Temple

Race presumed that the rest of the enormous structure lay buried in the mud beneath them, consumed by four hundred years of accumulated wet earth.

What he saw, however, was frightening enough.

The temple was roughly pyramidal in shape—two wide stone steps led up to a small cube-like structure that was no larger than the average garage. He had an idea what the cube-shaped structure was—it was a tabernacle of some sort, a holy chamber not unlike those found atop Aztec or Mayan pyramids.

A series of gruesome pictographs had been carved into the walls of the tabernacle—snarling cat-like monsters wielding scythe-like claws; dying humans screaming in agony. Cracks of age littered the stone walls of the temple.

The unending subtropical rain ran in rivulets down its carved stone walls, giving life to the characters in the horrific scenes on the walls—generating the same effect that running water had produced on the stone totem earlier.

In the centre of the tabernacle, however, lay the most intriguing aspect of the whole structure—-an entrance of some kind. A square-shaped portal.

But this portal had been stopped up. At some time in the distant past someone had wedged an enormous boulder into it, blocking it. The boulder was absolutely huge. Race guessed that it must have taken at least ten men to move it into place.

'Definitely pre-Incan,“ Chambers said, as he examined the carvings.

'Yes, absolutely,' Lopez said.

'How do you know?' Nash asked.

'Pictographs are too closely spaced,' Chambers said.

'And much too detailed,' Lopez said.

Nash turned to Captain Scott. 'Check on Reichart back at the village.”

'Yes, sir.' Scott stepped away from the circle and pulled a portable radio from his pack.

Lopez and Chambers were still talking shop.

'What do you think?' Lopez said. 'Chachapoyan?'

“Possibly,' Chambers said. “Could be Moche. Look at the feline images.'

Gaby Lopez cocked her head doubtfully. “It could be, but that would make it nearly a thousand years old.'

'Then what about the spiralling path around the crater and the stairs here on the tower?' Chambers said.

'Yes… yes, I know. Very peculiar,'

Nash cut in. “I'm glad you both find it so fascinating, but what the hell are you talking about?'

'Well,' Chambers said, “it appears that we have a slight anomaly here, Colonel.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, you see, the spiralling path that runs around this crater and the steps on this tower were without a doubt con structed by Incan engineers. The Incans built all sorts of tracks and trails through the Andes and their construction methods are well documented. These two examples bear all the hallmarks of Incan trail construction.'

'Meaning?'

'Meaning that the path and the steps were constructed roughly four hundred years ago. This temple, on the other hand, was built long before then.'

'So?' Nash said irritably.

'So, that's the anomaly,' Chambers said. 'Why would the Incans construct a pathway to a temple that they didn't even build?'

'And don't forget the rope bridge,' Lopez said.

'No,' Chambers said. 'Quite right. Quite right.' The book ish little scientist looked up fearfully at the rim of the crater.

'I would suggest we hurry.'

'Why?' Nash said.

'Because, Colonel, it is highly likely that there exists in this area a tribe of natives who will probably not take too kindly to the fact that we have intruded upon their sacred site.'

'How do you know that?' Nash said quickly. 'How do you know that there are natives around here?'

'Because,' Chambers said, 'they are the ones who built the rope bridge.'

'As Professor Race pointed out earlier,' Chambers explained, 'suspension bridges made out of rope decay very quickly over time. A grass-based rope bridge will disintegrate, say, within a few years of its being built. The bridge that we crossed to get to this temple could not have existed four hundred years ago. It was built recently, by someone knowledgeable in Incan bridge-building meth ods, in all likelihood a primitive tribe of some sort through whom this knowledge has been passed down through the generations.'

Nash groaned audibly.

'A primitive tribe,' Race said flatly. 'Here. Now?'

'It's not that improbable,' Gaby Lopez said. 'Lost tribes are discovered all the time in the Amazon Basin. As recently as 1987, the Villas Boas brothers made contact with the lost Kreen Akrore tribe in the Brazilian rainforests. Hell, the Brazilian government even has a policy of sending explorers into the jungle to make contact with Stone Age tribes.

'As you can imagine, though, a lot of those primitive tribes are extremely hostile to Europeans. It is not unknown for state-sponsored explorers to come home in pieces. Some, like the famous Peruvian anthropologist Dr Miguel Moros Marquez, don't come back at all—'

'Hey!' Lauren said suddenly from over by the portal.

Everyone turned. Lauren was standing in front of the boulder that was wedged inside the square-shaped doorway.

“There's something written on this.”

Race and the others came over to where she was standing.