Then, from the forest a twig snapped, a monkey or capybara had stepped too heavily on a fallen branch and it sounded in the night, waking Brandon. The burly chef rolled and launched forward, eyes shut, fists cutting the air at 140 miles an hour. It wasn't the first punch that struck the 'chulupacabra', but the second, though it was all it needed to be launched bodily into the trees, back broken over a tree limb. Finally eyes open Brandon glanced around, nothing, and with that he returned to sleep. However in the cover above and around them other large shimmering eyes watched and hungered.
The Sun rose, as it is want to do on most of the Earths surface, casting warm light over the intrepid adventurers and pulling them back into the land of the awake. Mephisto rose and glanced around, he was hungry and wondered if there was any food around. Tony then awoke and felt the same curious question raise in his mind, at which point finally Brandon sat up, punches flying (though at a safe distance) and opened his eyes.
"Dudes, I'm hungry, what do you want for breakfast?" Brandon rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and the various mosquitoes from off his arms.
"I don't know, we really should have thought a bit more about this." Tony squatted nest to the smoldering embers of the old fire.
"Time was of the essence." Brandon growled, "Never mind, I have any idea, let me see if there's a river nearby." With that Brandon looked up and around then trudged off into the jungle.
"I should probably have told him to stop." Mephisto said as the sound of Brandon's walking became more and more distant.
In the encroaching jungle Brandon moved forward with single minded courage. To be fair however he hadn't actually thought of how he would get back, and had not paid very close attention to the surrounding that he was passing, his only current concern was to find a river and use a trick he had learned years before, that is if he could remember the details of the trick. his nose however caught the scent of a river, and then, progressively he could hear the trickling as well, within fifteen minutes he had arrived at the bank of a large brown river, trees overhanging the banks, beautiful birds flying overhead.
"Jackpot!" Brandon immediately set to work, firs the would need the sap from one of these river trees, however, he couldn't remember which one was the correct tree, so with conviction he took a branch from each of several trees and large bushes around the river side and dipped the oozing limbs into the water. The water went from brown to milky white, then yellow, and finally red, with a slightly acrid smell accompanying it. He watched excitedly as fish approached the surface, mouth sucking up the concoction. "Fuck yeah! I am awesome-" the words however stumbled out of his mouth as the fish began to bubble. The slightly foamy outer coating that was now on all the fish gave way to the fish decaying abruptly before his eyes, leaving only a skeleton, then came more bubbling from deeper. Brandon rose and stepped slowly away from the river, the bubbling stopped and to the surface rose the meatless skeleton of a large snake, which had been hiding in the water at his feet, then more fish, he looked over to see a toucan dip its beak a few meters down from him, it turned its head to stare through Brandon, it seemed to say 'you jerk' then stiffly fell into the river and rose to the surface also desiccated. With growing distance and strength the river gave up its secrets in the form of bones and Brandon walked hurriedly away hoping no one would know his terrible crime against nature.
"I hope B's okay." Tony looked back to the jungle, it had been nearly two hours with no sign of the chef, and the two remaining friends weren't eager to recreate his disappearance. Fortuitously however no sooner had Tony said this than Brandon tumbled out of the jungle a few yards from them, his face covered in mud, branches stuffed in his sleeves and collar, his hands full of small creatures. "What happened to you? you couldn't find a river?"
"No, there's no river, none, and if there was a river, I am certain it would be full of jungle poisons." Brandon approached the now dead fire and began working quickly to reignite it.
"What did you find for us to eat then?" Mephisto asked looking at the filthy little 'things' Brandon clutched, "Also, how did you become so filthy?"
"These!" Brandon lifted the muddy creatures up, "Monkeys, we're having monkey, with a side of monkey, hopefully these monkeys don't have one of those parasites in them that eats your brain. This is why I don't like roughing it." Brandon stepped back as the fire sprung to life. "As for the dirt, I had to trick them. I got naked and smeared mud all over myself, then strapped branches to me, then began imitating them. once convinced I was their God I convinced them to let me sacrifice themselves to reach 'monkey shangri-la'." Brandons eyes looked wildly at Tony.
"Why'd you look at me for that?!" Tony waved a finger at Brandon, "Poor monkeys, I'm not sure I want any of your 'fixin's'." Tony moved closer to Mephisto.
"Well, if anything at least we know that Brandon was able to use madness, albeit madness that came on after an extremely short amount of time, to find food. Now we have little doubt as to whether a completely mad Mr. Trebaol would be able to survive in the jungles." Mephisto patted Tony on the back, smiling with confidence.
By midday they had finished their monkeys and were moving speedily down the road. As the path tripped and stumbled further finally they came to a sign post. The markings were alien to them, but clearly that was an excellent sign and they followed the wooden markers further down various intertwining roads. This continues till the late afternoon, where finally, when all hope seemed lost of arriving before nightfall they pushed through a final copse of trees and gazed in wonder at the lost city of El Dorado.
Golden pyramids lined the street, flanked by gold statues of lizards, gold waterways circled the small gold flecked houses, and all of it set to a backdrop of a golden sunset. They gazed at the opulent city for all of thirty seconds before,
"Great, where the hell could he be?" Brandon threw his hand up at the city, sweeping it grandly over the expanse of the site.
"Well, if he is indeed here, and he lived through the jungle, "Tony and Brandon exchanged glances as Mephisto continued, "Then we will surely find him. Why he's probably wrapped himself up around something again and is waiting for his body heat to melt it down into ingots." Mephisto clapped his hands together and stepped down towards the outer reaches of the city.
The silence of the abandoned streets was frightening. The trees hadn't touched the gold palaces, or invaded more than a few feet within their perimeter. The place might as well have been freshly abandoned, and this unnerving thought was only alleviated by the fact that they had been there once before and knew that unless they were very lucky in their visiting times it was truly abandoned. Proceeding cautiously they strolled down the main boulevard through the city, admiring the carvings on the walls and architectural flourishes on the temples and shrines located throughout. It was in the center of the complex, next to the largest pyramid that they saw something strange. To their left, at the base of the grand pyramid there was a portal of sorts a great archway, leading deep into the pyramid. It wasn't the door that seemed out of place, but rather the shining gold light that licked the walls and neighboring buildings.
"Hmm, I wonder what might be creating that light?" Mephisto asked, turning his full attention to it. Tony stepped forward a little and looked around at the horizon.
"It's not the sun, too low in the sky and in completely the wrong place. Maybe Chris is in there and he has a fire."
"Well, I believe it best for us to investigate. "Mephisto pulled the pistol from his waist and proceeded confidently towards the glow, meanwhile above them, hidden in the buildings shadows, large eyes watched with anticipation.
Mephisto reached the doorway first, Tony close on his heels. Brandon looked around the frame for something and with a smile he reached out and yanked a golden spear from a hook on the doors frame. Mephsito nodded to Brandon, Brandon nodded back waving the spear around and they proceeded into the door. The gold gave way once inside to intricate paintings depicting long dead natives and their various religious figures, sacrificing things to one another. Tony ran a hand along the textured surface, searching for information, the light still flickering deep below them, the source out of sight around a corner.
"These indians were known for their prophecies and ability to foretell things. Like here we see what appears to be a story of when the Spanish first arrived, but its closest to stories about the Earth being formed, so the city must predate first contact." Tony explained, Mephisto looking over the various caricatures, shining bearded men with sticks that spewed fire trampled the natives underfoot. "Here is a strange one, look Brandon, it looks like you." Tony pointed to a large figure, with an ornate apron on, and a short curly beard. "Odd, he seems to be taking vines or ropes of some sort and is spreading death in this river, you can all the bones and the God of the underworld looking down with shame on his face."
"Well, that's funny, because why would I do that? You think I would do something stupid like that and kill everything in a river?" Brandon pushed Tony to move past the uncanny image.
As they reached the bottom of the stairs the air became warm and moist like the jungle outside, they slowly turned the corner and there at the end of the hall they could see a strange glowing light. The light was covered however by some form of a fan, which turned lazily and caused the light to shift on the walls, then at the foot of the light, at the turn of another corner was a leg.
"Is that a leg?" Brandon grabbed Tonys jacket and squeezed.
"It looks like it." Tony gulped and stepped back slowly.
"No men, we must be brave, our friend is counting on us, perhaps Mr. Trebaol has fallen asleep, exhausted from so much gold and history in one place, his body just around that corner." Mephisto took a shaky step forward, then another, Brandon and Tony close behind him. They made their way to the light and fan, then looking over the stockinged leg and buckle shoe they turned the sharp corner and discovered the body.
"Holy shit!" Brandon gasped and tumbled back against the wall. Tony also wheeled around away from the sight. Mephisto alone stood over the body laying on the pyramids floor.
"What do you see?" Tony asked, looking wide eyed at Brandon. Mephisto moved closer and stooped over the body, it wore a gentleman's coat, and a long cloak, though this was dirty and mud covered from the trip, the clothes were ill fitting and draped loosely over body, even the face was difficult to distinguish, changed as it was by the dry hollowness of the rest of its frame.
"I believe that he was killed by a Chulupacabra. He is dry and seemingly devoid of fluids. Here too, look his buttons have the seal of the governors mansion on them, I have no doubts this is Mr. Trebaol."
"Chulupacabras ate my best friend." Brandon murmured, his face downcast, his eyes red.
"Well, he probably went happy, lost in a city of gold, eaten by an undiscovered animal." Tony said tearing up.
"We should probably go." Mephisto stood up and took his two friends by their arms and walked for the exit. Brandon leaned heavily on his spear and Mephisto replaced the the pistol in his sash, the trio made their way back to the long stairwell, ill prepared for their discovery and sad to begin the journey home with such sad tidings. As they turned the corner to the stairs however they found themselves caught bu surprise. there at the top of the stony steps illuminated by the gold light was a group of terrible grey monsters, with concave mouths and bulging red eyes. The sun had set while they were inside and the monsters had left the safety of the shadows to collect on the explorers.
"Holy shit!" Brandon flicked his spear up towards the creatures, "Chulupacabras!" One of the grey creatures bellowed , its mouth opening wide to show the rows of teeth, its tongue lolling around languidly.
"Jesus!" Tony backed against the wall.
"I'm going to make these fuckers extinct!" Brandon charged forward up the first three steps when abruptly the front row of beasts plunged down towards them, followed by row after row of other mangy ghouls. "Never mind, everybody retreat!" Brandon turned and bolted past Mephisto and Tony who followed closely behind.
"Excellent judgement Mr. Frazier!" Mephisto careened down the corridor weaving up and down passages deeper into the ground, more lights and fans flickered different colors and strange smells greeted them at every new junction. Behind them they could hear the horde of chulupacabras tearing at the walls and each other to reach the friends first. Finally though the three adventurers tumbled down a series of steps and into a hard metal room, Tony reached for the edge of the door frame to stop his fall but instead caught a strange symbol etched onto the icy silver wall, behind him the passage disappeared with a 'vwoomf' replaced by a heavy iron door.
"What?" Tony looked at the wall and touched the symbol again, causing the iron door to disappear into the roof, revealing the clamoring wave of creatures racing for them, gnashing their teeth.
"CLOSE IT!" Brandon shouted, laying on his back waving his spear. tony quickly touched the glyph again and the door shut just in time, the sound of furious scratching emanated from it as the monsters tried to gain entrance.
"Where are we?" Mephisto heaved, his adrenaline still pumping, demanding that he continue to flee.
"I don't know, lets have a look." Tony walked down the two deep steps onto the expansive floor. The room was lit by two blue orbs that hung in the ceiling, and provided enough light to discern the surrounding silvery constructs. "Here is something," Tony approached a group of large shiny poles, which ran from floor to ceiling, next to these poles was an open door and a charred and blackened panel. "It appears to be a jail. Though the lock is broken." Tony turned and looked across the rest of the room, Brandon and Mephisto followed his gaze, looking every so often at the door, the scratching and hissing still audible. "There's more!" Tony proceeded forward into an adjoining room, this one bathed in clean white light. "Wow! You need to see this guys!" Tony disappeared into the catacombs. Brandon finally stood up, using his spear as a crutch, then turned and followed Mephisto into the white light after Tony.
They entered into a huge complex of rooms and cages, all brightly lit, though now each cage was either empty, or filled with bones.
"It's a zoo, these natives had some form of zoo here! This is amazing." Tony went from cage to cage looking at the skeletal remains of the animals, there were large furry skins, easily taller than him in one cage, a shiny black animal with a long pointed tail and sharp metal teeth in another. "This is incredible, the jungle is full of really scary looking animals guys, I'm really kind of shocked." Tony looked up ahead and saw that there was another set of closed doors with a glyph next to them. "Come on, lets see what else is here." Brandon and Mephisto hurried forward after Tony, who was already opening the door into the next room.
Room after room they discovered more and more strange artifacts from the natives. Finally, after much searching them came into a large circular chamber, with a cluster of seats in the center and various strange panels on the walls, all blinking, on the far side of the wall was a white rectangular board set against the rest of the silvery fixtures. Above were tubes and pipes running throughout the complex.
"Where are we?" Mephisto asked, taking a seat.
"We are in some kind of ancient indian super city. It's really strange that they lost the war against Spain when they had all of this." Tony tapped a panel, which suddenly flicked all the lights in the room onto a bright white, the white board too changed, it became a deep black. Then abruptly a strange symbol flashed over it.
"What did you do Tony?" Brandon muttered taking a seat next to Mephisto. The screen then changed again, now, to the horror of the group a large brown face appeared on screen, its eyes merely tiny glowing dots in its head, its mouth hidden behind folds of scaly skin, it spoke and the words that came out sounded like the screams of a thousand mewling infants. "OH GOD WHY DOESN'T IT EVER END!" Brandon tipped over in his chair as Mephisto sneered in disgust as the creature dribbled with spittle on the screen. Though just as quickly as he shouted the image froze, then a blue screen appeared. On the screen appeared hundreds of tiny symbols and letters each in a box.
"Wow, this is really not out lucky day." Tony sighed, looking at the boxes. "How are we going to get out of this, down here I doubt there's another exit, and even if we wait till daylight the creatures can just wait down here for us out of the sun." Tony moved closer to the screen.
"You are quite right. We are currently trapped, though hopefully this terrible moving painting will provide us with a solution. Perhaps the chalupacabras are as disgusted with the creature from before as we were." Mephisto leaned forward, crossing his hands. Tony looked closely at the boxes on the screen then lit up.
"Look here! English, and this one over here appears to be spanish, and this one is the indian pictographs. Here let me try this." T0ny lifted his hadn to the screen and touched the box marked English. The screen then flicked back to the horrible brown creature, but now a soft feminine voice emanated from its disgusting jowels.
"Flight controls for the Lytaxian library ship are located on consoles to the immediate right of the viewer." The voice explained, "Engineering is behind the captains seat, communications to the viwers left, and dimensional time controls are located on the console directly in front of this screen." The voice said softly, Tony turned to Mephisto.
"I don't think that this belongs to the indians. I think this is some kind of ship if you will. Controlled by celestial beings." Tony said, his eyes wide, his hands searching for a seat.
"Angels?" Mephisto looked with great uncertainty at Tony.
"Well...maybe, I don't know, but have you ever seen anything like this before, or that thing?" Tony pointed towards the screen.
"Maybe they're like sailors from outer space, and time travelers, "Brandon turned to Mephisto and Tony, his hand moving excitedly. "They said flight controls, so they must fly, and then time controls, so they must move through time. Dude, these 'angels are actually space creatures, and they are going to help us sail out of here." Brandon leapt up and headed for the console on the right most wall. With no finesse he mashed his fist against the board, causing the room to shake violently.
"Well I'm glad we looked at all our options then!" Tony shouted looking at the screen, it now changed to a map depicting their location and series of long bars that were filling with red lines.
"Wow, this map is incredible, is that what South America really looks like?" Mephisto rose as the room rumbled again. Brandon turend to look at the screen, his hands busily looking for something to grab onto. Tony moved forward hoping he had inferred enough about the creatures 'ship' to use this screen to their advantage. He looked closely at the map and picked out the rough area where Nombre De Dios should sit, then tapped it, a blue line exteneded from where they were and terminated near the city. The room shook again and the screen changed now showing a view from the top of the pyramid, the moon rising in the sky.
"I think we may have got this working." Tony said, as the image shifted, moving up and away from the crumbling masonry that surrounded it.
Outside, the pyramid was consumed in fire, as were the waiting chalupacabras. The pyramids few remaining walls collapsed as the great and strange craft lifted up from the earth and slowly made its way over the city, incinerating everything it passed over.
"This is really quite something I'd say. You have quite the way with new things don't you Mr. Wilson?" Mephisto slowly moved forward, now that the ship had stopped quaking.
"Hey, I'm the one that got it moving!" Brandon smacked the controls again, causing a strange shrieking sound to emanate from the ceiling, as red lights flicked on and off. "It wasn't me!"
The ground in the view screen moved by with increasing speed, until finally the trees whipped by too fast to be rcognized and the town of Nombre De Dios could be seen moving at incredible speed towards them. The craft lifted higher and then arched backwards and dived straight towards the jungle near the edge of town.
"We're going to crash!" Mephisto shouted grabbing hold of the chair behind him. The ship raced towards the earth and finally froze feet from the ground, the warning continued to sound. "What's going on?"
"Self destruct in five minutes." A cheery female voice explained.
"What did I do?" Brandon looked at the controls and punched them again.
"Self Destruct recalibrated, self destruct in one minute and thirty seconds."
"I take back all the nice things I said about you." Tony said, then turned and ran for the exit. Mephisto and Brandon followed the scholars lead through the ship as the countdown shrank towards zero. At last they reached the room full of broken cages and the door leading outside, Tony slapped the glyph the door opened and the three compatriots leapt outside.
Unfortunately however the ship they had been in had created some form of alternative gravity, and theyfound themselves flying first forward upright from the portal, to down sideways from the side of the ship. With a heavy 'whump!' they hit the dirt below and looked up as the ship glowed green and gold, then 'boop' it disappeared without so much as a gust of wind.
"Mr. Frazier, refrain from punching strange new devices until I recommend that as your course of action. Just for future reference though." Mephsito looked at the chef.
"We're alive aren't we? That was all me." Brandon pointed a thumb at his chest then stiffly got back up. The exhausted friends made their way back into town to the Unicorn and asked politely to be ferryed home.
The trip was a long sad one for them as they traded stories about previous adventures, and what they would do now without their resident crackpot. With heavy hearts they returned to the harbor at St. Eustatius, the rows of masts bobbed in along the edge of the piers.
"You think we could go to the underworld and get him back?" Brandon asked, looking at Tony and Mephisto.
"I don't think so, he was eaten, and that kind of precludes foul play, besides, I don't think Hades was gay." Tony said, looking down at the water. Mephisto leaned back and looked out across the harbor, his eyes catching on asomething that seemed extremely unusual.
"What on Earth?" Mephisto ran to the railing in the opposite side of the Unicorn, there in the harbor was Mephisto's new ship the pinnace Incognita, a wedding gift from Governor Logan. It was manned, and flying its penants, making ready to set sail. "Um, Arthur!" Mephisto shouted to the Captain of the Unicorn could you bring us alongside that ship over there. The Unicorn slowly turned and made its way clsoer, till a rope could be used to swing acorss the gap and board the Incognita. Mephisto took a rotting rope and swung over onto the deck of his new ship and grabbed the first familiar face he could find. "You there, Mr. Brambles."
"It's Geoff sir, Brambles retired, ya threw a party for 'im. Do ya remember any uf this?" Geoff sighed, putting down the cask of water he was holding.
"No, well not clearly anyway, moving along, what are you all doing?" Mephisto looked over the deck.
"We were going ta go look fer ya, but apparently yer here, so maybe I should tell the temporary cap'n." Geoff looked over his shoudler and whistled.
"Temporary Captain? What in the blazes, this is all very irregular."
"What's going on!" Brandon shouted across from the other ship, hands around his mouth.
"I don't know, give me a minute!" Mephisto shouted back, not noticing the smartly dressed new captain strutting up to him.
"Where the deuce did you come from?" A familiar voice asked.
"We just got back from looking for Mr. Trebaol, the scholar, but regrettably he died, now who are," Mephisto stopped as he looked up at the new Captain.
"Funny me being dead and all, might make it hard to be alive." It was none other than Chris, the dead scholar.
"Wha?"
"What the hell are you doing alive!" Brandon shouted waving his arms.
"What?!" Chris shouted back.
The ships docked, the crews taking their leave and Chris joined Mephisto, Brandon and Tony in a carriage headed back to the governors mansion.
"So you've been alive this whole time?" Tony asked, with a confused look on his face.
"Yeah, where'd you think I was?"
"We thought you had gone mad and went in search of El Dorado again." Mephsito interjected.
"No, what? No, why would I do that alone, do I have a death wish?"
"Well, your friends thought you did, they said you had gone missing some three days before they came to me." the carriage bumped along the dirt path through the sunny island.
"What? Missing? Wait, I know what it was, I volunteered to teach a class in history and they offered to let me stay at the school." Chris looked around at the confused slightly exasperated faces.
"You never volunteer for anything, and you hate not sleeping in your own bed, these are facts, that we know!" Tony proclaimed.
"Did you not remember how hot it was? Or rather how unbearably humid, the classrooms were in a shady part of town, and I could make the students wave fans at me while I worked, then at night i split them into shifts to fan me and make sure the room stayed cool." Chris leaned back with a smile.
"You enslaved children to keep cool?" Mephisto asked.
"Sounds like Chris." Brandon looked out the window.
"So you guys went looking for me? Why didn't you just assume I was alive and somewhere else."
"Wait, how could that be?" Tony said, looking around a chill running up his spine, "The body was about your height, but unrecognizeable, and it had buttons from the governors mansion, like these." Tony held up his jacket to show a set of buttons emblazoned with the governors name. Chris thought for a minute ten his face lit up, then darkened again.
"Well, I did recently tell Mr. Tiddlecuff, the mansions gardner, about El Dorado, he seemed quite intrigued, then when I was done with the classes him and all of you were gone." Chris frowned, "I think you found him and mistook him for me. After you guys remained missing for so long I went down to the town and started rounding up your old crew, and was intending on setting out to find you." Chris looked at Mephisto.
"Well that explains that. Where were you going to look?" Mephisto inquired.
"Really wasn't sure, I jsut figured it would work itself out, and then maybe Graham would write a book about me, so I suppose I acted out of the most selfish possible reasons. though I would really have tried hard to find you all." Chris smiled politely and looked out the window, "Oh look a bird!"
"Wonderful." Tony said tepidly as the carriage rolled back up to the mansions front doors and the friends climbed out ready to return to their regular duties. So it was, that Mephisto managed to take a vacation from his vacation, assist his friends in a quest, and bring everything to a comfortable conclusion. Comfortable for all but poor Mr. Tiddlecuffs.
The End
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