Xibalba

CHAPTER 27

After several minutes of fruitless searching, Maddock was ready to admit defeat. Despite the obvious wisdom of his preferred course of action, the cautious approach had not paid off. About the only thing he could take comfort in was the fact that none of them had fallen into one of the many seemingly bottomless pits that riddled the cavern floor like holes in a block of Swiss cheese.

Those chasms seemed to be the only way out of Dark House, especially since the passage to the Council had abruptly closed, sealing them in. He assumed that was the handiwork of the Serpent Brothers who had elected to trap them inside rather than pursuing them into Xibalba. There was no point in trying to get the door open again since the snake warriors were lying in wait on the other side, ready to turn them into blow-dart pincushions. Aside from the round stone covering that passage, there was nothing manmade in the chamber; no paintings or carvings that might have concealed a hidden door, and worse, no paw prints. No, the only way out, Maddock knew, was down.

Each of the fissures seemed like a portal to a different level of hell. Some were venting heat and reeked of sulfur, while others were blowing positively frigid air, as if they were connected to an industrial air conditioning unit. None of the holes seemed particularly welcoming, but that was probably the point.

Maddock joined Miranda and her father near the center of the cavern. “I think we’re going to have to climb down into one of these pits,” he said. “We’ve got enough rope for a single pitch, but I don’t think we’ve got the time for a trial and error approach. Any suggestions?”

Bell’s forehead drew into a frown of concern. “My apologies, Mr. Maddock. I really didn’t expect it to be quite so challenging.”

“Just imagine what it must have been like doing this in pitch darkness,” Angel put in as she joined them.

Maddock looked at her sideways. “Yeah,” he said slowly, trying to do exactly that. “I wonder… ”

“Uh, oh,” Bones warned. “He’s thinking again. Stand back. Don’t get any on you.”

“What if we’re supposed to be doing this in total darkness?”

“Right,” Bones said slowly, the sarcasm unmistakable. “That’s a really good idea.”

“No, he’s right,” Miranda said. “Back in the cenote in Tulum, I got confused and didn’t know which passage to take. I was out of air and I knew I had to get it right on the first try, so I shut off my dive light. There was just enough daylight getting through to show me the way forward.”

“The operative word there being ‘daylight,’” Bones countered. “I don’t think there’s any of that where we need to go.”

“You’re missing the point,” Maddock said quickly. “These tests, the rivers, the cooking stone… We keep thinking we need to find a way to avoid them, but every time, the only solution is to play along.”

Bell nodded slowly. “In the Popol Vuh, the Hero Twins had to spend the night in the Dark House. They were given a torch but they knew it was a test, so they refused to use it.”

“That’s it then. It’s something we can test at least.” He switched his headlamp off, though there wasn’t a noticeable difference in the light level. “Turn off your lights. We’ll see what happens.”

Angel and Miranda immediately did, but Bones hesitated, giving Maddock a chagrined look before finally complying. When the last LED light winked out, darkness fell over them like a heavy, stifling blanket.

“This sucks,” Bones mumbled.

“Afraid of the dark, big bro?” Angel said.

“Give it a second,” Maddock said. “Our eyes haven’t adjusted to the dark yet.”

“They’re not going to adjust to this, Maddock. To see in the dark, you have to have at least a little bit of light.”

“Maybe we’re supposed to use sonar,” Angel suggested. “Echolocation. Like bats.”

“Shh,” Maddock hissed, trying to concentrate on piercing the veil of night with his eyes. He knew Bones was right. Night vision was one thing, but without some faint source of illumination, the pupils of their eyes would never dilate wide enough to let them see in absolute darkness. If he saw anything at all, it probably was just his eyes playing tricks on him.

“Okay,” he said after a moment, “It was worth a—”

“Does anyone else see that?” Miranda said, cutting him off. “On the ceiling? It looks like stars.”

Maddock had seen them, faint points of gleaming pale blue, but had assumed they were just an optical illusion.

“I see them,” Angel chimed in.

“That’s Serpens,” Bell exclaimed.

“You’re not actually suggesting that we can see the stars through solid stone,” Bones said.

“It must be some kind of phosphorescent lichen,” Maddock said. “There’s no way we would have ever seen that with our lights on.”

“It’s showing us the path,” Bell continued. “If we follow the Serpent Route, we’ll find the way out.”

“Wait!” Maddock shouted, quickly before the archaeologist could act on this revelation. “Nobody move. I’ll do this. Once I figure out where we need to go, we can turn on our lights again.”

“Why you?” Miranda asked. “You’re not Superman, you know.”

Maddock had to fight the urge to snap back at her. “You can go first next time, okay? For now, just keep it down and let me concentrate.”

Without waiting for her consent, he dropped to his knees and placed his palms flat on the rough stone floor. Raising his eyes toward the ceiling, he located the nearest “star” and began crawling toward it, testing the ground ahead of him as he went. He was doing fine, making good time, right up to the moment when he put his right hand out and, instead of finding solid stone, it just kept going. Unbalanced, he tilted forward suddenly, his chest slamming down against the edge of the chasm he had nearly plunged into.

Angel and Bones cried out to him almost simultaneously; she used his first name, and Bones used his last.

“I’m good,” he shouted, regaining his four points of contact and backing slowly away from the pit. Despite that assurance, the near miss left him a little shaken and the unrelenting darkness wasn’t making it any easier. Nevertheless, he eased forward, probing the floor to locate the rim of the hole so he could find a way around it.

After what seemed an eternity — probably a good thirty seconds or so — he was moving again, albeit a little more cautiously. He had to navigate around two more fissures, though finding them was a lot easier since both were venting hot fumes. The third hole he encountered was directly under the point of light that corresponded to the star in the Serpens constellation they had begun calling “the Serpent’s Maw.” Maddock thought he could feel a cool breeze rising from the chasm, but there was nothing else remarkable about it.

“I think this is the one,” he called out. “Turning on my light now.”

He shielded his eyes against the expected shock of brightness and hit the switch. Even with that precaution, the brilliance stung his eyes. Blinking away tears, he shone the light down into the hole.

The fissure was small by comparison to most of the others, more a jagged crack in the floor than a gaping hole. The sides were not sheer opposing faces, but undulated in and out, forming a series of easily discernible handholds and steps. Climbing down it would be a piece of cake, at least for everyone but Bell, and even he would probably be okay as long as there was someone to belay him.

The only real danger was the uncertainty of what lay below.

The cavern lit up again as the rest of the group switched on their lights and came to join him.

“Should we send the camera down?” Angel asked.

Maddock shook his head. “No time. Bones, rig up a hasty belay. I’m going to climb down and check it out.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Miranda said. When Maddock returned a blank look, she added. “You said I could go first.”

“I did?” Maddock shook his head, more in exasperation than anything else. Maybe Bones was right. This was definitely a lot easier with his regular crew backing him up. “Fine. Knock yourself out.”

“I think what he meant to say,” Angel said, “is ‘be careful.’”

Miranda gave her a big smile, and then promptly sat down on the cavern floor, her legs dangling out over the edge. With no apparent hesitation, she lowered herself into the fissure, and began climbing down as if descending a ladder.

Maddock leaned close to Angel and whispered in her ear. “She’s just doing this to impress you, you know.”

“You’ve got nothing to worry about,” Angel whispered back. “But you know, you don’t always have to be the first one through the door.”

“I let Bones go first sometimes.”

She touched a finger to his lips, shushing him.

Miranda’s head and shoulders emerged from the fissure a few seconds later. “I don’t know if this is the right one after all. The climb down is easy, but the bottom is a death trap.”

Bell knelt beside. “Describe it.”

“It’s like the River of Scorpions, only a lot worse. The floor is covered with shards of obsidian, sticking straight up. They’re everywhere. If we try to go down, we’ll get sliced to ribbons.”

“So much for that idea,” Bones said. “Back to the drawing board?”

Bell shook his head grimly. “This is the correct passage,” he said. “The chamber below us is another test. The House of Blades.”

“How did the Hero Twins beat that one?” Maddock asked.

“Uh, they told the blades not to hurt them. The blade points lowered and they were unharmed.”

“Maybe there’s a specific phrase in the Mayan language that will make the blades retract into the floor,” Bones suggested. “How do you say, ‘Hey Siri, lower the knives,’ in ancient Mayan?”

“I doubt they had the technology to pull that off,” Miranda said, rolling her eyes. “Or maybe you believe in magic?”

Maddock stared down into the fissure. “Did you actually step on any of the blades?”

Miranda stared at him like he had two heads. “Are you kidding?”

“It might be a test of courage. Your boot soles will provide some protection. And if the points are close enough, it will distribute your weight, just like a swami on a bed of nails.” He grinned. “Want me to go first?”

She shot him a withering look, and started down again. A few seconds later, her voice welled up from below. “I’m about to step onto them.”

Maddock braced himself for a cry of pain or a stream of curse words. Instead, there was just a loud snick.