“Ouch!” said Glory.
Lovecraft quickly mumbled an apology and took a step backwards.
The wind had died down. They were on the leeward side of an eroded mud-brick wall.
Howard looked back over his shoulder, pulling his mask away from his face. “HP, let’s see what your old friend has to say?”
Lovecraft was momentarily confused, but then he came to his senses and produced the Artifact, which was glowing more brightly than ever. Now it threw a halo of light that pulsed brighter along one arc to indicate the direction in which they should continue. “There,” he said, indicating one of the pueblos.
“Your turn to lead, HP.”
Lovecraft stretched out his hand as if he were taking a reading on a compass. He looked over his shoulder at Glory and Howard, then took a tentative step forward into the wind. It was only a dozen paces to the shelter of the next wall. Lovecraft motioned that they had arrived at what appeared to be their destination-the light from the Artifact began to glow more evenly. Howard took the flashlights from his satchel and distributed them, and then, holding their breaths, they stepped through the jagged opening into the dark pueblo.
The wind abated immediately, but now they had to contend with the eerie moaning through the windows and holes in the adobe walls. They had not been able to tell from the outside, but the inside walls were curved-they were in a low, circular chamber that gave Lovecraft the uneasy feeling of being inside the cylindrical head of a giant Kachina doll. The wall was interrupted at odd intervals by windows and niches whose function he could not determine.
“What is this place?” said Howard. “It’s like a bull ring with a roof over it, ain’t it?”
“It’s a kiva,” said Glory. “It’s a holy building.” She shifted the beam of her light and noticed that nothing happened, so she pointed it up at herself to confirm that the bulb was working. “Boys, we might as well save the batteries.”
“What?”
“I think the Artifact is brighter than our torches.”
The men switched their beams off and discovered that they could see just as well in the cold illumination that seemed to hang in the air like a mist. Lovecraft began to move around the chamber, watching how the Artifact’s intensity responded to his position. It seemed brightest toward the center of the room where the top rungs of an ancient ladder jutted out of a black pit.
“Glory is correct,” said Lovecraft. “This is a kiva, a sacred ceremonial chamber where the Anasazi tribesmen would perform their ancient rites.”
“I thought you were going to say ‘unholy rites,’ ” Glory joked. Lovecraft didn’t get the humor. “It is quite likely that they were unholy and primitive,” he said. He moved cautiously to the lip of the pit, watching the Artifact glow more brightly, and he pointed silently downward along the ladder.
“I ain’t goin’ down that thing,” said Howard. “Wood must be three hundred years old.”
“You should know that wood remains remarkably well preserved in the desert, Bob. Objects in the tomb of Tutankhamen were perfectly preserved over thousands of years.”
“Well, why don’t you test it then? We’ll follow you if it takes your weight.”
“But there is no assurance that once I am—”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” said Glory. Before the men could reply or stop her, she grabbed the ladder with one hand and stepped down into the black pit, pointing the flashlight ahead of her as she moved out of the Artifact’s light.
“Glory!” Howard rushed forward and stopped abruptly, afraid of unbalancing the ladder. He could hear the rungs creaking under her weight.
There was a gasp from the pit. Silence.
“It’s fine,”’ came Glory’s voice. “Just watch the seventh step. It’s broken.”
“Dammit, Glory! You shoulda let HP go down first!”
“Lower your voice, Bob! It’s like a cave down here. You wouldn’t want it collapsing, would you?”
Howard sullenly quieted himself. He motioned for Lovecraft to go next. “I’m the heaviest,”’ he said.
“Then you should go next,”’ Lovecraft replied.
“What?”
“Assuming, for argument, that there may be no way out from that nether region, Bob. If your weight should break the ladder, then I would still be up here to go for help. If, on the other hand, I am already down in the pit, then we would all be stranded should the ladder collapse under you.”
“Well, maybe we should have Glory come back up and I go down then. That way, both of ya would be safe if I broke the damn ladder.”
“I disagree.”
“Why?”
“What’s taking you two so long?” came Glory’s voice. “Why?” Howard asked again.
“Should you be injured, say with a broken limb, it might be necessary to have someone to nurse yon. Glory would be a better candidate for that than would I.”
“And what if the person underneath were to catch me, huh?”
“I am taller than you, Bob, but I’m afraid I am too frail to catch a body of your mass. Not all men enjoy the benefits of your constitution.”
“Boys? It’s getting awful lonely down here.”
Howard grunted and descended the ladder, and Lovecraft followed a few moments later to no ill effect.
“What took you two so long?” said Glory. “I thought you boys decided to abandon me down here.”
“We were discussing the logistics of this ladder,” said Lovecraft. “And while we are on the topic, I recommend we pull it down after us, thereby leaving our pursuers with no mean of following us.”
Howard was already pulling the ladder down. “I doubt it’s gonna make any difference,” he said. “But ya never know.”
They were in a smaller, rough-hewn cylindrical pit that had yet another ladder protruding from a dark hole in its center.
“This must be the second level,” said Lovecraft. “I would presume four levels in keeping with the Anasazi mythos if we follow the logic of this symbolism to its conclusion.” They decided to take the first ladder down with them another level. The masonry’ diminished with each level until, at the fourth, the circular room wasn’t much more than a hole hewn out of the rough stone of bedrock. This was the fourth , underworld according to the myth of the Anasazi-this was where they; had originated before climbing up onto the surface of the earth.
By the light of the Artifact, now brighter than ever, they looked around the cold stone chamber and found nothing. Just a few shards of pottery and moldering scraps of what looked like coarse fabric. The chamber appeared to be a dead end, and while they’ bemoaned their luck, they heard sounds from above that were clearly not the windstorm.
19
“IT’S THEM,” SAID GLORY. “I can feel it.”
Howard drew his .45 and handed his .38 to Lovecraft, who simply held the pistol and stared down at it as if he had never seen a gun before.
“I don’t know what the hell those things are, but I don’t know of nothin’ that’s immune to hot lead,” said Howard. “If we gotta corner ourselves like this, we go out fightin’.”
“I’m afraid these weapons may do little more than fortify our egos,” said Lovecraft.