Indiana Jones and the White Witch Read online

  "Oh, don't you have a rotten opinion of our cherished traditions!"

  "Not at all!" Indy boomed. "There's nothing wrong with reality. Such as the great knights and warriors of England going off to the Crusades and getting battered left and right by the locals. They wore their colors and fealty as if they were armor. And the armor they did wear nearly killed them in the heat of the Holy Lands as much as the locals did in their loose robes and with their fast horses."

  He laughed. "All right, carrot top, Excalibur is the ceremonial sword. Could be it was stuck in some big chunk of rock and the boy Arthur yanked it out because the saints were guiding him, or some other lovely fairy tale like that. But what Caitlin carries is not Excalibur. And through the years and the absolute hordes of definitive histories of the Knights of the Round Table, and the sorcerers and dragons and fair maidens, Excalibur and what Caitlin has became the same sword. It was Excalibur in the beginning and the name changed. But that's too convenient. It's a patsy job for some beak-nosed librarian who couldn't come up with a better line.

  "Uh-uh. Caliburn is the fighting sword, the only true sword, and I know its legend. During its making, Merlin stood by the sword maker, he helped the forge burn brighter, he muttered incantations and the mumbo jumbo at which he was so good. But somewhere along the line he had some new metals, what would become alloys, and he mixed them in with the iron of the sword, and when it became steel, it was more than a sword. The blade of fire, the unconquerable, and a magic weapon—because into that blade Merlin poured all his magic and his power."

  Indy took a long breath. "Probably why the old geezer finally died the way he did. Weak, shunned—"

  "Go on about Caliburn," Gale said.

  "You already know what there is to know. That's how Caitlin killed four of those men attacking her parents. With the blade of fire."

  "It's not Caliburn you want to know about, is it?"

  He shot a hard look at Gale. "Give the lady a cigar. She's coming out of her cocoon."

  "Let's stop playing games. Go on to hard questions, Indy."

  "Good. Thank you. Why is Caitlin still alive?"

  "I was afraid you might ask that."

  "I'm asking."

  "But you already know. If you know about Caliburn..."

  "I don't know. But I admit I believe."

  "Please. Keep talking."

  "The scabbard. Legend has it, and almost all Arthurian legends, stories, and ballads state that the scabbard has the magic power, instilled by Merlin, to heal any wound it touches."

  Gale seemed somehow aloof during this exchange. "What you say is true," she said.

  "I saw enough wounds—we both did—to know that Caitlin should be dead a half dozen times over."

  "Yes." That was all from Gale. It seemed she was hoping Indy would run into a dead end.

  "But she is not dead, despite wounds that were obviously fatal."

  "Yes."

  "That scabbard she was wearing. It's not the one produced by Merlin, is it?"

  He heard a sigh. "No. It's not."

  "What happened to the scabbard that heals wounds almost as quickly as they're inflicted?"

  "I would have thought you had that all figured out by now."

  "Gale, you sound almost antagonistic."

  "Oh, Indy, I'm not." She looked at him with a pained expression on her face. "It's just that I have a lifetime behind me of never talking about these things."

  "Until now."

  She nodded.

  "Where's the scabbard, Gale? The one with the life force."

  "She wears it."

  "You just agreed with me that's not the scabbard I saw, and—"

  "The original scabbard was covered with several layers of the finest suede. Deerskin worked for months. Caitlin knew that she might one day be hurt so badly she'd be unable to reach the scabbard and apply it to the wound. So she and her mother carefully soaked the scabbard in a solution Athena prepared. They unwrapped the layers of deerskin. It was very thin but incredibly durable. Then—"

  "Let me guess."

  "Please."

  "They sewed it into a body garment. What Caitlin wears beneath her clothes, against her skin."

  "Yes."

  Indy whistled to himself, a single long-drawn-out note. "Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. If that leather from the scabbard works as advertised—"

  "What a strange way to describe something with magical powers!"

  "If it's all it's cracked up to be, then Caitlin is always protected. She can suffer those wounds and they heal immediately."

  "Almost."

  "What's the catch?"

  "The scabbard works its healing magic only for the person fighting with the sword. With Caliburn."

  "So that's it," Indy said. "That's why you're so certain that Athena will die tonight. The one thing I couldn't figure out. Why the scabbard, or its garment, wasn't used to heal Athena. It won't work for her!"

  "Yes." The single word was forced out.

  They sat in silence for a while, Gale accepting the night wind as a comforting blanket, Indy wrestling with myriad possibilities and trying to anticipate what the future held for them. He knew now that he was up to his neck in this caldron of mystery, and Gale was right there with him. During that time at the Glen, he'd seen one constable standing in the shadows and taking photographs of different people. He'd spent too much time shooting pictures of himself and Gale as well as several of Caitlin.

  Indy would have bet a hundred dollars to a dime he was a spy in the pay of the group that had struck at St. Brendan Glen. It figured. Go in with the authorities, get a photo record of anyone who might be there who didn't "fit"—like Indy. By now those pictures were being studied for identification.

  It was time to increase his own sensitivity to trouble around every corner he might turn.

  But one thing still nagged at him. "Gale, you up to some more talking?"

  She'd been on the edge of sleep. She sat up straight, taking deep breaths of the night air whistling past the speeding car. "All right, Indy."

  "There's a piece missing in this puzzle."

  "Only one? How wonderful! I felt we were wandering blindfolded through a mine field."

  He laughed. "Not quite as dangerous." He paused, seeking the right words. "Look, Gale, there's a rule in science—there's no free lunch in the universe. There's got to be an energy source for everything that happens. For everything we do. It doesn't matter if it's humdrum stuff or wizardry or magic. The rule applies to everything. Sometimes we can't see or understand the nature of the energy source, but it is always there."

  "No argument, Indy. If, that is, I'm following you."

  "Magic, like anything else, has to pay a price to work."

  "A price in energy, you mean."

  "Absolutely," he said. "Even if we draw it from the planet itself. Like the energy that collects at Stonehenge. That's not magic. The earth is an enormous gravitational energy force. It gives off all sorts of radiation. The crust of the planet shifts and generates enormous magnetic and electrostatic forces. So the energy is there for the taking, but only if you know how. That's why I believe in the power of the sword Caliburn. Why I can even accept the healing powers of what was its scabbard, which Caitlin now wears against her body."

  She anticipated his question. "And you want to know how energy is derived from somewhere," she said carefully, "and gets to the sword and her garment."

  "That puts it as well as I could," he said admiringly.

  "Am I correct in judging that even if you don't yet know, you're onto something?"

  "You get a second cigar."

  "Don't let me stop you. If you're right, I'll tell you immediately."

  Again he glanced at her. Gale looked straight ahead so as not to meet his eyes and perhaps give herself away. Indy took a deep breath.

  "I saw it. Kerrie—that's her father's name?—okay, Kerrie was carrying it." He paused. "The scepter."

  Gale nodded slowly. "You're onto it."


  "The jewels on the outside of the scepter are pure showmanship," Indy went on. "I've seen hundreds of scepters around the world. Haitian voodoo rods, shafts worked by the American Indians, scepters for kings and queens and pharaohs. Most of them were strictly for wowing the crowd. Razzle-dazzle stuff. But every now and then I've run into a scepter that was used to collect or focus energy, or both."

  "Dating from when?"

  "Long before you and I arrived on the scene, lady. One of the best-kept secrets in the archaeological world is that people were using electric batteries four thousand years ago, perhaps even longer than that."

  Gale half spun in her seat, staring at Indy. "What?"

  "You heard right. Electric batteries. The Babylonians, Syrians, ancient Persians, and others. Look, Gale, they were electroplating silver and gold onto statues and figurines, and I've seen that work. Removed from tombs that hadn't been opened in four thousand years, statues and icons that could only have been done with electricity. In fact, pieces of those batteries are in an Egyptian museum right now. We had some electrical engineers study the pieces and try to reconstruct such a battery. The copper, lead—whatever they used. Working only with the ancient tools and materials, they did it. Built batteries that could easily have been assembled in ancient times."

  "And you're convinced this is tied in with the scepter Kerrie was carrying?"

  "You'd make a lousy poker player, Gale. You'd give your hand away in the blink of an eye. You know it was that scepter! And you also know the scepter is, like I said, strictly for show. What's inside that thing is what counts."

  "You amaze me."

  "Why? It's simple deduction. I saw the crystals glowing. I don't buy the magic potion for sale down at the local hardware store. That thing has got to have a battery inside. The battery provides the power to energize the crystals to act as an energy-collecting device. Like what happened to me at Stonehenge. The energy is real. It's radiated by the earth. The trick is to learn how to harness it. Which, I'm now convinced, is just what Merlin did. He was more practical engineer than wizard. Unfortunately he seems to have taken most of his so-called magic formulas with him to the grave. In my book, Merlin is absolutely real, an incredible genius on a par with the greatest minds of history, and he knew better than to claim he was working with quite ordinary and everyday forces. But playing it as a wizard, in a time when people believed in dragons, Merlin got away with the sorcery game. In today's world he'd be a fantastic con man."

  "How do you explain the curving of light? The mists and fog? All that?"

  "I don't know just how it works. But it's the greatest use of natural energy I've ever encountered. It's brilliant."

  "But not magic?"

  "I didn't say that," Indy protested. "I can explain some of what goes on. The rest of it? I'm hanging by my fingernails off a cliff."

  Gale smiled. "Good."

  "Why good?"

  "Because there's more magic than any of your science in all this."

  "I'll lay odds that the garment Caitlin wears, made from the scabbard, has a lot more than suede or leather in it. Care to challenge me on my saying it's interwoven with gold threads? Or perhaps silver? Because silver is a better electrical conductor than mercury, just as a for instance?"

  Gale didn't answer. She had doubled over in pain. Indy reached out to her. "Gale... can I help?"

  She shook her head. "Athena... she passes on. Take me home, Indy, please, now."

  6

  Indy listened to the soft chimes of the grandfather clock in his fifth-story flat in London. Four o'clock in the morning. He was well into his second pot of coffee as he pored over notes and historical records. Merlin and Avalon and King Arthur swirled through his head, mixed with visions of the flashing blade of Caliburn and the mystical tales of the Knights of the Round Table.

  Fact and fiction seemed to be interchangeable in the Arthurian tales. But one point was certain. Despite the many versions, French as well as English, the sword of Caliburn and its scabbard were always endowed with miraculous properties.

  Excalibur was clearly poetic invention on a grand scale. The tale of Arthur removing the magic sword from solid rock filled in the gaps of history, because there was little to write about Arthur as a youth. Despite his kingly parentage, his childhood remained singularly unimpressive. To make the leap from relative obscurity to leader of all the knights, what better invention than a magic sword that only the "great and true" king could remove from its enchanted stone?

  More than one mighty coup had been achieved through similar "politics of magic." It was popular drama on a huge scale. With Merlin razzle-dazzling the superstitious, uneducated knights, the wealthy and highborn were ripe for mesmerizing into the belief that King Arthur was, if not godlike, at least a divinely chosen ruler. Besides, being a knight bestowed all manner of freedom upon those fortunates. In the name of the king, you could rob, steal, pillage, beat, and even enslave anyone you wanted, for pleasure. The scribes, poets, and minstrels of the time who recorded the ravaging of local populaces by the knights made certain never to record the truth—or they were certain to be on their way to a merciless beheading.

  But this wizard, this Merlin, was more than a master magician. More than one of history's great public-relations men. Merlin could frighten and hypnotize, astound and terrorize, and to do that he had to back up his mutterings with deeds. All his so-called magic potions and powders could not match the reality of the sword and scabbard of Caliburn.

  Everything pointed to the natural energies the people of the New Forest had learned to accumulate and then utilize with marvelous effect. Like Indy's experience atop Stonehenge, hurled by invisible energies collecting in the homemade antenna he had so foolishly attached to his body—well, the way to test suntan lotion is not to throw yourself into a bonfire.

  Merlin didn't create the sword Caliburn out of bat's wings or magical powder. That was nonsense. The magic was real, but it was beyond Indy's knowledge of such powers to know how that worked. One clue was the energy field that had smacked him at Stonehenge. If Merlin had known how to capture that energy and infuse such power into the blade of Caliburn, well, then it began to make sense, but the secrets were still locked up in the past.

  Except, he thought furiously, whatever power lay within the scepter. Whatever energy was captured and then transmitted from the scepter could be tied in with the sword. Almost like a sending source. Already scientists had learned how to transmit a powerful radio signal to a distant point and pour energy into a receiving antenna or station. The principle would be the same for Merlin or any scientist today.

  Indy reverted back to his exchanges with Gale. "I'll bet my bottom dollar," he had told her, "that Merlin was able to manipulate natural earth energies so that they looked like magic. And if the scepter contained a stored energy source, like a battery, that would do the trick. After all, switch on a flashlight and you get a beam of light from a tightly packed container of lead and chemicals. Stored energy is the 'trick.'"

  He was convinced he was on the right track to understanding the power of the sword, but the reasons for the healing power of the scabbard remained elusive. Was it simply a tremendous force of faith? Faith was more nebulous than magic. Indy had enough experience with voodoo in African and Haitian tribes to have seen "faith" paralyze the minds of people and cripple their bodies, to the point of being frightened to death. The hex of evil spirits.

  This could work the other way, as a healing instead of a wounding. After all, something had kept Caitlin alive despite enough wounds to kill a dozen men. Faith or magic; he could not yet determine. But whatever it was, Caitlin was alive and well when she should have been dead.

  Indy put aside the puzzles he failed to solve. More immediate concerns closed in on him and Gale. He moved quietly to the bedroom door, opened it just enough to see that Gale was asleep. He closed the door and returned to the living-room couch.

  Sleep eluded him. He knew that whatever group had savaged the Glen would g
o to any lengths to obtain the secret map. That meant they'd be after him and Gale. The police were no protection. Not yet, anyway. They were still baffled by that attack with high-powered weapons and the ruthless murders. By people who spoke in different languages, who carried no identification, who operated as a machinelike organization. This group was brilliantly led. It knew what it wanted and would not stop at anything to find and seize whatever it sought.

  There was the added tug of the past reaching out to Indy's instincts and experiences as an archaeologist. The coins that had been mentioned. Mint-condition coins from the beginning of Christianity? What an incredible find that would be! And where had the gold come from? What was it for? Who had gathered it originally? How did the Vatican get mixed up in so shady an affair?

  Indy fell asleep in that swirling mixture of thought and riddles with which he'd wrestled most of the night.

  They came down on slim cables from the roof. Two men in black clothing, black sneakers, woolen hoods. In the best manner of the dreaded Ninja, the infamous assassins of Japan. They swung well out from the buildings as they cabled down, and then with a rush, hurtling like heavy weights at the end of long strings, they shot into the living room.

  Indy barely opened his eyes before the first man landed with both knees hard against his chest. Indy's eyes seemed to pop wide as his breath gushed from his lungs. Gasping for air, jerked violently from the deep sleep he'd so long fought off, he knew only that someone was hammering on his body as if he were a punching bag.

  He was fully awake in seconds. Every time he fought for balance, the two men swarmed over him. In moments he knew he was being taken down and worked over by experts. Two fists grasped his hair, jerked his head back against the edge of the couch. He tried desperately to swing his body to the side, but the second man twisted his ankle, fell with a knee into Indy's stomach, and the next moment slammed knuckles into his throat.