The Lost Continent (4 page)

“Look, I haven't heard from Davalos in over a year, what do you want from me?”

“Must be something you can give me.”

“I got nothing, you crazy bit—”

Elisa pressed the dagger a bit harder against his throat. “Manners, Stubby. There's a lady present.”

“Look, I told you, I don't know what he's after! I don't even know why Davalos would go after the Keystone in the first place!”

“He's working for the Order.”

Stubby paused and stared at Elisa in surprise. “The Order?”

“Some of their warriors were waiting for me when I came out of the cove,” said Elisa. “Not many people in the Caribbean armed with scimitars.”

“Okay, put away the kukri and I'll fix us both a drink.”

“I told you, this isn't a social call.”

“Just indulge me, okay? If the Order's involved, there's some more stuff you should know that you probably don't. Got it?”

Elisa hesitated before she slid the kukri into the sheath attached to the back of her belt. She stood and allowed Stubby to struggle to pull himself to his feet. He dusted himself off and walked past her, motioning for her to follow him into the back office.

Stubby grabbed two glasses and a bottle of Beefeater from the bottom drawer. He filled each glass halfway with gin and handed one to Elisa. She took it and smelled it first, watching him carefully.

“Relax, I'm not trying to kill ya,” said Stubby, sipping his drink as he sat in his chair. Elisa carefully sipped hers as well, satisfied that it wasn't poison.

“So what do you know?” she asked.

“If the Order's involved, that means they're probably after the Lost Tribe of the Naa'cal,” said Stubby. “You know who they are, right?”

Elisa nodded. “Survivors of the destruction of Lemuria, who refused to breed with the indigenous peoples they met on their travels.”

“Yeah, pretty much,” said Stubby. “Before Lemuria was completely lost, some of the Naa'cal survived by migration. The Americas, Asia, Australia, what have you. Many of them settled down, but there was one tribe that refused. Saw themselves as better than what they thought were savages. So they kept migrating, searching for another civilization that was equal to Lemuria. They were never heard from again, thus the name.”

“No further legends about the Lost Tribe?” asked Elisa.

“Nothing conclusive, even by our standards,” said Stubby. “There's lots of speculation. Some say the Lost Tribe eventually made their way to Atlantis. Others say they just died out, one by one. And then there's the belief that they eventually did end up settling, one by one, just like the other Naa'cal.”

“How does the Order work into this?” She slowly sipped the gin.

Stubby puffed on the cigar and ashed it in the tray. “The Order believes the Lost Tribe of the Naa'cal can lead them to the remains of Lemuria. But the Keystone is just one part of the puzzle. They've got the key, but what else do they need?”

“The gateway,” said Elisa. “Which means they need to find out where it is and the keystone doesn't have the location.” Elisa looked up suddenly. “The Churchward Tablets. Davalos is headed for India?”

“Might be there already,” said Stubby.
 

“And that means I need to get moving,” said Elisa.

“Wait, hold on a minute,” said Stubby. “Listen, I understand you wanna beat Davalos to the punch here, but what do you think you'll really accomplish?”

“Lemuria is one of the ancient world's greatest mysteries, Stubby. Max and my parents spent most of their lives trying to find it. My family was practically shunned for their discoveries.”

“So that's what this is all about, huh? Redeeming Mommy and Daddy?”

“Watch it, Stubby. I still have the kukri.”

“And I still have the Magnum.”

“Wanna see which of us is faster?”

Stubby looked down at his drink. “No, not particularly.”

“Smart man.”

“Look kid, fair warning, okay? There's a reason why Lemuria has remained uncovered by even those in our profession.” Stubby took a long drag on the cigar. “Some things man just was not meant to know. Don't think I gotta tell you about Pandora's Box.”

“No, it was my favorite bedtime story growing up,” said Elisa.
 

“Watch your back,” said Stubby with a sigh. “Davalos may be a bastard, but he's a ruthless, clever bastard.”

She set the glass down on the desk. “Thanks for the drink.”
 

Max took the tea leaves and placed them in the screen in the top of the pot. He then poured boiling water over them until the pot was full. Setting it on a tray beside two teacups, he took the entire tray from the kitchen into the library where Elisa sat waiting, setting it on the coffee table in front of her couch.

“I thought green tea would be appropriate,” he said as he filled a cup and handed it to her. Elisa accepted the cup and leaned back as she brought it to her lips. Max took his cup and sat down on the opposite couch.

“What did you find out?” asked Elisa.
 

“Unfortunately, not much,” said Max. “I got a call from King just before you arrived. He translated some of it, but couldn't get it all.”

“What did he translate? Anything useful?”

“Something about a gateway between worlds, linking the past and the present, but that's about it,” said Max. “What about you? Any luck finding Davalos?”

Elisa nodded. “He's in India.”

“How did you figure that out?”

“I went to see Stubby.”

Max sighed and set down his cup, giving Elisa a look of disapproval.

“Enough with that, Stubby is an asset you may not consider and yes he's shady, but he's got good information.”

“Assuming it's worth the price,” said Max. “Stubby Sheen is one man you don't want to be indebted to. Or did you forget about what happened the last time you dealt with him?”

Elisa fixed her gaze on her mentor. “What do you think?”

“You have a funny way of proving it.”

“King turned out to be a dead end. If it weren't for Stubby, we wouldn't have anything to go on. Now do you want to hear what he had to say or not?”

Max gestured for her to continue speaking. Elisa draped an arm around the back of the couch as she leaned against the side pillows. “The Order is after Lemuria, Stubby is sure of it.”

“That much we know.”

“What we don't know is why. The Order hopes they can get into Lemuria and discover the location of the Lost Tribe of Naa'cal. They've already got the Keystone, which will grant them access to Lemuria. But what they don't have is the gateway. Unless King was able to decipher a location from those photos.”

“No. As I said, it mentions the gateway but it doesn't mention where the gateway is.”

“Then that means the only way they can find the gateway is if they find the Churchward Tablets. The last place they were seen was in India.”

“Except that was over a hundred years ago, there's no telling if they're still there,” said Max.

“That's the only lead we have and it's the most-likely place where Davalos will be heading,” said Elisa. “So pack your bags, Max—we're going to Mumbai.”

“We can't just leave on a moment's notice, there are preparations to be made. I need to inform the school that I'll be taking some time off, find someone to run my classes...”

“Get King to do it,” said Elisa.

“I can't ask him to do that.”

“He knows as much about the subject as you and all he really has to do is prepare them for the final paper, right?”

“Perhaps,” said Max. “I'll have to speak to him about it, but first I'll see if I can find someone else within the department to take over during that time slot.”

“Y'know Max, I could always handle this one solo,” said Elisa. “And once I find the Churchward Tablets and get the Keystone back from Davalos, we can figure out where the gateway is and rendezvous there.”

“You're insane if you think I'm going to let you run off on your own, especially when failing to discover the remains of Lemuria is one of my greatest regrets.”

“We either leave immediately or we risk losing our shot at finding Davalos completely. He may already be there, hunting down the tablets. In fact, I can pretty much
guarantee
that he's there.”

Max set down his cup. “Okay, get a ticket to Mumbai for the earliest possible flight. I'll get in touch with Professor Rai and have her meet you at the airport. Meanwhile, I'll make arrangements for my own departure and you keep me posted on your progress. As soon as you find those tablets, I want you to notify me immediately and get me the photos so I can have King translate them and decipher the location of the gateway.”

Elisa smiled as she offered a mock salute. “Yessir!”

Max rolled his eyes. “Don't get cute with me.”

***

The home of Elisa Hill had been in her family for generations. She descended from a long line of so-called myth hunters, those who explore the legends of the world for knowledge or for profit. Her parents were the former and they trained her almost since birth in the methods and procedures of the myth hunters. Following the death of her parents when she was nineteen, Elisa fell into the latter category, taking the skills she learned and using them for monetary gain.
 

After she experienced one too many close calls, Elisa retired from that former life. She went to Max and asked him to give her a second chance, wanting to change her ways and follow in the footsteps of her parents. He proceeded to train her as his protégé and even helped her get a job at Burroughs University as an associate professor. With Max retired from the world of myth hunting, Elisa took up his position in the ranks, sometimes working directly for him.

She flipped the switches once she reached the foot of the stairs. The lights illuminated the spacious basement. Walls were lined with ancient weaponry—swords, bows, staffs, daggers, and ranged weapons of all different shapes, sizes and originating from different cultures across the world.
 

Padded mats lined the floor, perfect for training. In the next room, there stood a row of target boards for practice with arrows or throwing knives. Another room linked to the main basement held free weights, exercise bikes, and punching bags.
 

Elisa approached the weapons and looked through her choices. The kukri daggers, as always, accompanied her wherever she went. She took several shuriken—Japanese throwing stars—from the wall and gathered them up in a small box. She opened the large suitcase held under the workbench and set the shuriken inside. Her hands lifted a khopesh, an Egyptian sickle-sword with a crescent blade that was held by a long hilt, and laid it beside the shuriken box.

Next she picked out a hunga munga, an African melee and throwing weapon with a metal pointed blade that had a curved back section and a separate spike near the handle.
 

Elisa's final two weapons were a Chinese sheng bao or meteor hammer, two weights linked by a long cable which she wrapped up and laid down in the case. She followed with a kampilan sword, the longest of the Filipino blades. A single-edged sword with a tapered profile—narrow at the hilt and wide at the tip. The most interesting thing was the hilt itself, called the pommel, shaped to represent a mythical snake called the Bakunawa.

With the weapons selected, Elisa took a pouch belt as well as various straps and laid them in the hard case atop the weapons. A few other pieces of equipment, such as light climbing gear completed the suitcase and she closed it up.

Although she had used firearms in the past, she found them uncomfortable, by and large. Since her childhood, she had been trained in the use of ancient weapons such as these. Some, like Davalos, may feel comfortable with a pair of semi-automatic handguns, but she always felt guns were cumbersome and noisy and that the use of them lacked the same skill it took to fight with weapons used in close combat. After all, anyone with a good eye and a steady hand could fire a gun properly, but it took considerable more skill to use these older weapons.
 

The next step was a simple matter of buying a plane ticket online for a flight in two days to Mumbai. As Max said, he'd handle her transportation from the airport. With all the arrangements taken care of, now she just had to wait it out and hope that Lucas Davalos didn't have too much of a head start on her.
 

At approximately five thirteen in the morning, Elisa Hill found herself detained by customs in Mumbai. Just happened to be her bad luck that she found herself selected by customs for a bag search.
 

In her carry-on, they found nothing out of the ordinary, just her laptop, a cellular phone, and a few books. One of her checked suitcases passed without notice as well, nothing but clothes and toiletries. But the other checked bag, the large one, that's what drew their attention. Specifically, the ancient weapons they found inside.

And now, Elisa Hill sat in a small room with no windows, a dim light and only one door. She sat at the table, facing off against two men wearing suits.
 

“What purpose do you have for bringing these weapons into India?” asked one of the agents, who identified himself earlier as Basati.

“They're not weapons, they're ancient artifacts,” said Elisa. “I'm a professor of archaeology and mythological studies at Burroughs University in America. I'm here to meet a colleague of mine and I brought the artifacts with so she could have a chance to examine them.”

“Why not just have your colleague visit you in the States?” asked the second agent, named Shah. He had a hint of a British accent in his voice.

“Because I'm still on sabbatical from Burroughs. She isn't.”

“Sabbatical? Looks more like an extravagant vacation from your passport. You were just in the Caribbean a week ago?” asked Basati.

“Also part of my sabbatical. I'm researching the correlation between the myths of the Americas with the myths of the east.”

“And the weapons are a part of that?” asked Shah.

“Artifacts. And yes,” she said.