep breath. 'And some!'
He told Christina about the dream and his
journey into Aluna and his vision of Don
Gonzalo and his men burning down the
village. When he had finished, he took the
toad amulet from around his neck and held
it up to the light.

'And this is what caused all the trouble.
Mama Kojek, the Indian I saw in the square
that day in Cartagena, says it's a sacred
offering to the Earth Mother that was
buried by his ancestors. Gonzalo stole it and
now it must be returned.'

'Do the Mamas know that Dad and your
uncle were kidnapped, Beck, and why we
need to find the Lost City so urgently?'
asked Christina, trying hard to remain
calm. 'I'm so worried.'

'They seem to know everything,' replied
Beck. 'When they travel in Aluna, they read
our thoughts and talk to us without even
speaking. But until the amulet is returned
to the Lost City, their elders say they are forbidden
to help us. We have to go on by
ourselves if we want to rescue Uncle Al and
your dad.'

He stood up and walked over to the
doorway of the hut. Outside, groups of
Kogis were going about their daily chores.
Marco was talking to some villagers and
watching intently as one of the women spun
thread onto a spindle before using it to
weave cloth on a hand loom – the white
cloth for the tunics worn by all the villagers.
As she carefully twisted and rolled the
woollen fibre into a thread, the woman
looked like she was meditating. When he
saw Beck, Marco broke off his conversation
and headed towards the hut.

'Sleep well,
amigo
?' He beamed, grasping
his friend in a welcoming bear hug.

A small group of inquisitive children had
soon surrounded the boys, begging them to
join in a game that reminded Beck of hopscotch.
Christina was dragged in to assist
but none of them was a match for the Kogi
children. Afterwards they retreated to a
corner of the village and sat down with their
backs against a tree.

'The villagers are very friendly, Beck,'
said Marco, 'but the Mamas want us to
leave at once. They say the Lost City is in
danger. I think they know about the gang
and the kidnap. I don't know how they
know, but they do. Something to do with
their spirit world. It's called Aluna. But I
think you know all about that, don't you,
Beck?' He smiled quizzically at his friend.

'If Gonzalo's treasure is not returned,'
said Beck, holding up the amulet, 'they
believe the mountains, and then the whole
planet, will die. But only the Younger
Brother can return it. If they take it from us
by force, it will be like stealing it for a
second time, and the Mamas forbid that.
For the same reason, they can't help us in
our search for Uncle Al and your dad.'

Suddenly they heard a noise behind
them. Mama Kojek had silently walked up
behind them and was standing watching.
Once more the holy man's eyes bored into
Beck's and he felt as if he were being slowly
hypnotized. He realized at once that the
time had come for them to leave. There was
a sternness in Mama Kojek's face and an
urgency in his eyes he had not seen before.

Mama Kojek led them across the clearing
towards the entrance to the village. A group
of young men were gathered around a fire;
one of them was giving a young boy a
tattoo. Nearby a young girl was having her
long black hair washed by a group of older
women. Marco waved to the group sitting
cross-legged around the woman at the loom
and, smiling, they waved back.

'Been making friends,' said Marco as he
held up one of the striped woven shoulder
bags in which the Kogi carried their few
possessions. 'It's a gift from the villagers.
Could come in useful, you never know.'

A familiar screech greeted them as they
made their way out of the village and Ringo
dive-bombed them from his perch on top of
the Mamas' hut. 'Come on, Ringo!' shouted
Marco. 'We're moving out. Time to go.'

As Mama Kojek guided them along the
pathway away from the village, Beck gazed
pensively out over the mangrove swamp
towards the sea. All was peaceful now and
there was no sign of Gonzalo's galleons. In
the far distance he could see the thin pale
ribbon of the beach and the white stripes of
waves breaking gently on the shore. Above
them, palm trees reached towards the sky
like giant feather dusters.

No one spoke as they followed in single
file along a wide path that led through the
jungle. Soon they began to climb steeply
towards the mountains and the ghostly
figure of the Kogi Mama disappeared into
the distance in front of them. The bustling
warmth of the village soon felt like a distant
memory. The salty tang of the sea air had
gone and a smell of damp, steaming earth
hung about their nostrils as the suffocating
heat closed in around them.

No one could agree on when they finally
lost sight of Mama Kojek. But just as they
finally realized he had gone, the path began
to level out and they emerged from the
forest on a hillside that looked back over
the village, now hundreds of metres below.
Terraced fields lay on either side of them.

'Maize,' said Beck in astonishment, looking
up at the rows of stalks that towered
above them. 'The Kogi must grow their
crops up here because it's drier and sunnier.
That's what we had for breakfast. The
Indians grind up the corn into a paste –
though I reckon it's much tastier as plain
corn on the cob.'

Marco was carrying the machete now
and, with deft swipes of the blade, lopped
six of the tight green envelopes from their
stalks and dropped them into the bag.

'Mama Kojek must have led us here on
purpose,' said Christina. 'It's like a final gift
before he said goodbye.'

'And now it's up to us,' said Beck grimly.
'Mama Kojek told me that the Lost City is
only two days' walk from here but it will be
tough going – the paths haven't been used
for years. There's a river on a plateau east of
here that leads to the city. And it's our only
chance of finding Uncle Al and your dad.'

'
Through the valley on the plateau the river
flows
,' said Marco, as if chanting a mantra.
'Mama Kojek told me to remember those
words too, Beck.' He paused and looked at
his friend with knowing eyes. 'Or at least he
spoke them into my head.'

Beck smiled. 'We must trust the Kogi
Mamas. Without a compass, there's only
one way to navigate in a jungle, and that's to
find a river. But you usually do that when
you're trying to find your way
out
, not
in
.
Once we get high up on the plateau though,
we'll be able to see over the tops of the trees
and find the river valley. Then we can follow
it up into the mountains to the Lost City.'

'But what are we going to do when we
find the Lost City?' asked Christina. 'What
chance do we have against the kidnappers?
Surely they've got guns.' She shuddered.

Beck took a deep breath. 'If we can
survive being attacked by a shark, we
can survive anything.
Keep hope alive
. First rule
of survival, Chrissy. And you know what?'

The twins shook their heads.

Beck took the amulet from around his
neck and dangled it in the sunlight. 'If we
can survive the jungle and return this to the
Lost City, I'm sure the Mamas will help us.'
He paused. 'And if not, the only weapon we
have left is surprise.' There was a cry from a
branch somewhere above them. 'Oh, and
Ringo, of course,' he added, raising his eyes
to the heavens.

As the day grew hotter, sweat began to pour
off them. Christina's face had gone bright
red and her mouth was hanging open as her
head drooped.

'I can see you're getting badly dehydrated,
Chrissy,' said Beck. 'You need a drink. And
you need it now.' He was staring up into the
surrounding trees but the only sign of water
Christina could see was the sweat dripping
from her sodden clothes.

'Tarzan got it all wrong,' said Beck,
pulling hard at a thick jungle vine clinging
to the trunk of a tree. He took the machete
from Marco and, holding it up as high as he
could reach, carefully made a deep cut into
the tough flesh of the vine. Then he slashed
hard at the root, where it disappeared into
the earth, before pulling up the severed end
so that it hung over Christina's open mouth.
Huge drops of clear water dripped onto her
parched lips.

'Vines are more useful for drinking from
than for swinging through the trees,' said
Beck. 'Feeling better?'

Christina was wiping her mouth with the
back of her hand. 'That's the nicest water
I've ever, ever tasted,' she confirmed
happily.

Beck cut another vine for Marco and a
further one for himself. 'It's like sucking
water into a pipette in a science lab at
school,' he explained. 'The vines suck up
water from the ground through the roots to
feed the growing end. When you make the
cut at the top, the water can't be sucked up
any further. Then you cut it off at the root
and gravity takes over. Hey presto, a hose
full of water.'

The twins continued to drink greedily as
Beck strode off into the undergrowth and
returned with three long sticks. He gave one
to each of the twins and kept one for himself.
'The only way to move quickly in the
jungle is to slow down,' he told them. 'If
you try to fight it, it just fights back
harder. And it will rip your skin off your
back unless you take it easy. Move like a
dancer, not like a bull in a china shop.
Drop your shoulders, swivel your hips.'

He picked up one of the sticks and went
on into the undergrowth, moving the stick
from side to side in front of him just above
ground level. 'Keep watching for snakes.
Move slowly and put your feet down hard.
Snakes feel vibrations, so you want to give
them plenty of warning. They'll only attack
if they're cornered – most of the time, that
is!' Beck grinned.

The path had all but disappeared now
and a dense tangle of foliage began to hem
them in on all sides, pulling and catching
on their clothes and skin. 'If you get lost in
this stuff, you're in trouble,' said Beck,
slashing at the thorns and tendrils that
stabbed at them from every side. 'It's
secondary jungle. The worst sort. The trees
have been chopped down in the past, and
when the light gets in, the undergrowth just
goes crazy. It ends up strangling everything
in the process. Including us.'

But something else had caught their
attention now. Leap-frogging through the
jungle trees above them, Ringo had been
announcing his presence at regular
intervals. Now, suddenly, his cries became
more shrill than ever. 'That bird sounds
more like a chainsaw than a parakeet,'
muttered Beck under his breath.