The Amulet of Power - Mike Resnick [106]
“So it’s finally over,” said Oliver. “What do we do now—give him a day’s head start and then leave for home?”
“No,” she said. “Now we pick up the real Amulet—and we do it fast. I’m in a bit of a time bind. I have to get off Praslin before anyone reports what happened at the Grande Anse church.”
“You sound like you know where the Amulet is.”
“I’ve known since Khartoum.”
“You never said a word about it, never confided in me,” said Oliver in hurt tones.
“Let me amend that,” replied Lara. “I’ve known what to look for since Khartoum. I found it when we were driving around the island yesterday.”
“You did? I don’t remember a damned thing.”
“You didn’t know what to look for,” she said. “I did.”
“What the hell did you see?”
“We’re almost there.”
“We’re almost at the Vallée de Mai,” he said. “There’s nothing there but the coco de mer forest.”
“Yes there is,” she said, pulling off the road and coming to a stop. “Here we are.” Oliver looked out and saw a very small stone building.
“This?” he asked unbelievingly. “We passed it yesterday.”
“This,” she said. “Take a look at the inscription above the door.”
He read it aloud. “Church of the Chevalier, established 1856.”
“No one uses it anymore, but it’s the only church near the coco de mer valley still standing from Gordon’s era,” said Lara. “If he was going to hide the Amulet in his Eden, this is the place. I spotted it yesterday, and checked the inscription late last night when I was planting the false amulet. This is the place, all right.”
She pushed against the door. It creaked open, and a beam of sunlight shone through the dust and cobwebs. There was a cross on the back wall, a small altar just in front of it, four benches—she wouldn’t dignify them by calling them pews—and a pair of paintings of the crucifixion on facing walls to her right and left.
“Tiny room,” remarked Oliver. He walked around it. “I don’t see a thing. Could you have been wrong?”
“It’s here, all right.”
“Where?”
“Let’s find out.” Lara turned to the center of the room. “I made it this far. Are you going to help me the rest of the way?”
“Me?” asked Oliver, puzzled.
“No, not you.”
Look before you, Lara Croft, whispered the non-voice.
And suddenly the Amulet, the true Amulet of Mareish, appeared on the small altar, attached to a thin silver chain.
“My God, there it is!” exclaimed Oliver, stepping forward.
Lara reached out and grabbed his arm. “Stop.”
“What’s the matter?”
“This is too easy,” she said. “Let me think for a minute.”
“But you said the Amulet wants to be found. Here’s proof of it!”
“But the Amulet didn’t hide itself. Gordon’s man did—and Gordon would have booby-trapped it, just in case someone from the Mahdi’s side ever found it.”
“It was invisible,” protested Oliver. “Isn’t that protection enough?”
“From you and me and even el-Shakir, yes,” said Lara. “But the Mahdists have enlisted sorcerers on their side, and for all I know so have the Silent Ones. I have a feeling invisibility doesn’t work on them.”
Come, Lara Croft. Step forward. Touch me. Feel the power course through your body.
“Just a minute!” said Lara. “Invisibility was the Amulet’s protection! Gordon would have sent it with a normal man. It’ll be booby-trapped the way a normal man would have done it back in 1885.”
“But once he touched the Amulet he wouldn’t have been a normal man,” Oliver pointed out.
“The Amulet’s still here,” replied Lara. “That means he never touched it. Gordon would have wrapped it thoroughly, in such a way that no part of it could ever come into contact with his man. Once he was here he probably cut the wrappings, or pulled a string and had the wrappings come away, still without touching it.” She stared at the Amulet. “All right, we know Gordon himself didn’t bring it here, and neither did Colonel Stewart. So it would have been brought by a Sudanese, probably a relatively unsophisticated man who had never been out