by Alehandro
Chauncy shook his head. “Well, well, look at this! Pardon my boldness, but you Mayanists remind me of Bible scholars of different religions who claim they know the proper translation of the scriptures while others do not.”
Dr. Sova’s eyes lit up as he lifted his index finger. “Precisely my point; that is an excellent analogy, Chauncy, but let me ask you a question. Of all the Bible scholars, there must be one man, yes only one who has the proper translation, one that truly understands what the Bible writer meant to write! Do you agree?”
Chauncy smiled. “There is a possibility, but….”
“Of course there is!” Dr. Sova interrupted. “Surely you do not think the God of the Bible would let God-fearing men remain in a state of confusion regarding His own word, would you? But what He does is weed out the idiots and mental midgets who do not want to spend their energies to figure out what the scriptures really mean, therefore they fall back to believing false ideas and doctrines that are not taught in the Bible - and the same can be said of the Mayan riddle. I have spent my mental energies figuring out how to unlock the secrets on the temple steps, while the other scholars are playing it safe by not going beyond what they have been taught in schools. Soon you will see that I am telling you the truth. But, alas, this task is too great for one man; I cannot do it alone. I need your help, Chauncy. You are intelligent enough, my friend. You have an uncluttered mind when it comes to these matters, you can learn quickly, especially under my tutelage.”
Chauncy was overwhelmed. What the doctor was asking of him just seemed too much; the reason for coming to Mexico was to inspect the bones of ancient Mayan kings, not to start a new vocation. It just seemed all too unrealistic to him. Chauncy wondered if Sova was making a rash decision or perhaps the doctor’s intellect was being superseded by his excitement of finding a candidate suitable for training. Whatever the case, Chauncy was still unsure how to respond.
With his hand on Chauncy’s shoulder, the doctor pleaded, “Please, I ask you - will you assist me? Not only will I double your wages, but imagine how this exciting find will change your life forever.”
Chauncy took a deep breath to calm his nerves as he looked around the study. He was here, in the very lair of perhaps the most intelligent linguist alive. Every scroll, every rock, every book in this room spoke of the time and energy Dr. Sova put into his work. Perhaps the doctor really was onto something. Perhaps only he knew the secret behind the Mayan riddle, something that others were not aware of. What did he have to lose anyway? Even if the doctor was wrong, Chauncy would be properly compensated, in addition to having the bragging rights of saying that he had been mentored by the famous Dr. Sova.
Chauncy heaved a sigh. “Okay Doc, you win.”
Dr. Sova clapped his hands together. “Good, good. Tomorrow we start your language lessons.”
“But wait!” Chauncy protested. “How will I ever learn the Mayan language in so short a period of time?”
“There is a method I developed after much research that can help to expedite your abilities. It is the same system that I applied to myself, so I know it works, as I am now fluent in French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, English, and two different Mayan dialects. The brain is a powerful tool, Chauncy, but first I must teach you how to unlock its potential. Now let us get some rest, for tomorrow will come quickly.”
A sudden realization hit Chauncy. “Wait a minute! Just one minute! You…you knew that the shaft of Temple #22 would be filled with debris, didn’t you? And you knew it would take a few weeks to clear out all the rubble before Mack and I were even needed to look at the skeleton of the king! And now by having me here early, you were hoping I would be convinced to join you! And now Mack is going to be out there in Palenque examining his hands and scratching his nose while you teach me how to read Mayan hieroglyphs. Am I right?”
Dr. Sova chuckled, his eyes twinkling. “Ah, yes! Now do you see why I chose you? You are - how do you say it in America? Oh yes: you are ‘one smart cookie’.”
The following morning, bright and early, the first day of class began in earnest.
Dr. Sova was sitting in his study when Chauncy arrived; there was a new item on the wall that Chauncy had not noticed before. It was a large poster of the human brain was on the wall behind the doctor, various regions clearly marked. Dr. Sova instructed Chauncy to sit down in a chair that was opposite him, and then stared into his student’s eyes.
Dr. Sova was in good spirits, but when he spoke his voice betrayed none of his own eagerness. Instead, he spoke slowly and methodically. “Before I begin teaching you the Mayan dialects, I shall reveal to you the secrets of how I learned so many languages. Years ago, while attending a university, in France, I would routinely visit a nearby morgue for experimentation. Despite my particular science, I was fascinated with the human brain, and I performed many an experiment on a corpse’s brain, most of them extremely esoteric and unusual. I wanted to understand exactly how the brain was responsible for human speech and language comprehension. As you can observe from the poster behind me, scientists have already mapped where the brain handles speech, but that did not satisfy me. I wanted to answer the question of ‘how?’”
The doctor paused, exhaled slowly as he crossed his legs and then continued his story. “If I could solve the mystery, then I would be able to concentrate my energies and stimulate just those particular brain cells in my own head, thereby wasting as little time and energy as possible. As you may know, the brain is composed of approximately ten billion neurons, and each neuron has over one thousand synapses that act like bridges between the cells. Studies other than my own have shown that when the neurons are regularly hyper-stimulated, a phenomenon occurs in which the synapses actually become stronger, allowing more information to travel in an easier manner. The challenge for me, then, was to spend all of my energies hyper-stimulating the brain cells related to language. If I could accomplish this, the learning of languages would be expedited.”
Chauncy was puzzled. “But what use would dead brain cells have to your research? Unless the dead can talk, that is.”
Dr. Sova chuckled. “That is a good question, and one I asked myself! I could slice and photograph and dissect a thousand dead brains and it would still get me nowhere. What I needed, then, was a live human to experiment on, one into which I could inject a radioactive solution and observe the dendrites, axons, neurons and synapses at work. One day I went to visit a good friend of mine who was studying to be a surgeon. I casually mentioned the problem I was having concerning the human brain. Despite the risks and the questionable legality, he allowed me to perform my experiment on him by injecting a small bit of solution into his neck and then taking pictures via my X-ray camera while he read various paragraphs I had prepared for him. The results were exactly what I hoped for.”
Chauncy leaned forward. “And what were the results?”
Dr. Sova swiveled around in his chair and pressed a few keys on the nearest computer. After a few seconds he pointed to the monitor. “See for yourself.”
Chauncy stood up to get a better view over Dr. Sova’s shoulder. He could clearly see the dark outline of a man’s head, along with some lights that were pulsing up his neck toward his brain.
“You see the lights moving up the neck? That is the radioactive solution I injected. In but a few seconds it will light up my friend’s brain neurons like Paris at night. However, once he starts reading the material I prepared for him, the neurons that control speech light up even brighter. See?”
Chauncy noticed that a particular portion of the lights had indeed turned brighter and were rotating in a semi-circle near the left temple of the head. The lights were actually very colorful, shifting patterns as he watched. Blue, orange and crimson all eventually wound together.
“Now, however, observe what happens when I have him continue reading and attempt to juggle three balls. Notice this challenges his brain cells to the limit.”
Indeed, it was hard not to notice, and Chauncy could not hel
p but feel awestruck as the same semi-circle moved even faster and got even brighter. “Amazing!” Chauncy gasped.
“Now watch what happens when I have him read a paragraph in English, which is not his native tongue and is a language he has difficulty with, while he continues to juggle.”
Suddenly, another swirl of lights began to form next to the original swirl. Chauncy stared in fascinated delight. “So there is a different ‘compartment,’ so to speak, for each language the brain tries to comprehend?”
“Yes. The main purpose of the exercise, however, was to determine what exactly would lead to hyper-stimulation of the cells.” Dr. Sova pressed a button and the computer screen went blank. “And that is exactly what I discovered. I have formulated at least seventeen different teaching techniques that hyper-stimulate the brain cells, specifically those related to language. Fascinating, is it not? You see why I do not waste my mental powers on trivial stupidity? Let us get started and you will understand.”
Chapter Four
Chauncy stared at the hieroglyphs for the fifth time that morning, trying desperately to juggle a few paperweights at the same time. “So you’ve assigned the jaguar head to the letter A, and the serpent to B, but this tree thing here is not a letter but a sound? Is that what you mean?”
Dr. Sova nodded. “These are, of course, not the literal transliterations but for our purposes they will do. Even a cursory study of the code, however, would reveal the simple substitution of symbols for letters, which is why I have taken our Mayan code a step further.”
Chauncy dropped a paperweight. He picked it up and continued juggling. Chauncy sighed and stared at the glyph again. It made a certain sense, of course, but that didn’t mean it was coming very easily. “Let’s return to the real hieroglyphs, shall we?”
Dr. Sova chuckled. “As you wish, I’ve taught you the first group of twenty. Read it for me. Come on!”
Suppressing a grimace, Chauncy turned to the wall, where a duplicate of the scroll had been posted. Squinting at the hieroglyphs, he began to read. “Here lies the great King Chac, supreme and trusted ruler of fifty-three lands and the richest monarch of all.”
“Your memory is certainly good enough, Chauncy, but that is not what we are testing here, now is it?”
Chauncy couldn’t quite suppress his grimace this time. He was hoping Dr. Sova wouldn’t notice that he hadn’t read the glyphs but had simply recited the sentence from memory. “No, I guess not,” he managed to reply.
Dr. Sova chuckled, then extended his pointer and rested its edge against one of the glyphs. “What does this symbol mean? Tell me!”
Chauncy immediately recognized it, despite his lack of familiarity with the Mayan language. “That is the head glyph of the sun-god, here combined with dashes and dots to represent the number fifty-three.”
“Excellent! That was too easy. Now what glyph is this?” The doctor pointed at one glyph past the familiar territory of the first block of twenty, and Chauncy could almost feel the neurons in his brain try to catch up. It looked familiar, as he glanced between that glyph and the first twenty. He desperately tried to remember what the glyph meant.
And promptly let out a curse when one of the paperweights he was juggling slipped from his grasp and landed squarely on his toes.
Dr. Sova glanced at him quizzically. “Sorry, but there is no Mayan translation for that,” the linguist said with a hint of humor.
Chauncy dropped the other paperweights and grabbed his foot.
“Take a seat and rest a bit. You’re doing quite well.” Dr. Sova said.
Chauncy sat down, still trying to rub his injured foot. He looked up at the doctor. “The word is ‘Supreme’?”
A smile broke out on the doctor’s face. It was obvious that he was both pleased and impressed. “Indeed, that is what the glyph means! You are catching on very quickly.”
Chauncy stared at the poster. “How much of my speed is linked to my natural intelligence compared to this brain cell hyper-stimulation of yours?”
Dr. Sova sat down across from Chauncy. “I would have to say that it is probably an equal ratio. You are naturally a very quick learner; I am only helping you to focus that natural ability on one particular area, so it all works out in the end.”
Chauncy glanced out the window. The shadows were at the opposite angle from when he had last looked. That meant it was past noon; they had been here through the entire morning. He stood up, his brain too worked up to rest at the moment, the pain in his foot forgotten. This is going to be harder than I had imagined. What was I thinking? Chauncy thought.
As the days passed and Chauncy learned Dr. Sova’s Mayan Code, he transferred that knowledge to help decipher the actual Mayan hieroglyphs. He could now pick out words and even compose simple sentences. He and Dr. Sova pored over the Mayan riddle every day, seeking to find patterns that would give more clues to its secret.
Thus far, the only thing they could find was the three references to the deities. They continued to mix training with the reading of the actual riddle. By the end of the third week, Chauncy could read King Chac’s message in its entirety and write most of it as well.
In the fourth week, they found it.
“I knew that devilish king had something up his sleeve!” Dr. Sova shouted as he excitedly copied the glyphs onto a separate piece of paper. The two of them hunched over the scroll and double-checked their findings, their wild guesses, and their measurements.
There was no doubt. They had finally cracked the code hiding King Chac’s message. The only problem was that they now had a riddle within a riddle to figure out! The text read as follows: “Sun god follows the winged serpent, winged serpent points to the gods of the underworld where treasure is to be found.”
Dr. Sova sat down and heaved a sigh. “He is taunting us.”
“How so?”
“It is all about Xibalba.”
“Explain that again to me.”
Dr. Sova looked at Chauncy. “Xibalba is the cosmos of the Mayan underworld, the place of fright, the place of legends! According to Maya mythology, a great battle of twin brothers occurred. They were skilled at playing a traditional ballgame. Their raucous noise disturbed the gods of the underworld, who then challenged them to a contest. The gods, of course, defeated the twins easily and subsequently had them sacrificed, their bodies buried under the ball court and their heads hung on a tree. Eventually, a goddess named Xquic went to see the tree for herself and became impregnated by one of the heads that spat in her hands. She gave birth to the twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque, and they became known as the Hero Twins.
“As time passed they became ball players like their father. Soon, though, they returned to Xibalba for revenge. After performing many tricks in front of the underworld gods, the twins contrived an ingenious trick: Xbalanque beheaded his brother Hunahpu and then made him whole again. The gods were so fascinated by this display that they begged to be sacrificed and revived in the same fashion as Hunahpu. The twins were more than happy to oblige, so they proceeded to dismember the gods but refused to restore them to their original condition, thereby defeating them once and for all. Good triumphed over evil and the earth was now prepared for the dawn of human beings. The Hero Twins emerged from the underworld as the sun and the moon and each day they reenact their journey to Xibalba.”
Chauncy tilted his head to the side. “That is a very fascinating story, Doc! You’ll forgive me, however, if I don’t see what it has to do with our riddle.”
Dr. Sova laughed. “The mention of Xibalba is the clue and I think I can venture to say that I may have figured out how the word was meant to be understood.”
“Okay, tell me.”
“Xibalba is not only the god of the underworld, but the underworld itself. The Maya believed that caves were the entrance to the underworld, and the same word, Xibalba, was used to refer to both of them. So our sly King Chac used a double meaning once again, this time to point to the destination. King Chac’s vast fortune is hidden inside of
a cave!”
“So, have we found it?” Chauncy mused with a slight hint of sarcasm.
Dr. Sova laughed again. “I wish it was that easy. Do you know how many caves are in Palenque? Tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands! An army of men could spend their entire lives digging and searching and would not be able to uncover them all, let alone find the right one.”
All Chauncy could manage was a deflated, “Oh.” They had been so close.
“But fear not, my good friend. The key to the cave is right here, in this riddle! Somehow we must figure out how the sun-god and the winged serpent point to the right cave, and we will have discovered King Chac’s treasure! We must study the entire message again and see if we can find any more clues.”
Days passed, and Chauncy was indeed becoming fluent in the Mayan language. When Dr. Sova would occasionally leave the hacienda on business, the two of them would communicate via hand written letters in their own Mayan Code they had invented. The code consisted of picture-graphic Mayan symbols. Chauncy found it sharpened his abilities to distinguish the difficult shapes of the Mayan hieroglyphs.
He was consistently amazed by Dr. Sova’s extraordinary mental abilities. It seemed that the doctor’s mind never rested, and regardless of the time of day, Dr. Sova was always alert, always “on,” analyzing everything, never missing even the smallest of details. He had an excellent grasp of science, history, and of course, languages. Every morning he would keep himself abreast of the current events of the world via the Internet, and afterwards he would immerse himself in the study of the Mayan hieroglyphs that had been discovered on the steps of Temple #22.
However, as with all men, Dr. Sova had faults, which eventually came to light. Chauncy noticed several idiosyncrasies and habits that were beginning to irritate him. First of all, there was the constant cigar smoke that hung around the house. Chauncy, a non-smoker, was finding it hard to breathe inside the hacienda. Then there were the daily disparaging remarks about his fellow man. According to Dr. Sova, the majority of mankind were fools and buffoons, especially the uneducated and poor.