The Keepers Of The Light (God Stone Book 2)

by Andrew Schafer

  Despite the giant’s extended hands and less-than-inviting expression that seemed to be saying, “Stop! Go back!” Gabi stepped slowly off the bottom step and onto the floor. She froze, unsure of what she thought might happen, but everything was still. The giant just continued to glare down at her menacingly.

  “Gabi! You have to see this!” Sarah exclaimed from across the room. Sarah was a short, petite woman with almond skin and long curly brown hair. Even though Sarah kept it tucked under her hardhat, her long curls seemed to find their way out, dropping down along her cheek to frame her face.

  As Gabi panned her light toward Sarah, it reflected across stacks of something bone-white. Not stacks – racks. Along the walls were racks and racks of skulls!

  “Tzompantli!” Gabi breathed. “Sarah, these are Aztec?” Internally she wanted the site to be Maya, but she had prepared for this eventuality as well. Dr. Moore had said he had seen racks and racks of skulls. However, he and Breanne had only been in the dark lower chamber for a few brief moments before triggering the trap. This quick glance led Sarah’s team to think he might have seen something else. Perhaps he had seen sacrifices with skulls haphazardly stacked along the wall. But there was no mistaking this. These were beyond a doubt ancient skull racks. The racks had vertical shafts with several rows of horizontal shafts spaced just far enough for the skulls to fit. The skulls were placed onto the rack by breaking out a hole on both sides of the cranium in the temporal and parietal areas then sliding them onto a wooden shaft one after another, forming rows. These racks stretched several feet up the wall taller than Gabi stood.

  “I don’t know, Gabi. For these racks to be here doesn’t make sense. It didn’t make sense when Charles told me about them over a year ago and honestly, they still don’t. I think I convinced myself that whatever he had seen couldn’t have been this, but here they are. The Aztecs used skull racks to warn their enemies they meant business. They were always displayed out in the open, near the top of a pyramid, near a ball court, or even at the city center, but not hidden at the bottom of a cave… or whatever this place is. I don’t know which is the bigger question, Gabi – who or why? Come, let’s have a closer look.”

  Gabi made her way over to Sarah, giving the giant stone statue a wide berth and choosing instead to stay close to the racks of skulls.

  Meanwhile, Fredy made his way over to the circular hole in the floor between the giant’s legs. “Fredy, careful – that’s where Charles told me he stepped on the tile,” Sarah said.

  “Sí, compañera,” Fredy replied, cautiously peering down the hole with his flashlight.

  “Okay, Gabi,” Sarah said, pulling her down next to her as she too squatted on the balls of her feet. Sarah smiled, readying herself to inspect the first skull rack. “I didn’t want to start without you. Now, we just have to be careful not to touch them or bump them – I wouldn’t want them to collapse.”

  “Sarah?” Gabi gave her arm a squeeze. “Thank you for bringing me down.”

  Sarah smiled. “No thanks necessary. You earned this, Gabi. You have worked just as hard as anyone on this team. I’m so glad you’re here. In a couple weeks, Bre will be here too, and I think you two are going to be quite the team.”

  Gabi smiled and nodded. She couldn’t wait to meet this girl she had heard so much about. She didn’t have any brothers or sisters. Having another girl here was going to be like having a big sister.

  “It’s true, Gabi, what Charles said, all of it. I never thought I would see a whole tzompantli in my entire career. Now I am in a room full of them. But I still don’t know why – why are they here? And I’m not convinced yet this is Aztec. We mustn’t assume anything. We have to let the science guide us.”

  Gabi looked closely at one of the skulls, shining the beam of light right into the broken-out hole in the side of its head. The shaft of wood, perhaps oak or maybe mahogany, punched through one side of the skull and out the other. Gabi frowned, cocking her head to the side as she studied it. Something was amiss with this skull. She had seen many skulls on other digs, and once she even got to help a student clean a human mandible. She leaned in to get a better look.

  “Sarah? Please, come have a look at this,” Fredy said.

  “Coming,” she said, standing back up and shining her light in Fredy’s direction. “Whatcha got?”

  Gabi pulled her attention away from the strange skull and stood, following Sarah over toward the center of the room.

  “This hole. It’s very strange. It’s too perfectly centered to be a natural phenomenon,” Fredy said, as he panned his light back and forth across the chamber. “I bet if I measured the room, we’d find that this hole is precisely centered. This leads me to speculate either the room or the hole is not a natural occurrence.” He removed a glow stick from a hip pouch and bent it in the middle, creating a bright greenish-yellow glow. With no flame, there was no risk of creating an explosion should methane gas be present inside the hole.

  Fredy tossed the glow stick down the hole, and Gabi watched as it spiraled into the depths, lighting up the circular shaft walls as it fell, before finally settling to the bottom seconds later. The depth was hard to measure with the eye, but it was a good distance, dozens of feet, maybe even a hundred feet below.

  “Did you see that?” Fredy asked.

  “Yes, the shaft was perfectly circular all the way down!”

  Fredy squatted and ran his hand around the edge of the hole. “Wait, what is this? Feel this!”

  Sarah knelt and ran her hand around the edge.

  “Gabi, feel this! Fredy, hold on to her just to be safe.”

  Gabi knelt next to Sarah as Fredy got a firm grip on her arm. This was why Sarah was the coolest adult on earth. She treated her like a grown-up, which made sense because she was already thirteen. Gabi felt around the edge of the hole until her fingers slipped into a notch. She walked her fingers down the wall, following a strange groove as far down as she could reach. Next, she concentrated her headlamp on the groove and followed it down as far as she could see – the groove continued out of sight. “What is this, Sarah?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “Look here,” Fredy said, pointing at the opposite side of the circular hole. “Another groove identical to the one across from it.”

  Gabi cocked her head to one side and allowed her eyes to split the difference between the two grooves and sure enough, there was another groove, and across from that groove was another. Four grooves in total. Each rounded groove was no more than a few centimeters wide by a few deep.

  Sarah saw them too. “Fredy, these grooves aren’t random – they are spaced into four equal distances around the hole. But why?”

  “I have no idea, compañera, but they must serve some purpose,” he said.

  Sarah shook her head. “This hole, it would make sense that it was an opening to the underworld. I would have guessed it was a place to make offerings to the rain god Chaahk if we were dealing with Maya or, given the skull racks, it could be the Aztec god of rain, Tlaloc.” Sarah threw up her hands. “But now… I just don’t know.”

  Gabi paused to rack her brain, trying to somehow put it together in her mind. She spoke slowly as she puzzled it out loud. “The giant statue could be a representation of the Olmec feathered serpent deity Quetzalcoatl. Its feathered winged features sometimes make it look more like a dragon. Couldn’t this explain the dragon headdress and images on the lintel and pottery?”

  “Well, the Olmec are certainly mysterious. There is so much we still don’t know, but the skull racks point more toward Aztec, and I have never heard of the Olmec coming this far inland from the gulf.”

  Gabi nodded, so maybe not Olmec but her gut told her something was off.

  “What do you think this means?” Fredy asked.

  The three of them peered back over the edge of the pit, where the glow-stick was still radiating like a distant beacon in the darkest of night, guiding them to something – but what?

  Sarah shook her head. �
��I don’t know, Fredy, but I have a hunch. The only way to be sure is to rappel to the bottom of this pit. Please head back up and bring the team, lighting, harness, and ropes. I need to get down there.”

  Fredy nodded.

  With Fredy bringing the team and gear, Gabi and Sarah were left alone in the curious chamber. “Sarah, can we have another look at the skulls?”

  “Good idea!” They stood and moved carefully back to the racks of skulls.

  On one skull, a detached mandible dangled strangely askew, giving the skull a deformed look of open-mouthed surprise. The dangling jawbone caught Gabi’s light and with it her attention. She leaned in closer to the jaw and froze, her heart leaping into her throat. “Sarah, look at this!” she croaked, blinking in disbelief as if it might make what she was seeing somehow go away.

  Sarah turned, aiming her own headlamp at the jawbone. “Gabi! How could I have missed this before? Oh dear god, no. No, no, no. Wait. This can’t be real. It isn’t possible!”

  3

  Fracturing

  Wednesday, April 6 – God Stones Day 1

  Petersburg, Illinois

  In the back of the dojo, Breanne quickly shoved open the back door and pushed Janis and a swaying David out into the alley. They wobbled down the stairs on unsure legs and gathered near the neighboring restaurant’s waste container. David hunched over at the waist and vomited whatever school gruel he had eaten for lunch before collapsing to the ground, his back resting against the cool metal of the dumpster.

  Janis threw herself down next to him, sick but keeping it in. “What the hell is happening?”

  “What about the others?” David asked, looking peaked as he gasped for breath.

  “It’s the God Stones. Paul, you have to go get them,” Breanne said. “They may have passed out like we did the first time!”

  “I’m on it,” he said, running back up the steps. But as he reached the top step, the door burst open again, and Pete staggered drunkenly onto the stairs, nearly colliding with Paul.

  Paul grabbed him by his shoulders, attempting to keep him upright. “Where’s your friends?”

  “Ah! Let go! I… got… to get away… before I pass out,” Pete said, pushing past Paul and down the steps. He squinted painfully toward Janis and threw himself to the ground next to her.

  “Pete? Where are they!” Breanne begged.

  “Apep and Mr. B are fighting! The God Stone things are… ugh, my head is killing me.”

  Breanne shot Paul a pleading look.

  Paul nodded and disappeared through the back door of the dojo.

  Mr. B moved faster than even Garrett thought possible, backing Apep across the dojo and into one of the wall mirrors, smashing it.

  Apep recovered, kicking Mr. B in the chest. The sword Apep had cast aside earlier now flew back to his hand as he charged forward, releasing a furious cry. “Riaaaaahhh!” The sword sliced through the air faster than the eye could follow. “I’ll enjoy watching your flesh burn!” Apep shouted in the guttural cry of a man gone insane. Then in a low, throaty voice, Apep began speaking a language unspoken for thousands of years. The blade of Apep’s sword began to glow as if charged with lightning and suddenly ignited into a brilliant blue fire.

  Garrett saw it then. The unnatural light illuminated the lower half of Apep’s face. His twisted grin was distorted by rage, yet somehow it seemed familiar.

  Mr. B planted his front foot in a determined defensive stance.

  Apep launched forward in a rush, unleashing a series of explosive strikes. With expertly timed feints, accompanied by precision flicks and lunges, the evil wizard drove relentlessly forward, quickly closing the distance. Every clash of metal produced a brilliant burst of blue sparks.

  Apep’s flaming sword hummed strangely as the superheated blade cut through the cool air like some kind of sick lightsaber. Then the flame began to change. Stretching out, it snaked from the end of the sword. Now even when Mr. B successfully blocked a strike, the flames lashed out like a flaming bullwhip from the end of Apep’s sword, burning through his dobok and into his flesh with each strike. The long, whip-like flames didn’t stop with Mr. B; they ignited whatever was in their way, including the walls, ceiling, and floor. Within seconds, the mirrors lining the walls began to melt and pool onto the mats as they too turned to liquid and caught fire.

  Garrett watched in horror as the dojo burned and their master fought for his life. Still ill in his gut, he swallowed back the bile and uncovered his ears. “My god, Lenny! We have to help him!”

  Face drawn into a grimace, Lenny shook his head no. “I’m sorry, Garrett, but we can’t. We’ve stayed too long already. We have to go!”

  “What are you talking about? We can’t leave him like this!”

  “You don’t get it!” Lenny said, his eyes glistening. “If we don’t go now his sacrifice will be a waste. He is doing this for us. To give us time to get to the temple. If we don’t go and get there first, everyone is screwed. We have to go, now!”

  Looking back at Mr. B, Garrett’s heart found its way to his throat and his vision blurred. But he knew Lenny was right – they had to go.

  Footsteps bounded toward them from behind. Both boys looked back to see Paul approaching in a dead run from the hallway.

  “You two okay? We thought you might have passed out. We need to—”

  A loud, incomprehensible shout cut him off, drawing all their attention back toward the burning dojo. Their eyes widened as the blood-covered Mr. B raised his head and howled before launching himself fearlessly into the smoke and flames to strike out at Apep in a determined final assault.

  Smoke began to choke the hallway and with it their view of Mr. B. The only evidence the fight went on were the flashes of blue light through the smoke and the sound of clashing swords ringing out from the burning chaos.

  Wasting no more time, they turned and ran down the hall, leaping out the door and into the alley.

  Once outside, they drew in deep breaths of night air and coughed to clear their smoke-filled lungs.

  “I have to go home and warn my parents about Apep,” Garrett said.

  “Wait, maybe we should just go to the temple and destroy whatever this thing is so Apep can’t get it,” David suggested.

  Pete nodded his agreement with David. “But I still need to tell you about the journal, Garrett. You’re not going to believe this!”

  Garrett held out his hands. “Really?”

  “Okay well maybe you will but—”

  From inside the dojo, a window exploded, followed by the sound of air drawing in like breath from a giant. Everyone froze in confusion. An instant later a loud whoomph preceded a fireball of flame that stretched across the alley. Garrett, Lenny, and Paul dove out of the way as everyone else instinctively dropped to the ground, covering their heads.

  “Holy mother!” David shouted, standing and brushing himself off. “That was way too close!”

  “You okay, Bre?” Garrett asked pulling her to her feet.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Maybe we better get away from here,” Paul said as the group moved down the alley.

  “Okay, listen,” Garrett said. “Everyone, go to the library. Lenny and I will head to my house and warn my parents. Then we’ll meet you guys at the library and head to the drainage tunnel.”

  Bre’s eyes pleaded with him not to go.

  Garrett forced a smile. “Don’t worry, it’s only a short walk from the library to the tunnel.” He scanned his friends’ faces. It was plain none of them wanted him to go.

  “Maybe we should stick together? I mean shouldn’t we get to this temple?” David asked.

  “We’ll go with you,” Janis said.

  “Guys, I have to go home. Mr. B said my stepdad has something I will need. We’ll be quick.” His plan was given as directions, not intended to be questioned or debated. He swallowed the knot forming in his throat. He had to go get this thing Mr. B said he would need to destroy the instructions for assembling the God Stone
s. But it was even more than that. He needed answers. Whether this was the time or not, he had to hear it from his mom. He had to look her in the eyes and ask if she knew about Apep, the keepers, Turek… all of it. He couldn’t believe she had been keeping something like this from him. Without another word he turned away from them.

  He glanced over to Lenny, who nodded. He nodded back and they ran.

  Paul put his hand on his sister’s shoulder and gave her a comforting squeeze. “He’ll be okay.” Then glancing to the others, he arched his eyebrows and drew in a breath. “Well, guys, I guess we’re going to this library of yours.”

  “Follow me, I’ll show you guys the way,” Pete said, giving Breanne a consoling smile. “Don’t worry, Breanne, they’ll be fine – besides, we could never have kept pace with Garrett and Lenny anyway. We would have either slowed them down or been dropped in the first block.” Pete started to jog. “Come on – I think you will find my pace much more to your liking.”

  Moments later, the gang burst through the door to the Petersburg public library. From behind the counter, a prim woman with greying hair looked up from her paperback and peered quizzically over a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. “Well, hello, Peter. I see you have brought company. Who are your friends?”

  “Um,” Pete said, pausing only long enough to look from Paul to Breanne then back to the curious librarian, “just friends helping with a project, Ms. Cleary.” He gave a discreet wave of his hand, signaling them all to the left toward a doorway with a sign above it that read, Thousands of treasures below.

  Breanne followed single file, feeling the librarian’s eyes on her and knowing the questions that would come – the ones she couldn’t answer. Still, when she stepped in front of the counter, she couldn’t help herself. “Excuse me, ma’am, may I use your phone? I need to call my dad and… check in.”

  “Sorry, dear, the phone lines are down. I suppose it’s this crazy storm.”