Deity

by Theresa Danley

  “Which all leads us to this mess,” he growled.

  “Mess?”

  “The whole 2012 attraction.” Chac started down the steps to intercept the visitors. “I’ll explain once we get off this temple.”

  * * * *

  Lori was surprised by Chac’s abrupt change in demeanor. Just moments earlier he seemed relaxed and even enjoying their discussion but now he was quite moody and considerably abrupt with the visitors he turned back down the temple steps. And once again, he spoke of 2012 with a distaste that Lori had not experienced whenever the subject came up before. There were critics, sure, and she was certainly one who refused to buy into all the hype. But in general, she found people either excited, fearful, or just downright dismissive of 2012. Never had she come across someone so aggravated by it.

  And Chac was Maya. Wasn’t this the year the Maya had been looking forward to for thousands of years?

  Patiently, Lori followed Chac across the plaza that was increasingly filling with visitors. She waited for signs of her companion’s irritability to simmer down. It didn’t come immediately, but rather left them in awkward silence until they reached the walls of the ball court.

  “The people of Chichen Itza were brilliant astronomers,” Chac finally said, his tone taking on an appreciation for the subject. “I believe it was here that they observed the movement of the stars.”

  “Movement of the stars,” Lori murmured thoughtfully. “As in precession?”

  “Exactly. The Maya recognized a shift in the stars’ positions due to the slow wobble in the Earth’s orbit. When they realized that the Milky Way was also shifting, they calculated that the bulge was slipping toward the point along the horizon where the December solstice sun was rising. Essentially, the Mayan world was centered upon the day when the sun would travel through the hollow bulge in the Milky Way. Their calendar was geared toward the sun’s passage to the underworld.”

  “You’re referring to the five thousand year Long Count Calendar, right?”

  “Five thousand one hundred twenty-five years and some change to be more exact. Each cycle of the Long Count represents a world age. And how many world ages are there in Mesoamerican thought?”

  “Well,” Lori said thoughtfully. “According to the Toltecs there are five world ages.”

  Chac nodded. “And according to the Long Count Calendar, this year’s December solstice marks the end of the fifth age. Five Long Count cycles add up to twenty-five thousand six hundred twenty-six years, the same number of years astronomers estimate it takes for the earth to complete one cycle of precession.”

  “So it takes twenty-five thousand six hundred twenty-six years for the earth’s wobble to complete one full rotation?” Lori asked.

  Chac nodded. “Now you see what’s so special about the 2012 end date.”

  “I thought you weren’t buying into all the doomsday hype,” Lori challenged.

  Chac suddenly spun on her, his eyes frightfully dark. “I don’t care what’s popular or what sells books or movies. I’m more interested in what 2012 meant to the ancient people who knew they’d never see the day we live in now.”

  Lori was taken aback. “Oh.”

  Again, she quietly fell in line beside Chac as he led the way into the grassy, I-shaped enclosure of the ball court. The walls loomed on either side with a temple structure at each end. One of the first things Lori noticed about the ball court was its amazing acoustics. She estimated the court to be over five hundred feet long, perhaps just over two hundred feet wide. The structure lay open to the sky and yet, she could hear conversations from individuals at the far end of the ball court as clearly as though they were standing next to her.

  As Chac led her to the highest wall mid-court, Lori considered the teams that had battled over the ground she now leisurely strolled. This was the place that determined the fates of men. This was the place where athletic warriors won their honors on stone pillars, or were decapitated and beaded along gruesome skull racks.

  Chac’s pace slowed and his voice took on that appreciative tone again. “While the priests were counting down the days to the sun’s passage into the underworld, the ball game held symbolic parallels. To begin with, this ball court aligns perfectly with the Milky Way.”

  “That’s understandable,” Lori agreed, not caring to upset him again.

  “Yes, but there’s much more to the game itself. See that ring up there?”

  Chac pointed to a large stone hoop protruding high atop the nearest wall like a basketball hoop turned ninety degrees. The stone rim was thick and, as far as Lori could tell, displayed a writhing serpent carved in relief.

  “That ring represented the hollow bulge in the Milky Way. The game ball was the sun.”

  “And the object of the game was to pass the sun through the portal to the underworld,” Lori guessed out loud. She studied the ring hanging twenty feet above her. “That must have been difficult considering the size of the hole the ball had to pass through, and the thickness of that rim.”

  “That’s not where the challenge was,” Chac said. “The difficulty comes from the fact that the players were not allowed to touch the ball with their hands.”

  Lori was amazed. “You mean they had to kick the ball through there?”

  “Kick, hip butt, head bump, or any other means to get it through.”

  “Wow.” Lori couldn’t fathom the chore. Getting a ball through the goal ring seemed improbable enough, but to do it without hands seemed highly unlikely. How long would a game go scoreless? Days? Weeks? Five thousand one hundred twenty-five years?

  “I take it these were low scoring games,” Lori thought out loud.

  “The game wasn’t played for points,” Chac corrected. “Remember, the players’ lives were on the line. Their primary objective was to pass that sun through the portal.”

  “So what exactly happens after the sun slips into the underworld?”

  Chac’s expression grew solemn. “Game over.”

  Itza

  “How do you expect to find Profesor Webb in all this?” Father Ruiz asked as he scanned the clearing now swarming with people.

  Peet shouldered through a tour group just getting their first eye-full of the ruins looming before them. He’d never seen such a diverse collection of people. There were Chinese and Portugese, people speaking Spanish, German, French and all forms of English from New York brogue to Australian drawl. Of course there were Mexicans and indigenous Mexicans with a surprising spattering of Middle-East and South African people. All corners of the globe seemed to be congregating at Chichen Itza.

  “I think we’d have a better chance of finding your friend if we flew over at twenty knots,” KC remarked sarcastically.

  “You already did that,” Peet said.

  His stomach was still recovering from their landing thirty minutes ago. KC had located a small runway right across the highway from the archaeological zone. From the air the runway looked like the rigid needle of a vast, green compass holding due north as KC swept directly over the great ruins, circling for a landing. From that point of view Peet could envision the improbable task of picking out a familiar face from such a vast spread of people.

  How were they going to find Matt Webb? The groomed plazas between the temples and pyramids were overwhelmed. Chichen Itza faced self-destruction by its own popularity. The INAH must be alarmed. No archaeologist in his right mind could work in the midst of such chaos. Nevertheless—

  “The lady in the visitor’s center said to check the Castillo.” He glanced at the great stepped pyramid they were approaching—the crowning centerpiece of constant attention.

  “This place is an orgy of weirdos,” KC said, eyeing a woman perched nearby, lifting a crystal toward the sun. Her eyelids fluttered over streaming tears.

  Not caring to sit and stare at the thirsting rainforest encroaching upon the lone runway, KC had opted to join them to the archaeological zone. Peet wondered if she wasn’t regretting her decision. After all, the solitude
of the runway suddenly seemed more tolerable than the bedlam laid out before them. Doomsayers appeared to have strategically placed themselves around the ruins, attracting the curious and the fearful. Between them were niches of New Agers, proclaiming not the end of the world, but a rejuvenation of it and urging passers-by to prepare for inner renewal. And then there were the dancers, Mayan and otherwise, intriguing the crowds with their interpretations of “The Great Event”. Finally, there were the tour guides, struggling to hold the interests of their groups as they led them through the chaotic ruins.

  As Peet surveyed the Castillo he became aware of a mob of dancers, complete in Mayan ceremonial costumes, closing in around him. Each participant looked convincingly affiliated with the costumes they wore but there was something about their dance that caused him to doubt their authenticity. Nevertheless, the dancers chanted and gyrated ever closer while in their midst, two icy, emotionless men marched straight for Peet like a chosen sacrifice. Before he knew it, the men grabbed him by the arms and the dancers cut him off from KC and Father Ruiz.

  “What the—”

  Peet pulled back but the grips on his arms only drew tighter. The chanting of the dancers grew louder as they pressed upon him, shifting his feet, herding him away from the Castillo.

  “Hold on a minute—” Peet argued.

  The closeness of the dancers smothered his movements as he struggled against them. “What’s going on?” he hollered but the only response he received was stronger chanting that echoed off the thicket of trees he was being led into. Through the flailing arms and bobbing heads of the dancers, Peet glanced back at KC, just before he lost sight of her behind the trees.

  * * * *

  KC neither believed or understood what she was seeing. At first she thought she was witnessing a sideshow that had swept Peet into their act but the dancers were pulling him away from the crowds, away from the ruins themselves.

  “Those sun-worshipers intend to harm our archaeologist,” Father Ruiz said as he grabbed KC by the arm and dragged her after them. “They must know we’re looking for the cross.”

  “Get real,” KC smirked. “How could they possibly know that?”

  “Matt Webb might have sent them. If he went through all that trouble to steal the cross, certainly he’d assign someone to protect his trail.”

  KC yanked free from Father Ruiz’s grip. As outlandish as it sounded, the priest did seem to have a point. Even Peet had admitted that he didn’t know what they were getting themselves into. Was it possible that the ex-BYU professor had advanced from petty religious pranks to serious criminal activities, leaving thugs behind to cover his trail?

  “Seems pretty drastic over a silly crucifix, doesn’t it?” she asked.

  Father Ruiz couldn’t be dissuaded. “The fact remains, they’ve captured Profesor Peet!”

  “For a spiritual guy you’re sure stuck on facts,” KC quipped, though inside she wondered if the priest might be right. Peet had disappeared into the woods and by the fade of his captors’ chanting, they weren’t stopping. She picked up the pace.

  “We have to do something,” Father Ruiz said.

  KC was already working on that. Her combat training with the Navy hadn’t been for nothing, but not only were there a good dozen or more dancers to fight off, she seriously doubted the priest’s abilities to help.

  There were a lot of men and only one of her—her and a fallen tree limb.

  KC grimaced as her fingers curled into the dry moss coating the limb. After all, she was one of the hardest hitters on her brigade’s softball team.

  The dancers were now chanting at the top of their lungs. They’d entered a wide path cutting a straight line through the trees from the Castillo to a large natural pit sunken before them. It was suddenly clear now that they were intending to throw Peet into the pit, even before the mob’s chanting unified into one ominous word.

  Sacrifice!

  KC had to act now.

  * * * *

  Peet could see the pit coming.

  The dancers had picked his plowing feet off the ground, speeding their progress toward the pit. Peet was lifted higher, more hands binding him until he was laying spread eagle over the mob’s heads. He couldn’t kick. He couldn’t fight. He couldn’t move! Peet had never felt so powerless until—

  KC charged out of the trees, club raised, lifting a blood-curdling scream into the air. The dancers, now absorbed in the ecstasy of their ritual, pressed ever onward toward the gaping pit.

  “KC!” Peet cried. “Get out of here!”

  The woman didn’t stop. She rushed ahead and swung her club with all she had. It smashed into the first dancer she came to. The dancer vainly ducked but was otherwise undeterred as the club exploded over his back in a spray of moss and bug-infested splinters. KC hesitated, staring at the wooden stump she now held between her hands, staring as though dumbfounded by the result of her rescue attempt.

  “Run KC!” Peet demanded but a portion of the dancers had already split off and quickly captured her. Within seconds her small, writhing frame was hoisted beside him.

  “What the hell was that?” Peet hollered above the chanters as they paraded toward the pit.

  “I didn’t know the bugs ate out the inside.” Any further explanation was cut short as the dancers stopped. Peet and KC were now floating above the edge of the pit. It was a perfectly round pit, and huge—a good hundred feet across. Peet could smell the green water pooled sixty feet below, a faint stench of stagnant humidity wafting toward them. The chanting grew more frantic. Peet and KC were lifted higher into the air.

  Peet tried to struggle in a last ditch effort to get away. An arm broke free, then a leg. He twisted his body and suddenly he was loose. The dancers’ hands gave out beneath him and he fell.

  But the ground never caught him.

  Cenote

  Peet surfaced, kicking and sputtering to the sound of KC gulping and thrashing nearby. The stench of stale water felt heavy in his lungs. The chanting above them had stopped while a growing round of applause erupted from the crowd of onlookers now gathered at the lip of the cenote. Even the dancers were smiling down at them, laughing.

  “What? This was all for show?” KC spat, flinging a trail of moss from her shimmering neck.

  A long rope ladder was thrown over the edge, its end plopping into the algae clinging to the limestone edge of the pool, beckoning them. Neither argued. KC took the ladder first, scrambling out as though escaping a cesspool of flesh-eating acid. Peet followed, the water dripping off of KC’s body patting him on the head.

  The crowd was slowly disbursing to more interesting sights by the time KC scrambled over the rim of the cenote. As Peet approached the top himself, a familiar voice stopped his breath.

  “You stepped into the chalk ring, didn’t you, Dr. Peet.”

  Peet snapped his head up to find two people hovering just above him. The first was a stout little Mexican man Peet had never seen before. The second, all smiles and sparkling green eyes, was none other than Lori Dewson.

  * * * *

  It had been the chanting of the dancers that caught Lori’s attention. She’d been standing in the I-shaped ball court listening to Chac explain how the solstice sun cast a shadow from the goal ring to a skull-like ball centering an elaborate mural below when they were distracted by the commotion at the Castillo. When she looked she was stunned to find Dr. Peet in the center of it all. She thought she’d been mistaken and she still couldn’t quite believe her old professor was right there climbing out of the cenote before her—a survivor of yet another 2012 mock sacrifice.

  “This is the last place on earth I thought I’d find you, Lori,” he said, shaking the muck and water from his hair.

  “Likewise,” Lori said.

  “You two know each other?” Chac asked.

  “Dr. Peet was my professor at the university,” Lori explained. She caught Dr. Peet’s eye. “This is Chac Bacab,” she introduced. “He’s an independent archaeologist working here
in Chichen Itza.”

  The introduction felt awkward—like introducing a new boyfriend to a suitor from the past.

  Dr. Peet shook Chac’s sturdy hand with a solid grip of his own, then turned to the woman wringing out the tail of her shirt beside him. “This is KC,” he said simply.

  Lori had already noted the handsome woman that had climbed out of the cenote first. So this was what had occupied him these past months, she thought. She had no idea Dr. Peet was in any sort of relationship. However, a girlfriend didn’t exactly explain why he would abandon her dissertation work, did it?

  “And this is Father Ruiz,” Dr. Peet continued, indicating a priestly-looking Mexican who approached from the pathway cutting back to the Castillo.

  A priest?

  “So, what brings you to Chichen Itza?” Chac asked, sweeping from Father Ruiz back to Dr. Peet.

  “I’m looking for Matt Webb,” Dr. Peet said, matter-of-factly.

  “He’s a popular man today,” Chac said.

  “You are looking for him too?” Father Ruiz asked, dabbing a handkerchief at the sweat beading on his brow.

  Chac shrugged. “I don’t know that I’m looking for him, but I wouldn’t mind knowing where he went.”

  An unexplainable sense of jealousy flooded over Lori as she felt herself slipping out of the conversation. It wasn’t that she suddenly wanted Dr. Peet’s attention. She wanted his acknowledgment. But he had that look in his eye, that growing intensity she always found in him when he was working in the field. Even a soaking wet girlfriend afforded no more attention from Dr. Peet when it came to his work.

  “Do you work with Matt?” Dr. Peet asked, incredulously.

  “Chac and Dr. Webb have been documenting the area’s glyphs and frescoes together,” Lori jumped in. It had little effect. Dr. Peet’s full attention was focused on Chac and once again, Lori felt pushed aside. It was as though he found her lacking as a colleague, hindered by a generational gap—a kid among grown men. It was unlike Dr. Peet to treat her this way and she felt offended by it.