The Seven Swords of Diya: An Indiana Jones Fan Fiction - Part 2

Chapter 295: Kamchatka Wilderness, Soviet Union, 1960

Kamchatka Wilderness

Soviet Union

1960

Emily looked up, relief on her features as she saw Shorty returning with her father. Lizavet was beside her, still half lying on the ground, her eyes open and her breath returning to steadiness as she tried to process the situation.

Shorty held out his arms in a display motion toward Indy. "Have a fish."

Emily scrambled to her feet and rushed Indy. He wrapped her in a wet hug. "Its all right, Littlest Artifact."

Shorty looked at the river. "Its flowing a different direction now."

Lizavet followed his gaze. "Sometimes earthquakes cause rivers to shift course, or flow backward. There was one time the Mississippi River in your country did this." She swallowed, looking around. "This is not the place I wanted to go in our shaman jump."

"Do you have a choice with these things?" Indy asked, sitting down on a rock. He couldn't tell if it was fear, pain or the cold that was making his hands and body tremble.

"Sometimes...?" Lizavet frowned, trying to sit up. "You have to remember, Papa... and Emily, and Korotiy... I was very young when I had guidance on these things. And I have been forbidden from using them since."

Indy touched her shoulder. "You did just fine, Lizavet." He looked at Emily, hanging close, fear still in her big brown eyes. "Littlest Artifact, do you need another hug?"

Emily nodded. "I thought you were gone, Dad!"

Indy stood and winced as Emily hugged him. "I'm fine. A little worse for wear, but that's what happens when you've got too many miles on you."

Shorty studied the terrain. They were in a strange river valley framed by tall cliffs. The place where they stood was a rocky sandbar and leading in the direction of the cliffs was a cave. He got out his compass and watched the needle spin. "Still can't tell where we are," he muttered, rubbing his arms.

Lizavet frowned. "Korotiky - what is on your arm?"

He glanced at his forearm. "A tattoo - I thought you put it there."

Lizavet stood. "I don't remember. May I see?"

Shorty rolled up his sleeve. "Its where I broke my arm when my crew got sacrificed and eaten by the apkallu. You came to save me. You set the bone. You took care of the fever."

Lizavet swallowed. "I do not remember any of this."

She studied the old injury and the tattooing. "Emily, since you know of my ancestors, do you recognize this?"

Lizavet brought Shorty close to them.

Emily swallowed, looking at her dad. "When we first saw it, back in Philadelphia, before Dad and I... knew about the apkallu," Emily explained. "...We thought it was something you had done. I said it looked like Bronze Age medicinal tattooing."

Indy studied the tattoo. "Shorty - turn your arm around - like it was when you broke it."

"How?"

Lizavet traced the old scar. "It was a compound fracture. The wound would have been here..." she traced the scarring and flinched, suddenly throwing herself to the side.

Shorty grabbed her. "Not another seizure!"

Lizavet took a shaking breath. "No. Not another seizure. Just a very frightening memory. I thought it was a dream. But even then I suspected it was all too real." She gently turned Shorty's arm to face the horizon. "That mark - is the star over that mountain. That mountain, is hiding a second mountain. The two mountains - that is the valley where you crashed your plane in 1944. It belongs to the apkallu. It has ancient ruins in it. They are the known way to Diya. The way the ancients took to venerate the apkallu." She swallowed. "But - we are standing at the foot of another mountain." Her finger traced more of the markings. "I... I don't know how I remembered my people's way of signaling the land, to, as you would say, map it... but I do recognize it."

Emily reached in her bag removing a pen. "Here, draw in what's missing."

Lizavet took the pen and closed her eyes. "There is nothing missing. I hid the truth from myself. Now I must find it."

Shorty, Indy and Emily watched as Lizavet carefully connected the markings on Shorty's arm. Quietly Lizavet opened her eyes and studied the land around her. "This is the shaman's way to Diya." She pointed to the cave. "That is how we enter."