5. Condor Guides a Man’s Soul
Ned Malone rolled over with a groan, his head aching and a fuzzy feel in his mouth. He hadn’t felt like this since the Armistice and the two day party that celebrated the end of the war.
“Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty.” Ned tried to blot out the sarcastic sound of Lord Roxton’s voice. It grated in his cottony brain.
Blinking, he marshalled his scattered thoughts to form a response “Roxton. What -?”
The English lord helped him rise to a sitting position. “Here, drink this,” Roxton said as he held out a cup of bitter tea. The younger man sipped the hot beverage while he tried to recall what had led to his alarming condition. Finally, triumphant, he looked up with a weak grin. “We drank that chica stuff.”
“Yeah, almost twenty-four hours ago.”
“What!”
“You’ve been out like a light all day. What happened to you in there?”
“I don’t know. I was flying, then I was falling. Then I was flying again, really high in the sky. I’ve been over the whole plateau, back to the treehouse. Everywhere.”
“You didn’t happen to see a way off the plateau in your adventure, did you?” replied Roxton with a wry smile.
“No. Well I don’t think so.” Ned responded sheepishly. There was a lot he didn’t remember. He hoped when his head felt a little better that the sights he had seen would come back to him. “So where’s Challenger? Veronica?”
“They’ve left already. The shaman told them what he saw in his vision, said they’d better get back to the treehouse, that’s where the bird was heading.”
“Did the priest tell you all this?”
“No, Veronica left a note.” The hunter flipped the folded paper out of his breast pocket and held it out to the reporter. Ned read the words and looked up.
“Why didn’t you go after them?” he said, reproach shading his voice.
“I’ve only been up for an hour before you. I wanted to leave, but the shaman wasn’t too keen on my going with you dead to the world. Worse yet, I was too shaky to take more than a few steps. I guess we’ll have to wait till morning.” Roxton had been disturbed by the tone of Veronica’s note and knew he needed to be on the road back to the treehouse. But as much as his heart called him back to Marguerite, his body was filled with an energy-sapping lethargy. Even now he could barely keep his eyes open. He leaned back against a bench and stretched his long legs out before him. “I don’t know how I can be this exhausted when I slept all day,” he stifled a yawn. “There’s some food over there. Help yourself.”
Malone ate in silence, the only sound the regular breathing of the sleeping Roxton. Soon the younger man gave in to the weariness that seemed to be a residual effect of the drug they had consumed. The reporter dreamed that night, the dream he often had during the war.
~~~~
His observation balloon was tethered above the lines. He was with another observer. He took notes and sketched the battlefield, marking new trenches, machine gun emplacements and troop movements while his partner kept a wary eye for enemy scout planes. Then, somehow, his journal slipped from his hands over the rail of the balloon. He lunged out for it and toppled over the edge. He hurtled down, down, the battlefield growing sharper as it loomed larger in his vision. Suddenly he was standing on the ground, surrounded by chaos. Malone was cold and wet; men were shouting, shells were landing close by, throwing plumes of dirt and mud over him. He was frozen in terror. Someone grabbed him and pulled him face-first into a trench. The dream ended and he fell into a deep sleep.
~~~~
The two explorers left the village at first light, intent on arriving at the treehouse as soon as possible. They were depending on Roxton’s ability to retrace their steps, a skill he had in abundance. As they tramped through the mixed forest of this highland area, Malone thought back on the strange farewell they had received from the shaman. The old man had seemed quite agitated, holding Ned’s arm and pointing up at the sky. All the reporter could see above was a circling Condor high in the sky. The puzzled American looked to Roxton.
“What’s he trying to tell us?”
The hunter shrugged, baffled. “Maybe he’s saying that there’s something dead out there. Afraid we’ll blunder into some feeding predators.”
“Yeah, that’s probably it.” Ned nodded and detached the man’s vice-like grip, smiling as he backed away.
Since then he had tried to figure why the priest would be so upset by the carrion-eater, not an uncommon sight in the higher reaches of the plateau. Every so often he would look up to see the condor still soaring lazily above. The bird was starting to give him the creeps.
Roxton called a brief halt about an hour out of the village. They were at the top of a bluff, the vista of green spreading below them. Beside them a rushing stream flowed over the edge of the outcropping and fell as a silvery waterfall to a larger pool below. The stream below raged over and around boulders and fallen trees and disappeared into the deeper forest. The tracker pointed below.
“This is where we came out after following the trail around the rock-face here. You can see where we swung around,” The muted roar of the waterfall striking the water below muffled their conversation. The Englishman gestured with a jabbing finger at their route. “I’m thinking, if we take a bit of a short-cut down this little drop-off here, we could shave thirty, forty minutes off our time.”
“I would like to get back as soon as we can. It doesn’t look that bad,” Ned agreed as he peered over the embankment.
“Damn!” Roxton snapped out as he turned and raised his weapon. Instantly alert, Ned had his weapon at the ready as he saw the menace that Roxton had picked out seconds earlier. Vantu warriors with painted faces could be seen approaching, keeping to the trees for cover, spreading out to hem in their prey.
“Looks like about eight of them,” growled the hunter in a low tone. “Let’s see if this stops them.” He fired a warning shot over the heads of the advancing warriors. Rather than retreating the natives broke into a run towards the pair, hurling their spears. Roxton dodged as a shaft buried in the earth behind him. “Didn’t think so. No place for us to run, Ned. You take the ones on the left; I’ll take the right.”
Following his words, he raised his rifle to his shoulder, chambered another round and took down the nearest attacker. Malone followed suit and, between the two of them, five of the natives were motionless on the ground before the others closed to a distance where the two defenders were forced into hand-to-hand combat. Roxton lashed out with a sharp right jab to the chin of the first attacker and buried his left hand deep in the solar plexus of the man following. The winded Vantu sank to his knees gasping for breath, as the first man returned to the fray, a wicked-looking knife in his right hand. The combatants circled each other warily.
Raven and the Spectre spied on Malone and Roxton from the air. Raven was surprised to see a band of natives stalking the pair as they glanced over a cliff. The Spectre whispered in his ear “Go down there - now.” Raven was puzzled at the command, but he feared to deny the unnerving Spectre.
Raven dove toward the ground, tumbling and corkscrewing in a show of aeronautic bravado. He pulled up into a stall and settled gracefully on the ground behind the struggling men. With a shimmer he transformed into a human. Since Spaniards had been the first white men to visit the Pacific shores that were his home, that was the form he took, a form he hoped would be accepted by these Europeans he wanted to deceive. He frowned to see the humans he had come to observe engaged in a life-and-death struggle with what appeared to be a war-party. Beside him the sooty cloud took shape. The Spectre was taking human form.
Black Robe reverted into his earthly shape. It felt good to once more feel the breeze on his face. He yearned for the birch forests of his youth. In the hundreds of years of his existence, his favourite times were the years he had spent with the Iroquois Nation. He still wore the priest’s cassock that he had worn to infiltrate the tribes that had lived in America during the early years of European settlement. He longed to be back in his old haunts, but it was time once more for the age-old battle between the two fundamental forces of nature to come to a climax. He was a Chosen One; the line of Mordren lived through him. He had used the Raven to conceal his presence on the plateau from the Protector and her warriors. It had fallen to him to make sure that the dark forces that possessed him would be triumphant in the coming battle.
He sneered to think of the pompous words of Puma and the other Incan gods. To leave a decision of this importance to the fickle choice of mortals was pure insanity. For generations he had done and would continue to do anything that was required for victory in the upcoming battle. As a shape-shifter and an immortal that could only die by violent means, his power was immense. He shot a brief glance at the creature beside him. He had hoped that Raven would be a good distraction to keep the prying eyes of the Incan gods from his own presence. He could be a useful tool to achieve the Spectre’s dark ends. But the cursed Raven was a wild card. He could not be trusted. The bird might choose to act for evil or for good; there was no knowing his crafty, greedy mind. The Spectre had decided not to tell the Raven of his recent decision. He had come to the conclusion that it would be best if both of these men died. With a nod to Raven the Spectre walked toward the melee.
Malone was holding his own against the last Vantu warrior, using his rifle as a club to keep the knife-wielding native at a safe distance. He spotted movement out of the corner of his eye and turned slightly to see two men in European garb approaching from the side. He snapped his focus back to the threat before him. A backhanded swing of his firearm knocked the stiletto from the hand of the Vantu. The native broke off the attack to recover his weapon. Ned turned back to size up the two non-natives.
The first man was a man of thirty or so, with black hair worn rather long and coal-black eyes in a tanned face. He flashed a grin which showed impossibly white teeth below his prominent nose. He wore an old-fashioned white shirt and an embroidered waistcoat over dark-wool trousers. At a guess, the reporter would place the outfit as something worn in Spain or Portugal in the mid-1800’s. Malone did not recognize Raven in his new disguise.
His companion was even more unusual in his dress. The lank-haired man wore an ankle-length cassock, hiked up on one side to show what appeared to be deer-skin breeches below. He sported a cross on a gold chain around his neck and high boots of soft leather. If the American reporter didn’t know better, he would think that the man belonged in an Iroquois encampment in the 18 th century. What had Jesuit priests been called by the North American Indians – ah yes, the Black Robes.
As friendly as the other man appeared, this ecclesiastic was a serious and menacing sort of fellow, dark eyes smouldering in deep sockets, pale skin, high cheekbones and a chin that would remain dark no matter how often he shaved. Ned hoped he would have a chance to find out more about them once the Vantu had been defeated or run off. How could Malone know that man in the black robe was the human face of a Spectre, the demon prophesied by the Incan gods, the incarnation of Mordred’s line.
The distracted reporter turned his attention back to his Vantu adversary who had ducked to retrieve his weapon. The American raised his rifle to ram the stock into the back of the man’s head. As soon as Ned delivered the blow, he felt a sharp tug on his collar. Off-balance, he stumbled backward, trying to regain his equilibrium as someone dragged him backward. He turned to see the Jesuit, a look of rapacious hunger on his face. As the reporter scrabbled for a grip on his attacker’s wrist, he was pushed toward the edge of the bluff, the priest’s claw-like hand twisting his collar so tight that he found it difficult to breathe. The other stranger stood frozen, a look of surprised dismay on his face. Ned could hear Roxton’s shout of alarm then his feet slid out from under him.
Caught up in a grim struggle for survival, at first Roxton was unaware of Ned’s crisis. Roxton had fumbled for his own knife as he anticipated the Vantu’s attack. As the native had lunged at him, knife swinging toward his belly, the accomplished British fighter had sucked his midsection backward and brought his elbow down on the back of the man’s head. The warrior had been driven to his knees but had rolled away to a stand in one lithe movement. They had circled once again until the Englishman had feinted a thrust toward the man’s left side. When the Vantu had leaned away, Roxton had chopped down on his knife hand and had followed with a vicious forearm to the man’s jaw. Knees buckling, the native had valiantly tried to maintain a defensive posture but one more blow had caused him to crumple to the ground in an unconscious heap.
Roxton wheeled to see Ned finishing his foe with a well-placed rifle-butt. He was amazed to see two unusually-dressed men close by. He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t seen them approach. He stood dumbfounded as the one dressed as a cleric took Malone by surprise and dragged the unsuspecting reporter toward the cliff.
He broke into a full-out run, desperately trying to reach the struggling pair before they reached the edge. He shouted out a warning but before he got there the reporter was hurled over the edge. The horrified hunter saw Ned’s body plummet toward the pool below, tensed as his body was sent tumbling by tree branches. He could hear a cracking noise and hoped it was a branch and not his friend. His downward momentum slowed somewhat, Ned’s limp body plunged into the water, floated downstream and disappeared out of sight.
Roxton turned in fury to the man in the black robe and his companion. The cleric’s face was a picture of cruel delight. The deep-set eyes met Roxton’s angry stare.
“You weren’t much use to your friend, were you?” The man’s mocking voice made Roxton step toward him, fists bunched at his side. “No, you were no help at all. I’ve killed him and I’m going to kill her too.”
At the hunter’s baffled look, the cleric added. “Her, the woman you left back at that treehouse. We’ll be there before you. She’ll be gone when you return. With her last words she will wonder why you aren’t there. And then she’ll die completely alone.” He leapt backward as Roxton grabbed for the front of his robe. The furious hunter snagged a handful of vestments and cross then suddenly the gloating cleric evaporated into an inky-black vapour and rose like smoke. Empty-handed, Roxton turned his wrath and frustration toward the other man. With a throaty caw the man transformed into a big black bird and rose up in a flap of wings. As the Raven passed through the vapour it seemed to form around him. The bird rose in a blur of smoke-black mist.
Frantic about Malone’s condition, Roxton turned and descended the rock face with all the skill and daring that desperation could lend him. He was halfway down, at a tricky part, when he felt a blow to his head that knocked his hat to the river below. Startled he looked to see the black bird circling for another attack. The bird perched on the niche where the hunter’s left hand supported his weight as he reached for a foothold. Its blunt beak stabbed at the exposed tendons on the back of the man’s hand. A few pecks and Roxton’s hand grew numb and slippery with blood. He dropped to a lower ledge and cradled his injured hand trying to get the feeling back. The Raven landed on a small outcropping at head height and jabbed at his eye. Roxton ducked and felt the beak strike his skull. He swung blindly at his avian attacker and was gratified to hear a startled ‘krock’ as the bird was knocked off its perch and forced to take flight. He saw it turn to renew its attack when suddenly an enormous bird descended from the sky like a lightning bolt, striking the smaller bird in mid-flight with its talons knuckled like fists. The Raven was sent in a stunned tumble toward the ground below, black feathers following in lazy pursuit. The black bird recovered close to the ground and landed with an awkward stumble. The attacking bird - Roxton could now see that it was a condor - followed the wounded Raven and landed in a tree nearby. The hunter resumed his precarious descent.
.
~~~~~~~
Malone had reached out for a handhold as he fell over the cliff. His fingers had scrabbled at the rubble and rock face but could find no purchase. He hit a ledge below and catapulted outwards. In an instant he was being whipped and pummelled by tree branches until his skull cracked against a larger branch. The limb snapped loudly echoing in the explosion of lights inside his skull. There was a second of blackness as he had felt himself tumbling over and over, as if he were rolling in a ball just above the mist thrown up by the force of the waterfall. He blinked and opened his eyes.
He could see the water below quite clearly as he hung suspended above the water. He recognized the view. It was the same botanical garden that he had seen the time he had fallen over the waterfall while searching for Summerlee. He looked for the professor but this time the nursery was empty. He looked further to see the green of the garden turned to brown fields of mud. As far as he could see there were trenches and shell-holes. He recognized the landscape; it was the Somme, a battlefield he had been familiar with in his stint as an observer in the war. With phenomenal clarity he could see the dead horses and men, the barbed wire, the yellow miasma of chlorine gas creeping across the ground. Above the ruined earth soared the carrion birds, waiting for a brief stoppage in the shelling so they could feast on the carnage below. He turned away from the appalling sight.
The reporter felt himself slam into the water below. Unable to control his limbs, he felt the force of the water pull him downstream, bumping him gently against rocks until his body drifted into a quiet pool.
The Condor swooped over his floating body. The spirit of Ned Malone rose up and joined with the bird, watching the battlefield from an ever-increasing height, flying higher till the ravaged fields disappeared. He soared over jungle and forest. He saw the villagers of Chuen going about their business, the face of the shaman tipped up to watch the bird high above. They circled over Professor Challenger, sitting on the step of an old temple, in conversation with another man. There was the treehouse, Marguerite leaning over the railing talking to someone below. Then an opening in the jungle, a long-forgotten temple and, beside it, Veronica’s crumpled form.
Suddenly Ned didn’t want to soar above his friends, watching their lives unfold. He desperately wanted to be with them, to rescue the woman he adored, that child of the plateau, for once so vulnerable out there all alone. He willed himself to control the Condor’s flight, to land beside the unconscious woman. Instead the bird suddenly veered and its majestic wings beat against the air currents. In seconds he was back at the waterfall. He swept by Roxton clinging to the cliff and was jolted as the Condor blasted into the diving Raven. The shock of the collision startled Malone. The Condor flapped lower, but by then Malone’s spirit had abandoned the giant bird. Ned felt himself suddenly back in his body submerged in the water, his lungs aching for air.
With an effort he shouldn’t have been capable of, the drowning man reached out one arm to drag his head and shoulders onto the muddy riverbank. Malone coughed weakly and pulled in great gasps of air. His body floated gently in the shallow water. Veronica, his dazed mind clung to a single thought. I must save Veronica. Bird cries and the howls of monkeys filled the air.
The Condor perched on the limb of a tree above the stunned Raven. The enormous black and grey bird bowed the branch, a snowy white ruff setting off the bald greyish head. It cocked an amber eye toward the Raven below it.
“You have interfered,” the Condor spoke with solemn exactness.
“No, it wasn’t me,” protested the wounded bird. The smoky haze lifted from its wings and formed once more into a black robed man.
“I did it,” the Spectre said. “That fool down there doesn’t belong with the rest. He is not needed for the test. He will interfere with things.”
“Leave him be. He has another destiny.” The Condor waited till the hot gaze of the black robed man turned sullen and faltered. Then it focused its sharp golden scrutiny on the black bird.
Raven felt sudden fear, his avarice and cruelty forgotten. The uncomfortable silence made him blurt out, “Why did you attack me? You said I was free to watch what happens.”
“This was a warning not to interfere. If I had wanted you dead, you’d be dead.” With the next updraft the condor unfurled its massive wings and rose silently into the sky.