Chase grimaced. “Sharp stick up the arse-now that’s punishment.”

Di Salvo looked confused. “Now he’s asking about… I don’t understand it. He wants to know if Ms. Frost is one of… the old ones?”

Kari and Nina exchanged glances. “Ask him what he means,” said Nina.

“The old ones who built the temple,” di Salvo translated. “He says they had hair like… white gold.”

“Tell them that’s why we came here,” Kari said, authority returning to her voice. “To find out.”

“You sure that’s a good idea?” Chase muttered. “If they think you’re lying, you’ll be the first one on the pole!”

The elder spoke again, his two companions joining in with additional declarations. Di Salvo struggled to keep up. “They’re saying that the artifact-they call it the ‘pointing finger’-must be returned to its home in the temple. They want you to do it, Ms. Frost.”

“Me?” Kari chewed her lip.

“He says that putting it back will prove if you’re really one of the old ones-no, a child of the old ones.”

“And what happens if she’s not?” Nina asked.

Chase made an aggrieved noise, tipping his head to indicate the sharp weapons still aimed at them. “Come on, Doc. Keep up.”

“Oh…”

Di Salvo continued. “They want you to go into the temple and face… three challenges. The Challenge of Strength, the Challenge of Skill and the Challenge of… of Mind, I think.”

Nina gave him a frozen grin. “Again! Thinking not the same as knowing!”

“If you beat the challenges, you will have proved yourself worthy to enter the temple. If you lose…” Di Salvo pursed his lips. “What Eddie just said. For all of us.”

Chase winced. “Anyone else just pucker?”

Kari took a deep breath. “Tell them I accept the challenge.”

“You do what?” Nina yelped.

“Really?” asked di Salvo, shocked.

“Yes. But tell them that I want my friends to come with me.” She indicated Chase and Nina.

“Oh, bollocks,” said Chase as di Salvo relayed her request.

“Are you insane?” Nina hissed.

“You’ll be safer in there than out here,” Kari said. “At least we have a chance inside the temple. And I can’t read their language-I suspect I’m going to need someone who can, and I don’t think Professor Philby is quite up to the challenges.”

For a moment, offense almost overcame fear on Philby’s face. “Well actually, I think that-”

The elder interrupted him, one of the hunters giving him a warning jab in the back. Di Salvo continued to translate. “He says yes,” he said, surprised. “The challenges are for two people. Because you’re a woman, he’ll let you have more help.”

Kari nodded. “Hmm. I never thought I’d say this, but thank God for sexism.”

“You have until nightfall. If you haven’t returned by then, the others will be…” di Salvo paled, “put to death. And so will you, if you emerge.”

Castille looked up at the sky. “Sunset is only an hour away. Maybe even less.”

“In that case,” said Kari, giving the elder an imperious look, “we’d better get started, hadn’t we? Tell him to cut us free so we can go. And ask him what we can take with us.” She looked over at the team’s packs, which had been dumped in a pile nearby.

“Explosives, ropes, a crowbar or two…” Chase suggested quietly.

The hunters untied their wrists. “He says all you can take in with you are your clothes, and torches,” di Salvo told them. “That’s all you’ll need if you’re worthy of the challenge.”

“I think this is a bad idea,” Nina told Kari, rubbing her stiff arms.

“Then help me make the best of it,” Kari replied.

“How are you staying so damn calm?”

“I’m not. I’m absolutely terrified. But I’m not going to show it in front of these people. And nor should you.” Kari took Nina by the shoulders. “I know you can do this, Nina. Trust me.”

Despite her growing fear, Nina felt oddly buoyed by Kari’s faith. “Okay, I do. But if we get killed-”

“We won’t.”

Nina let out a nervous laugh. “Promise?”

Kari nodded. “Promise.”

“Sunset’s in fifty-eight minutes,” said Chase, checking his watch. “So if you’re done with all the female bonding chick flick stuff, you need to be thinking more Tomb Raider-y.” One of the tribesmen emerged from a hut, carrying several long sticks with their ends dipped in what looked like tar. “Torches, eh? I think we can do better than that.” Raising both hands, Chase looked questioningly at the rucksacks, very slowly sidling towards them. All around him, bowstrings creaked as the hunters took aim. “Okay, just me being harmless, see, big friendly smile…”

Sweating, and not just from the heat, he reached the rucksacks. Acutely aware that one wrong move would bring about a rapid and extremely painful death, he gently slid an LED torch out of his pack. “See? Not a gun. Just a torch. Which is in your rules, right? Agnaldo, remind ’em that it’s in their rules?” He switched on the torch and shone it first at himself to show what it did, then at the hunters around him. Some of them jumped back in surprise, blinking at the bright light-but to his intense relief, none of them released their arrows. One of the men stepped forward and waved his hand back and forth over the lens, amazed that it gave off no heat. He said something to the elders, who considered it before giving di Salvo a reply.

“They’ll let you use it,” di Salvo told Chase.

“Good. Now, about those explosives…”

“We’re running out of time,” Kari said. She strode forward to the elders and held out one hand. Slightly taken aback, he placed the metal bar in her palm. “Okay. Nina, Mr. Chase, let’s go.”

“See you soon,” said Castille as the trio was guided to the entrance. “Please?”

The dark passageway was under six feet high. Nina and Chase could fit in it easily, but the top of Kari’s head barely cleared the ceiling, forcing her to duck under clumps of overhanging moss and creepers. The temperature and humidity dropped rapidly as they progressed.

Nina saw something on one wall as Chase swept his flashlight back and forth. “Eddie, hold it. Give me some light here.”

The beam revealed a long line of symbols carved into the stone. Familiar symbols.

“It’s the same language as on the artifact,” Nina confirmed. “It reads like… I think it’s an account of the building of the temple.” She leaned closer. Among the Glozel and Olmec characters was something new: groups of lines and chevrons. “I think they’re numbers. Could be dates, or maybe-”

“Nina, I’m sorry, but we don’t have time,” Kari reminded her. “They’ll have to wait until we get back.” Disappointed, Nina followed her and Chase down the passage.

About thirty feet in, they reached a left turn. Chase flicked the flashlight beam suspiciously around the walls and ceiling.

“Mr. Chase, what’s wrong?” Kari asked.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a bad vibe from this whole ‘three challenges’ thing,” he said. “I just want to check that we’re not going to walk into any traps.”

“Eddie,” Nina sighed, “I already told you that even if there were any, they would have stopped working centuries ago.”

“Yeah?” Chase directed the beam back towards the entrance. “What if our feathered friends out there’ve been fixing them? Wouldn’t be much of a challenge otherwise, would it?”

“Oh.” Nina’s stomach clenched with the realization that he could well be right. “Then… let’s be careful.”

The passage seemed safe, so they set off again. Another turn soon presented itself.

“Challenge of Strength, you reckon?” Chase asked as they paused at the entrance to a small chamber.

It was only slightly wider than the passageway, about eight feet to a side. Against the right wall was a rectangular stone block running across the chamber at roughly knee height, like a bench. At its foot was another passage, little more than four feet wide. Above the head of the bench, disappearing through a slot in the wall, was a thick branch bound tightly in vines, a smaller branch attached to its end to form a T shape. Apart from that, the chamber was empty.