Indiana Jones and the White Witch Page 10

  He hesitated. One never knew what might come up given the insanity of these past two days. He was doing his best to stay out of the mess, but powerful forces kept drawing him in. First, he wouldn't leave Gale on a limb. When two people have saved each other's life, unhesitatingly risking their own, a bond forms that requires no words or explanation. He didn't need a printed message to understand the tremendous pressure on this woman who'd become so close a friend. She was emotionally battered by the loss of Athena, as well as by all those adults and children killed and wounded at the Glen. Only hours before, she'd fought for her life and now she was being grilled by Scotland Yard, an Italian secret agent, and a voodoo priest from Haiti.

  Besides all that, Indy knew Gale was gnawing her own knuckles at the determination of Caitlin, her closest friend, to pursue Konstantin Cordas and take his life with that infernal wizard's sword.

  The sword... Indy didn't know whether to worship or hate that blade of fire and the wizard's scabbard she now wore as a tunic. The more he'd thought about it, the more he liked the idea of leaving Gale to her own devices. She was sharp, swift, brilliant, capable, and even dangerous when those attributes were needed. She'd done just fine before Indy came into her life. And with Caitlin, and the age-old magic of Merlin backing them up, they were a fearsome duo.

  But the sword, and all that lay behind it, exerted a pull impossible for Indy to ignore. No one had asked the question that bubbled within Indy's head. How had the sword of King Arthur, created through the skills, potions, and magic of the legendary Merlin, come to be in the possession of the St. Brendan clan? Where was the line of history that matched the St. Brendan Glen with Glastonbury and the Tor and Avalon, the Round Table, and the sworn fealty that had to exist for Caliburn to end up in Caitlin's hands? And who before her? And before her father? And his father?

  The questions clung to his ankles like lead weights. He could not resist his own curiosity, the spellbinding search for answers that was the driving force in his life.

  So he must go with Gale, be her strength, be there to answer for her in a world of vicious international intrigue.

  But not without his breakfast!

  He emerged from his bedroom to greet the impatient faces of Treadwell, Di Palma, and LeDuc, who were seated in his studio room and half rose with his appearance. Indy grinned and held up one hand. "Easy, easy, gentlemen. A car doesn't run without fuel and neither do I. I eat before I drive. Anybody care for coffee or tea?" All three shook their heads.

  "We've eaten," Treadwell told him. "Go ahead, Indy. We'll wait."

  Indy bowed with mock deference. "Thank you, Your Lordship."

  Treadwell couldn't help it; he laughed, sat back, and lit a cigarette.

  Indy and Gale ate in the breakfast nook, unhurried and deliberate. "You're pushing them," she whispered.

  "Uh-huh. Great herring."

  "Indy...?"

  He was smearing marmalade on a muffin. "Mmmmpf?"

  "I know you're going for me. This isn't your affair, Indy. You can just walk away from it. I'll understand."

  He almost accepted. Instead he took a huge bite of muffin, herring, and eggs and picked up his coffee mug. "Ughrumph. Wouldn't miss it for the world." He swallowed coffee hastily.

  "You sound like a water buffalo," Gale said, wrinkling her nose.

  "Uh-huh." He ignored the remark. "Do I guess that Caitlin's going to do some light bending this morning?"

  Gale smiled and nodded.

  "That is going to be worth getting up early to see," Indy said between mouthfuls.

  "When do you have to return to the university?"

  He stopped in midswallow. "You're right. I was supposed to report to Old Man Pencroft yesterday." He shrugged. "Five'll get you ten that Treadwell's already run interference. Don't worry about it."

  "Indy, I don't like interfering in—"

  But he'd already pushed back his chair. He looked at the men waiting for him. "On your feet, varlets. Let's roll."

  The third time they passed the same crooked tree hanging over the narrow roadway, Indy burst out laughing. Not at the tree but at the baffled and stunned expressions of the three men with him and Gale in the powerful touring auto from Scotland Yard. On the second pass by the tree, Treadwell had slammed on the brakes, the heavy auto skidding on the pebbled dirt road. He left the car and stood by a low branch, cheek muscle twitching, and slashed a clear line along the branch. Without a word he returned to the car and slammed it into gear, the rear wheels spinning wildly and slewing the rear of the car to one side.

  He rounded a wide turn and gaped. White mist rolled in from a low hill to his right, covering the roadway. He had no choice but to slow down. Finally he was inching along, muttering beneath his breath.

  "This is impossible," he said through tightly clenched teeth. "I have driven through here all my life! I've never seen fog that comes and goes. No rhyme or reason to it! Even the temperature and humidity and the dew point are at levels where there shouldn't be any fog, or even mists rising from the streams. But we keep running into this blasted mist, and when we do, I have no idea where we are or where we've been or—"

  "I told you," Indy said, not able to avoid smirking.

  "You told me what!"

  "That this would happen."

  "I know, I know, but why? And how! It doesn't make sense!"

  Indy reached to his right and patted the usually unflappable Treadwell, now grinding his teeth, on his shoulder. "I know it doesn't make sense, Thomas. I also told you it was magic."

  "You can't be serious?"

  "Oh, I am."

  "Indy, you're a man of science! Now you're telling me this is magic?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "That's ridiculous!"

  "So is this fog, right?"

  "Well, yes, of course it is, I know that, but—"

  "So you're in a ridiculous fog."

  They rolled slowly about a sharp turn, the front fender scraping bushes crowding the road. Treadwell hit the brakes so hard everybody was thrown forward.

  "My God." Treadwell mouthed the words slowly. Directly before him was the tree limb he'd marked with his pocketknife. "Indy, I am staying as calm as I can. Now, I have kept an exact track of our route. It is not possible for us to be where we were three times before."

  "All right by me," Indy said lightly.

  Di Palma looked about him. "The old people in the mountains, they talk about strange mists like this. They are not natural." He shuddered. "It is said that the spirits in the high hills, above where even the mountain goats go, can make these mists behave as they desire."

  Treadwell gave Di Palma a withering look. "This is not the mountain country of Italy and I do not give a fig about your goats!"

  Antoine LeDuc climbed from the car. He sniffed the air, his eyes widening as he turned in a circle.

  "Tony!" Indy called. "Try the amulet. The one you wear beneath your shirt."

  The others looked at Indy. "It's an amulet. It's real. It works for Tony."

  "What is it?" Treadwell asked.

  "Fer de lance. One of the deadliest vipers known. Its venom works like a forty-four slug right between the eyes." Indy laughed. "Oh, the snake isn't alive. It's been dead many years. Tony had the skeleton woven into a single strand, using sacred threads. When he's in the presence of strange energies, it vibrates."

  LeDuc held Indy's eyes. "Witchcraft," he said slowly, his voice firm and confident. "It is the power of witchcraft, Professor Jones!"

  To LeDuc's astonishment, Indy nodded. "You are so right," he said in a voice of great patience. "I tried everything to warn Thomas. So did Gale. Now he can experience this thing for himself."

  "Miss Parker, who's responsible for this?" Treadwell asked Gale.

  "For someone to be responsible," she said softly, "something must be going on. What would that be, Thomas?"

  "We're on a bleedin' merry-go-round, that's what's going on!"

  "But you said it was impossible."

  "Withdraw
n! I confess I don't understand what's happening, but I can't deny this is the third time this blasted tree has been right in front of me."

  "Indy told you. So did I. It is the magic of the forest people."

  Treadwell's lips were so tight they were almost white. "Are you talking about Caitlin?"

  "That could be."

  "How..." Treadwell swept his arms about to take in the forest. "How can she do this?"

  "She talks to the wind. To the trees, and the streams. They do her bidding."

  "Wait, wait," Di Palma broke in hurriedly. "Professor Jones, how did you know about the snake skeleton? And what does it do?"

  "I will answer," LeDuc said solemnly. "He knows because he has visited my people in their villages and homes. He knows because he has walked through the dust of history. He knows because he is open to knowledge."

  "He knows," Indy added, "because he—me—could see the outline of the snake skeleton beneath Tony's shirt. And knowing something about how such things are used to detect energy about the wearer... well..." Indy shrugged. "There it is."

  "Indy, let me ask this calmly, seriously, please?"

  Indy nodded to Treadwell.

  "How can we be arriving back at the same place when we have been driving on different roads?"

  "It's not that easy to explain."

  "Try, please."

  "You familiar with topological math, Tom?"

  "Somewhat, yes."

  Di Palma, LeDuc, and Gale immediately became silent, hanging on every word.

  "Okay. You'll have to put aside some of your most cherished rules of reality," Indy warned.

  "That's been done for me already," Treadwell said with a sour expression. "Like this bloody road."

  "Well, then, imagine we could twist time—"

  "Time?"

  "Time and space. I'm no physicist, but according to what the bigdomes are saying, time and space really are the same, or they perform the same way. It's over my head, but what they stress is that you cannot picture living beings in only three dimensions. The old height, width, and depth."

  "All right."

  "You've got to add a fourth dimension. It's not as complicated as it sounds. It's time. We move forward constantly, from the past into the present toward the future. That's about as commonplace as you can get."

  "Agreed," Treadwell said.

  "But you can't move forward in time unless you've got someplace in which to move—"

  "The three dimensions," said Treadwell.

  "Right. So forget the fancy words and expressions. Just think of one day after the other. We move in three physical dimensions all the time. We go left, right, ahead, backward. We go into, out of, like going into and leaving a building. And then we leave the two-dimensional world—"

  "Flatland," Gale burst out.

  Indy laughed. "As good a description as any. Flatland would be a place where you have only two dimensions. Everybody there lives on a flat plane. They never go up. Up becomes the third dimension, like in our world. But since you can't be in two places at the same moment, you must advance, say, from ten o'clock to eleven o'clock. That's the fourth dimension. Now, you can go backward to places you've been before, but you can't go back to when you were there before. Still with me?"

  "Rather foggily, but yes," Treadwell said, nodding.

  "Okay. Now take this road. Think of it as a long strip of paper. Or a carpet. But the paper works best because you can hold a strip of paper in your hands. Stay right with me now, because we can even demonstrate this."

  "I'm with you. Keep going."

  "A strip of paper has how many sides, Tom? Forget the edges, I want to know how many sides it has."

  "That's easy enough. Two, of course. The top, and the bottom."

  Indy was in his element. He'd run into this sort of thing as far back as the ancient mathematicians. It gave meaning to the old expression "there's nothing new under the sun."

  "All right. If you connect both ends of that strip of paper, what do you have?"

  "A loop," Treadwell answered quickly.

  "With how many sides?"

  "Same as before. Only now you wouldn't call them top or bottom. You'd call it the inside of the loop, and the outside."

  "If you drew a line with a pencil along the inside, all the way around, until your pencil line returned to where you started, what would you have?"

  "Why, that's obvious," Treadwell answered. "You have a pencil line going completely around the inside of the circle. The strip of paper that's now a circle."

  "But you wouldn't have a line on the outside?"

  "Of course not! Not so long as you held the pencil against the paper, anyway, staying on the inside."

  "So that proves the strip of paper has two sides, right?"

  "Indy, what the devil are you getting at? You know it does."

  "Okay, Tom. Now, let's say we have a second strip of paper, same length. Before we fasten the ends with a piece of tape or glue, whatever, we give the strip of paper a half twist, and then we fasten the ends. You following me?"

  "Yes. Wait. I have a large notebook here in the car." He removed a sheet of paper, cut off a twelve-inch strip. "All right, Indy, now I give the paper a half twist, right?"

  "Right. Got some tape to connect the ends?"

  "No. But I have some adhesive."

  "Use it."

  Treadwell held up the paper strip, to which he'd given a half twist. "Now what?"

  "Rest the paper on your notebook. Place a pencil on the inside of the strip. Start a steady line, continuing all the way around the paper, along the inside, until your pencil lines join."

  They watched Treadwell doing as Indy instructed. When he finished, he held up the paper strip, staring at it with his mouth open. The pencil line ran along the entire length of the paper strip, inside and outside.

  "This isn't possible," Treadwell said slowly.

  "Why not?" Indy asked.

  "Because I never lifted the pencil from the paper, and yet the line appears on both sides of it...." His voice trailed off to a disbelieving whisper.

  "Tom, it has only one side," Indy emphasized.

  "That is simply not possible," Treadwell said stubbornly.

  Indy shrugged. "I can't argue with you. But you're holding the proof that you can twist into what, for want of a better description, we'll call another dimension. Look, Tom, this isn't as farfetched as it seems. Farmers and some factories have been using this Mobius strip for years. They take a fanbelt, usually something long and flat, that operates off one motor, to turn another piece of equipment. Accept that the belt needs to be greased. If you use the standard belt, then obviously you've got to grease the inside and the outside."

  "Naturally," Treadwell acknowledged.

  "But if the farmer or the machinist gives that belt a half twist and reconnects it to the machinery, all he needs to do is hold the grease brush against the top of the belt. You can figure out what happens next."

  Treadwell stared at the Mobius strip in his hands. "According to this, then, the belt would be greased on both sides."

  "No!" Indy half shouted. "You still don't get it! It won't be greased on both sides, because it's been twisted into a different dimension and it only has one side."

  "I'll be hanged," Treadwell said.

  "Any way you like it," Indy told him. "Now do you begin to understand why you can't get off this road? It always twists back upon itself."

  Treadwell turned to Gale. "This is what you've been trying to tell me?"

  Gale nodded. "Yes."

  "How do we get off this road that goes nowhere? I really do need to talk with Miss St. Brendan."

  "Talk, or perform the duty of an inspector from Scotland Yard?"

  Treadwell sighed. "Miss Parker, you have my word. I will proceed with the greatest respect and consideration. I have no desire to confront black magic—"

  He never finished his sentence. Gale's eyes flashed with sudden and unmistakable anger. "Don't you ever use that term a
bout the Glen." Her voice was an angiy hiss. "Keep your stupid superstitions to yourself! There is nothing dark here except your own limitations."

  Taken aback, Treadwell held up both hands. He hurried to apologize. "Miss P—Gale," he said quickly, "I meant no offense. Forgive me. I am over my head with... with all this, the road that turns in on itself, this strip of paper... my memory serves me poorly. I know that the same devout religion has been practiced here for—"

  "Never mind," Gale said, still sullen. "Apology accepted. Now, do you want to continue?"

  "Please."

  "Then drive on. The way is clear now."

  "But—I mean, how could you—"

  "Talk or drive, Thomas. Take your choice."

  "I'll start the car," he said.

  They soon came to a fork in the road. Treadwell slowed to a stop. "I don't remember this," he said cautiously.

  "Take the road to the left," Gale told him. "The one you couldn't see before."

  "Leave your weapons in the car." Gale looked at each man in turn. Widiout a word Indy removed the long knife from his boot and placed it on the car seat. Treadwell, reluctance slowing his movements, removed a powerful revolver from a shoulder holster and set it gently alongside the knife. They turned to Di Palma. He stared blankly at them.

  "Roberto, do it," Treadwell ordered.

  Di Palma sighed. A small derringer came forth from an ankle holster. Then he pulled back the right sleeve of his jacket, revealing a strap assembly with a holstered gun. Without a word he slipped the weapon from his arm. Derringer and handgun went onto the floor of the car. Di Palma and the others turned to LeDuc.

  Slim blades emerged from his forearms, another from his right ankle, a fourth from a belly sheath, and a fifth from a flat sheath strapped to his back, just below his neck. He held up both hands, brought the palms together.

  Indy's hand shot out to grasp his wrist, turning LeDuc's arm to show the bottom of the forearm. "That's quite a tattoo," he said quietly, releasing his grip. LeDuc nodded, still exposing the tattoo. "Have you seen this before?" he asked.