Cave
Kamchatka Wilderness
Soviet Union
1960
Dawn
"Get up," the wind whispered. "Get up."
Lizavet sat up. Their campfire was dying and the gray ash from the volcano had grown overnight. The sky was overcast and nearly twilight... but that told her the sun would be rising soon. "Papa, did you say something?"
"Hmmm?" Indy stirred. "No." He blinked, shaking himself awake. "Is something wrong?"
"No. I thought you were speaking to me."
"Not me, Lizavet." Indy paused. "What was I supposed to have been saying? Marion claims I talk in my sleep -"
"You told me to get up." Lizavet leaned over the fire and whispered to it. The embers perked up a little.
"Get up," the voice whispered again.
Lizavet looked at Indy.
"I heard it too." Indy murmured. "And its been a long time since I heard that voice..."
"Where did you hear it?"
"Amid screams of dying Nazis, when they opened the Ark of the Covenant," Indy swallowed. "I try not think about it."
"Get up! See the dawn!"
Indy and Lizavet looked at each other.
"What dawn?" Indy grumped, gently moving Emily aside so she could sleep longer. "Its an ash blizzard like the Egyptian plague of darkness."
Lizavet grabbed Indy's hand, pulling him to his feet and rushed outside.
Indy's jaw dropped.
The sky was a dark blue with brilliant stars. They looked as if they were touchable.
"Try it," Lizavet whispered. "This is my people's sacred land."
Indy swallowed, his hand twitching, wanting to try at Lizavet's advice. "No. I've desecrated too many temples and had them fall down after I've stolen artifacts... I'm not gonna make the sky fall."
Emily rushed out of the cave. "Wow." She reached upward toward the sky. "I've never wanted to touch the stars before."
Shorty joined them. "So many... I've never seen this many stars before."
Lizavet smiled. "There is a legend that Treasure Guardian of the Universe knows all the stars by name."
Emily looked at Lizavet. "Does he come to people... and tell them things?"
"I believe so," Lizavet murmured.
"Do people confuse him for a man?" Emily asked, thinking of a long ago story involving a man name Abram, who became Abraham, the father of nations.
Lizavet thought for a moment. "I... think that is possible. It would explain the presence who saved me as a child and looked very much like your father." She reached out and seemingly touched the curtain of the skies, making a shaman motion with her hand. "Show us the way."
Nothing.
Indy spoke, also thinking of the nights he'd spent with Emily and the stars, helping her to heal and teaching her to no longer fear the dark. "Sometimes you have to see into the darkness in order to protect those you love." He turned around.
The sky close to the volcano was suddenly lit with an ethereal greenish teal light. It flowed upward like smoke from a thousand ancient altars.
"Would that be from the apkallu?" Emily asked, shielding her eyes with her fedora hat brim.
"No. They are bound in the earth... never to see or touch the sky again," Lizavet answered. "This is the Treasure Guardian, or my shaman lady ancestors, showing us the way to Diya, so we can entomb the apkallu."
"Can't he do that himself?" Shorty asked.
"Of course he can," Lizavet replied. "But the apkallu won't go back willingly."
"Which is why we're going," Indy decided. "We have the swords. We're the bait. They'll follow us."
Emily looked at Indy in surprise. "Dad... you're starting to believe this?"
Indy set his jaw and shoulders. "If I have to believe in something - I'm going to choose something that's more powerful than the apkallu. And so far, the Treasure Guardian has checked all the boxes....." Indy's mind finished the sentence, much to his internal annoyance at the lack of cohesive facts, "Including one that's gold and I found in 1936."
Yet his instinct was strong. That instinct that had warned him to stay out of the light in the South American ruin was now telling him to trust, follow, and run toward it.
That instinct which had no logic or science behind it. He realized that he trusted it more than he ever wanted to as a scientific western minded professor. And it had never bothered him that adventuring was a leap of faith.
Indy studied the three grown kids who were now all his own, a grin flickering across his features. "Besides, I think the Treasure Guardian and I have met before."
Shorty looked at Indy. "Is that good news, or bad news?"
"Don't know, kids. Let's find out."