“But will your people ever accept me? I’d want you to still be the queen because…”
Coi’s fingers darted to Jack’s lips “My love, you must understand that some things will not change, some things you must accept. Yes my love my people will see it at first as a merging of our two peoples and when they see us together, they will learn it is much more.” she gently kissed his lips and smiled “And you my love will make a fine chief…daddy is never wrong.” She winked at him and scurried inside to change out of her flowing gown that was belted at the waist by a golden belt.
To Jack he loved her in anything…or without, he chuckled in his mind, but hoped that she’d change into those gray dinosaur skins that she had on the day before. She looked amazing in those. Jack watched the people wandering about the huge, sun-drenched stone walkways that must have been the size of several football fields. He wondered about their ways, how they lived, and his mind wondered about so much. The Mayans had a way of tanning various layers of dinosaur hide so it was thin and supple, and on Coi showed every curve she had. But then again she looked great in those gowns that she had worn since arriving home. They had perfected living in this world, creating, weaving, and building from the abundant surroundings…could he ever hope to think that he could lead such a magnificent people?
Chapter 15.
Coi reappeared a half hour later dressed in one of her long white gowns that was trimmed in golden strands woven in among the filmy material that was made from beaten plant fibers of some strange sea plant, but she didn’t elaborate further. It flowed hypnotically as she walked and was split nearly to the hip on either side. A plunging neckline culminated at a wide golden belt embedded with various sized green emeralds that circled her tiny waist and a matching narrow headband glistened in the sun. Her small breasts gently swayed under the loose material and Jack was mesmerized.
Coi stopped and smiled sweetly “I see that you approve.” she giggled softly “All show for my people. The belt is uncomfortable, the headband a bit heavy…and I must always remember to stand erect.” She turned to one side where no one could see and bent down as her gown dropped to reveal not only her nicely formed breasts, but her chest all the way down to her navel.
“See, if I do not stand completely upright?” she laughed “I prefer my hides, but my people want to see the princess looking like a princess when I’m home, so I wear the gowns and the jewelry…and try to remember not to bend too much or they will really see more of their princess than I’d care to reveal…” she gave Jack an evil grin and licked her lips “except to my love.”
Jack gave her a wink “Well then, what say the princess stays erect.”
Coi stepped closely to her lover and slid her hand downward with a throaty laugh.
“It would seem that standing erect isn’t a problem that you have my love.” Jack chuckled uncomfortably as she stepped back and locked her arm through his and headed them in the direction of the old temples.
“I do so love your language, one can play with the words so delightfully.” the smile faded and Coi pointed toward the gate that led to the isolated temples.
“And now my love, we shall see if the old ones might shed some light on your search for a way to help your people.” What Jack couldn’t do was read her thoughts and her sincere hope that they wouldn’t. Coi wound never deceive Jack nor try to prevent his mission, nor did she have to hope for his success.
For the next three days Coi and Jack poured over the third temple’s written records that were kept in English…and found nothing of help.
Four days were spent in the second temple whose records went back even farther, but had to be translated by Coi to English.
Luckily in the first temple that only had stone tablets and ancient writings, Coi was fairly well versed because royalty had to know the ancient tongue.
Nearly a week more passed and several visits from Jack’s crew, the chief Quta, and various elders, Jack was none the closer, and his frustration showed.
On the start of the new week, Coi had assembled climbing gear, Jack’s friends Larry and Sam, and brought Jack to meet them at the last temple.
Jack had been told of one great temple that had been built by the old ones and had fallen in a great earth-shake long before Coi was born, long before her father had been born; this was their destination.
As they stood upon the cliff looking down to the deep green jungle and rocky rubble below, they finished attaching their gear, and climbed into the basket to be lowered down. The temple had been massive and over the centuries piece by piece it had been raised, copied and lowered back into place. At some point it became so unstable, the priests feared entering further…this was where Coi hoped that any answers might still exist. So much of the old temple had been covered by parts of the mesa that had fallen with it. Jack’s men were the first down.
“The priests tell me that there are areas that go deep into the earth, but they are afraid to go.” Coi informed Jack as she closed the basket’s door and latched it. She nodded at the Mayan’s that lowered the basket and it began its long descent.
The basket was smaller than the others, but stable, the rope had been replaced and maintained throughout the ages in hopes that more knowledge might be found. Now that same rope lowered them two at a time to the rocky debris below.
As Coi and Jack were lowered they could see Larry and Sam standing watch below.
Upon hitting the debris field Jack could see broken carved stone and realized that the temple that fell with part of the mesa, hit and crumbled down the sloping debris field. He looked down and saw a huge vine covered ruin, but it hardly looked anywhere close to the size of the other temples. Where had the rest of the temple gone?
“I’m a bit puzzled Coi.” Jack looked around “I see part of the structure, but I thought it would be much larger from the way your priests were talking.”
“My father said it was from what he had been told, but…” she sighed as she looked around “maybe some of the debris covered it.”
Larry had been looking at the large part of the temple as it laid on its side.
“Agreed, Jack…” he shrugged “Christ, look at the size of that thing. There is no way this temple debris is the rest of it.”
Cautiously they picked their way among the loose rocky path trying their best to be quiet, and realizing that they were not.
Coi pointed to a large flat rock that was devoid of vines.
“This is the entrance my love. Our priests keep it cleared in hopes that someday we might be able to find a way deeper into our past.” Coi paused briefly, sighed “But I have heard the priests telling my father that…” he motioned for the guys to move the flat stone to their left and it opened with little effort.
“As I started to say, there is a place that must be shorn before we can enter, and then it is extremely dangerous…too dangerous even for our experts. Even Jan’s engineers said they would not attempt to move the stone that blocks the passage because this place is far too unstable.”
She looked at Jack as they all flicked on their flashlights and pointed to a rocky path down into the bowels of the stone megalith.
Below another giant stone slab and through another narrow passage, Coi crouched and vanished into a tiny crack. From the crack came her musical and somewhat dust-choked voice.
“Even the smallest earth-shake will spell our doom.”
Jack squeezed in after her, but had to do so on his stomach. Larry looked over to Sam and grinned “Oh great we get to be Paninis.” and crawled in behind his friend.
Sam took one last glance back to make sure that they had replaced the flat stone to keep things like raptors out lowered himself onto his stomach and flashed his light into the narrow space.
“Hey guys? Ahh, I’m like the biggest one here, if I get stuck you know you all are going to have one hell of a time pushing me back.”
Jack’s voice echoed back up at Sam.
“Stay there Sam, we’re in a small chamber but Coi
said she can see a small antechamber through even a smaller pass. Give us about an hour and turn on your walki, we’ll check in with our progress, but not until then, God only knows how long these batteries will last.”
“Roger that boss…one hour.”
“Oh, and Sam? We can hear what sounds like running water. If you can get that stone door open again, head south and see if you can find any signs of a stream, or some kind of outlet for water. Coi said no priest had ever been down here, let alone hear water there has to be an underground stream or something…looks like this temple has fallen on top of a friggin’ cavern or something.”
“Good luck boss.” and Sam could hear the sounds of scuffling getting softer and quieter until there was nothing but silence.
He did get the door open and closed again and headed south along the massive debris field of mesa and temple…and keeping a wary eye out for raptors. Sam muttered softly…
“I hate those raptors, so sneaky and quiet, prefer those big mothers at least ya can hear a tree snapping.” and he slipped into the green jungle fringe to find nothing.
***************************
An hour passed and after a quick check in, Jack told Sam to just sit and wait for them at the rope to take them up. At sunset Sam called to warn them the sun was going down but was told to go up for the night and tell those above that they were safe and spending the night deep in the temple. Sam as usual, reluctantly followed his orders.
As Jack turned off his radio he looked at the others “You know what puzzled me most is the moving water.” Jack muttered as they pressed into a smaller passage shored up by two massive stone monoliths with ancient Mayan hieroglyphs that barely gave them enough room to squeeze through. This time it was Jack that almost forced them to turn back, his bulging muscles barely made it through and what did come through was scraped and abraded.
Coi struck her flints and lit several torches and their jaws dropped at what they beheld.
A massive room with even more massive stone monoliths that had crashed through into some sort of massive cavern. Water trickled around their feet in small rivulets and vanished into another darkened maw to the far end of the cavern.
Coi was stunned as she wandered along the massive stones reading and smiling, and reading some more.
Jack would ask her what she was reading and she’d hush him and this went on for hours as she wandered from stone to stone and occasionally stooped to read part of a tablet lying on the debris strewn floor.
Another hour passed and Jack understood that she was reading her history; history that had not been seen in at least a century. Patience was not one of Jack’s strong points.
“Baby, the suspense is killin’ me…come on, give!” He looked at his watch and noted it was nearly midnight.
Coi sat on a large boulder and wedged her torch between two more and looked at the men as they sat.
“In what you say…a nut shell? From what I’ve read there is mention that the old ones came through a door the gods made for them thinking this was a world put aside for them; instead they found only death, horror, and that they could not return through the door.
As our parchments told they found the mesas, but apparently at that time there were still some demons living wandering around yours and Jan’s mesas, so they settled on this one.
As more of our people came through, more mesas were settled and the civilization as we are now, were born.
There is a slot missing, but from what I can decipher, there is mention of a race even older than ours that was already here.” Coi looked frustrated “Several stones mentioned them but gave no appearance, nor mention where they were, but the old ones called them gods. The only thing mentioned was the mesa with the arch is the closest to the gods and from the point on the arch there is a giant flat stone from which they could see the gods coming and going.
For a brief time the gods helped the old ones. They helped them by providing food from the sea while they planted their crops…” she looked puzzled “and from the sound of it, it must have been a lot of sea food as our people came from many tribes as the word spread on our world. Finally the keepers of the door on our world came through when no more Mayan’s came to live with the gods.” She smiled in the flickering torchlight “By then the old ones had set lookouts a lot like what we all take turns doing at the portal today.”
“Does it say any more about what happened to these gods?” Larry asked Coi.
“Not much Larry. It sounds like the two peoples got along for a while, but something happened and there was a long bloody war. To stop the bloodshed the gods said they would go home to the sea…or across it, something like that, and leave the jungles here to the Mayans.
Coi smiled slightly “But there were a few other mentions of the gods. Personally I think the gods kept a check on their children as even though the sightings were many decades apart, there were sightings. Both sides kept apart though as there was no more mention of war.”
Jack kept running the same thing through his head and then it hit him.
“Whoa…gods warred with humans? Bloody wars? Doesn’t sound much like gods to me…” it looked like a light bulb should have appeared over Jack’s head as he grinned.
“Jesus! Maybe they were just more advanced! I mean look at us, if we’d gone back to the early stages of…oh, say the Egyptians, wouldn’t we have looked like gods to them?”
“Christ Jack…Coi…could these gods have been the people that created the portal?” Larry nearly tripped over his words as they spilled out.
Jack nodded in agreement “Coi does it say where this giant stone arch is? If we could find it, then maybe we could…”
Coi chuckled “I know it well my love. It is part of Chuluan, what you would call mesa eleven, it is the farthest south. Before any of my people can remember, maybe back before we came, part of the mesa was washed…uh, eroded away by the ocean. It stands as tall as the mesa and is wide enough for one to walk across it easily. It is only three or four kilometers from the buccaneer mesa, both have parts of their mesas that abut the sea. Maybe the pirates can tell us something as they have mostly abandoned their mesa and live in a rocky cove on the sea. From what traders tell us, they only leave the cove when the storms come and retreat to the caves on that side of the mesa. Their civilization is not well known as it is they that come to trade with us as a rule. There are rumors about a large cove, none of our people have ever gone there…” she sighed “or at least none have returned that tried.” she smiled warmly “Since then we have made friends with them, but they still prefer to come to us to trade. One did come and live with us for a while, he was my friend…but that was a very long time ago.”
Jack smiled “Ok so that’ll be our next move…once we get some sleep and get the hell outta here. This place gives me the Willies.”
Chapter 16.
With only a few hours of sleep under their belts, the trio was awakened by a gentle shaking that was common. What was unsettling, was the sound of falling rocks and a quick check found that the two monoliths that had held up the tiny passageway for centuries…no longer did, they had slid together and now completely blocked the passage out.
A quick check of his watch told Jack that it was still dark, but early morning; Sam would not be within radio range for hours.
The second thing they thought of was the far end of the cavern where the water was leading to. Following the narrow stream as it wound around and through the large boulders of the obviously unstable cavern. Through the cramped passage ways they crawled as they used only their LED flashlights. Larry led as Jack followed Coi through the twists and turns of the system of caverns and caves, the stream was obviously once a mighty underground river that had cut a winding path through the granite mountain. Finally they came out into a huge cavern with a ceiling that had to be at least one hundred feet high.
Their beams barely reached the ceiling as the darkness of the maw before them swallowed up the beams of light and they could barely hear
one another above the flowing rivulet that they followed as it echoed off the rocky walls. It ran around boulders and rocks the size of a body and upward to the size of a car, most were covered in mossy growth. They carefully picked their way over and around the rubble that had fallen from the ceiling. Larry who was the expert in spelunking and geology explained that making undue sounds could bring the ceiling down upon them…which was why he made no sound as his light vanished from sight.
Coi gave a muffled scream and quickly clamped both hands over her mouth as Jack joined her looking down to the floor a dozen feet below where Larry laid strangely twisted among several large rocks.
Jack picked his way down a few feet as the falling dark waters trickled over him and then dropped down a few yards from his friend. He watched as Coi slowly descended and grasped her waist as she dropped to the cavern’s floor; they hurried over to Larry.
“Man oh man, Jack I really fucked up this time old pal…can’t feel anything from the waist down. Have a few broken ribs, and dislocated my shoulder…” he smiled in the beam of Jack’s light “but I popped it back in while you all took your time getting here.” he chuckled softly and tried not to cough.
“Easy pal, we’ll get ya out of here and…” Jack never finished as Larry grasped Jack’s arm.
“Shhhh…” his flashlight slowly moved upward “as I looked up I also saw those.” From the ceiling hung some sort of creature, but as they watched there was more movement. From the fragile ceiling bat-like creatures hung from the roots that had managed to penetrate the rock. They looked to be at least three feet long and Jack could only guess at what their wingspan might be.
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