‘Kells, it’ll be fine.’
‘Sure it will. Alright, let me take in my surroundings. I want to make sure I can record every minute of this experience in my journal. Of course, that’s probably a moot point because I’m assuming that I’m going to die in the jump anyway.’
Ren put his hand on my cheek, looked in my eyes, and said fiercely, ‘Kelsey, trust me. I will not let you fall.’
I nodded, tightened the shoulder straps of my bag, and moved nervously to the edge of the chasm. Ren changed back into tiger form and ran all the way to the end of the tunnel. He crouched down and then surged forward in a rush of speed. A huge animal was charging, barreling toward me, and all my instincts said to run – run as fast as I could in the other direction. The fear of the chasm behind me dwindled in comparison to being run down by an animal of his size.
I almost shut my eyes in fear, but I pulled myself together at the last possible second, ran two steps, and hurtled my body into the void. Ren took a mighty leap at exactly the same time and I reached out to wrap my arms around his neck.
I desperately began clutching at his fur, sensing myself falling, and then felt arms grab me around my waist. He pulled me tightly to his muscled chest, and we rolled in the air so that he was under me. We hit the dirt floor on the other side of the chasm with a heavy thump that knocked the wind out of me as we bumped and skidded along for a bit on Ren’s back.
I sucked a huge breath of air into my collapsed lungs. Once I could breathe again, I examined Ren’s back. His white shirt was dirty and torn, and his skin was scratched and bleeding in several places. I took a wet shirt from the bag to clean his scratches, while removing little pieces of gravel embedded in his skin.
When I was finished, I grabbed Ren around the waist in a fierce hug. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close. I whispered against his chest quietly but firmly, ‘Thank you. But don’t ever . . . ever . . . ever do that again!’
He laughed. ‘If I get results like this, I surely will do it again.’
‘You will not!’
Ren reluctantly let me go, and I began mumbling, com-plain-----ing about tigers, men, and bugs. He seemed very pleased with himself for surviving a near-death experience. I could practically hear him chanting to himself: I overcame. I conquered. I’m a man, etc, etc. I smirked. Men! No matter what century they’re from, they’re all the same.
I checked to make sure I had everything I needed and then pulled out my flashlight again. Ren changed back into a tiger and moved in front of me.
We walked down a few more passageways and came upon a door etched with symbols. There was no knob or handle. On the right-hand side, about one third of the way down was a handprint with mark-ings similar to mine. I looked down at my hand and turned it over. The symbols were a mirror image.
‘It matches the drawing from Phet!’
I put my hand on the cold, stone door, lined it up with the drawing, and felt a warm tingling. Pulling my hand off, I looked at my palm. The symbols were glowing bright red, but strangely, my hand didn’t hurt. I moved it back toward the door and felt the warmth build up again. electric sparks began popping out between the door and my hand as I moved closer. It looked like a mini lightning storm was occurring between my hand and the stone, and then I felt the stone move.
The door opened inwardly, as if pulled by invisible hands, and allowed us to pass. We walked into a large grotto that was glowing dimly from phosphorescent lichen growing on the stone walls. The center of the grotto housed a tall rectangular monolith with a small stone post set in front of it. I dusted off the stone post and saw a set of handprints – a right and a left. The right handprint looked the same as the one on the door, but the left one had the same markings that were on the back of my right hand.
I tried putting both hands on the stone block, but nothing happened. I put my right hand with the back side down on the left handprint. The symbols started glowing red again. Flipping my hand over, I placed it palm down on the right handprint and felt a more than a warm tingle this time. The connection crackled with energy, and heat poured out of my hand and into the stone.
I heard a deep rumbling at the top of the monolith and a wet sucking, slurping noise. Golden liquid spilled over the top of the edifice and poured down the four sides, pooling into a bowl-shaped basin at the bottom. The solution was reacting to something on the stone. The stone hissed and steamed as the liquid foamed, bubbled, and fizzed, eventually dribbling down into the basin.
After the hissing stopped and the steam cleared, I gasped in shock, seeing that glyph engravings had appeared on all four sides of the stone where none had been before.
‘I think this is it, Ren. This is Durga’s prophecy! This is what we have been looking for!’
I pulled out the digital camera and started taking pictures of the structure. Then I took some more with the disposable camera for good measure. Next, I grabbed the paper and charcoal and made a rubbing of the handprints on the stone and the door. I had to document every-thing so Mr. Kadam could figure out what it all meant.
I wandered around the monolith trying to make out some of the symbols and then heard a yelp from Ren. I saw him pick up his paw carefully and set it down again gingerly. The golden acid was seeping out of the basin in little rivulets and moving across the stone floor, filling in all the cracks. I looked down to see that my shoelace was steaming where it lay in a golden puddle.
We had both just leapt over to the sandy part of the floor when another great rumble shook the maze. Rocks began to fall from the high ceiling. They dropped to the stone floor and shattered into tiny pieces. Ren nudged me back against the wall, where I ducked down, sheltering my head. The shaking became worse, and with a deafening crack, the monolith split in two. It fell with a mighty boom to the floor and broke into large chunks. The golden acid bubbled through the broken basin and started to spread across the floor, slowly destroying the stone and everything else it touched.
Acid crept closer to us until there was no place for us to go. The doorway had been blocked, sealing us in, and there appeared to be no other way out. Ren got up, sniffed the air, and walked a short distance away. Standing up on his hind legs, he put his claws on the wall and started scratching furiously at something.
Approaching him, I saw that he had opened a hole and that there were stars on the other side! I helped him dig and pulled out rocks until the hole was big enough for him to leap through. After he was out, I tossed out my backpack and shimmied my way through until I fell out the other side and rolled across the ground.
At that moment, a huge boulder fell with a thunderous boom, sealing off the hole. The quaking slowed and then stopped. Silence descended in the dark jungle where we stood as a light, powdery dust filtered down from the air and fell gently upon us.
12
Durga’s Prophecy
I got up slowly, dusted off my arms, and found my flashlight. I felt Ren’s hand grasp my shoulder as he spun me around and looked me over.
‘Kelsey, are you alright? Did you get hurt?’
‘No. I’m fine. So, are we done here? The Cave of Kanheri was fun and all, but I’d like to go home now.’
‘Yes,’ Ren agreed. ‘Let’s head back to the car. Stay very close to me. Animals that were sleeping when we came into the jungle are awake and hunting now. We must be careful.’ He squeezed my shoulder, morphed into tiger form again, and headed into the trees.