The Mysterious Ambassador (8 page)

They marched another day, always to the east, and encountered no problems. There were scurrying sounds in the bushes, familiar to the pygmy ears but alien to the others. Only once did a pygmy suddenly dash off into the brush while the column halted. There was a sudden animal shriek—a big cat?—the pygmy returned and the column moved on. Between the poison arrows and the rifles, they carried a lot of firepower that would frighten off any but a large, well-armed enemy. The path broke out of the jungle for a time into an open meadow. Ahead were wooded hills. In the far distance, a hardly discernible high mountain range, the Misty Mountains, land of the powerful mountain princes.

"Visitors are forbidden there," Luaga explained to them at the coffee-tea break alongside the path. "The princes are absolute rulers dwelling as they did in the fifteenth century, and they want no one to smuggle in the subversive twentieth century to break their slumber." Everyone laughed.

As they moved on toward the hills, they noticed a crag, the first high elevation. It was a geological oddity, a fairly high peak rising abruptly from the jungle beyond the plain. Kirk remarked that the summit looked like a man's head. From this angle, they all agreed that it did. Diana stared at it, suddenly amazed.

"It looks like " she began, and stopped, realizing

none of the others had ever seen him.

"It looks like who?" asked Luaga.

"Please ask them the name of the peak," she said, indicating the pygmies. Luaga called to one who walked back to them. He answered in his click-clack language. Luaga looked at Diana, startled.

"It's called Phantom Head," he said.

"It had to be," she replied softly. The massive head was a hundred feet high, a natural formation carved by the wind and the rain of centuries. She stared back at it until they were once more surrounded by trees.

At twilight, they camped in a large grove of unfamiliar trees, with strange white bark, curved and gnarled trunks. Nearby, they could hear the roar of a mountain stream. They were told by the pygmies they would spend the night here.

As they sat about their campfire in the deepening shadows, George Schwartz looked wonderingly at the grove behind them.

"Something strange about that. Notice it, Chris?" he asked.

"Yes," said Chris Able. "Are we seeing the same thing?"

Alec Kirk turned, with his can of pork and beans, to look.

"It looks like a skull, a human skull," he said.

His words sounded strange by this feeble campfire in the twilight. All turned to look. It was true. The twisted trunks and curved branches produced the effect. Luaga called to a pygmy squatting near him. The pygmy answered him.

"They call it the Whispering Grove," he said.

"Why?" Diana wanted to know.

"I suppose, because it whispers." Luaga smiled.

"Whispers what?"

That night as they slept or took their turn at watch, all heard the eerie sounds in the grove.

"Phan-tom—Phan-tom"
it seemed to say.

It was the wind blowing through the branches, making this sound.
"Phan-tom—Phan-tom".

"How weird," said Luaga to Diana as he took his

turn to watch at the fire, relieving her. "First that peak, Phantom Head, now this. Or am I imagining the

words?"

"No, that's what it sounds like," she said, crawling under her netting.

Weird, perhaps, imagination, perhaps. They were now in Phantom country.

A glass of wine spilled, dishes and silverware clat- Icred as General Bababu's big fist slammed the ta- bletop.

"Where are those heads?" he roared. "Where is that

squad?"

"No word yet, General," said Mokata in a quavering voice.

"I know there's no word, you idiot.; What's being done about it?"

"An entire company is out searching that area, sir. We know where their gun was placed, where they should be."

Bababu glared at his aide.

"Mokata, they should have been back last night. If they're not there, where are they?"

Mokata shrugged, his face desperate. When Bababu was angry, he could be brutal.

"What happened to them?" insisted Bababu.

"I've talked to the company commander and his officers. Only four in the squad. They could have met a guerilla band or rebels, and been wiped out."

Bababu thought about that for a moment and lit another cigarette.

"Not guerillas, not deserters—rebels! Luaga's men. That would be good, that would be perfect. Then if we can catch them with the heads—Luaga's men with the pilots' heads!" He roared with laughter and slapped his leg. "Wouldn't that be perfect, Mokata?"

Mokata agreed, laughing as heartily as he could, hoping his leader's mood would not change. Keep him laughing. The phone rang. Mokata seized it. News maybe. He listened, then hung up.

"Well?" said Bababu, waiting tensely. "Was that it?"

"The new rescue crew for the medical team has arrived at the airport. Waiting to see you."

Bababu jerked the cigarette holder from his mouth and cracked it in half in his big hand.

"Damn those interferring
gukaka!
' he roared. "Alert the gun crews. I want them shot down, like the first crew—and I want their heads!"

Mokata reached for the phone. Bababu held up a warning finger.

"I don't give a
gukaka
for the medical team. Yes, they helped us, but they are friends of Luaga. I want to keep Luaga in the jungle, keep him out of Mawitaan, until my hold is firm here."

He reached into a drawer for another plastic holder—he broke several every day, and lighted another cigarette.

"They're fighting me in the streets and alleys. Still fighting in the fields and villages. Not as many, but still fighting. They love that pill-pusher, Luaga."

"When your regiment brings in his head, they will stop fighting," said Mokata.

"I want every village searched, every hut. I want his head here," said Bababu, slamming the table.

"They are so instructed," said Mokata. "And the second rescue crew. Will you see them?" Then he gulped, that was a mistake, to bring up that subject again.

"Where are the heads? Where is that squad?" roared Bababu, breaking another cigarette holder.

At dawn, the party had a hasty breakfast—then, with a backward glance at the Whispering Grove that had them wondering all through the night, they marched on a short distance to a foaming mountain stream. It was about one hundred feet wide here, shallow, filled with rapids. Tied at the bank was a huge raft, large enough for all of them, and waiting on the raft, two tall men in loincloths, slim and strongly built. They were Mori fishermen, expert boatsmen, wise in all the skills of sea and waterways. Luaga greeted them and spoke to them briefly.

"Where are we going on that thing?" asked Kirk.

"A fast trip, downstream," said Luaga.

"To where?"

"They haven't said," replied Luaga.

All the people, including the pygmies, came aboard the raft. Two other Mori, waiting in the bushes, were to follow on land, leading the animals. Without further ceremony, the Mori pushed the raft into the stream, then took their positions with long poles, one at the bow, one at the stern. From time to time, they ran from side to side, shoving away from the bank or avoiding a boulder in the stream. The heavy raft gradually accelerated, and soon was moving at breakneck speed. It was a ride they would never forget.

The cold water came from the Misty Mountains and at this point was a wide roaring torrent. It would seem that no one in his right mind would attempt to navigate this stream. There were endless rapids, small waterfalls. The pygmies were stolid, apparently secure and unafraid. But the others clung to ropes tied to the raft, and to each other as the raft bounced and veered and leaped and plunged. The roar of the stream was deafening. The spray was icy. They could barely hear each other even if they shouted. At one point, the raft sailed into empty air, open space. They gasped as they dropped a full thirty feet over the waterfall and crashed into the roaring rapids below. The logs of the raft shook and splintered under them, but they held. Then more rapids, then another waterfall—a leap into space, a crash ... on and on. Their bodies were beaten and bruised, their heads ached, their stomachs turned, their arms and legs were exhausted, as they fought every inch of the way to stay aboard this wild vehicle. The men watched Diana anxiously and tried to help her, but she shook them off. She was determined to help herself, knowing that each man needed all his strength to hang on. Her face was tense, her hair soaked as she clung to her rope. Everyone was soaked to the skin. They'd lost all track of time. Minutes became hours, days, weeks, eternities. This would go on forever. There was no escape from this bucking, bouncing, plunging, crashing, soaking, exhausting nightmare. The shore was a blur. Their eyes could no longer focus, their minds no longer think. They could only survive. And when it seemed that they had used the last ounce of strength they possessed, when another moment meant the end—then there was another crash, another plunge, then another moment that was the very last ... and another ... and another ... and suddenly it was over.

The raft moved out of the stream, which had slowed now into a broad calm area. The group sat on the raft, bodies sagging, and breathed deeply. We made it, but just barely, was the common thought. Made it, to where? Ahead was the dull, heavy roar of thunder.

As they staggered off the raft, which was held at the bank by the grinning fishermen, they realized the trip had taken only three hours—and not three months. And they had traveled a distance that would have taken many days on foot through the thick brush. As they climbed a slope above the bank, they saw what caused the dull thunder. The broad pondlike portion of the stream moved slowly to a crest a hundred yards ahead, then fell several hundred feet in a roaring, foaming, great waterfall. They gazed. If they had gone over that on the raft—but they hadn't. They followed the pygmies toward the very lip of the falls, and stared at the magnificent cascade. Then, single file, they followed their little guides down a path alongside the falls. It was steep and rocky, and mist and foam from the falls shrouded them. But it was exhilarating. As they climbed down, they noticed that steps were cut in the stone, moss-covered steps that had the look of antiquity. It was an ancient staircase. Down they went, to the very bottom of the falls and looked in wonder at the mighty force of the water as it landed in great waves and explosions of spray.

Then to their complete amazement, their guides led the way to a wet slippery path behind the waterfall. They followed. The path was a rocky ledge cut into the sheer cliff. On the other side of them was the mighty curtain of the waterfall. The roar here was deafening. By now, each one was silently asking the same amazed, baffled, question—where are we going? All except Diana, who was not amazed, not baffled, but so excited—as she later admitted—that she was ready to pop! For this was a secret entrance to the mysterious
Deep Woods,
land of the Bandar, the pygmy poison people, and the home of the Phantom, the Ghost Who Walks.

As they emerged from the waterfall, dripping wet and chilled by the cold spray, they halted, astounded by what they saw. There was a large clearing. On one side, a huge cave mouth that on first glance resembled a giant skull. Near it on a dais was a stone throne with curious carvings on the back and both arms that, on closer inspection, proved to be stone skulls. On the other side of the clearing, a group of pygmies stood quietly watching. Next to them was a magnificent white stallion. The two groups, the pygmies and the arrivals, looked at each other silently. There was. no sound beyond the roar of the waterfall. A large animal ran out of the cave—a dog? No, a wolf with pale-blue eyes. It ran directly to Diana. The doctors next to her stepped forward to protect her, but she patted the beast's head.

"Devil!" she cried happily as the animal licked her hand. Then the animal turned and ran back to the cave and paused there, as though waiting for another to appear. And another did. This was the most surprising of all.

A big man ran from the cave. Powerful muscles rippled under a costume that was skintight. He wore a hood and his eyes were masked in some fashion so that they could not be seen. The men had time only to notice that he wore two guns in holsters on a gunbelt that bore the same skull insignia. Then he had reached Diana and swept her off the ground in his arms. And they kissed as though they were alone in the wilderness. The doctors and the delegation looked at each other in surprise, then smiled. This, obviously, was Diana's mysterious "good friend." The doctors were only puzzled. Somehow, they felt this strange appearance and place would somehow be explained ... as soon as the kissing stopped.

Luaga and the delegation had a different sensation.

They knew where they were. Jungle-bred, they were seeing for the first time a legend they'd heard about since earliest childhood. They were in a place forbidden by the jungle's most rigid taboo—the
Deep Woods.
Tales had filtered out occasionally through the years from the rare visitor who had actually seen it, or had pretended to—the Skull Cave, the skull throne, all sounding like a dream. Now, here it was, solid and real. And here
he
was—bigger than imagined, vigorous, and young. Such were the first impressions in this amazing place. The pygmies watched the warm greeting Diana received with some amazement. They'd never seen the Phantom like this. His anticipation and anxiety about Diana had been equal to hers. Their meeting was bound to be electric.