by Rob Jones
The Snake King was staring into the capstone with blank eyes. The reflection looking back at him was terrifying. His eyes were clear enough, but the rest of his face was obscured by his mask of green jade. Intricately carved snakes fashioned from onyx and turquoise squirmed from the holes carved for his eyes and mouth and gave him a powerful sense of his own royal power. He had discovered the mask himself after an excavation in Calakmul. To the Maya, and to him, jade was more precious than gold and until this moment he had coveted the mask more than anything.
He studied the capstone more closely. Movement. Was something moving inside the metal?
He heard himself gasp at the very idea.
Could it be the legends were right all along? Was this polished metal capstone, once the property of the original snake kings, really a portal to another dimension? Could he access the real Underworld with its magic? Would it reveal the future like the legends said? Did it hold demons within its enigmatic heart? And what if the demons inside could climb out into this world? The questions buzzed in his head like static electricity.
He turned away from the capstone. Already, too scared to look again in case he saw something he didn’t want to. But then, was this not the whole purpose of his life’s mission? He looked back into the polished metal. More of the strange smoke patterns swirled within its shining coppery surface. Smooth and wispy and curling in delicate tendrils and then dissipating into nothing.
His breathing quickened.
“What do you see, boss?”
He heard a voice out of nowhere. He was dimly aware of someone moving beside him.
Tarántula.
“What do you see?”
“This is the capstone we have been searching for,” the Snake King said, humbly. “This is the Stormbringer that Montesino described. We have found it. It is mine at last. I have the power.”
“Power, sir?”
“Huracan’s power. This is my destiny, my loyal servant. Somewhere in this capstone is a power far greater than anything any mortal man could ever imagine.”
He stared at the capstone like it was a living, breathing creature, reaching out and stroking it with his fingers. “It’s not made of any metal we currently understand, my loyal servant. It’s something entirely different. Something completely rare and undiscovered. The ancients gave it a name in their own language which translates roughly as the metal of the gods. I will call it, divinium.”
Still stroking the ancient reflective capstone, he marvelled at its brilliance in the low light of the flashlights bouncing around in the chamber. It seemed not only to reflect the beams of these flashlights, but to soak them up and then radiate them out again several magnitudes stronger. The glowing grew stronger until it was as bright as the midday sun.
“It’s beautiful.”
He leaned closer and studied himself once more in the strange new metal. His jade mask seemed even brighter and more dazzling inside the capstone. He reached out toward his reflection. Or was his reflection reaching out toward him? He wanted to climb inside and join this other strange world. Walk among the souls in the Underworld. Dance among the demons. Lead them back into this plane and raise the bloodiest hell anyone had ever seen.
Later.
For now, the capstone’s ancient power had a more prosaic task.
He leaned closer and his staring intensified until he finally saw it. And heard it. Gunshots. He was knocked from his reverie by the sound of more shooting. He turned and he saw the foreign team of archaeologists. They were charging into the chamber with guns raised, firing on them. Muzzles flashed. Men yelled. Lead flew all over the place. He screamed and threw himself over the capstone.
“No! You mustn’t hit it! You’ll shatter it! It’s too fragile!”
The shooting intensified. He felt a bullet rip into his leg and screamed in pain.
“Boss?”
Breathing has hard as if he had been sprinting, and sweat beading on his forehead, he turned and saw Tarántula. The experienced gangster was staring back at him, terrified. The Snake King screamed again and pointed at the archway. “Get down! They’re shooting!”
Tarántula looked confused. “Sir, who is shooting?”
“The other team! Decker. The Moores! They’re in here, they’re trying to take the capstone! They’re…. they’re….”
“There is no one in this cavern but us, sir,” said Tarántula. “Carlos, Miguel. Diego and Diablo and some of the other men. Me. No one else.”
The Snake King felt his heart pounding in his chest and worked hard to slow his breathing. He felt confused. Dazed. Then, another gasp fled his lips like a frail baby bird when he realized what he was witnessing. Decker and the Moores hadn’t charged into the chamber with guns blazing.
Not yet.
“Praise the gods!” he said.
“Sir?”
“Praise the gods, for they have given me the wonderful gift of augury!”
Tarántula frowned. “I don’t understand. I thought the capstone gave us the power of Huracan? The power to destroy cities?”
“Indeed it does, my loyal servant, but it has also given another gift. The demons inside this capstone have shown me the future, Tarántula! Our enemies are close and will soon attack us through that archway over there. I saw it all with my own eyes.”
Tarántula noticed the way the Mercado brothers were looking at each other. He felt they might be thinking the same thing he was. Had they placed their futures in the hands of a total madman?
“You saw the future, sir?”
The Snake King grew silent. The implications of what he had seen were only just beginning to register in his whirring mind. Drunk with the potential of his new power, he turned and barked at the Mercado brothers.
“Cover it with the tarp,” he snapped. “It’s important no one looks directly into the capstone!”
“Yes, boss.”
“Then prepare the men to get it out of here and back to the chopper. We have a world to destroy.”
19
Riley had the most caving experience, and now he set his faithful alloy descender to seventy feet, checked the rig was safe and switched his flashlight on and off. Good – all was still functioning properly. Peering over the edge of the giant abyss inside the cave, he slid on a pair of rope rescue gloves, gave the rope one final tug to make sure it was secure and then walked backwards over the edge.
“Take care, Riley!” Diana called out.
“No worries. This is a piece of cake compared with some of the stuff those bastards in the regiment made us do.”
Then he gave her a cheeky wink and loosened the rope weaving through the rappel rack to reduce the friction and let it slide through. Then he was gone, plummeting away from them and into the darkness below.
Within seconds, he felt the ambient temperature change around him. He expected this, and continued sailing down the side of the rock-hole, using the glowstick down in the dirt below to guide his speed and know when to slow down and land. As the glowstick raced up to meet him, he tightened the rope feeding through the rack and reduced his speed. Then, a few feet from the cave floor, he stopped completely, uncoupled himself from the rigging and hopped down onto solid ground.
Flashlight on, he scanned his new surroundings. He was the original class clown when workload permitted, but no one was more serious when the rubber hit the road. Trained to a brutally competent degree by the SASR out in the deserts of Western Australia, he knew what was expected of him when he clocked on to a serious job. This was one of those times.
“You see anything?”
Selena’s voice. He stared up at them far above his head. He didn’t know why, but looking at the top of a tunnel from the bottom always looked further away than looking at the bottom of a tunnel from the top. A breeze blew on his face and rippled his hair. A slight sulphur smell. Odd.
“Not really,” he called back, returning to his examination of the cave. “Regular looking cave with one exit. Looks scary. Someone going to come and
hold my hand?”
“I will!” Selena said. “I can’t wait to get down there.”
“Just hold on a damned second,” said Decker. “I’m going down next.”
“Why you?”
“I’m an ex US Marine.”
He needed no more words, and moments later he was rappelling down the same line Riley had used. When he hit the ground, he unhitched himself from the rigging and pulled a flashlight with one hand and a pistol with the other.
“G’day, Cap!” Riley said.
“Howdy. We’re going to make sure that tunnel is safe before bringing the whole team down here.”
“Lena’s seen worse – and Charlie too!”
“Sure, but if there’s anything ugly in there, we don’t need Diana, Atticus and old man Acosta down here. We’re not discussing it.”
“No need, Mitch. We’re singing from the same hymn sheet when it comes to the old crumblies up there.”
“Huh?”
“Atticus and old Pepe.”
Decker rolled his eyes. “Crumblies?”
“Just a figure of speech.”
The two men walked down the tunnel at the base of the shaft. Gravelly dust crunched under their boots as they inched forward, flashlight beams searching the darkness ahead of them for threats. Ahead they now saw a cave mouth opening out onto a large cavern. When they reached it, they neither of them could believe what they were seeing.
Riley laughed. “You want to tell the others or should I?”
“I’ll go.”
When Decker returned with the rest of the crew, Riley was already well inside the cavern taking a good look around. He had kicked a path through rocky debris on the cave floor which the others now used to catch up with him. They too, were shocked.
Charlie gazed at the chamber, amazed by what he was seeing. “Could there be any more gold in this place? There must be hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth in here!”
“Maybe it was like some kind of ancient Fort Knox,” Decker said.
“No, it’s tribute,” said Atticus, sweeping his flashlight over the treasure and up onto the fierce face of a statue in front of them. “Tribute to him.”
“Who’s that guy?” asked Riley.
“Huracan,” Selena said, stepping closer and bringing her own flashlight up to the face.
Acosta ran his hands over the base of the towering statue. “Yes! Huracan, the God of Storms. We meet at last… here in Xibalba.”
Selena was mesmerized. “This is incredible. This must be where the ancient tribes really thought their Underworld was. In pre-Christian culture, death usually meant the soul going to an afterlife or perhaps being reincarnated, but this changed after the Spanish invasion. The introduction of Christian concepts of the afterlife into Maya culture meant that local tribes began seeing Xibalba as a place of punishment, sort of analogous to our concept of hell. That was here!”
“So we really are in hell?” Charlie said.
Diana shivered. “I don’t like this place at all. It gives me the creeps.”
“Not me,” Riley said. “I love all this Aztec stuff!”
“How many more times do I have to tell you, Riley?” Selena sighed. “This is Maya!”
He scratched his head. “Oh, yeah. Keep forgetting. What’s the difference again?”
“There are many differences. For one, the Aztecs were chiefly concerned with offering the human heart to the gods.” Selena continued to mull around the cavern, lighting objects of interest with her flashlight as she spoke. “They thought this was the ultimate symbol of sacrifice, but the Maya were different. For them, the supreme offering to the gods was human blood. Another critical difference was that Maya used to inflict horrendous torture on their victims before death and often skinned them after the sacrifice so the priest, or chilan, could wear their skin while the worshippers danced.”
“And the victims were alive while the hearts were ripped out, right?” Riley asked.
“Oh, yes,” Selena said casually. “The Maya used to slice a hole in their abdomens and pulled the heart out from the bottom of the ribcage, all while the victim was alive, kicking and screaming.”
“They sound delightful,” Diana said with disgust.
“And it gets worse,” Selena said. “Archaeologists once found a grave with various sacrifice victims in it, including some children as young as three. They analysed the skeletons and found they had been flayed, stabbed and dismembered.”
“I’ve heard enough,” the Portuguese woman said, genuinely upset by what she was hearing.
Riley had also gone quiet. “Yeah, I reckon that’s enough history for one day.”
“So, where’s this notorious doomsday machine?” Charlie said, his voice loud in the quiet cavern. “I mean, that’s why we’re here, right?”
“Right,” Selena said. “So keep looking.”
“Hey!” Acosta called out from the far side. “Come over here! I think I found something.”
20
“What is it, old man?” Atticus said.
“Look inside this alcove.” Acosta lit it with his flashlight. “It’s another series of glyphs featuring what I’m presuming is the Stormbringer.”
Atticus looked closer and saw what looked like a carving of an ancient Maya capstone surrounded by strange golden rays, as if it were the rising sun. “A capstone?” he said, twisting his head back around to his friend in astonishment. “Could it be the Stormbringer was some sort of capstone?”
“I think it might be!” Acosta said. “And not just any capstone – this image clearly represents the main temple at Xunantunich!”
“The missing capstone at Xunantunich!” said Selena. “Of course!”
Amidst the high fives and excitement, Charlie frowned. “Wait. Just what were these capstones used for anyway?”
Selena calmed down and said, “Most of the bigger Maya buildings, especially those used as temples and palaces, were always very complex and intricately designed. They often had parts of the structure with corbelled roofing, and…”
“What sort of roofing?” Charlie asked. “Soldier here, not architect.”
“Sorry. Corbelled roofing means built in arches.”
“Take the classic corbel vault,” Atticus said. “This is an integral part of Maya architecture which they used all the time to support roofs and upper storeys. We see an example of it here inside this alcove. It’s a more basic technique than proper curved arches, but it worked wonders for the Maya.”
“Got it.”
“Anyway,” Selena continued with a proud smile from her father, “the bigger structures like palaces and temples used the corbelled roofing techniques, which involved overlapping flat stones in such a way they would meet up at the top of the arch. This would then be spanned with a capstone. If you’re interested, you can see a wonderful example in the burial chamber of King Pakal.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Charlie said. “But thanks.” s
“I had no idea the Maya were such intrepid architects,” Diana said.
“Oh yes,” Atticus said, rounding on her and removing his glasses to reveal keen eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. “They had it all – vaulted roofs, shady colonnades, multi-story towers, not to mention steam rooms and lavatories. Today we think we created everything. We might give a vague nod to ancient Rome, but everywhere else means nothing.”
He stared back inside the alcove and looked once again at the picture of the capstone. “They even had specially carved doorways, often in the shape of a monster’s mouth. These represented portals into different realms.” The ghost of a smile lingered on his face. “Exciting, no?”
“I guess so,” she said. “But maybe not the part about walking through monsters’ mouths to reach other worlds.”
“They were a very mystical culture,” Atticus said, thrusting his free hand in his pocket and giving a long, soft sigh. “Sometimes, I wish I had a time machine. Then I could go back and actually live among people like the ancient Maya, o
r the citizens of Mohenjo-Daro, or ancient Athens! Think what that would be like!”
“A world without hot, running water, flushing toilets or deodorant,” Charlie said. “Very mystical.”
Atticus’s smile faded. “You haven’t a romantic bone in your body, have you, Mr Valentine?”
“Maybe not, but I can field strip an assault rifle in less than sixty seconds and I’m a total devil when it comes to making Thai kaeng khae curry. We all have our uses.”
Atticus tipped his head. “And a very valuable member of our team you are, too.”
Decker removed his hat to wipe some sweat from his eyes. “Can we get back to the capstone? Remember, those maniacs are probably down here somewhere!”
“Thank you, Mitch,” Selena said. “The point is that while Xunantunich is a very well preserved ancient site, it has many missing parts, and it looks like this capstone was once part of the temple roof there. If Montesino really did see what he described in his journal, it’s possible the destructive power he witnessed was somehow channelled by the capstone.”
“I’ll ask the obvious one,” Riley said. “How?”
She shrugged. “I’m an archaeologist, not a scientist.”
“But what if it’s not science?” Diana asked. “What if it’s some sort of divine power beyond our imagination?”
Charlie scoffed. “You can’t be serious? There’s no such thing! If it really was the capstone that caused the devastation Montesino wrote about, then there has to be a perfectly rational, scientific explanation.”
“If you say so,” Diana said, taking a step back from the alcove.
Decker scratched his jaw. “Fine, and it’s all great that we found these pretty pictures of the capstone, but where’s the real thing? Answers on a postcard and gratefully accepted.”
“Ah, that we still don’t know,” Atticus said, holding a wobbling flashlight in his old hand as he stared up at the alcove. “But this is something else! Already it’s one of the greatest moments of my career and we’ve barely scratched the surface.”