Looters were a common problem in Central America, because of the poverty of resident populations. Removing undiscovered monuments—literally excising the sculpture right from the stone—was certainly more lucrative than subsistence farming. Of course the middleman profited the most from these enterprises. A polychrome plate purchased by a local dealer for a thousand dollars could then be sold to a gallery in New York or Brussels for twenty to thirty thousand dollars. Private collectors would often pay more than twice that. So priceless monuments and artifacts had made their way out of the country, just as Egyptian artifacts had once been stolen from Africa.
Most archaeologists suspected that Site Q was in Guatemala. They were convinced that every possible site had been discovered in the populous country of Mexico. There’d been much speculation that Calakmul, in Guatemala, was Site Q. But since the statuary with the snake head found in private collections had no reference to Calakmul in its glyphs, it clearly could not come from that site.
Megan subscribed to a different theory altogether. Although the snake-head city—or state, as some believed it to be—must have had a prominent place in the Mayan world, she’d seen evidence of its erasure on some monuments in Palenque and Tikal. In places where the glyph had been painted over, with expert application of paint-removal tinctures, she’d been able to reveal its hidden presence. Had the city been conquered, its king captured or killed, this would have been broadcast on all the stelae of the Maya. Instead, references to it had been removed, covered up, expunged. This was odd, to say the least. It reminded her of what had happened to Akhenaton—pharaoh and husband to Nefertiti—in 1350 B.C.E. When he ascended his throne, he introduced monotheism—the worship of one god instead of the Egyptian pantheon. However, following his reign, Tutankhamen, Ay, and Horemheb, the last kings of the 18th dynasty, bent their efforts to restoring Egypt to pantheism. They dismantled the temples and erased references to Akhenaton from all the monuments. Very few were recovered intact. Yet those few revealed to the world that Akhenaton had existed, and sculptures of the most beautiful woman in the ancient world became known.
So, too, the remaining monuments to Site Q—the snake-head city—revealed its existence regardless of efforts to expunge its memory. So why the erasures? Had the Serpent King also done something to offend local customs? Mere defeat would not have caused such an extraordinary reaction, which was particularly intense in Palenque, where the number of erasures had topped fifty. Megan could only speculate that the site was near Palenque—somewhere in Mexico, but as yet undiscovered.
Until now, she thought with glee. Walking up to the battered ruins, wiping away jungle residue, she’d found the snake-head glyph and the serpent king carvings. Nothing could have dampened the thrill of victory she’d felt upon seeing those reliefs. She’d wandered through the city in a daze. Never had she dreamed that she would be the one to find it. When she’d spoken to her old Harvard buddy, Kat, about a new cave in Mexico that had rumors of some Mayan scrawling on the walls, she’d jumped at the chance to explore it. She’d thought it might lend more clues to the location of Site Q. It hadn’t entered her mind that this could be the location of the mysterious city that she’d been puzzling over for most of her professional life.
Could it be lost to her now? The wealth of Mayan artwork and sculpture? The prestige of finding the location? A boost to the only thing that mattered in her miserable life—her career. She couldn’t bear to think that this great archaeological treasure would remain undiscovered. That their bodies would be added to the Mayan graves and the sacrificial victims.
“We will find a way out,” she said determinedly.
“Right,” said Kat, without much conviction. “We’ll look beyond the columns. But first I think we should bed down for the night. We need to regain strength before we search any farther.”
Megan didn’t exactly agree. They should keep going as long as they could. Soon their batteries would run out and maybe even their food stocks. And if gas began to vent from the walls, they’d exhaust the rebreathers’ helium and the scrubbers’ ability to remove CO2. But it seemed none of the men were up to arguing with Kat, and it was true that the woman did look awful.
“Okay. We’ll rest,” Megan said reluctantly. “Maybe we should head deeper into the cave and establish a camp away from the walls, just in case there is some gas leaking in here.”
Kat nodded and motioned for Megan to lead, surprisingly. It was frightening to watch initiative leach away from this usually indomitable woman. Megan turned and retraced their steps along the lake. After about a hundred meters, she veered away from the shore and headed in amongst the columns, where the height of the cave seemed greater. At what she decided was the largest, most ventilated spot, she released her pack and sank to the rock bed. The others collapsed around her. Nobody moved or said anything—they just stared at each other as if they were on a tiny life raft in the middle of the ocean with no hope of rescue. Megan shook her head. She wanted to scream, “Don’t give up!”
Instead she rummaged through her pack and withdrew their portable stove, lit it, emptied some lake water into a pot, and dropped in a purifying tablet.
“A cup of hot chocolate and some oatmeal might revive us a bit.”
Kat lay back and stretched out on the ground. “I’m not very hungry.”
“No arguments,” Megan snapped. “You need to regain your strength. We’re not about to lose one of our leaders.”
“That goes double for me,” said Ray.
“Do you suppose that’s how he died?” asked Pete, as usual not even caring about his fellow human beings.
“Who?” asked Megan.
“The dead guy, the skeleton. Do you think it was gas?”
“Maybe,” said Ray.
“There’s something we should tell you,” said Kat. She rolled over on her side and supported her head with her hand. “About the dead man. We think the body isn’t very fresh.”
Ray cocked an eyebrow and Pete tilted his head.
“I mean Megan thought it was like the ones in the city. A Maya from the first millennium.”
“But,” said Ray, scrunching his face, “how in the world did he get down here? They wouldn’t have had scuba gear or modern climbing equipment.”
“That’s a good question,” said Kat. “That’s why we thought there had to be another entrance, maybe an easier route to the surface.”
“Well, it certainly wasn’t yours,” said Pete, “unless he was a lot skinnier.”
“No,” said Kat. “Probably wasn’t.”
“So there must be another way in.”
Kat nodded, but she wouldn’t meet Pete’s gaze.
“You don’t think there is,” he said.
“There might be,” said Kat. “Or maybe he was swept in here just like us. Maybe this is a one-way street with a cul-de-sac.”
Megan couldn’t understand this. Why was Kat being so negative? The last thing they needed was to lose hope.
“There is a way out,” she said. The pot began steaming, creating a misty landscape. Bony white trees and skeletal fingers pointed at her from the walls and ceiling. She shuddered and waved away the steam. “Oatmeal anyone?” she asked, a tremor in her voice.
A chorus of blank “yeahs” greeted her. Ray plunked some bowls in front of her and she scooped heaps of the dried instant variety into each, pouring the boiling water over it. They ate in silence, filling the empty pits in their stomachs, taking mild comfort from the warm gruel. After that, they pulled out their mats and bedded down. Kat’s snores buzzed through the cavern almost immediately.
How could she do it? How could she drift off so easily when she now seemed convinced that they were trapped? Despite Megan’s attempt to stay positive, she couldn’t help but feel deflated. What if there wasn’t another way out? What if they were going to lean up against a column, just like the Mayan man, and die here?
Her thoughts spun through her head like a twister—hope and then despair, each battling to take hold
. Ray had switched off the light, and the shroud of darkness made the air feel heavier. A light breeze continued to sift from Kat’s crawlway, but there was no other wafting of wind, and nothing but dead air in the other corner of the cavern. Everything was dead. Her eyes drifted closed. But just as her eyelashes swept downward before settling against her cheek, her retina caught a tiny blink of luminescence. She fought to regain consciousness, but sleep had snatched her away.
Chapter Nineteen
The ladder into the sinkhole undulated along its entire length, but somehow Mark managed to keep his balance. Carefully he felt for the rung below, the rebreather and pack weighing him down like an anchor. He didn’t know how he was going to reach the bottom without slipping off, but somehow he had to. Rung by rung he descended, dropping below the layer of leaves to where he could see only bare earth and roots.
Funny, he felt like he was dangling over the jaws of a giant viper, willingly descending into its belly and providing it with its next lip-smacking meal. The snake pit in Snake City. Maybe this place was cursed. When he was almost halfway down to the water’s surface, an annoying buzz snipped at his ear. He shook his head, seeing some fuzzy black bodies streaking around him.
“Watch for the wasps,” said Jorge from above, chuckling.
“Thanks for the warning,” said Mark. He took a deep breath and plunged through the swarm that erupted from a globular clay nest at eye level. This time he didn’t wait to find the next rung but slid three meters down, feeling the rope burn into his palms. Now the swarm was above him, just about where Jorge was climbing. Whose turn was it to chuckle now?
He worked his way down another six meters. As he trod on the next rung, something lashed out, right at his waist. “Shit!” he screamed. “Damn! It’s another snake.” Luckily the fangs had missed his chest and merely nicked his drysuit. But the writhing green and black body recoiled into its niche and prepared to strike again.
Mark panicked. He let go of the ladder and fell the final six meters into the dark pool below. His body plunged underwater, the weight of his pack and rebreather tugging him under. He didn’t have the mask over his face, so he struggled upward, swimming with all his strength to regain the surface. The rebreather, buoyant with its mix of oxygen and helium, helped elevate him. Mark broke the surface and gasped. He was braced to come face to face with the snake again and started when he saw a man’s face instead. Jorge.
He rested, catching his breath. “Was that one poisonous?” he asked.
“Oh yes,” said Jorge. “A fer-de-lance—some call it the pit viper. Lethal poison in its fangs. It has killed more people in Central and South American than any other snake. You were wise to jump. Full of surprises you are, doctor.”
“Yeah, fear can make you wise sometimes,” said Mark.
Jorge grinned. He clapped Mark on the shoulder. “This is only the beginning, doctor. Enjoy the adventure.”
Adventure, hah! Now he sounded like Kat.
“Let’s get this over with.”
“Okay. We dive straight down for thirty meters, then you follow me to the right. Don’t stray. It gets dark quickly as you go deeper, and you wouldn’t want to miss the opening of the cave.”
Mark nodded, dread saturating his mind. Jorge slipped on his mask, activated the oxygen mix, donned his flippers, and dove under. Mark, reluctantly, began to do the same. The rebreathers were equipped with full face masks with built-in microphones and an underwater PA system so that divers could talk to each other, but that was small comfort to Mark. Although Jorge had come to his rescue once, he had hardly leaped to help him with the snake. If he ran into trouble underwater, it was anyone’s guess whether Jorge would turn around and save him. He flashed a last glance at the reptile, still writhing in its cleft on the cliff. He hoped there wouldn’t be snakes in the water. Headfirst, he ducked under and pumped toward the disappearing body of his guide.
The water was clear enough near the surface to see a few fish wriggling by, but soon the sinkhole became a murky twilight world with only a trickle of light. Mark flicked on his headlamp and paddled harder to keep up with Jorge as the light illuminated his receding flippers, but began falling helplessly behind. He couldn’t see the bottom of the sinkhole as he spiraled deeper, but just when he was starting to wonder if they were ever going to reach the opening to the cave, he saw the flicker of Jorge’s light to the side and not below him.
Relief flooded through Mark as he veered toward the limestone wall. Another meter and they would be in the cave.
In the cave. Not a moment for relief. He was journeying into the jaws of his worst nightmare. He stopped and hovered a few centimeters from the opening, trying to get a grip on nerves that were jangling like bells. He turned his head away, closed his eyes, then reluctantly opened them, prepared to plunge into hell itself. When he was still turned away, his light swept over what appeared to be the bottom of the sinkhole after all—a solid layer of mud and debris. Silt choked the water around him and he could just detect . . . oh no, not again.
A skull. Shifting in and out of view in the soup of silt their passage had stirred up on the bottom of the cenote. Staring up at him in hollow-eyed derision. Where one existed, inevitably . . . two, three . . . a dozen. Smooth or sloped foreheads, jaw bones detached and resting nearby. Mark sucked in some air from his tank, which made him lightheaded as well as terrified. What in heaven’s name was this? He aimed his light over the bottom of the sinkhole, taking in great heaps of bones, ribs poking out of the muck, humerus and finger bones, a spade-shaped scapula. The skulls lay slightly distant and dissociated from the majority of the skeletons. They didn’t appear to be in any way similar to the bodies in the temple. These people had been decapitated.
Some artifacts surrounded the bones: gold face ornaments, figurines made of copper, broken pottery, and obsidian and jade carvings. Insignificant compared to the mountain of corpses. Mark couldn’t take it anymore. He squeezed his eyes shut, shook his head, and turned away from the grisly sight. He had to escape this nightmare pit.
“Jorge,” he called hoarsely. But the guide had resumed his stony silence. The beam from his headlamp was getting dimmer by the minute, several meters up the cave.
“Jorge,” he called. “Answer me, dammit!”
He heard a light chuckle over the PA and scowled. Despite their descent into another graveyard, Jorge thought this was all a joke. The glow of his light was now barely visible at the fringes of complete darkness. In near panic, Mark followed, swimming under the ridges of karst embedded with sharp stalactites, kicking, kicking, trying to avoid getting impaled. He swam meter by meter, bubbles swirling around him. Still no end to this underwater burrow. It elbowed up, dipped steeply down again, widened into a gaping hole, then narrowed where cave breakdown had created rubble. He squeezed through the corkscrew passage with his bulky equipment, still dizzy from his fight-or-flight reaction to the corpses. He could feel the tightness of the quarters now. Tons of rock above his head, compacted over a fragile hollow space. Fear grabbed at his gut, wrung and nearly imploded his chest. He had to get out of here. He had to get out!
A juncture between water and air appeared above, a rippling distortion of cave features. He shivered in relief. Kicking upward, he reached the surface in seconds, ripped off his mask, and breathed. In and out. Slowly. You made it, Delaney. Through the Pit of the Damned and into the first passage of the Underworld. Now breathe.
“Well, it’s about time,” said Jorge.
Mark looked up and saw him perched on a ledge above the water’s surface.
“I thought you’d drowned already.”
“Would have . . . made you . . . happy, wouldn’t it?” Mark said between gasps.
“Not entirely,” said Jorge.
Mark swam over to the rock bank and crawled out of the water. He slumped on the ground and lay there, heart practically fibrillating. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?” asked Jorge, but the smug look on his face said he knew exact
ly what.
“The bodies,” said Mark. “The skeletons. Where the hell did they come from?”
Jorge looked at the slimy walls of the cavern, his eyes traveling over daggers of white rock and spearheads of crystals. The light refracted and blinked on the spectacular natural formations. “Sacrifices,” he said matter-of-factly.
Mark struggled to sit up. “Like the decapitated bodies on the motifs?”
“Exactly,” said Jorge. “This was a sacrificial well—a portal to the Underworld, Xibalba, or so my ancestors thought. You saw the stepped platform on the border of the cenote. That was where the priests killed them, spilled their blood on the altar, ripped their hearts out, chopped off their heads, and then hurled them into the well. It was common practice, especially where cenotes pierced the water table. Edward Herbert Thompson, an amateur archaeologist, dredged and dove in a famous cenote at Chichén Itzá in the late 19th century and found it filled with bones and offerings. It’s nothing to get excited about.”
“Excited about! Are you kidding? First I nearly get gunned down by some paramilitary nuts, then you take me to a pyramid stacked with bodies, and now there’s some well filled with sacrificial victims!”
Jorge shrugged. “I told you there was a curse.”
Mark stared at him. The man would not blink.
“Are we ready to continue yet?” asked Jorge, standing and shrugging off the dive and the sacrificial burial ground as if they’d just gone out for a Sunday afternoon swim. “We have a long way to go.”
Mark eyed him suspiciously. “How much longer?”
Jorge gave him a blank stare again. “As long as it takes. There are rumors that the deepest cave is at two thousand meters or deeper.”
“Two thous—” Mark choked out. “That’s almost seven thousand feet. And how deep are we now?”
“Maybe a hundred and fifty. But the cave climbs and dips throughout. It isn’t straight down.”
Sinkhole Page 11