It is best to remain focused on your goal, and in this case your goal is to obtain the Stone of Vul-Kar and deliver it to Boston for two million dollars. You will not be furthering your cause by spending the night on Auri Island, and Diane Chambers will not pay you if no purple gem is procured. Or if someone gets to it before you do. Therefore you choose to motor right by Auri in the Zodiac, heading straight for Woban instead.


But as you get closer to Woban Island, proximity doesn't make the view any more flattering; what appeared to be steep cliffs and mountainsides plunging straight into the sea from a few miles away prove to be exactly that upon closer inspection.


What you wouldn't give for a topographic map right about now! You had assumed a tiny little island would be simple to navigate — just climb to the highest point, grab the stone, and go home — but you can see now that the geography here is a lot more complicated. From what you can gather, the southern end of the island is occupied by this range of small mountains that you now see, and the jewel must be securely hidden somewhere among them. You examine the mountains as you putz past them on the water, looking for signs of the temple on the highest summit, but everything up there looks thickly forested. And steep. You didn't realize this might become a mountaineering adventure. If it does, you're going to be woefully underprepared.


There are of course no published maps of the place that you can buy from Amazon, and even Google hasn't updated its digital cartography to show these new land discoveries. The best you could do in your limited prep time was print off some satellite imagery using a laser printer you found on the Sam Malone. According to your low-grade, grayscale screen capture from Google, the land tapers away for several miles beyond the mountains to the northeast. So it looks like you will need to land there and then navigate your way inland through the foothills — some way, somehow.


The problem is that it will take you several miles to get to that other side of the island where landing is possible, and this Zodiac can only go so fast.


You give this southern part of the island a wide berth; who knows what reefs might be lurking just below the water's surface, capable of shredding the Zodiac to pieces before you even realize there's a problem. If that were to happen, there would be no place for you to reach shore safely. Instead, you tool along to the northwest about a full mile from the shoreline, heading to a prominent headland that you think marks the corner of the island. Get around that, and you should start to see more landing opportunities on the other side.


Not surprisingly, though, this is turning into a race with the setting sun, which is only a few fingers above the western horizon. Your little boat is not equipped with any spotlights, and once you lose the daylight you'll be stranded in the darkness. C'mon, little Zodiac! Steady as she goes! You can do it! Don't fail me now! These and other forms of mental encouragement don't seem to have much bearing on the speed of the boat, though.


The sun is setting just as you near the tip of the headland. The clock is set: in maybe thirty more minutes, night will have settled in over Woban Island. Had you chosen to stop at Auri, you'd probably be enjoying life beside a campfire right now. As it stands, you can only hope you'll find a place to safely make landfall before the clock runs out. Then you can look forward to a night of sitting in the dark, with no idea where exactly you are.


You decide it's worth cutting the corner a bit around the headland; you might still hit something submerged, but you'll be traveling less distance around the cliffy peninsula. As you steer the boat around its tip, you see that the mountainous portion of the island is coming to an end, with miles of sand beaches beyond. The end is in sight! Even if darkness overtakes you, all you have to do now is point the boat toward land, ease up on the throttle, and take it slowly until you hear waves breaking ahead of you.


Hold on, what's that? On the nearest section of beach, just ahead of you, you see a flickering orange light. Actually, the light is not on the beach, but a short distance back in the jungle. A campfire, without a doubt. And that dark object you see on the sandy shoreline? That looks like someone's boat.


This puts a wrinkle in your plans. You knew you'd have competition from other jewel-seekers, but it never occurred to you that you might run into them so soon. Are these people friendly? Many of the people in your "profession" are highly competitive and will do anything to knock their opponents out of the race. On the other hand, there are several research teams that have been studying Woban Island ever since its discovery a few years ago, and you'd expect such people to be collegiate and cordial. You'd rather avoid the former type of people at all costs, but the latter kind could actually be interesting. Who knows what kinds of useful information you might glean from spending a night with people whose interest in the island is purely science-minded? Maybe they would even have a spare map of the island to give you.


But here's the bottom line: 


Whoever is there has certainly heard your boat by now; sneaking past them is not a possibility. So you have the option to either land there in the few remaining minutes of twilight available to you, or to venture further up the beach in the dark. You won't be able to see anything, and where you land will be a crapshoot. 


__________________________________________________

You continue up the beach in the dark.

The first rule on any assignment like this: you have no friends. Trust no one. Assume everyone has an agenda — especially in a primitive environment like Woban Island, where civilization and the rule of law are distant memories, and raw wealth is something that people come to conquer. The likelihood of meeting a Good Samaritan here is about as high as encountering a native Woban who will just hand the Stone of Vul-Kar over to you. In your line of work, people are trouble, and if you give someone a chance they will prove that axiom over and over again. You are on your own for a reason, and it's better that way.


You just hope the people with the campfire feel the same way about it as you do. Hopefully the quickly-fading daylight is already too dark for them to get a good look at you; let them think this is a boat filled with mercenaries, dirty, vulgar, and armed to the teeth. "Best to keep a safe distance from a crew like that," they will say, assuming the worst and acting in their own self-interest accordingly.


No other specks of light appear on the dark stretch of island ahead of you. Soon the twilight fails you completely, and Woban Island becomes a nebulous silhouette against the starry sky, as hard as it is to believe a land so dark could have become even darker. You cut the motor and let the waves carry you into shore; it will take a little longer to make landfall that way, but for anyone who may be within earshot it will be more difficult to track your progress.


You reach down toward the floor of the Zodiac for something that you vaguely remember seeing when it was still light out, tucked away to the side of the craft. Your fingers clasp the smooth plastic shaft, and you pull the oar from the straps holding it in place. You dip it into the water behind the boat, using it as a rudder to keep the bow pointing toward the shadowy shoreline. Then you hang tight and let the waves do their work.


No lights come from this part of the island, but with the motor shut off you can hear many of the familiar sounds of the jungle: waves crashing on the beach in rhythmic repetition, trees rustling in the slight breeze blowing off the ocean, raucous bird calls from deep in the forest, the sound of a small stream babbling over a bed of rocks as it spills into the sea.


But there is something else on this calm night, too: the sound of distant singing and chanting, coming from somewhere well across the island. You can only assume this is the native population putting on some kind of celebration. Maybe it's someone's birthday, maybe it's a Bar Mitzvah — it doesn't matter. The important thing is that whatever the event, it is being held a long way from here.


Instead, you focus on that sound of running water. Since in reality you have no idea where you are relative to the island's major landmarks, and you are literally about to run ashore blind, this little stream may prove to be a useful reference point in the morning. After all, you're going to need to park the Zodiac somewhere while you explore the mountain, and if there happens to be a little inlet here that might the perfect hiding spot.


So you tune everything else out and just focus on the sound of the stream, using the oar to steer the Zodiac straight towards it. You can't see much in the starlight, but when you hear the sound of the crashing waves to your right and left you know you have found a gap in the beach. The stream is somewhere straight ahead of you, just a few yards away. You've been keeping your headlamp handy all this time, and now that you think you've found a secluded little nook you decide it's safe to turn on the light. Indeed, you have navigated your way into a short inlet surrounded by jungle vegetation, with the open ocean about twenty yards behind you. Given the circumstances, this seems like a pretty good place to be.


You tie off the bow of the boat to the trunk of an overhanging tree, then you settle back into the Zodiac. The weather looks like it will remain calm tonight, so you decide to remain right where you are all night long, eating a few snacks and then sleeping in the rubbery confines of your small boat.


 

In the morning, your neck is sore and your legs are stiff after falling asleep inside the Zodiac; there are worse places you could have spent the night, but this inflatable boat was not designed with sleepers in mind. The important thing is that you had no visitors during the course of the night, and all of your belongings are still present and accounted for.


At this early hour, the portion of the sky that you can see through the jungle trees seems pale silver in color. You hoist yourself up onto the round gunwale of the raft-like boat and look for a safe way to step ashore. It looks as though you've found a popular watering hole for the local wildlife, as there are multiple little game trails converging on this inlet. One good path leads down to the beach, so you stroll down toward the ocean with the hopes of getting your bearings.


Beside you is the narrow inlet through which the mouth of the stream flows, and in the other direction is a long stretch of beach extending almost all the way to that headland you passed last night, during your race against the setting sun. The campsite that you passed was near the base of that peninsula; in the daylight, you can see that you put nearly two miles between you and whoever else is camping out down there.


What you were hoping to see, however, is nowhere in sight. The mountains are behind you now, and you would need to be taller than the trees to see in that direction. Getting there is going to be difficult if all you have to navigate with is that Google screen capture printed on a piece of limp copy paper. All you need is a good look at the terrain so you can pick out the best route. Otherwise you'll just be bushwhacking through the jungle in the blind.


There is nothing you can do about that here, though. What matters is that you've successfully made it to Woban Island, and the Stone of Vul-Kar is just a few measly miles away. That two million dollars is as good as yours.


Right?


 

Hours pass as you climb… something. All you know is that you've been going uphill ever since you left the Zodiac safely concealed under a screen of giant fern fronds back by the inlet. The stone that you seek is located in the ruins of some temple high on a mountaintop, so you've been telling yourself all morning that if you are climbing, then you are heading in the right direction. Unfortunately, you are smart enough not to believe your own lies; you saw enough of these mountains last night from the boat to know there is more than one rugged summit in this range. Sure, you are gaining elevation, but in all likelihood this is just some inconsequential foothill.


For kicks, you tried using your handheld GPS unit earlier in the hike to see if it helped with your navigation problem. It was worth trying, you suppose, but the results were pretty much as expected. Sure, the little palm-sized receiver could lock onto six separate satellite signals and pinpoint your location to within twenty-four feet, or so the graphic on the LCD screen said. But Garmin hasn't updated their maps either, and so when the on-screen topo showed you walking across the Pacific Ocean, you categorized the GPS as being useless as far as Woban Island goes.


On the other hand, you've been following a pretty good trail for most of the way. You had heard rumors that the island was crisscrossed with a robust trail network, and you are happy to have a clear path to follow — wherever this is taking you. The alternative would be to bushwhack your way through the jungle, which grows thickly on these warm and damp slopes; you'd be lucky to cover one mile an hour that way. So, bottom line: trails are good. Let's hope this one doesn't lead you into trouble.


Otherwise the slope is steep and rugged, with rock ledges punctuating your climb as frequently as the word "and" in a run-on sentence. The one small mercy is that you are ascending the mountain's northwestern slope, placing you mostly in the shade from the morning sun, which is ascending to the northeast. That leaves you with only the humidity to deal with.


Then, just before noon, the trees part and you find yourself on a rocky knob covered with shrubs and sparse grasses. After scrambling up a few more rock ledges, you push through a sultry meadow that is fully exposed to the hazy atmosphere. There is no shade, and nothing is damp except for the heat that assaults you.


It would be a highly unpleasant place at this time of day, except for one redeeming feature: this bald summit offers an outstanding view of the rest of the mountain range. The ocean is three miles behind you, and Woban Island's lowlands stretch for a good five miles to the northeast. But just ahead of you, maybe another mile-and-a-half to the southeast, is the highest summit. As you examine it from the top of this peripheral peak, you realize that what you saw last night from the Zodiac must have been some other false summit, because this is completely different. It reminds you a bit of Devils Tower in Wyoming, in that it looks like a column of rock rising unnaturally out of the landscape. There is an object on the mountain's flat top that must almost certainly be man-made. The temple ruins!


You are encouraged that the mountain appears so close, and you give yourself good odds that you can make it to the base of the rock spire with relative ease. The problem is that you have no idea how you're going to scale all that rock once you get there.


That's not something you need to worry about now, however; if somebody built a temple on the summit, then obviously there must be a way up. In the meantime, you pull your notebook out of your pack, flip to a blank page, and begin sketching a map of all that you can see. The sweat on the palm of your hands leaves wet marks all over the paper. 


__________________________________________________

Next page.

The next afternoon sees you slowly threading your way through the thick tropical forest, trying not to slip down a steep, wet slope.


You spent the previous night camping high in a mountain pass, where you found a tiny spring emerging from under a mossy rock. The spot was on the fringe of the same type of high-elevation grassland as the bald summit where you had drawn your map, and chances are if you had reached it any earlier in the day the place would have been hot as an oven. But in the evening, when you stumbled across it, your little campsite was cool and pleasant. Your ten-year-old REI backpacking tent was more spacious than the Zodiac had been the first night, and so your first full day on the island ended pleasantly. If the Wobans were throwing themselves another party, you were now too far away to hear it.


It hadn't all been fun and games, though. Yesterday, after you had stopped to sketch the map, your progress had been slowed unexpectedly. Getting down from that grassy bald had been simple, but the next little summit in the ridgeline was steep and cliffy. Going over it was not possible, and you could see no further signs of a trail, so you saw no option but to descend a few hundred feet and find an easier way around this part of the mountain. Regaining all that lost elevation was discouraging, but then you discovered the spring and all was forgiven.


Now, almost a full day later, here you are making your way over the third summit in the chain, and although this one is higher than the other two it has been completely wooded so far. Without a trail to follow, you have been forced to thrash your way through the thick vegetation. There is no graceful way to travel in these conditions, so you have been taking your time.


Although the tower-like main summit is now maybe half a mile away, you can scarcely see it. Actually, you are slowly working your way down toward a large blank spot on your map, where you have little idea what to expect. When you had stopped to sketch your map yesterday, you were able to see a good swath of the island, but not the parts that were concealed by the various mountain summits. It looked like there had been a sizable gap between the third and final peaks, but you had not been able to see what that gap contained. Whatever is there, you're about to be wandering through it in just a matter of minutes.


And so, after another fifteen minutes' worth of scrambling down steep, moss-covered slopes and crawling under fallen trees, the terrain flattens out. You continue forward, marveling that after all that ridiculous toil over the wooded summit, the vegetation is thinning out again here in the broad space between the mountains.


You are tired, dirty, and hungry — as well as intrigued by what is opening up ahead of you. The forest trees thin into scattered shrubs, and once again you are walking across a baking-hot grassland. This one is immensely picturesque, though. It is a high-elevation plateau, broad and mostly flat. The main summit spire rises almost five hundred feet above you, but you have arrived too late in the day to be in its shade. And dotting this tropical prairie are the remains of an ancient complex of buildings.


Various weeds and vines crawl over the cut-stone structures like a riot of snakes. The place is like an archeologist's wet dream, the remains of a civilization that had until recently been completely unknown to modern academia. The artistic and architectural styles on display here seem to be a mishmash of global influences: humble dwellings that resemble scale models of Mayan pyramids, rows of toppled Greek columns, eroded statues that seem to depict a horned cherub, like a satanic Buddha or something. You could spend a year exploring the place — but only if some rich fat cat thought there was something worth collecting here, and was willing to bankroll your expedition.


As impressive as the lost city is, the rocky tower is downright intimidating. How the heck is anyone expected to get up that thing? This is a challenge that is going to require some thought.


Perhaps you should start looking for a place to camp. As awesome as this plateau is, you see no sources of water here, so you'll need to venture back into the woods to search for other options. You decide to look along the northern side of the plateau, where based on experience you expect to find a verdant and moist slope leading down from the highlands. Hopefully you'll stumble across another spring — or better yet, a pool. You could use a good rinse.


So, veering northward, you soon reach the point where the terrain begins to slope downward, and trees once again become larger, albeit sparsely populated. You are wading through ferns, exalting in the fact that you have just spotted a glint of sunlight off a pool of water just ahead of you, at the foot of the hill. The terrain is gentle and open, water seems to be in abundance, and there is a good view of the mountain spire that stands between you and victory. The odds are good you have just found tonight's campsite.


You run like a giddy child to the edge of the pool. You can see right away that it is not a natural pond, but a square-edged reservoir of some kind, yet another artifact from the ancient city. Happily, the water is clear and clean. You bend down to splash its cool goodness over your face.


But what you fail to notice — until it is much too late — is the figure that rises from the ferns just around the corner. It is only when it begins to move forward through the vegetation that you turn and see it — a Woban, with tattooed and deeply tanned skin, a bone necklace, grass skirt, and a long spear. Above all, the most distinctive feature is that eerie third eye that sits directly above the bridge of his nose. You surmise he had been hunting, waiting among the tall ferns for his prey to come, when you bumbled into the scene instead.


"O Manu o Ke Kaua ko'u inoa!" he shouts. "I keia la wau e lilo i kane, aka mua au e ku i ka pa'akiki. Pono e luku au i ka holoholona ae hanai i ka io i ko'u makuakane. E ho'omakaukau ia 'oe iho e make, holoholona!"


"Whoa, hold on, chief!" you say. "We're all friends here."


"E pale ia 'oe iho!"


His speech is fast and clipped. Not a single word makes any sense, but the provocative way he is shouting them at you gives you the general idea that this is a hostile confrontation. The Woban is only about six feet tall — big enough, to be sure, but not one of the seven-foot giants you heard about. Maybe this is an adolescent, trying to prove himself in the world.


"Hey, make nice. Let's be friends."


"E pale ia 'oe iho! 'A'ohe hanohano i ka pepehi 'ana me ka pa'akiki 'ole."


"Look, I haven't the slightest idea what you're saying. Can't—"


Then he does the unexpected thing and tosses his spear at your feet. It is not a gift, because the rage in his voice is still evident, even if the words are unintelligible to you.


"E lawe i ka ihe a kaua mai ia'u!"


Well, you're at an impasse as far as verbal communication goes, but you think you're getting the gist of the body language. The young Woban wants you to fight him, and to make the odds more even he is letting you use his spear. If he assessed that you're not much of a physical threat when matched up against a six-foot Woban, he would be correct. At least with the spear in your hands, you would have a sporting chance.


So you have to make a decision: fight or flight? The Woban is glaring at you, all three eyebrows furrowed in a kind of rage you'll never understand. Eventually he'll charge at you, regardless of what you choose to do. So either you can pick up the spear at your feet and defend yourself, or you can run. With all of the ruined buildings around here, you would have plenty of places to hide — assuming, of course, you can outrun a Woban.


__________________________________________________

You get out of here as fast as possible.

So clearly it's in your best interest not to stay and fight this Woban; you would have nothing to prove by doing so, but everything to lose when you inevitably got your head handed to you. Therefore you need to figure out a way to get out of here. If you just turn and run, all you'd be doing is turning this into a footrace, which you know you'd lose just as surely as you would lose the fight. The only way this will work is if you manage to trip up your opponent in the first few moments.


Fortunately, the young Woban has given you exactly what you need. Without taking your eyes off him, you squat down and reach for the spear at your feet. Then you slowly stand, holding the primitive weapon as if you are still considering how best to use it.


"Maika'i loa!" he says in his incomprehensible language. "Ua koho 'oe e kaua ia'u. I keia la he la maika'i ia e make!"


"That's easy for you to say. All right, let's get this over wi— Ohmygod, what is that!"


It's a trick you've probably been using since kindergarten: fake an expression of surprise, point to some imaginary spot past the Woban's shoulder, and then run in the opposite direction the moment he turns to look.


So far, so good! You've managed to momentarily confuse your opponent, and now you are fleeing for your life. The only way to go is back up the hill, towards all the strange ruins. Knowing your head start is only going to last a matter of seconds, you listen closely for the sound of the Woban pursuing you. He doesn't leave you waiting for long.


"'A'ole hiki ia 'oe ke holo mai o'u aku nei!"


You continue running until he is nearly upon you, and then you fling the spear as hard as you can, aiming for his legs. The shaft gets caught between his knees, and in a shout of frustration he goes down to the ground.


Success! But of course now you are out of tricks, and he has the spear again. The only things you have to work with now are your own speed and the timely appearance of an effective hiding place.


You dash up the hill at your best possible pace, not daring to look back and see where your pursuer is. Your muscles are already tired and your lungs are spent by the time you reach the top, but there is no time to stop and catch your breath. This is not some schoolyard game where you can simply call "time out."


Once again you are on the open plain dotted with the mysterious ruins from the ancient city. Now what are you going to do? Your original thought was to evade the Woban by seeking cover inside one of these ancient structures, but the nearest ones seem rather small. They look like miniature stepped pyramids, scale models of their larger cousins in Guatemala. They have entrances leading into some kind of enclosed space, where you are sure you could take cover. The problem is that these smaller structures are probably just dead ends — only one way in, and only one way out.


Perhaps you could do better than this, though. Up ahead, in the middle of town, is a larger structure, where you might expect more opportunities to evade your pursuer. That's entirely theoretical, however, because you have no way of knowing what you'll find. Whatever it offers, that crumbling stone building is another hundred yards or so ahead of you — a distance across which you'll have to continue sprinting, in plain sight of the Woban. 


Think quick! You can hear the Woban behind you, shouting angrily as he sprints up the hill. If you duck into the nearest structure, there is a chance he may not see you. Or you can continue to that larger building and hope for the best when you get there. How does that old saying go — the one about the "bird in hand"?


__________________________________________________

You keep running to the large structure and hope for the best.

Those little pyramids, each with its hideous horned Buddha (or whatever) dancing a ossified dance on top, look too much like death traps to you. "Adventurers check in, but they don't check out," just like the roaches in those old TV commercials. As you run by, you imagine the alternate outcome that might occur if you were to stop: flipped over on your back in the doorway, your arms and legs stuck lifelessly in the air, the Woban's spear planted in your belly like a flagpole, and the Woban himself looking up cannibalistic recipes on Pinterest. No, you don't want to hide here.


Whoever built this forgotten city and lived in these queer structures was also a fan of paved streets, for you are no longer striding across tropical dirt but a narrow lane hardened with cut stone. So much grassy vegetation is growing up through the cracks that you never knew the surface existed until you could feel it beneath your feet. It is lined with crumbling foundations and toppled statues; fallen columns lie across your path like windblown trees.


"Aia 'oe, ka i'a make! 'A'ole e malama keia mau pohaku kahiko ia 'oe!"


Ahh, you'd recognize that voice anywhere, shouting his words of encouragements at you. There is no time to stop and look to see how much distance there is between you, but by the sounds of it you have no more than a hundred feet on your adversary.


"Ua ho'ohaumia 'oe i keia wahi ho'ano! E ho'olo'ihi aku au i kou make i na la he 'umi!"


He sure is a chatty fellow, isn't he? You've never had so much motivation to keep running. The overgrown and cluttered street extends right to that curious building that seems to occupy the center of the ruined city, as if it were some kind of ancient City Hall. It looks like a rectangular block of rock sitting upon a pedestal of steps, with arched doorways all around it, one after the other.


The steps feel crumbly under your feet as you dash up them, as if your boots are pounding the stone into dust. The structure has dozens of entrances, so you see no point in stopping to choose which one to enter. If you linger too long, you'll be within range of the Woban's spear.


So you run into the entrance directly ahead of you, plunging yourself into the darkness. It takes a second for your eyes to adjust, but when they do you can see that you are not inside some small chamber or narrow passageway, as you had expected. The inside of the building is actually one large space, its darkness perforated by the light coming in through the dozens of archways on all four sides. In other words, it's an arcade — and it is providing a grand view of the Woban as he charges up the street, with the intent to inflict death upon you evident in his three-eyed glare.


Well nuts, this place has as many hiding spots as a picnic pavilion. You've wasted too much time, so you have to act fast before the Woban enters the building and finds you. With nothing better to work with, you back up against a section of wall between two of the arched entrances, and then you wait in the shadows.


It is a very short wait, for moments later the Woban dashes into the dark arcade and comes to a stop just a few yards away from you. The only thing concealing you is the shadow you're standing in, so you hold your breath and stand as still as possible. You expect him to make another one of his angry pronouncements, but instead all he does is pound the butt end of his spear shaft on the stone floor, as if in disgust. Then you watch as he continues straight ahead, exiting the building to look for you out among the ruins.


That was a very lucky break! For the moment you feel safe enough to resume breathing again, and considering how hard and fast you just ran you really need to rest for a bit. Remaining in the same shadow that hid you from the Woban, you crouch down and sit on the floor.


And that's when you see it: in the middle of this shadowy arcade, there is an even darker set of stairs leading downward.


__________________________________________________

Next page.

You feel compelled — whether by simple curiosity or the desire to find a secret way out of this place, you're not sure — to get back up and see where those steps lead. They descend from an otherwise nondescript spot at the center of the arcade, a narrow and dark entrance to whatever it is that lurks below. It almost seems like the entire point of this building was to shelter those steps, so it is funny that the Woban didn't consider looking for you down there.


Carefully you make your way down in the darkness. There are no railings to hold onto, and who knows how much rubble there might be waiting to trip you up. For all you know, you're about to walk into a bat cave. You have a headlamp in your backpack, so you stop before you go too far and pull it out.


The little beam of light reveals a chamber that appears to be as long and wide as the arcade above, but with a ceiling so low you can touch it without stretching. The place looks like a warehouse for strange and grotesque stone carvings, including an entire battalion of those horned cherubs you've been seeing all over the place. Some of them still bear patches of pigment, as if they were at one time all painted in vibrant colors that have long since flaked away.


The statues are lined up in rows, with parallel aisles between them; as you explore the chamber for a possible way out, you walk up and down these aisles like a shopper looking for the peanut butter section of a grocery supermarket. You don't see any signs of an alternate exit, but in a far corner of the room you find something else that at once intrigues, sickens, and terrifies you.


She has been lying there for years, it appears, face down on the stone floor with arms and legs sprawled out, and small darts snagged in the moth-eaten clothing. She has long, dyed-blond hair but pitch-black roots, telling you her hair continued growing an inch or two even after she was killed. Although something has been pecking away at her corpse, it is otherwise well preserved in this dark and dry chamber.


After a moment you realize that you recognize who she is: Beatriz Paya-Vallejo, a rival adventurer from the north of Chile. The two of you have crossed paths more than once, in places like Nepal, Mali, and Tunisia. None of your encounters were friendly ones. In most cases you were each working for competing collectors, which meant you were both after the same prize — and in the early years, she was too often the one in possession of whatever valuable object you had been sent to obtain. Because of her, you missed out on a few too many payouts and was almost laughed out of your profession. But also because of Paya-Vallejo, you learned to up your game and become better at what you do.


An olive-green knapsack still hugs her back, bulging with its contents. As the beam from your headlamp glances across it, you briefly see a purple reflection. That's way too strange. Despite your repulsion at the idea of touching a mummified corpse, you can't resist seeing what's inside that military-surplus backpack of hers — and you have a pretty good idea what it is.


You undo the strap that closes the knapsack, and immediately a large object slides out and lands with a thud on the ground. It is a gem of tremendous dimensions, purple and flawlessly faceted. There is only one thing it could possibly be: the Stone of Vul-Kar.


Damn you, Beatriz! You hadn't seen her in several years, nor had you heard any news. The people in your profession sometimes manage to fall off the earth for a few years it seems, only to reappear alive and well at the oddest times and places, much to the consternation of their competitors. You never wasted much time thinking about what Paya-Vallejo might be up to, because as long as she wasn't searching for the same thing you were, her whereabouts didn't matter to you.


But here she is now, dead on Woban Island. And she had found the Vul-Kar gem, too! Had she not fallen to these Woban darts, this would have been yet another victory for her — a win added to the tally in her column, and a loss added to yours.


You pick up the stone and are impressed by its heft. The thing must weigh twenty pounds, at least. No wonder so many people have been coming here to find it! No wonder Diane Chambers is willing to pay you two million dollars to bring it back to her in Boston!


So apparently there is no need to climb to the summit temple after all. Beatriz Paya-Vallejo was already there, and managed to get it this far, but no further. No one but her employer probably knew she was here, and now no one but you knows she had removed the Stone of Vul-Kar from its fabled resting place. Everyone coming to Woban Island has been searching for it in the wrong place.


The gem is so large you have to rearrange the items in your backpack to make room for it — and you know that when you shoulder your pack once more, it is going feel very much like you're toting around a couple bowling balls on top of everything else.


But before you do, there is something you need to consider: above you in the daylight, there is still a Woban who seems hellbent on killing you. Unless you want to end up like your former competitor here, you're going to need to use extreme caution to get out of this ancient city alive. This room seems to be a safe place to remain, since the Woban who was chasing you never thought to look here, and the Stone of Vul-Kar has been hiding here in Paya-Vallejo's knapsack for several years without anyone's knowledge. You could probably remain here until nightfall, and if your Woban friend is still looking for you, it will be easier to sneak by him in the darkness.


On the other hand, it seems equally desirable to get out of here as quickly as possible. Nighttime will arrive on the island in a couple hours, and it would be nice to get as far into the jungle as you can in the remaining daylight.


__________________________________________________

You wait until nighttime.

For practically two days straight you've been climbing mountains in the tropical heat, bushwhacking through the thick jungle vegetation, and more recently running for your life from a murderous Woban. In a very lucky break you've just now managed to find the Stone of Vul-Kar in an unexpected place, but that doesn't mean you couldn't use a short break. Nightfall is not that far off, and you seem to have the perfect hiding spot. You'd be a fool to run out of this ancient basement too soon.


You do need to conserve the battery life of your headlamp, though. So the first thing you do is find a place to sit far away from Paya-Vallejo's corpse. Thank you, O Beatriz, for finding the Stone of Vul-Kar for me. May you rest in peace and yadda yadda. God bless and Amen. There is a spot next to the stone steps that seems like a suitable place to hang out, with no grinning horned statues and no dried-up bodies. Being close to the stairs means you will be able to hear any sounds of movement above you, should there be any. You settle down and fish out a couple packages of flavored tuna — sun-dried tomatoes and cracked peppercorn. Then you turn off the headlamp and sit in near-absolute darkness.


When you wake up, you have no idea how much time has passed — until you light up your Timex and see that it's a quarter to nine at night. You didn't plan to wait this long to make your escape, and despite the unplanned nap you don't really feel all that rested. Although technically there is no set time you need to be back at the Zodiac, you feel foolish anyway, like someone who missed the alarm clock and is now a couple hours late for work.


Flipping the headlamp back on, you pack up the empty tuna packages and shoulder your heavy backpack once more. A few hours ago, there was a Woban outside wandering the ruins with the single-minded goal of killing you. So much time has passed that you have no idea what to expect. Is he still combing the ruins, looking for some trace of you? Is he hiding, lying in wait for you to show yourself? Did he do the sensible thing and go home for supper?


You can at least take solace in the fact that the arcade at the top of the stairs seems quiet. Slowly, and very carefully, you take the steps one at a time. If it was dark before in the late afternoon, you feel as if you've been swallowed by a shadow now in the nighttime. You don't dare use your headlamp because you have no idea who might be out there watching for you, so you feel your way up each step with your feet. Hearing and touching are your only remaining senses. Five steps, six, seven. On the the seventeenth step, your lead foot finds nothing but a level floor in front of it. That is your only clue that you are back in the arcade.


At first you assume the faint light coming through the arches is moonlight. But then you notice the shadows and glows across the stone floor are like restless spirits, dancing and shifting in an unpredictable pattern. And the light, faint as it is, is a reddish orange, not the pale silver cast of moonlight — and never mind the fact that the moon is in a waning phase this week, not even visible until much later in the morning.


Slowly, and with dread, you make your way toward one of the outer wall of arches. What you see makes your body tingle with a sense of hopelessness and fear: dozens of torches, held by shadowy beings who are systematically searching the ruins of the ancient city, slowly making their way toward the arcade in which you've been hiding.


Now you know how the Woban passed the time while you were asleep: he went home and mustered his fellow villagers as reinforcements.


They have you surrounded. You are doomed.


THE END