THE MAYAN GLYPH

by Larry Baxter

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  THE MAYAN GLYPH

  by

  LARRY BAXTER

  Amber Quill Press, LLC

  http://www.amberquill.com

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  The Mayan Glyph

  An Amber Quill Press Book

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

  Amber Quill Press, LLC

  http://www.amberquill.com

  All rights reserved.

  No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

  Copyright © 2003 by Larry Baxter

  ISBN 1-59279-125-5

  Cover Art © 2003 Trace Edward Zaber

  Rating: PG

  Layout and Formatting

  Provided by: ElementalAlchemy.com

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  For Carol,

  who makes everything possible.

  Prologue

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  Uxmal, Mexico, July 8, 823

  The ball field was one of the largest in the Yucatán. It measured twenty by fifty lom and was enclosed by high walls of stone. Over fifteen thousand Maya overflowed the array of stone seats, even watching from the steps of the nearby temple. The continuous noise from the onlookers was modulated by the events on the field and reached a crescendo each time the Uxmal team attempted to score.

  The home team was the most potent in seventeen tun, with the Hero Twins, Moon Rabbit Batz and Zib the Jaguar, as strikers and the widely respected Hun the Lizard and Vucab the Snake as blockers. The opposition was a team made up of the best players from Chichén Itzá and Xcocha, with the legendary Xbalanque the off-side striker. Also playing for the opposition was Tzelzil, once King of Yaxuna but for the last two years a captive of Uxmal. Normally a captive king was a serious hindrance to a ball team, but Tzelzil was one of the best ball players of his time. His skills had not deteriorated in confinement. As an added incentive, he was playing for his life.

  The game had been going on for seven kin. Upon the game's outcome depended not only the life of Tzelzil but also the lives of the losing team and the future of the city.

  Chortal the Parrot, Supreme Ruler of Uxmal, had consulted his astrologers to determine the proper starting day for the game and the appropriate actions to follow in the event of a win or a loss. The astrologers had recommended sacrifices from Chortal's own family in the event of a loss—a concept not totally repugnant to Chortal the Parrot—and the astrologers also saw that a victory would be a sign that Chortal and his warriors would surely win their long battle with Chichén Itzá.

  The game was played four to a side with a heavy rubber ball, which was propelled with the feet, the thighs, and the head. The goal was a vertical stone disk, one lom in diameter and three lom high on the wall, with a hole in the center barely the size of the ball. The winner would be the team to first put the ball through the hole. Uxmal had possession with only a little while to play on this day, only until the shadow of the Cemetery just touched the steps to the Palace.

  Moon Rabbit Batz took the ball in the forecourt to the mutters of the crowd. He had not played well; he did not seem to be trying hard. But Moon Rabbit was an experienced player, and he knew the chance of a winning kick with a fresh defense was near zero, as the shot was difficult and the ball was easily blocked. He had played the game at only three-quarter speed all day to keep himself fresh for the time when the defense would have no strength left in their legs. This was the time.

  Moon Rabbit kicked the ball back for a better angle as Tzelzil closed to blocking position. Then Moon Rabbit faked a pass to Zib the Jaguar to draw off Tzelzil and then faked a shot as Xbalanque came up quickly from his position to cover the threat. Xbalanque dove to smother the shot, but Moon Rabbit had purposely missed the ball, and now drew his right foot back and cradled the ball on his instep. Clear field for a moment and Moon Rabbit let the screams of the crowd give him the strength he needed as he aimed the kick carefully at the disk. He saw the ball arch gracefully in slow motion against the blue sky, its trajectory perfect, immutable, inevitable. It fell through the hole without even grazing the stone. The crowd exploded in sound and streamed onto the field to help deliver the losers to the sacrificial table.

  The day was almost perfect, thought Supreme Ruler Chortal the Parrot. Almost perfect. He rapped his serpent staff on the dais in approval as his priests beheaded the King and his losing team and impaled their heads on the spikes of the Tzompantli. Time and the small birds would turn them into ceremonial skulls. He would surely become the conqueror of Chichén Itzá.

  The only disturbing aspect to the day was the recent and unexplained deaths of five citizens, strangled on their own black tongues. His own tongue felt strangely thick, certainly just in sympathy. The medicine priests placed the responsibility on the Lords of the Dead, and said that Chortal must find a way to placate the gods else many more would surely die. Perhaps the fire was now inhabited by the Lords of the Dead, he would need to have all the fire put out and send out new fire. Then he would send a message to Tulum, to the laboratory of the savant Peloc. Clever Peloc, Peloc the Magician, somehow in allegiance with the Lords of the Dead. Peloc would know what to do about these strange deaths.

  Tomorrow, at first light, he would send a runner. And he would fortify the runner with a goblet of the blood of the Jaguar for speed, and a goblet of the blood of a recent victim so that Peloc would have a test case to study. He smiled at his own cleverness, even knowing that Peloc was ten times his intellect, but the smile hurt inside his mouth.

  Chapter 1

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  Uxmal, July 25, present day

  Ray Soto's wide brown back vibrated momentarily as he slowly straightened with the big carved stone in his arms. He set the stone down on the edge of the excavation and grinned up at Professor Barker, his face shiny with effort in the one hundred degree temperature.

  "Nice to have a portable hydraulic lift on site," said Barker, brushing loose sandy soil from the engraved symbols.

  "Hey, that's why I'm here, prof. Put in a good word with the weight coach when we get back?"

  Soto was the biggest player on the University of Texas' football team, a cinch for early first round selection in the pro draft, and the unofficial leader of the U.T. summer archaeology expedition to the Yucatán peninsula in Mexico.

  A mile from the ancient Maya city of Uxmal, the site was a recently discovered rectangular mesa five hundred by three hundred feet with an elevation of only twenty feet over the jungle floor. The vegetation had been stripped and the mesa crisscrossed with trenches and grid markers and monitored by video cameras and time-lapse video recorders. The mesa's limestone and coral composite, a sandy yellow color, reflected the equatorial sun and crumbled into a gritty powder that coated the sweaty bodies of the students.

  "Whatcha got, prof?" said Soto, white teeth sparking beneath the wide black moustache, as he vaulted from the trench.

  "The date is here," said Barker to the gathering undergraduates. "Anybody want to give it a try?"

  "Long count date, fifteen baktuns, nine katuns…823 AD," said Sheila Monson after a few seconds.

  "Exactly right," said Barker. He soaked a rag in water and wiped the surface of the stone to bring the glyphs into sharp relief. "And the rest of the inscription?"

  "Isn't that the parrot glyph?" asked Sheila.

  Barker
smiled. "Yes, and that's the key to this whole site. We've had no evidence of the purpose of this mesa until this inscription. Now we can see that it's a huge pyramid."

  The class looked at him curiously. "Well, it would have been a huge pyramid if it had been finished. As you know, the Maya generally did not build pyramids as tombs, although of course there were notable exceptions, as in Palenqué. This mesa is the first level in what would have been one of the largest pyramids in the Yucatán if it had been completed. Who was the big boss in Uxmal in 823?"

  "Hey, right," said Soto. "Chortal, the Parrot. Is this his tomb?"

  "Looks like. This stone says he has descended to the Underworld and will be sustained on his journey by the slaves and provisions buried with him. It also says his tongue is black, I don't understand the meaning."

  "Probably eating blackberries. Hey, I don't see any slaves and provisions," said Soto.

  "Not yet, you don't. Start digging out grid twenty-seven C."

  * * *

  The exhaust note from the five-kilowatt generator deepened as Prof. Barker flipped on the light switch. The illumination changed color from the red of the fading sunset to the bluer hue of half a dozen quartz halogen floods. The sarcophagus was now fully exposed, an enormous rectangular block capped with an inscribed stone eight inches thick.

  "It's show time!" said Barker. "Roll the cameras! Cue Geraldo! Remove the lid!"

  The dozen students began a chant, "So-to! So-to!"

  Ray Soto appeared on cue, dragging a steel cable from the Land Rover's winch, posed for a moment with deltoids flexed like the front cover of a muscle magazine, then he looped the cable around the capstone.

  The Rover creaked and bucked against the wheel chocks as the motor strained in low gear and the stone moved, screaming in protest, a few inches a minute. When a two-foot opening was clear Barker gestured, the Rover fell silent, and the group gathered to peer inside the vault.

  Barker leaned in, holding a flood lamp. The smell was intense and strange, not the faint moldy earth aroma he'd expected but a strong repellent putrefaction. He stepped quickly back with the after-image of the mummified Maya emperor burned into his retina: jade stone wedged into his grotesquely open mouth, white shell crown adorned by quetzal bird, royalty reduced to a wrinkled brown bag stretched over a grinning skull.

  * * *

  When their flight entered the landing pattern at Meacham International Airport in Austin a week and a half later, most of the U.T. group was suffering from some upper respiratory disorder, like a common cold but accompanied by tightness in the throat. Ray Soto was the worst affected. He was stripped to the waist despite the air conditioning, sprawling across three seats, making a noise like a chainsaw cutting sheet metal and grunting with every exhalation. His convulsions had broken a seat arm, which now hung in the aisle swinging from electrical wires. His tongue, dark in color, lolled out of his mouth. His eyes were like a panicky horse's, looking for an escape from a burning barn.

  Professor Barker swallowed uncomfortably and signaled a flight attendant, "Can you have an ambulance waiting at the airport? It's probably just a virus, but he's working so hard to breathe—"

  "All done," she nodded. "I called it in ten minutes ago. Three ambulances, paramedics, and a police escort to Conover Mercy. Big, healthy-looking man like that, and the rest of you look sort of greenish through your sunburns—"

  Chapter 2

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  Uxmal, Mexico, July 10, 823

  The long, narrow, windowless room was brightly lit with more than a hundred oil lamps, improving visibility for this delicate work. The lamps added a sulfurous smell to the air and a dark cloud of black soot that stained every horizontal surface. Peloc was gazing into a microscope. His tiny frame was perched on an extra-tall stool, his head tilted so that his enormous nose would clear the globe of the instrument as he gazed down looking for a pattern. He removed the top brass plate, cleaned the crystal deposit, warmed it a few degrees in the oven, and bathed it in the solution until a new crystal deposit slowly formed. Then, carefully, he lowered the top plate on the specimen, rubbed a cloth on the silver globe, separated the plates and brushed on the powder with the expertise of many repetitions.

  There, perfect, the pattern appeared. With a glance he memorized its shape, then selected a sharp chisel and moved to the wall and recorded it in his tiny, precise hand. Boring, repetitious work, but Peloc felt the satisfaction of knowing that this careful record of the properties of these materials would be useful for many centuries of Maya.

  An assistant bearing a small codex interrupted him. "Sir, this was brought in by a runner from Uxmal, just now."

  "Wait," Peloc snapped, unhappy with the imposition. He scanned the codex, absorbing the glyphs in a glance. His face darkened and his head flicked around like a bird's, turning almost backwards. He shot a torrent of words at the assistant with his rapid delivery, like the rattle of the woodpecker. "It's from Chortal. Uxmal has a serious problem. Many Maya are dead. Their tongues are black. A disease. We are to find a cure. We can use this runner as a test. Is the runner sick?"

  "No, sir, but he did complain that his tongue felt thick."

  "He is sick. Move him. Quickly. To the west of town. Take him to a vacant hut. Near no other. Don't touch him. Move ten captives in with him. We will need many test subjects. Bring back a tzlbt of his blood. Go quickly."

  Chapter 3

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  Austin, Texas, September 25, present day

  One of the wards in the isolation wing was set up as a pathology lab. Extra lights hung from the ceiling, illuminating the huge corpse, supine on an aluminum gurney in the center of the room.

  As the hospital had not isolated the disease and did not know how it was transmitted, maximum precautions were in effect. Airborne, droplet and contact transmission of the unknown pathogen were interdicted. The entire wing had been depressurized with a jury-rigged ventilation fan exhausting into an activated charcoal filter so that no aerosol-borne pathogens could escape. The staff observed gown, glove and respirator protocols, laundry was handled in the isolated wing with special high-temperature machines, and all disposables were being autoclaved, double bagged and stored.

  The nurse's station had been converted into a crude double airlock and disinfection chamber. A tall, slender gray-haired man in green scrubs with a nameplate announcing "Dr. Gary Spender" entered through the outer door and donned the prescribed gloves, gown and mask in the outer chamber. He slipped through the polyethylene vapor barrier, stood briefly in the ultraviolet chamber, and pulled the inner door open against the air pressure.

  "Evening, Gary, you can give me a hand here if you like. I'm about to get started." The pathologist held a microphone in one hand and a scalpel in the other.

  "Thanks anyway," said Spender, "But I can hardly stand up, I've been out straight for two days. I'll watch. Or maybe just listen." He sank into an upholstered chair and tilted his head back against the wall. He closed his eyes, but the strain on his face was not relieved. From his study of epidemiology he had learned intellectually the increasing risk the human race was facing as emerging diseases evolved into drug-resistant killers. But the reality of the crisis exploding in his city was beyond his comprehension. In days, young healthy men and women were twisted into frightened husks, unable to speak but pleading with their eyes. All he could do for them was ease their last moments with morphine. He had never felt so helpless in his life.

  The pathologist fixed the microphone, cleared his throat, and adjusted the controls on the tape recorder while intoning "One, two, three, four…" His voice was tinny through the respirator, "September 18, present day. Pathologist Dr. Albert Ericcson. Deceased Raymond Sota, Hispanic male, approximately six feet three inches tall, two hundred eighty-five pounds. Cause of death given as acute respiratory failure. No recent skin lesions, no purpura, no evidence of insect bites, well-healed ten cm scar left bicep, new unhealed incision on throat consistent with recent tracheotomy." He paused the re
corder for a second and turned to Spender. "The tracheotomy help any?"

  Spender's eyes opened. "Gave him a few more hours, is all."

  The pathologist shook his head slowly, punched the recorder, and droned on, "Facial aspect normal except for perhaps five-day growth of beard and pronounced distension in throat and neck. Mouth is open revealing grossly malformed tongue, abnormally dark in color."

  Ericcson picked up a number one scalpel and made the Y incision with two rapid slashes. "Initial incision at sternum. Thin fatty tissue layer at abdomen, well developed musculature. Heart enlarged but normal, all consistent with well-conditioned athlete. Lungs edematous, infiltrated with blood, blotchy coloration. Some hemorrhagic pleural effusion. Lungs rubbery to palpation with significant hypertrophy, heavy, perhaps twice expected mass."

  Spender interrupted his monologue, "Does this look like it could be a hantavirus?"

  "That was my first guess, Gary. The blood work supports it, raised white blood cell count, left shift. Some atypical lymphocytes. We've also got bandemia and thrombocytopenia and marked pulmonary edema. But the swelling of the tongue is, of course, not seen in any hantavirus I'm aware of. And I understand that the infection took place in an area without much small animal life, so it's probably not zoonotic in origin. What's his treatment history?"

  "We intubated and put him on mechanical ventilation at once. Pulse was up to a hundred twenty, core temperature to a hundred three, BP eighty-five over fifty. We controlled BP with dopamine, wide open, and IV fluids, and shot him with Ceftriaxone in case there were bacterial problems. Arterial blood gases showed respiratory acidosis, we added sodium biocarb to the IV. He went septic within half an hour and we lost him fifteen minutes later. Do you see any indication of degeneration of other tissue, or just the tongue?"