Cool!
Unfortunately, the box for extra maps was empty, or I would've taken along the magical version of a GPS. On the plus side, the map clearly indicated the path I was on would take me out of this god-forsaken place and back to civilization. The name of the city tickled my brain, though. Where had I heard it before?
My dictionary translated it into golden one. Then it hit me. El Dorado was the mythical city of gold. I vaguely recalled reading about some dude named Montezuma coming down with a really bad case of the runs here too. Or maybe I was mixing reality with the plot of a video game I'd played. I certainly hadn't seen any gold lying around, but if it truly was the same place, I wanted no part of it. Any movie I'd ever seen or video game I'd ever played where the main character was looking for a mythical city only led to disaster, not to mention an ending scene where everyone had to run for their lives as the place broke apart and fell into an abyss all around them.
"Nope, nope, nope," I said. "You can keep your gold, you friggin' creepy place."
The path terminated about a hundred yards later. At the head of the path sat a marble slab displaying a long list in dozens of languages. I found the English version and read it.
Please state your preferred language.
"English?"
The marble shimmered, erasing the list, and replacing it with a couple of paragraphs of text. A disembodied voice rang out, sounding exactly like the dude who voices over apocalyptic movie trailers. I jumped five feet back with a yelp.
"Welcome, visitor!" the voice boomed. "El Dorado, Overworld Historic Reserve number one, one, nine, has been interdicted by the Conclave and closed to the public due to unstable variances coexisting between Earth-plane and the Gloom. Field trips must be cleared by the Master of Overworld History, Skavius Peckmoore. His office is located at The Ezzek Moore Arcane Academy for the Gifted, number twelve Conroy Place in the Grotto. Please direct all inquiries to his office.
"This site is protected by a physical interdiction barrier. Should you somehow find yourself trapped within, the safe word is Exodus. Please note this will only work during daylight hours to prevent hazardous otherworldly entities from egress. Should you find yourself surrounded by the aforementioned hazardous otherworldly entities, use the safe word Illuminate. This recording is a service of the Overworld Conclave Safety Administration, all rights reserved."
I read the notice once more, cursing whoever hadn't thought to post a few more warning signs throughout the place, especially with this guy's voice boldly declaring the certain doom one faced while trapped inside this insidious ruin. Then again, they probably figured nobody would ever come through a broken arch smack-dab in the danger zone. I made my way down the path, holding my hands out. An invisible barrier greeted me after only a few feet. My stomach clenched at the painful memory of the last time I'd come across such a barrier.
My mom had put it up to keep me from reaching her. Then she'd stabbed me in the heart with a devastating declaration, telling me Dad and I were no longer a part of her family. And if we dared look for her, she'd ask for Templar intervention.
Shoving aside those grim thoughts, I stood near the barrier and said, "Exodus."
I expected a bright light accompanied by some cool sound effects. Instead, an invisible bell dinged and a red arrow appeared on the path a foot to my left, pointing, I hoped, toward escape. Using my hands against the invisible barrier as guides, I found the exit and slipped through.
"You are now exiting Overworld Historic Reserve number one, one, nine," the announcer declared in bombastic excitement, nearly scaring the pants off me. "Thank you for visiting!"
Once I recovered my wits, I took a good look at my new surroundings. From outside the barrier, the rain forest appeared to go on for miles and miles without a trace of the ancient city hiding behind the magical shield. An intense desire to walk away urged me to get moving. I realized a spell must be behind it, probably to keep noms from coming close enough to bump into the invisible barrier. Why anyone would wander all the way out here without foreknowledge of the hidden city, I couldn't imagine. Still, I supposed it was better to be safe than have one hitchhiker discover and post about it on the internet.
The rising sun seemed a little brighter outside the barrier and the air a bit more humid. I blew the blazing, heavenly body another kiss to make sure it understood just how much I appreciated all the hard work it did for the citizens of Earth, protecting us from Gloom monsters and such. A series of loud dings interrupted my Sun worship. I turned and saw a timer on the path counting down from ten. I wondered if the barrier would slice anyone in half if they were standing there when it closed.
"The barrier is now closing," the automated voice shouted cheerfully. "Please stand clear. Keep all extremities away from the invisible opening, as amputation is likely to occur. Thank you."
Not wanting to risk my limbs, I set out at a brisk pace to move myself away from the cursed city and hopefully toward a town or, at the very least, a cell phone signal. I found a winding road made partially of broken and crumbling asphalt, but mostly of rutted dirt and pockets of mud where trees shaded it from the sun. I was eager to run as fast as I could and hopefully find a town somewhere, but the tiny bits of wisdom my thick skull had somehow accumulated offered advice of its own: Running might get me someplace faster, but such a someplace would likely be in the middle of nowhere and devoid of humans. My incubus tummy required essence from human emotion. Dashing blindly into the wilderness would only increase my demonic needs and the insane, gut-clawing hunger accompanying it.
My supernatural batteries were already running low again thanks to my night of terror straight out of the X-Files. I knew I couldn't count on Nightliss to give me another of her magic kisses, so I decided to take it easy and hope someone might come down this lonely road.Hours later, I realized just how foolish such hope had been. In fact, it wasn't until late afternoon I finally stumbled upon a larger road. Sure, the surface was just as terrible, if not worse than the one I'd just left, but it was another road. That had to mean something, right? As if in answer to my prayers, I saw a pickup on the side of the road. Next to it sat a little old man with wrinkly skin and a complexion darkened by many hours beneath the sun.
His brown eyes widened as he took me in.
"Hola," I said, coming dangerously close to exhausting my Spanish skills.
He responded with a rapid-fire sentence, the words bouncing off my ears without making even the tiniest bit of sense.
At a complete loss of how I should respond, I smiled. "Gracias," I added, and nodded my head.
His wrinkled little mouth lifted into an amused smile. He pointed at the front tire on the pickup. "No va."
I peered closer at the tire and saw it was flat. Just great. I finally find a ride and it's borked. I looked in the back of the pickup and saw a spare tire that didn't look much better than the one already on it. I pulled it out and pointed to it.
He smiled and shook his head. "No bueno."
I grinned because I knew exactly what those words meant. But I realized why the spare wouldn't help. Nowhere in the crowded bed of the pickup could I see a jack to lift up the truck, or a wrench to loosen the lugs.
I pulled out my phone and looked at it. It had miraculously found a signal—only one bar—but informed me it was incompatible. I groaned and pointed at the phone. "You have phone?"
"No telefono, senor."
I suspected he was waiting along this road in the hopes someone would rescue him too. Just as frustration threatened to drag my wretched mood even lower, I realized we didn't need no stinking jack or wrench. I crouched next to the tire, using my body to block the old man's view, gripped a lug, and twisted it.
It gave with hardly any resistance. I removed the remaining ones and heard a gasp from the old man as I removed the last one.
He shot another sentence of gibberish at me. I smiled and said, "Me make go vroom, vroom!" and slid one hand quickly along the other like a car taking off to further demonstrate my complete inability to communicate across cultural barriers.
He backed away uncertainly, his face wrinkling even more with consternation.
I hated to scare the little man any further, but I really needed to get the wheel on. I motioned him over and he came, albeit a bit reluctantly. I made some vague motions with my hands, showing him he needed to pull the tire off. He shrugged, let out a little sigh, and, I supposed, resigned himself to whatever terrible fate awaited him.
I lifted the corner of the pickup by the front bumper. It groaned and complained. I hoped the bumper didn't fall off. The man tugged on the flat tire, giving it his all until it came off and fell to the ground. Then he stooped down and levered the spare into place, pushing it on with a little grunt. I shifted the pickup sideways a foot so the new wheel rested on a flat surface and then set it down and tightened the lugs.
The little man made a show of flexing his bicep and pointed to me while saying something sounding suspiciously like "muy farta".
I nodded in agreement and pointed to my bicep. "Farta, my little friend, farta, indeed." I figured it must be Spanish for "strong" as opposed to indigestion brought on by baked beans. At least he hadn't had a heart attack.
The little man climbed into the passenger seat of his truck and motioned for me to drive. I decided my lack of a Colombian driver's license probably didn't matter out here in the sticks, so I cranked the old truck to life and drove in the direction the old man pointed, namely, straight ahead.
We reached a town about an hour later, a tiny eye-blink of a place along the seemingly deserted highway. Several small houses dotted the few streets, each one an identical shade of white. They appeared to be constructed of adobe, if their rough-textured exteriors were anything to go by. A few people walking the streets stopped to stare as the pickup puttered along, and a group of kids ran in circles as a small dog yapped and chased them. If this was what passed for entertainment round here, I pitied the fools. Someone needed to put together a care package with some video games.