Xibalba

CHAPTER 17

Maddock shone his light into the dark recess. The stone blocks framing the opening had been partially forced out of place by plant roots, but in an ironic twist the vegetation seemed to be the only thing preventing the structure from crumbling completely into ruin. Beyond the opening, he could see irregular stone steps descending into inky darkness.

“I thought the steps on pyramids were supposed to go up,” Bones observed.

“It’s the City of Shadow,” Bell said, as if that ought to explain everything. “The Underworld lies below.”

“Normal rules don’t apply,” added Angel.

Bones just grunted.

“You really think this is the entrance to Xibalba?” Maddock asked.

“That’s what my research indicates, though you must bear in mind that the legends are not to be taken literally. ‘Xibalba’ may be nothing more than a sacred crypt or a tomb containing the men who were revered as the Lords of Xibalba.” Bell was downplaying the find, but Maddock guessed he was hoping for a lot more than just an old crypt.

“Odds are,” Maddock said, “all we’re going to find is a flooded passage. If we’re lucky.”

“And if we’re not?”

“A cave in.” He shrugged. “Only one way to know for sure, though. I don’t suppose I’ll be able to convince all of you to stay up here while Bones and I check it out.”

He half-hoped that Angel would take him up on the offer. Surely, tagging along with him in dark musty caves had lost any appeal it might once have held for her. And if Angel stayed back, maybe Miranda would be persuaded as well. But he knew Bell would not be left behind, not while the exploration required no technical expertise, and where Bell went, his daughter would surely follow.

“No? Okay, then. Ground rules. Don’t follow too close. Watch your step but be observant at all times. If I tell you to freeze, or to turn around and run for the top, do it, no questions.”

After receiving a round of nods, he started forward, sweeping back and forth with his light as he stepped beneath the misshaped lintel.

The air inside the descending shaft was markedly cooler, and the air did not smell quite as bad as the conditions would have led Maddock to expect. There was only a faint earthy aroma, not the expected reek of decay. He took that as a hopeful sign that the shaft was neither flooded nor a den for bats or other jungle creatures. After just a few steps, the intrusion of roots and other plant life abated, revealing solid uncracked masonry with no deformity. The shaft was wide enough for them to walk two abreast, so Maddock brought Bell forward to walk beside him, letting Angel and Miranda follow, with Bones bringing up the rear. The flashlights reliably illuminated an area about ten yards ahead of them, revealing damp stone steps, but nothing else noteworthy.

Maddock knew they had to be well below the level of the local water table, which meant the builders of the pyramid had engineered some method to keep the subterranean chamber more or less dry. He was about to ask Bell about this when he realized the archaeologist was softly counting the steps.

He distinctly heard the other man say, “Forty-seven.”

Forty-seven steps, each one about eight inches high. That rounded to about thirty-two feet.

“No creepy-crawlies yet,” Bones said. “That’s a good sign.”

“If you jinx us,” Angel warned. “I’ll toss you down these steps. Swear to God.”

“Hmm. You could turn it into a game. Bowling for Maddock.”

“Guys,” Maddock murmured. “Trying to work here.”

Bell ticked through the fifties, then the sixties. Below step sixty-five, the walls simply ended, and where they had been, there was only open space — and impenetrable blackness. Maddock sensed they were approaching the end of the descent, and sure enough, by the time they got to step number eighty, he could just make out the flat bottom of the shaft about a dozen steps away.

“Ninety-one steps,” Bell said. “Just like at Chichén Itzá. There are probably three more staircases just like this one, each from a different cardinal direction, all meeting here. Counting the floor, three hundred and sixty-five, just like the days of the year.”

Maddock aimed his light to the side but it was too dark to confirm the hypothesis. He could however make out the floor, which consisted of elaborately decorated stone blocks, each one a good six feet across. It took him a moment to register that the shadowy lines in the blocks were not merely relief carvings but deep holes cut completely through the stone.

“That explains where all the water goes,” Bell said, shining his own light down at the block directly before them. “The entire floor of this chamber is an enormous drain, conducting seepage and rainwater away.”

“One mystery solved,” Maddock agreed, though that explanation seemed incomplete. “But where does the water go after that?”

“Maybe this isn’t actually the bottom,” Miranda suggested. “Maybe we have to keep going.”

Maddock played his light on the floor at the base of the stairs, paying particular attention to where the blocks joined together. “Think it’s safe to walk on?”

“Better have Bones go first,” Angel said.

“Fine by me,” Bones said, pushing past his sister. “I’m sick of looking at your fat behind anyway.”

“Right,” Miranda said with undisguised sarcasm. “Like it’s her you’ve been checking out.”

Bones grinned at her. “You just might fit in here.” He stepped off the staircase without hesitation, solidly planting one foot, then the other, on the elaborately decorated floor.

Maddock cringed, half-expecting the floor to collapse or spikes to shoot up through the holes in the blocks, but nothing of the sort happened. “Looks safe enough,” he said, advancing tentatively to stand beside Bones. “But watch your step all the same.”

“Look,” Bell said, venturing out across the floor, seemingly heedless of the warning. He was shining his light on an enormous stone sculpture occupying the exact center of the chamber.

Maddock aimed his own light at the carving, a familiar reptilian head, its jaws agape, facing the staircase to their right. “It looks just like the statue at Chichén Itzá. The one at the base of El Castillo.” He checked his orientation and then turned so he was facing the same direction as the carving. “We came in from the west, which means the statue is facing south.”

“Interesting,” Bell said. “The figure at El Castillo faces west, but thus far, south has consistently been the dominant cardinal direction.” He clapped his hands together. “The guidestone indicated we would find the entrance to the Underworld at the Serpent’s Maw. It would appear that was to be taken quite literally.”

Maddock approached the statue for a closer look. The space between the jaws was easily large enough for him to stand inside it, which was almost certainly intentional. At the back of the carved mouth was a shadowy opening, about two feet in diameter. The hole angled downward and appeared to keep going, beyond the reach of Maddock’s light. “I guess that means we have to go through there.”

Bones put his hands on his hips. “Look, I’m all for sticking my big nose where it doesn’t belong, but I feel like someone needs to point out the obvious. The Underworld is the afterlife — the place you go after life. The Maya practiced human sacrifice. So… and bear with me here… maybe we should think this through. You know, before we let ourselves be swallowed by the Hellmouth.”

“He’s right,” Miranda said.

Maddock stared at her, waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Miranda to somehow twist Bones’ wariness into a mean-spirited jab, but to his astonishment, she did not. “Dad, we’ve found the City of Shadow. You were right and everyone else was wrong. The discovery is the important thing. So, let’s head back to civilization, and let the world know what you’ve found. We don’t need to take any more risks.”

Bell shook his head. “I can’t leave without knowing what’s down there.”

“I agree,” Maddock said before Miranda could argue. “Kasey’s not going to be back until tomorrow morning. And I think I know a way for us to look before we leap.”

Five minutes later, they were gathered around Bell’s tablet computer, watching the live video feed from Miranda’s GoPro. The camera was no longer strapped to her forehead, but was instead sliding down the carved serpent’s throat, taped to the end of one of the climbing ropes, along with one of their flashlights. Bones was paying out the line slowly.

The shaft turned vertical after just a few feet, then without warning, the screen went black.

“Lost the wi-fi signal,” Miranda said.

“I don’t think so,” Maddock said, pointing at the signal strength indicator. “The reason we can’t see anything is that there isn’t anything to see. There’s another open chamber underneath us, but the light isn’t powerful enough. Bones, how far in are we?”

“About ten feet.”

Bones continued feeding the rope into the serpent’s maw, measuring progress in one-foot increments. Maddock kept his eye on the wi-fi signal indicator. The deeper the camera went, the fainter the signal became until, at about twenty feet, it failed altogether.

“Keep going,” Maddock said.

Bones nodded, but after just a few seconds, he stopped. “Feels like we just hit bottom. Twenty-four feet.”

He reeled in the line without difficulty. Both camera and light were functioning normally and showed no signs of damage, but the playback revealed little that they had not already seen. The only difference was at the end of the camera’s downward journey when the flashlight shone upon the floor of the hidden chamber. The beam was reflected back in dozens of tiny pinpoints, as if the floor was covered with broken glass.

“There’s something down there,” Miranda said, running the feed back for another look. “Can’t tell what it is though.”

“It looks safe enough,” Maddock said. “I’ll go down for a better look.”

With the rope secured to his field-expedient Swiss seat climbing harness, Maddock lowered himself into the serpent’s throat feet first while Bones anchored the line from above.

“Oof,” Bones grunted, exaggerating his effort. “I don’t want to hear any more crap about my weight.”

“Muscle weighs more than fat,” Maddock said, playing along, but his voice sounded weird in the close confines of the passage, ruining his attempt to keep the mood light.

After a few seconds of descending, he dropped out of the shaft and found himself dangling in mid-air, about twenty feet above the floor of the lower chamber. The room was at least as big as the upper chamber, the walls beyond the reach of his light, but he could easily make out the floor below. It was decorated with elaborate carved patterns, just like the holes cut in the stone floor above except these holes were not empty, but filled with something that reflected back the flashlight beam in a weird interplay of light and shadow, like asphalt encrusted with diamonds. The only undecorated area was a four-foot square directly below him.

He rappelled down until his feet were just barely touching the floor, and then relaxed his grip on the rope, transferring his full weight onto the balls of his feet.

Suddenly the floor wasn’t there anymore.

He lurched, clutching at the rope as he pitched forward toward the glittering floor. The flashlight tumbled from his grasp, and as it landed it revealed movement.

Something was coming out of the floor… No, not something but somethings. A thousand somethings, with gleaming black carapaces and pincers and hook-tipped tails, rushing up at him as he fell.

The floor of the chamber was covered in scorpions.