Thank you, thank you for returning our Spirit.'
Race bowed his head. He didn't think he was any kind of Chosen One at all. He'd just done what he had thought was right.
'Just promise me this,' he said to Roa. 'Promise me that when I am gone, you will leave this village and disappear into the forests. Men will come searching for this idol again, of that I am certain. Take this idol far away from here, where they will never find it.'
Roa nodded. 'We will, Chosen One. We will.'
Race still hadn't actually handed the idol to Roa yet.
'If you will permit me, sir,' he said, 'there is one more thing I have to do here, and to do it, I will require the use of the idol.'
The tribe of natives assembled on the spiralling path that encircled the rock tower.
Night had fallen and they were all thoroughly doused in monkey urine.
The rapas, Marquez said, unable to return to their lair inside the temple, had spent the day hiding in the heavy shadows at the base of the crater.
Race stood on the spiralling path, looking out across the ravine that had earlier been spanned by the rope bridge.
The rope bridge still hung flat against the side of the tower, in the same place the Nazis had left it when they had unlooped it from its buttresses twenty-four hours ago.
One of Roa's nimblest climbers doubly soaked in monkey urine—-was sent down to the base of the canyon where he embarked upon a skilful climb up the rock tower's near- vertical wall.
After a while, he came to the long retrieval rope that dangled from the bottom of the rope bridge. He tied it to another rope that was held by natives standing on the spiralling path and they then pulled the retrieval rope over to their side of the ravine.
The rope bridge was quickly secured back into place.
'Are you sure you want to do this?' Renee said to Race as he gazed across at the tower top.
'There's a way out of that temple,' he said. 'Renco found it. I will, too.'
Then, with the idol in one hand and a torch in the other and a leather satchel slung over his shoulder, Race led the way across the swooping bridge.
A team of ten of Roa's strongest warriors followed him, bearing flaming torches of their own.
Once they were all on the rock tower, Race led them up to the clearing in front of the temple. There he pulled a water bladder out of his leather satchel and used it to douse the thyrium idol.
The idol hummed instantly. A pure, mesmerising sound that cut through the night air like a knife.
Within minutes, the first rapa arrived at the clearing.
Then a second, and a third.
The massive black cats gathered around the clearing, forming a wide circle around him.
Race counted twelve of them in total.
He doused the idol again and it emitted its even harmonic tone with renewed vigour.
Then he took a step backwards, entering the temple.
Ten steps down and he was surrounded by blackness.
The rapas—big, black and menacing—followed him inside, blocking the shafts of blue moonlight that entered the tunnel from without.
Once all the cats were fully inside the temple, the ten Indian warriors outside began to heave on the boulder—as Race had instructed them to do.
The massive stone groaned loudly as it was pushed slowly back into place.
Race watched its movement from within the temple.
Gradually, all the moonlight from outside was replaced by the shadow of the massive rock and then, with a final ominous thud, the boulder would move no more.
It now filled the portal, sealing it shut, at the same time sealing William Race inside the temple with the pack of ferocious rapas.
Darkness.
Total darkness, save for the flickering orange glow of his torch.
The walls of the tunnel around Race glistened with moisture. From somewhere deep within the temple, he heard a steady, echoing drip-drip-drip.
It was absolutely terrifying, but strangely Race felt no fear.
After all he'd been through, he was beyond being afraid.
The twelve rapas—visions of evil in the strobe-like light of the torch—just stared at the humming idol in Race's hand, entranced.
With his torch held high above his head, he made his way down the spiralling tunnel at the base of the stairs. It bent down and to the right in a slow, descending curve. Small alcoves lined its walls.
