Luana (23 page)

“You mean like the necklace?” said Isabel.

“That’s it. It just doesn’t stand to reason there’d be only one piece of jewelry in a city of gold.”

“They might have thought like you,” suggested Murin, “and taken the lighter things with them when they had to abandon this refuge, too.”

“You’re a big help,” grinned Barrett. “Let’s look, anyhow.”

They went through four, then five of the big buildings. The sun was now directly overhead and drenched the interior of the cavern with pale lemon mist.

Barrett called a break to eat. They sat on the small stone wall that circled the pool beneath the waterfall. A spout from a never-ending spigot, that silver-crystal cascade plunged unbroken from the ceiling. Outside, such a thin fall would have been torn and broken to damp tatters by a modest breeze.

But in here, without a breath of wind to stir it, it gave the impression of being almost a solid bar of quicksilver.

Barrett sat on the rock, half in, half out of the moving sun. After their slightly chilly swim and feverish exploration of the first part of the city, the warm sunlight felt lovely.

Isabel dangled her feet in the water. As the sun dipped slightly lower it struck the edge of the pool, throwing back glittering stars and rainbows. The stone wall continued down into the pool itself. No doubt the city builders had lined the pool to prevent leakage. An idle chip with a small rock revealed what had become a commonplace fact: this wall, too, was fashioned from gold.

Big deal.

Barrett turned away from the pool. Ricocheting off the surface, the brilliant sunbeams hurt his eyes.

“What will you do with your share, Izzy?”

She looked meaningfully at him. “Other things aside, I’m going to found an institute in Nairobi, dedicated to the eradication of tropical diseases. It was one of father’s great dreams. After that, well—” she smiled. “I’m sure you’ll help me think of something worthwhile.”

“I may manage to come up with something,” he grinned back.

Turning away and still smiling, she leaned over the low wall and dipped her head close to the water. Both hands went low to cup a double handful of pool. She had to squint. The reflected light was almost blinding.

She paused with the water halfway to her mouth. It trickled away, escaping ’round unguarding fingers.

The scintillating, striking reflections came not from the surface of the pool . . . but from below. She turned her hand over and the rest of the water fell in small drops to the surface.

“George . . .” Her voice rose. “George!”

“Izzy?” Everyone had turned to stare at her.

She pointed. “The bottom of the pool. When you lean right up close to the surface, and squint, the sun doesn’t bounce right up at you.”

Barrett dipped his own head close to the water, trying to screen out the constant ripples from the cascade. The lights that danced back at him were multicolored and no longer seemed to spring from a shifting, constantly changing source. When he moved slightly, the same colors remained.

It was time to go swimming again.

The pool was deeper than it looked. A dull drumming in his ears came from the waterfall. True, its volume was not that impressive. Even so, it could break the back of anyone who carelessly swam underneath the drop.

He dove from the bottom, and saw what he and Isabel had seen distorted by distance and light. His right hand dug deeply into the uneven floor. It penetrated at sharp, awkward angles, but it penetrated. He scooped.

They were crowding around anxiously when he reappeared, spitting water. A couple of short kicks brought him back to the wall. He threw his armload of bottom onto the stones That’s when Kobenene decided it was time for a dip, too.

Geologically speaking, the bottom of the pool would be classed as a breccia of unrelated but intriguing composition. Certainly the chains of gold and silver and hammered platinum were. These were interspersed with odd variants. Safe to say they would have impressed any petrologist. Or banker. Or archaeologist.

Or any human being over the age of five.

There were small necklaces and bracelets, and pendants and ear loops. Each was in a class by itself.

Barrett spotted the knife, pulled it out of the wet, clinging mass. The long blade was still sharp, its edge only slightly chipped. It was a deep, pigeon-blood red. When he held it to the light, over his face, a pink haze of translucence flushed his visage. The handle was engraved gold studded with small, fine diamonds. The blade . . .

“Solid ruby, I think,” he finally managed to whisper.

There were several other interesting trinkets in the armload. One was a war club made of ironwood set with precious stones, mostly beryls and aquamarines. The strong wood itself was flaking and worm-eaten, but the gold wires wrapping the top still held the striking stone firmly in place.

This gem was twice the size of Barrett’s fist, slightly pointed at the hitting end. When he held the club in the light, the deep blue sapphire flashed a ghostly starfish pattern from its smooth surface. He made no comment. What could anyone say, in the face of such wealth?

It wasn’t wealth. It was beyond mortal comprehension. Isabel had slipped five, no, six bracelets on her left arm. When she shook the arm they clicked hollowly against each other. They were blue also, beautifully if simply faceted. She slipped one off, handed it to Barrett.

He inspected it curiously. Yes, nice work, all six probably of a set. He looked inside to see what kind of material the stones had been set into. But the inside of the bracelet, too, was lightly faceted blue. Then he brought it close to see where the seams had been cleverely joined. There were no seams, clever or otherwise.

The bracelet was one solid piece. No doubt the others were, also. Very interesting. He tossed it back to Isabel.

The bracelets had been cut from a single, gigantic blue diamond. Idly, he wondered what the craftsmen who’d fashioned them had done with the center that had been cut out to form the solid bracelets. It probably rested somewhere in the bottom of the pool, too. Cut to form a doorstop, no doubt.

He made only one more dive. Between that and what Kobenene brought up, everyone was too emotionally exhausted to search further.

It was clear that the bottom of the pool was covered to an interminate depth with the wealth of the greatest empire Africa had ever known. There were spearpoints, also of cut ruby, and more war clubs, and necklaces and earrings and nosepieces beyond imagining.

Barrett’s personal favorite of the booty was a pair of ceremonial sandals, tied together with gold wire. They’d have done Cinderella proud. Oh, they were a bit large for his feet, but otherwise they suited him just dandy, oh yes.

The three-centimeter thick soles, like the bracelets, were solid blue diamond. And why not, he reflected hysterically. After all, what would wear better or last longer than a pair of solid diamond shoes?

The toe-straps that he slipped his feet into were beaten, alloyed gold, cleverly set into notches cut in the diamond.

Barrett noticed Luana staring at him.

“All this is what is called ‘money,’ I suppose?” she asked.

“Yes, Luana.” Barrett spoke as one would to a child. “This is a form of money. Money means many things to many people, though. For me, it means no more taking orders from fat used-car moguls out to prove their macho by shattering an impala with an elephant gun. It means being able to do exactly as I please for the first time in my life. It means not having to worry where my next meal is coming from. It means . . . being free.”

She smiled back at him and he couldn’t escape the feeling that she was laughing at him.

“I can understand that, George Barrett . . . but I already have all those things. Still, I cannot argue how you chose to find yours. I am glad to see you so happy.”

“That’s the greatest understatement since the Rhodesian Prime Minister called Salisbury a segregated city,” Barrett replied, heedless of the fact that she couldn’t understand. He turned to Murin.

“Dump the food. We’ll use the boxes to haul some of this stuff back to camp. When the guys back there get a look at this they’ll forget about eating, too.”

They set about loading the plastic book cases, their few burlap sacks, and even the tiny pockets in their underwear with the ancient jewelry. They went about this task with a single-mindedness of purpose that was as admirable as it was misdirected. It caused them to miss other interesting sights.

For example, Barrett would have greatly admired the silver and sapphire war club that knocked him silly.

Chapter XII

They sat, bound with wire of solid gold, in one of the great stone buildings. From the sound of it, they were still somewhere near the waterfall pool. The jewels, their flashlights and sacks and Barrett’s skinning knife, everything but their clothes, had been taken from them, except the harmless rope.

Outside, the degenerate inheritors of empire, the in-bred guardians of imperial memory, beat ominous time on drums inlaid with platinum and ivory and sard.

One thing was certain: these were no associates of the Wanderi. Or of any known tribe. Their bearing was regal, their speech archaic. There weren’t many of these warriors, surely not enough to populate all the golden fortress. With the one rifle and an element of surprise, Barrett and the others might have been able to escape.

But they had no rifle, and the surprise belonged to the other side. They’d been lying in wait for the proper moment, and had found it with the would-be billionaires sorting their discovery. Probably they’d been waiting ever since Isabel’s shout away back at the base of the first, small cascade.

The way they’d been surprised was almost as painful to Barrett as the lump at the back of his skull. It throbbed for attention and he tried not to wince, shifted closer to the little fire in the center of the room. It was cold in the cavern at night. They all crowded around the tiny, cheerful blaze. It was the only moving thing in the room that was.

“Can’t even talk to ’em,” he grumbled in frustration.

“Nor can I,” Luana admitted. “Their speech is one I have never encountered before.”

Barret glanced over at Kobenene. The big man was staring morosely into the flames.

“What about you, fat tortoise? You’re supposed to be the resident expert on dead languages.”

He muttered a reply. If he’d been the only one of the group able to communicate with their captors—ah well, another lost dream.

“Their speech is old, old Bantu dialect. I can understand a word here, a word there, and that’s all. I could understand more, I think, if they would only talk slowly and repeat things. Of course, in order to do that, I would have to know how to tell them to do so, and since they will not—”

“Okay, okay, I get the point.” Isabel hunched closer to him, and this time she tried to cheer him.

“What do you suppose they have in mind for us, darling?”

“Well, they seem a cut above the Wanderi. Something of unique historical importance, I’m sure.” His tone was dry. “Everybody be sure and take notes. Pity none of us are anthropologists. I expect their ceremony will be much more interesting than the last we almost went through.” He leaned forward, tried to peer out one of the small windows.

“I think maybe it’s getting light out. That usually seems like a starting time.” He paused, his gaze attracted by motion in their circle. “Hey, Kobe, what are you—”

Barrett didn’t need to finish the query. The big man’s movements became self-explanatory.

He’d shifted around until his back was to the fire. The gold bindings would take powerful wire trimmers to cut them, but—

No one in the little group knew how Kobenene stood the pain without crying out. Maybe he had enough extra fat on them to partly protect him. Also, greed is an amazingly powerful force. He held his hands there, over the flames, while sweat streamed down his puffy cheeks and the skin of his wrists began to blacken.

The gold wire began to bend, then to flow. A couple of drops of molten yellow formed in the middle of the wire, dripped into the fire, hissing. Kobene jerked violently, jerked again. Powerful arms flew upwards as the weakened metal parted.

“Nice going, Kobe!” Barrett congratulated him excitedly. They might get out of this yet. The big man was working at his leg bindings, soon loosened them. Barrett shifted around until his back was to the other. “Now do mine.”

When nothing happened, he looked over his shoulder in confusion. Kobenene was standing by the small window on the south side of the building, rubbing his charred wrists and staring cautiously out.

“Hey!” Barrett shouted. It was an eloquent hey.

“Don’t worry.” Kobenene turned a smiling face back to them. The smile cracked slightly as he rubbed at the severe burn he’d incurred. “I’ll see to it that you’re all buried in coffins of solid gold.”

He was gone, squeezed through the window before Barrett’s second “Hey.”

“I knew we shouldn’t have trusted the fat sonuvabitch!” Isabel looked ready to cry. Barrett nudged her, shook his head violently. “No! Maybe we can . . .”

Murin already had his wrists over the fire. Long minutes passed while he stoically endured the tiny, terrible flames. Then his hands were free. He went to his ankles and started working frantically at the knots.