The Eye of Heaven

36

Sam, Antonio, and Lazlo grunted as they swung picks at the hardened clay, having hit a rhythm over the half hour they’d been working at it. Twice they’d stopped and cleared away piles of soil, and they were now halfway to whatever awaited them, standing in a hole roughly eight feet square. Remi and Maribela piled the dirt evenly along the wall, to be filled back in once they’d satisfied their curiosity about the mysterious cavity beneath the corridor.

The earth below the men’s feet began to shift and before they could climb out of the pit it gave way. They found themselves falling in a shower of dirt and then landing on a stone floor hard enough to knock the wind out of them. Remi’s voice drifted down to Sam from above.

“Are you all right?”

Sam shook the dirt off and sat up, probing his ribs before calling out to her.

“I think so. Lazlo? Antonio?”

Antonio shifted next to him. “I’m okay. Just … stunned.”

“No way to treat guests, I’ll say that much,” Lazlo muttered, brushing dirt off his face.

“I thought we’d have more warning than that before the floor gave way,” Sam said.

“Sometimes it’s an imprecise science, no?”

Sam coughed and looked up. “Remi? Could you toss down some flashlights?”

Sam felt something scuttle across his leg and shivered involuntarily, the snake warnings suddenly not so funny. Above, he heard footsteps and then Remi called out.

“Look out below!”

Three aluminum flashlights landed on the mound of dirt between the men. Remi’s voice echoed off the walls of whatever space they were in. “Well? What’s down there?”

Sam switched on his light and shined it around where he was lying, the air still thick with dust. Seconds went by. “We’re in another tunnel,” he finally said.

Sam waited for her response, and Antonio and Lazlo flicked their beams on as well. The tunnel was eight to ten feet wide and stretched into the gloom.

“Hang on, then. I’m coming down,” Remi said. The end of a rope dropped next to Sam and Remi’s slim form descended, accompanied by more loose dirt from the hole.

Sam flashed his light across Remi’s torso. “Nice of you to drop in. What did you tie the rope to?”

“Our mummy friend’s platform. Maribela’s staying up there in case we need help — doesn’t seem like a good idea for all of us to be down here without a sure way to get back up, does it?”

“Maribela?” Antonio called.

“Yes?”

“Can you get the soldiers to bring one of the ladders down? A tall one?”

Sam shook his head. “No. I don’t want anyone but us to know about this yet.”

Antonio nodded and winced from pain in his neck and then looked up at the opening. “Sam’s right. Can you bring the tall aluminum ladder here? It doesn’t weigh much. And some more lights, if possible. But no soldiers. Just you.”

“All right,” she said. Her footsteps echoed down the upper passageway, leaving them with the sound of their breathing and nothing more. Remi’s light played over the walls of the tunnel, and she pointed to their right.

“Do you see that?”

“Yes. Looks like an antechamber of some kind,” Sam said.

“Look at the carvings. They’re Toltec. The same as the ones in the crypt. But these are more exotically detailed.” Remi moved down the tunnel to the stone walls of the larger area. A massive stone frame around the passageway threshold displayed the distinctive pictographs of the crypt above — but carved with considerably greater detail and obvious care. “Here we have the same funeral procession. Same pyramid, but the moon isn’t obstructed by any cloud. And Quetzalcoatl … Look! He’s depicted here differently than in any of the others. Here he’s got long hair and a beard.”

“Promising,” Sam said.

She eyed the passageway. “The builders certainly took their time on this, given the length of the tunnel and the detail of these carvings.”

“I wonder what’s down the other way?” Sam asked, looking over his shoulder to where Lazlo had wandered.

“Only one way to know,” Remi replied, and returned to the cave-in spot. She stopped a dozen yards farther along, where Lazlo stood with his flashlight beam playing over a mass of dirt and rocks where the tunnel ended.

Lazlo eyed the ruined passage. “Looks like the builders collapsed the tunnel after they were done. They really didn’t want anyone making their way in here, did they?”

Sam studied the debris. “There’s no indentation above. So this was deliberate. They caved it in or filled it and then smoothed out the terrain above so there would be no trace of the entrance.”

They were startled by the clatter of the ladder being lowered by Maribela. Antonio wedged the base into the dirt below and tested it for stability before giving her the go-ahead to descend. She came down using one hand, the other carrying the more powerful battery-powered LED work light they’d used in the crypt above.

The lamp’s harsh white glow illuminated the tunnel like an approaching train, and the siblings quickly joined Sam and Remi in the antechamber. Maribela took it in without comment. Lazlo pushed by them and moved slowly into the chasm. Remi motioned to them and led the way deeper into the subterranean passage, which extended considerably farther, bisecting the tunnel above before turning under the pyramid.

“Hold on. Everybody stop,” Sam said as they neared another bend. The group froze and Remi edged closer to him.

Lazlo looked around, unsure of what to do. “What is it?”

“There. That section of the floor,” he said, pointing to a depression. “I’ve seen that sort of thing before. It’s a booby trap. The Toltecs used reeds or something similar to create a false floor over a pit and then put dirt on top of the matting. Over the centuries, gravity has exerted its pull, but …”

Lazlo took a shaky step back. Sam inched forward and knelt in front of the six-foot-square depression and then turned to Remi. “Do you have your knife with you? Afraid I left mine at the motel,” he confessed.

“No well-dressed girl goes tunnel crawling without one,” she said, and handed it to him. He unfolded the five-inch blade and locked it into place, then leaned forward, one hand steadying himself against the edge of the depression, and stabbed it into the dirt in front of him. The knife penetrated into the ground. He sawed with it, then removed the knife and handed it back to her.

“Whatever it is, it’s too hard to cut.” He took the handle of his long aluminum flashlight and pounded on the ground. The unmistakable hollow sound of a cavity answered him. After a final thump for good measure, he stood and nodded.

“Let’s get some wood from the research tent and put it across this area. What do you want to bet when we excavate it, we’ll find a deep hole with a lot of very sharp objects at the bottom? Obsidian blades or spears? It’s a drop trap.”

Antonio and Sam went for the planks left over from the shoring project while Lazlo, Maribela, and Remi waited by the depression. They returned with four planks, easily long enough to span the area. Lazlo helped Antonio set them in place, and Sam tested the makeshift bridge before walking across.

“Mind that you don’t slip off. Could be fatal,” Lazlo warned.

At the end of the tunnel they found themselves facing a large carved doorway sealed with stone bricks, carefully mortared in place rather than the haphazard rockwork of the other crypt. Antonio and Lazlo went back to the ladder, mounted it in search of tools, and returned with the picks.

The brick barrier proved more solid than the other, but in half an hour the first stone block shifted, quickly followed by three more. They redoubled their efforts and soon had an aperture large enough to squeeze through. Remi and Lazlo led the way, Maribela behind her with the lamp, while Sam and Antonio relaxed.

“Oh my … this looks like the real thing,” Remi said, her hushed voice still audible in the confined space. Sam shouldered his way into the vault, where Remi was gazing at an ornate sarcophagus resting on a pedestal — but unlike the platform above, this one was covered in carved figures. Sam approached her and regarded the top of the coffin while Lazlo did a slow scan of the otherwise empty room, his flashlight eventually coming to rest on the pictographs adorning the sides and top of the sarcophagus.

“Who wants to help get this open?” Sam asked.

Antonio and Lazlo moved to the opposite side and nodded at him. Lazlo set his flashlight on the stone floor. “Ready when you are, old boy. But it looks heavy.”

“Hey, your sister and I can help, too. Move over, Fargo,” Remi said, and slid next to Sam. Maribela joined Antonio and Lazlo on the other side and, on Sam’s nod, they heaved.

The lid moved a few inches. They tried again, and then again, each effort edging it farther open. When they’d cleared two feet of space, they stopped and Remi directed her flashlight inside.

Remi gasped, as did Maribela. Sam let loose a low whistle and stepped closer.

“The legends were true,” he said quietly, his hand on Remi’s shoulder.

The figure was mummified, but his long red beard and hair were intact, carefully braided in an ornate style, with small jewels woven into the strands. He wore a tunic of chain mail, a classic Viking helmet, and had a steel sword clenched in one hand and a spear in the other. A battle-axe rested by his side and a shield covered his lower legs.

Antonio regarded the length of the sarcophagus. “What do you think he was? Hundred eighty centimeters? Assuming his body stretches the full length of the coffin.”

“More like six feet something. He was tall, that’s for sure. A Viking,” Sam said.

Maribela looked at him strangely. “You seem so sure.”

Sam told them about the longship on Baffin Island and their eyes widened.

“So that’s why you were so interested in the legend,” Antonio said. “You knew it likely corresponded with fact.”

“Yes,” Sam admitted. “And now we have further proof that the cultures overlapped in ways nobody’s ever imagined.”

“Look at this,” Lazlo said, shining his flashlight on the underside of the coffin lid. “There’s an inscription.”

“What does it say?” Remi asked.

He studied it for several long seconds before answering. “I can’t be sure. My runic alphabet’s a mite rusty, but, on first glance, it looks like a eulogy of some sort. I’ll need to see the entire thing to be able to do a reasonable translation.”

“Could you do it from a photograph of the interior lid and another one of the part that’s exposed at the foot of the sarcophagus?” Remi asked.

“I suppose so. Care to do the honors?” Lazlo invited. Remi slid her phone into the spacious coffin and took several photographs, then repeated the process with the exposed underside of the lid. When she was done, she photographed the entire exterior of the sarcophagus as the rest of them studied the carvings on the walls.

“Bit odd that there’s no booty, isn’t it? Didn’t the legend specify an emerald the size of a small car?” Lazlo asked.

“It did. But that could be an exaggeration. I don’t see anything in here. Do you?” Sam asked. Both Antonio and Maribela shook their heads. Maribela played her light across an elaborate pictograph.

“This appears to tell the story of Quetzalcoatl’s conquest of a large Mayan city. Maybe Chichen Itza.”

Antonio pointed to the series of carvings next to it. “And here … It’ll require further study, but it seems like this chronicles the move of the Toltec capital, or perhaps it’s the seat of power, to the Mayan city. And look! This symbolizes Quetzalcoatl’s exile from the Toltec capital … and … his death.”

“Lazlo, if I haven’t told you yet today, you’re absolutely brilliant,” Remi said.

“I never get tired of hearing it, although it’s a bit of an overstatement,” Lazlo said, pinpoints of color blossoming on his cheeks.

Sam turned to her. “It would have never occurred to us that the other tomb was a decoy.”

Antonio shook his head in awe. “This is really incredible. The more I study these pictographs, the less I feel like I know about the Toltecs. Their trading sphere was apparently much more extensive than we believed.”

Remi tapped the side of the coffin. “Remember that the legend says that Quetzalcoatl wandered in the wilderness for years after leaving Tollan.”

“Figuring all this out will be a life’s ambition. A dream, really, for both me and my sister,” Antonio said.

Lazlo smiled. “Well, I’d say you more than have your work cut out for you.”

They admired the carvings for several more minutes and then Sam glanced at his watch. “I suggest that we wind this up for the evening and return tomorrow morning to do a more thorough inventory and catalog all of the carvings. I don’t see anything else, do you?”

Antonio shook his head. “No. Still, this is a historical treasure without precedent. It will change the history of my people. Whether or not there’s an Eye of Heaven, today is a miraculous day by any measure.”

Lazlo nodded. “Yes. Well, quite.” His stomach rumbled audibly. “Sorry about that. Nature calling for sustenance — nothing to be done about it.”

“Let’s get you boys fed and we’ll take this up tomorrow,” Remi said, and Sam grinned.

“All this tomb raiding does make me a little peckish.”

“We don’t want either of you to waste away to nothing.”

“Come on, then, I’ll buy the first celebratory Coke,” Lazlo agreed.

Once they were back at ground level, Antonio gave the contingent of soldiers exacting instructions, forbidding anyone from entering the tomb while Remi transferred the photographs she’d taken first to her flash drive. When she finished, Antonio offered to give her and Sam a lift to their motel, which they gratefully accepted. A harvest moon glowed orange from between the scattered clouds as they rolled down the broad avenue of the dead metropolis, the find of a lifetime behind them. At the motel they waved as Antonio pulled away and, after cleaning up, rendezvoused at the nearby restaurant.

“I don’t suppose you’d let the shots of the coffin lid out of your sight this evening, would you?” Lazlo asked as their plates were being cleared away.

“You’re reading my mind again, Lazlo. You have to stop doing that,” Remi said.

“What’s the hurry? I’d say after a day like today, you can take the rest of the night off,” Sam said.

Lazlo shrugged. “Oh, no particular hurry, I suppose. I just thought you might like to know where the treasure’s hidden, that’s all.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The inscription. My Old Norse orthography isn’t as rusty as I pretended.”

Remi’s eyes narrowed as she passed the flash drive to him. “What did you see, Lazlo?”

Lazlo paused dramatically. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon translate it before the madding crowds descend on the tomb tomorrow. Not to get everyone’s hopes up, but the last line said something about the Eye of Heaven. Which, given the inscription’s location, would seem about as good as a treasure map to this dusty old academic.”