Masks of the Lost Kings (Suzy da Silva Series)

by Tom Bane

  Masks of the Lost Kings

  by

  Tom Bane

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Masks of the Lost Kings

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you’re reading this eBook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

  Copyright © 2009-2012 Tom Bane. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Cover Art: Krystal Watters

  Published by Telemachus Press, LLC

  http://www.telemachuspress.com

  Visit the author website:

  http://www.tombane.com

  ISBN: 978-1-937698-60-7 (eBook)

  ISBN: 978-1-937698-61-4 (Paperback)

  Version 2012.03.04

  Descriptions of the locations, monuments, tombs and other artifacts of the ancient Mayan and Egyptian cultures are, to the author’s knowledge, true and accurate.

  All characters however are entirely fictional; neither their personalities nor professional roles are intended in any way to reflect those of real people, alive or deceased.

  Nevertheless, the science and archaeology that the characters reveal are based on fact and deserve special attention.

  While the novel, inevitably, comes to an end, the story and its significance continues.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  EPILOGUE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  APPENDIX: UNLOCKING THE CODE

  CHAPTER ONE

  They emerged from the black, dripping jungle night already bruised and drenched from the hot rain of the Tumbala Mountains. Ben and José, his tribal guide, were making progress, but it didn’t feel like it. In every direction unbroken jungle spread out around them in spirals of verdant green, impeding their every move, slowing down every step as it clutched at their limbs, trying to trip them up and hold them back. Something was following them in the trees above their heads. Ben guessed it was monkeys disturbed by the flames of José’s Cahune palm torch and made anxious by this intrusion into their nighttime privacy. Mosquitoes patrolled in jerky circles, mounting regular painful attacks on their sweating skins. All around, the buzz of cicadas crested and receded like tropical ocean waves, making it hard to listen for any sounds of impending danger.

  Just like the heat, a sense of menace cloaked the ancient Mayan rain forest like a deadly veil. The gods had been starved for over a thousand years. Now they wanted a sacrifice. They demanded blood.

  The temptation to turn and run was almost overwhelming, but Ben knew he couldn’t give up now. This search for a sacred truth was his chosen quest. If he could pull this off, his reputation as an archaeologist and astrophysicist would be assured. He would win his place in the history books forever. His hunger for the truth had led him inexorably toward this ancient prize, the captivating pyramidal Temple of Inscriptions. Beneath its stone interior lay the mysterious subterranean death crypt of King Pacal that Ben was risking everything to unveil. The tribal elders and survival experts he had consulted had all issued the same warning, telling him of the wet season’s bloodthirsty mosquitoes, vicious horseflies and mud traps that could suck in a man up to his knees, or worse. Everyone said it would be best to wait until the place dried out in summer, but the lure was too great and Ben was too impatient. He couldn’t risk waiting even for a few months and losing out to a rival. Inside this jungle lay a giant Mayan lost city, with a secret concealed for a thousand years, a secret that he now had the code to unlock.

  The sweet smell of orchids filled the hot, wet air and brilliant blue butterflies floated randomly past, like musical notes, suspended in narrow beams of moonlight.

  Ben’s shirt snagged on the spiky tropical leaves, making him twist awkwardly. His foot shot out from under him, toppling him sideways. Suddenly he was falling through the air as if the ground had opened up beneath him. Grab something, his mind shrieked. Anything! A jolt slammed through him as his hand caught a tree root, halting his fall, while his left knee smashed into hard stone. Dirt and rocks were falling around him. His muscles screamed in pain as he clung on in the dark. He must be hanging over the side of a ravine but he had no idea how deep it was beneath his flailing feet. The root shifted in his hands as the earth began to surrender its hold. He glanced up, and a fresh shower of dirt stung his face. Above him was a sheer vertical wall of rock. He could see from the glow of José’s fire torch that he had fallen at least twenty feet. He braced himself to look down; despite the darkness it looked like a fall of at least another hundred feet beneath his dangling muddy boots.

  “José, throw me the rope!” Ben shouted, his voice hoarse.

  Terrifying empty seconds passed before Ben saw the end of the rope just a few feet above his head. Letting go of the root with one hand he snatched at it, his fingertips glancing against it and then finding purchase. Transferring his weight, he felt the rope give as José struggled to hold him. There was no choice but to trust the man he’d only known for a few days. Letting go of the root with the other hand he started to haul himself upward. At the lip of the ravine, José braced himself against a rock to shoulder his young American employer’s weig
ht. A few minutes later, Ben was lying on the floor of the jungle, gasping for breath, his heart thumping, elated to still be alive.

  “I thought I was a goner,” Ben exhaled, when he was finally able to pull himself to his feet. “Lets get moving, José, we’ve got work to do!”

  “No hay problemo, Don Sanders,” José grinned, equally relieved to have avoided going back to his village to explain he had lost the important foreigner down a ravine. “Soon we see the jungle temples. We go around the ravine south, then along, and we are in Palenque soon, very soon.”

  Pointing forward with the greasy smoke of his palm torch, José cut a swathe through the cloud of mosquitoes that had gathered. When he first arrived in the jungle, Ben had been stunned by its ecological diversity. But, since then, it had stung him, sucked his blood and dehydrated him to a harrowing thirst. Now he just wanted to claim his prize and get back to civilization. He shivered as a territorial howler monkey bellowed threateningly in the distance.

  José led as they forced their way through the undergrowth for another hour, every limp sending a wave of pain through Ben’s badly bruised knee. Suddenly José halted and peered through the foliage ahead. Ben followed the guide’s gaze and thought he could just make out unusual shapes looming into the moonlit sky about a mile to the southwest. Was this the ruins of Palenque? The colossal pyramid city some experts called the cradle of Mayan civilization?

  “Let me through, what is it, José?” Ben pushed him aside. “Are we here?”

  José dropped to the ground, lying prostrate, his torso pressed to the jungle path, peering ahead. Ben carefully knelt down to get the same view. From here, he could see a panoramic view of the stone plaza of Palenque, spectacular in the low moonlight, a ghostly hologram of ancient pyramids. Ben could hardly breathe with the excitement of finally being so close to his goal.

  As they stood up, the flickering light from José’s torch illuminated the face that suddenly leered out of the foliage several feet beyond Ben’s shoulder, making them both recoil in shock.

  “Shit!” Ben exclaimed. The giant stone skull loomed out of the undergrowth. José was transfixed by the stare of the black hollow eyes, overawed by this giant Mayan harbinger of death. “It’s just a slab of stone, José! Ignore it,” Ben instructed, eager to push on. “It’s just a rock sculpture.” Ben looked around. “José, we’re here, we’re finally here, the Temple of Inscriptions! Get over it, would you? Come on!”

  Mustering the last of his strength, driven by the renewed energy now coursing through his veins, Ben set the pace, racing toward the silhouettes of the pyramids, refusing to be slowed by the vines and trunks that twisted toward his limbs.

  His senses had gone into overdrive, heart pounding with another welcome rush of adrenalin, his footsteps eventually thudding across the plaza stones, his vision tunneling into the immaculate features of the step Pyramid, the Temple of Inscriptions. Now, at last, he was truly on the verge of a great discovery and had only to infiltrate the crypt inside for everything to be revealed. The pyramid seemed to glisten before him like a spectacular granite prize. He reached the foot of the grand stone stairway, the steep, carved steps stretching skyward. This was the awe-inspiring resting place of King Pacal.

  José crept up behind him, breathless and quivering like a frightened animal, terrified that his wild-eyed young employer was about to offend the ancient jungle’s demigods and bring the wrath of the heavens down on both their heads.

  Ben knew that, from the start of the expedition, José had feared an ancient curse contained in the crypt would envelop and kill them, like the legendary Tutankhamun’s curse. It had taken a lot of talking—and a lot of money—to persuade him to overcome these fears and lead Ben to this point and reveal how to get inside. Within a few hours José would be safely back with his family, furnished with amazing tales with which to regale tourists for the rest of his life. Ben had more important things with which to concern himself. He didn’t need José’s primitive fire torch, so he extracted his flashlight, handheld tally counter, compass, and a metal crowbar from his backpack.

  The crypt was locked but unguarded. After all, who would ever imagine anyone going to this much trouble to try to break in? If things went according to plan, he should be in and out in less than twenty minutes.

  A powerful wave of apprehension washed over Ben as he prepared to enter the pyramid, but he pushed it aside. There could be no turning back now.

  “I’m going in,” he said, pointing his crowbar to the pinnacle of the pyramid. José shook his head and looked like he might be about to weep.

  “I feel evil spirits at work here, the curse of Pacal. My tribal elders warned me not to come. Please, please—” José’s begging voice faded as Ben walked trancelike up the steps of the pyramid toward the flattened summit.

  The distant howler monkey let out another territorial bellow. Was it trying to warn them? Had the evil spirits awoken it?

  Ben’s knee was sore with pain as he reached the top of the ninth and final layer of steps. At the summit he found the silent stone room called the Sanctuary. As he entered through the center of its fifth stone doorway, he was enveloped in silence, all the jungle noises suddenly evaporated. A cone of light from his flashlight scythed through the dark room and he shivered as he imagined the grotesque sacrifices that might have been made here, the torrents of blood that would have washed over the stones. Then he saw it.

  The padlocked metal grill was above an open stone floor plug, the plug having been thrown away long ago by officials. He crept toward it.

  Centering the crowbar on the padlock, Ben levered with all his strength, bearing all his weight downward, sweat springing from every pore of his body. He felt some give in the lock, but it was hard to keep a grip. He pushed harder, harder—it wasn’t moving—harder, harder … his grip slipped. BANG! Thrown to the floor, his shoulder almost exploded as it hit the hard stone flanking. But adrenalin masked the pain as he saw the padlock split open, leaving two broken pieces on the floor.

  Wrenching the metal grill aside, he squeezed through into a triangular stairway tunnel, leading him down into the darkness of the Temple’s underworld. The steps were smooth. He shone his flashlight around and saw that the ceiling was corbelled, stones stacked carefully on top of one another to support the massive weight of rock. Awash with sweat, his hand slipped from the wall and he stumbled painfully. He gasped for air; it was like trying to breathe through a wet blanket. The tunnel’s descent was fast and steep and Ben tried to get a firmer purchase against the smooth walls. He shone his flashlight down again, carefully counting the stone steps as he went with the tally counter. Soon, there were five thousand tons of rock above him and he could almost feel the weight of it on his shoulders. Outside, the walls had been lavishly decorated with murals and stucco sculptures of Mayan life, but here it was devoid of life, just plain, anonymous walls. The steps seemed to be getting steeper, almost vertical and he had to slow down for fear of slipping again and falling to the bottom.

  Breathing became even harder. It was stiflingly humid. Could he survive this? Then he paused, smiling in relief; he had reached the middle chamber. His flashlight started to flicker and dim. He cursed himself for not thinking to bring spare batteries. He switched it off for several seconds while he caught his breath. Impenetrable black surrounded him. He was two hundred feet down and even steeper steps now led out beneath ground level. He knew that the tunnel bored its way through the bedrock toward the magnificent death crypt of Pacal. He felt his way to the first step down; it was tiny and treacherous.

  Unbeknownst to Ben and José, two men were soundlessly descending the steps just above them, camouflaged in black balaclavas and leopard-spot uniforms, primed with assault M16s, stealth-assisted with infrared night sights.

  Counting the steps down the narrow corbelled stairway, it was all exactly as Ben expected from his research. It seemed like time had stopped as he crawled inside the Crypt of King Pacal and switched his failing flashlight back on aga
in, shining it quickly around, wanting to get his bearings before the faint beam might die. The giant sarcophagus lid was as inspiring as he had always imagined and he knelt beside it in awe, trying to take in the enormity of the moment. He had finally arrived in the secret chamber of Pacal, a living Sun god to the Mayan people. Ben had solved the code all by himself. He was going to be famous when he got back to civilization.

  Running his fingers over the bas relief on the top of the sarcophagus lid, which showed Pacal lying in a position like an Apollo astronaut ascending to the stars, he leaned closer to study it. A beast from the Underworld was reaching out to devour him and carved on the breastplate with beautiful precision was a tree of life, the Foliated Cross. It was astonishing and scary at the same time. The flashlight beam was flickering, reminding him that he had limited time and couldn’t afford to indulge himself. Battling to get enough air into his lungs he stood up and made his way back up the stairs with the light out, carefully recounting the steps on the way up to the Sanctuary.

  “Doctor Sanders?” A distant voice cut through the darkness.

  Ben froze.

  “José? … José?” he called back. But in his heart he knew that this was not José’s voice calling to him. “Who’s there?”

  Then he remembered what he’d been instructed.

  “The ceiling is corbelled—” he called.

  No response.

  “Who’s there? Hello? Hello?” he repeated. His fear urged him to turn the flashlight on and dispel the blackness, but his survival instinct warned him to stay invisible.

  “Doctor Sanders?” the voice repeated, louder and closer.

  “Who’s there?”

  He could hear footsteps now, running fast and coming closer. His nerves gave way as he flicked the feeble flashlight back on.

  “Drop the torch!” the voice commanded, “Drop it now!”

  Ben caught a glimpse of what looked like combat fatigues on the steps above him.

  “DROP IT!” yelled a second voice.

  Ben obeyed, helpless to do anything else.