He waited, watching, unwilling to go down into that open meadow, yet knowing he must. Beyond it some of the rocks seemed to have a formation that did not look natural, as if they had been shaped by hand.
When that old cowboy whom he met in Flagstaff had broken through to the other side, it had been near a ruin, a ruin where he had found a map on a gold plate. The old man had copied only part of that map, showing how to return to where he found the gold. It was the rest of that map Raglan wished to see.
The Forbidden was a huge building, several times larger than the Pentagon, and it was a maze of rooms and passages. If there was a map, it would make it much easier. Of course there were other maps in the Hall of Archives, but this one, scratched on a gold surface, might be much the best.
Moving forward a few feet, he stopped behind another tree. He had found no more tracks, and the meadow before him was empty. He went swiftly down, crossed the meadow, and went up into the trees and the forest of rocks beyond. Almost at once he came upon a corner of the ruin.
He studied the path. No tracks, yet much of it was bare rock, and tracks might not show. He rounded the corner and stood at the upper edge of a shallow valley of ruins, a valley not of meadow and grass but of bare red rock created by what he could not guess. At a glance he realized the ruins were ancient, older than anything he had ever seen, anywhere.
Mike Raglan had looked upon many ruins, but his first impression of this was one of extreme age. His second was a creeping sense of horror—why, he could not say. The area he overlooked must cover more than fifty acres of ruined walls, toppled columns, a surprising number of intact roofs. He sat down on a flat rock, fallen off a wall, and studied the situation. He didn’t like it.
Carefully, inch by inch, he studied the ruin before him, taking his time to fix the layout in his mind. This might be where his old friend had come through; this might be where he had found the gold. How many men could have taken enough and never returned? Few men were content with just enough. Few could resist the lure of just a little bit more. A comfortable life was rarely sufficient. Most men and women wanted wealth, and that old cowboy had known where it was and how to get it. Had there been something else, something he had not told?
Nothing moved. The valley of the ruin was high on a ridge of some sort, and the broken edges that surrounded it seemed to be the edges of a flat surface, like a mesa top. Still he did not move. Yet time was nudging him to act.
He shuddered. What was wrong with him? Why was he apprehensive? He had explored many ruins in Egypt, Tibet, the Takla Makan, and in India. He ran his eyes over these ruins again. There was little time, and he must get on with it, yet still he did not move. Occasionally there came to his nostrils a vaguely unpleasant odor that was somehow familiar, but he could not place it.
Did anything live down there? Had animals moved into the old temples? If there were temples.
Raglan got to his feet, glancing around him once more. He saw nothing. Then he started down the path into the ruin. He saw no birds, no chipmunks, not even a lizard. Did nothing live here? He paused again, wary of the ruins. No flies, no bees, not even a whisper of movement. He walked on, his feet making small sounds in the grass.
It must have been an imposing city in its day, if such it had been. The ruins bore no resemblance to any pueblo he had seen. He walked down a space between buildings. It was not a street or even an alleyway, simply a space, now overgrown with grass. Before him was a stone basin at least ten feet in diameter, but it was dry. On the far side was an opening as of a good-sized pipe through which water must have come into the basin.
He walked around it and saw opposite him a door, a very tall, narrow opening and beyond it, only darkness. He stepped closer, and peered within. He could see nothing. He started forward, then stopped. It could wait. First he must see what lay outside. He stepped back from the entrance and looked quickly around, then walked away, suddenly relieved. Twice he glanced back over his shoulder.
What was the matter with him? Why had he not gone inside? After all, he suddenly recalled, he had a flashlight. Scarcely more than an inch in diameter and ten inches long, but extremely powerful, the light would have pierced that blackness like a sword blade.
He walked on, stepping over fallen columns, skirting great blocks of masonry. Several buildings had caved in, and many were intact. Nevertheless the columns and the decorative stonework showed signs of aging such as he had never seen in Greece, Egypt, or the Hittite ruins in Turkey. Whatever this had been, it must be older than anything known on earth, yet the architecture, although different, showed evidence of considerable development. This had been no beginning civilization, but one that had grown, developed, and matured.
He looked around him again. All was still. Nothing moved now, not even the wind.
He walked down another opening between buildings and suddenly another opened before him. The pillar at the side of the door had fallen across it, one end still partly in place. The door was not blocked, however; he could easily go either over or under the pillar. It was a good-sized building but this was some sort of a side entrance. Within, as in the other building, all was black and his eyes would not penetrate that darkness. He started forward. This time he would see what, if anything, was inside.
He stepped up to the door and peered inside. Directly before him was a screen, placed so one had to turn either right or left to go around it. He had seen the same effect several times in Asia. The idea was that evil spirits have to travel in straight lines and so could not follow beyond the screen. Smiling at the idea, he started to duck down under the pillar.
“I wouldn’t go in there, if I was you.”
XXXIV
The voice came from behind him. Only a moment before, he had looked all around, seeing nothing. Slowly, he straightened up and turned.
About twenty feet away stood a tall old man with long white hair. He had a narrow, saturnine face with amused blue eyes, a carefully trimmed beard and mustache. He was dressed in carefully fitted buckskins and moccasins.
“Johnny?” he asked.
“Know me, do you? Well, there surely ain’t many of me to confuse nobody. I’m Johnny. Who’re you?”
“Raglan, Mike Raglan. I came over to find a friend and take him back.”
“Come of your own free will?” Johnny shook his head. “You must be some kind of damn fool. This friend of yours? You know where he is?”
“In the Forbidden area. He was brought over from the other side by some strong-arm guys.”
“Brought over? They must have wanted him bad. They don’t bring anybody over, and there’s no way back. I been lookin’ for more years than I can count.”
“I’ll find him and take him back. You, too, if you’ll help.”
“You know a way back?”
“Not right now, but I know where several should be. We’ve got to work fast. There isn’t much time.” Raglan explained what Kawasi had told him.
“Know all about it. That’s what stuck me at first. Same thing happened right after I come through. I kep’ tryin’. Done me no good.” He cocked his head to one side. “Know Kawasi, do you?”
“I do, and I want to take her back with me.”
“Don’t blame you for that. She’s a fair lass, that one. Bright, too. She’s got gumption.”
Raglan gestured toward the door he had been about to enter. “I’m looking for a place where gold is stored. Where there’s a map scratched on a gold plate.”
The old man sat down on a flat rock. “How’d you know about that? I surely never told nobody, and those folks”—he jerked his head back toward the pueblo—”they never come over here. Never come at all.”
Raglan explained about the old cowboy in Flagstaff and his gold. Johnny chuckled. “Smart, that’s what he was! Smart enough to take enough an’ stay away.”
He gestured around. “The way I figure it, this here was settled by somebody thousands of years back. No kin to them. No kin to anybody around now, the way I see it. They had gold and lots of it. There’s several tons of it, near as I can calc’late. I seen that map you speak of—never saw it as a map. Figured it to be the plan of something.”