The Captive King

by Susan Copperfield

  If I released the powdered cinnabar, it would taint the water. With no idea how much of the toxin it took to poison a river, I wouldn’t risk it.

  There might be a community nearby relying on the underground river for their water.

  Since flushing the cinnabar down the drain wasn’t acceptable, I needed to get creative. Vermilion pigment was prized for its beauty despite its toxicity. Painting the temple with its own treasures wasn’t sacrilege, was it?

  I didn’t think so.

  I layered it on the stone, binding it in place with my talent until none remained in the hallway beyond where Quetzalcoatl’s statue had once stood. I estimated I’d made the wall an extra three inches thicker by the time I finished.

  If I were to gather it all and sell it, I would have hundreds of thousands of dollars of pigment so toxic most artists used the safer cadmium red rather than risk being poisoned. Only the brave, the foolish, or restorers used true vermilion when cheaper and safer options were available.

  Without Quetzalcoatl’s head illuminating the room, I relied on the pair of bracelets around my wrists, and a dim flicker of light at my feet revealed I’d picked up an additional pair of hitchhikers around my ankles, too.

  It was well enough those responsible for the ancient magic were long dead. I wanted to pop them in the mouth for clamping obsidian manacles on me. Jerking me around to a death temple was bad enough.

  If I had romantic prospects, if I wasn’t already doomed to live a lonely life due to my inability to play nice with most men, I might’ve liked the obsidian bracelets and everything they represented.

  I wanted to have the sort of love the bracelets described, but I never expected it to happen to me.

  If it did, I liked to think it’d be with someone like Landen.

  Any smart bachelorette would trip over her feet to land him, and if they weren’t queueing in line, they were stupid and didn’t deserve him.

  I added the bracelets and their purpose to my growing list of things I’d have to worry about later. I wished my phone still worked, although the dunking into the underground river would’ve finished it off for good. With my phone, I could’ve taken pictures and notes about the temple. Then if someone found my dead body, they’d at least have some good research material to study.

  I drew a steadying breath and poked my head into the hallway Quetzalcoatl’s statue had hidden.

  No one studied Mesoamerican lore without learning of El Dorado. Gold surrounded me, and traces of cinnabar caked in the crevices, accenting the ancient writings decorating the walls, the ceiling, and the floor. Had I been a conquistador in search of treasure, I might’ve believed the city of gold was a real place.

  It wasn’t.

  El Dorado had been a man, likely a king or a tribal chief, who had covered his body in powdered gold and offered wealth to a goddess who ruled over Guatavita. If she had a name, I didn’t know it.

  My talent warned me of cinnabar everywhere, dust particles hanging in the air waiting to be sucked into my lungs. Anyone else would’ve found their deaths in the hallway, slow and agonizing. No matter where I walked, I’d touch it eventually.

  I could live with the rashes. As long as I kept it out of my lungs, I’d recover. Doctors and talented earthweavers could draw the toxin out. I’d learned the trick of it, but not in time to save Sam, Will, and Daniel.

  Unless I was rescued, if I needed magic to recover from the mercury poisoning, I’d die.

  If I ever made it back to university, I’d suggest that there be an entire semester dedicated to the various death traps of ancient civilizations and methods of escaping them alive. Survival against the elements had been discussed at length, but few talked about death traps outside of Egypt and China.

  That needed to change.

  Stupid death temple. Stupid university for neglecting to teach me all the dangers of Mesoamerican death temples. I figured they didn’t want to lose promising archaeologists. Stupid cinnabar. I wrinkled my nose, reached out with my talent, and plastered as much of the toxic particles I could to the walls so I wouldn’t be exposed.

  That I’d made it so far into the temple supported Landen’s speculations over why I’d failed my dissertation defense. Someone like me was worth a fortune to a university with a death temple problem. If they granted me my doctorate, they would have to pay me far more than education, boarding, and a tiny stipend.

  Bastards.

  If I got out of the temple alive, I’d try to contact Landen and allow him to savor his victory without complaint.

  In the future, if I was going to risk life and limb, I deserved a hell of a lot better than what I was currently getting. I’d been so blinded by my own determination to get my PhD I hadn’t considered other options.

  Great. I had even more to think about after I left the hell I’d fallen into. I had so much to think about I’d give myself a headache for weeks trying to sort it all out.

  Unless I got my head into the game, none of it mattered. I’d be dead, which would ruin all my hopes for the future permanently. With no other choice, I lifted my chin and braced for the worst. The traps at Joya de Ballesteros’s Site C had been lethal, but they had protected a priceless trove of knowledge and relics.

  Did I really need a doctorate if I uncovered an intact temple and learned its secrets without help?

  Reading the discs had gotten me into trouble, but like a moth to flame, I stared at the walls and began to read.

  Historians—and the descendants of the Nahua—had determined the tribes had sacrificed people to appease their gods and prevent the end of the world. Some glyphs I couldn’t translate, but the ones I could froze me to my bones.

  I stood in a hall dedicated to the ritualistic murder of humans, and not all humans were created equal. A willing sacrifice of low rank was worth five unwilling lives, and their bodies were anointed before death to ease their transition to the afterlife. Offerings to Xolotl bribed the god on behalf of the sacrificed.

  A willing tribe leader saved hundreds in a lavish ceremony, where the souls to be preserved from sacrifice were draped with jewels, forever protected from a priest’s obsidian blade.

  A god made mortal and sacrificed to reclaim his divinity protected an entire city from shedding another drop of blood for the sake of the world. The images told a story of a murder so brutal I shuddered at the depictions.

  The so-called god began his journey to reclaim his divinity where I stood, at the mouth of Quetzalcoatl, wading through a hallway of cinnabar before walking to the top of the temple. By the time he faced the sun, his body would be stained red. Thus prepared, he would walk to the temple’s peak altar to wait for the moon to rise high in the sky.

  He didn’t walk alone. Four others walked with him, and the five would face the city’s greatest priest.

  If all went well, one would be sacrificed and the rest would become gods in the flesh, custodians of the city until the end of time. The blood of captured enemies would still flow, but the obedient citizens of the city wouldn’t worry for their lives ever again.

  Like in Los Horcones, the writing was in a blend of Nahuatl, Mayan, and Ch’olti’.

  I lost track of time reading the walls. I couldn’t decipher many of the runes, but I guessed they were names. I could spend a lifetime on just the ceiling and fail to learn all of its secrets. If the writing spoke the truth, I walked where men who believed themselves gods had tested their divinity before sacrificing themselves for the sake of their people.

  So many believed the Nahua were a cruel, evil people, but the writing spoke of another truth.

  Only the greatest love could end in the greatest sacrifice, and one truth spoke loudest in the writings.

  The sacrifice had to be ready to die for his people without a single grain of doubt.

  I knew no one who loved their country so much to sacrifice themselves in a horrific fashion without any doubt.

  I wondered how many men had died trying to become a god to save their people from furth
er sacrifice.

  Shivering, I crept down the hall in search of freedom. At the end of the hall, I found a lake of powdered cinnabar with a stream of liquid mercury running through it. The metallic fluid gleamed in the bracelets’ glow, which took on a life of its own and filled the room with a pure white light.

  The cinnabar rippled, hardened, and transformed from fine powder to crystal, creating a walkway over the molten mercury stream. My eyes widened.

  A gleaming red wall barred me from returning to the golden hallway. If I wanted to reach the surface, I needed to keep moving forward. If I fell into liquid mercury, it wouldn’t take long for death to find me. The real risk was in its vapors. In normal conditions, mercury vaporized at room temperature, and its toxins leeched into the lungs and poisoned its victims.

  While my talent detected the substance surrounding me, the air seemed pure.

  For the moment.

  Why had I thought unearthing lost temples was a good idea? Not only would I seek out Landen, when I did so, I would get on my knees, bow my head, and confess my sins of pride and stupidity. He’d probably find my folly amusing.

  I gulped, clenched my teeth, and stepped onto the crystal path.

  My talent couldn’t fully protect me from the cinnabar. At best, I kept it out of my lungs. Fine particles stained my clothes, and it didn’t take long for the tell-tale rash of exposure to develop. My skin would heal, assuming I received medical care. Even if I didn’t, I might live. I’d be miserable, but survival was possible.

  As long as my lungs remained clear, as long as the mercury stayed out of my bloodstream, I could live.

  Without my talent, I would’ve been critically poisoned within minutes of stepping into the red room and its stream of liquid mercury. Every step, I needed to repel the dust, and I redirected it to the walls, which was made of thick plates of gold over harder granite.

  The Nahua usually worked with limestone.

  The pigment filled the grooves in the walls, transforming the carvings into works of art, writing waiting to be translated, and the wealth of knowledge tempted me. I understood, then, why Quetzalcoatl had stood guardian over the temple.

  When I stood still, when I concentrated my talent on the air around me, I could breathe without worry. I could read in the temple’s soft glow. The temple would kill me in time, but for a while, I could learn its secrets and take them to the grave with me.

  Yes, Quetzalcoatl was the ideal guardian for the temple and its knowledge.

  I had the feeling Xototl waited for me at the temple’s peak, representing the end of a long journey.

  I didn’t want to die, so I shook off the urge to learn everything I could and moved on, regretting my phone’s demise. A single picture would’ve been the highlight of my career. Future researchers would need a better talent than mine to delve into the temple’s depths and survive.

  As long as I had anything to say about it, I would never again step foot into the chamber of cinnabar and mercury.

  Some things weren’t meant for mortal eyes.

  Some things were never meant to be purified or defiled, and I walked in hallowed halls. No, magic able to withstand the test of time was best left undisturbed. Some mysteries were best left unsolved, a marvel to awaken the curiosity of future generations.

  The crystal path spiraled upward, forming steps to allow access to the upper levels. Behind me, the path crumbled back to dust and rained down on the silvery mercury below. My lungs burned from exertion by the time I reached the end of the staircase at an arched hallway clogged with sand.

  I stepped onto the ledge and the crystal dissolved, leaving me stranded.

  Fantastic. If I wanted to escape, I had to burrow through more sand, but I needed my talent to keep the lethal dust out of my lungs. No matter what I did, I couldn’t win.

  As I had no other choice, I dug.

  Since magical cinnabar dust hadn’t been sufficient to kill me, the temple threw more mundane hazards my way. Sand, snakes, and scorpions would be the death of me, and there was jack shit I could do about it. Controlling the cinnabar tapped my talent and drained it dry.

  The scorpions weren’t all that interested in picking a fight, but two of the bastards stung me before skittering off.

  The quartet of pissed-off snakes would be the killing blow; one had crawled into my boot and insisted on gnawing on my ankle to express its displeasure of my presence. Its three friends mocked me with their hissing.

  When my talent finally failed, I wasn’t sure what would kill me. I couldn’t tell if the snakes were venomous. It didn’t matter. I hated the damned things, and one kept chewing on me.

  I wanted to cry and scream, but I didn’t dare waste the breath—or give the cinnabar extra opportunities to seep into my airways.

  If by some miracle I did escape from hell, I wouldn’t just contact Landen. I’d hide under his bed for the rest of eternity. He seemed like my safest choice.

  The truth I hated reared its ugly head.

  The death temple had gotten in its blows, but a Cassidy didn’t quit without a fucking fight. After I licked my wounds, I’d dive right back into the fray and unravel the temple’s secrets, best it, and show it who was boss—me.

  As though sensing my thoughts and wanting to make it clear I was an idiot, the damned snake bit me again. My ankle throbbed, and my eyes burned from unshed tears.

  Then the fever set in, and the sand, scorpions, and snakes melted away, as did the desert heat, until my gaze focused on broken stones. Where mountains should have been, a jungle—no, a forest—grew. There wasn’t enough foliage or mud for a jungle. Broken stones of an abandoned ruin rose from the mossy ground. On the outskirts, pines loomed. Rare evergreens dotted South American jungles, but I’d never seen any like the ones encroaching on the ruins.

  Patches of snow melted in the sunlit clearing, and shadows stirred.

  I’d seen too many sacrificial altars to deny the existence of ghosts. I had no way to confirm they were real, but I couldn’t claim they didn’t exist, either. Matt had believed in them.

  Matt was as practical as they got, and if Matt believed in ghosts, that was reason enough for me to abandon my skepticism and believe in them, too.

  I’d never seen one before. No one had, as far as I knew, but I sometimes thought they lurked nearby. Watching. Waiting.

  Pale shapes stepped into the light, and through them, the ruins wavered, as though hidden beneath disturbed water. The feathered headdresses favored by the Mesoamerican tribes accompanied golden trappings, and lesser warriors dragged a captive to a slab of stone.

  Their victim was shrouded in darkness, a pulsing miasma that obscured him. I guessed at his gender; he was larger than his captors, but I could tell nothing else.

  Instead of sacrificing him as I expected, the spirits forced him to his knees and bound him with golden chains.

  Then, one by one, the ghosts faded away, as did I.

  Chapter Six

  Despite the number of site accidents I’d survived, I’d never gone to the hospital. How I’d gotten there remained a mystery. A mask covered my nose and mouth, and several men and women bent over me.

  At least one of them was an earthweaver. I could feel them pulling the cinnabar out of my lungs, shunting the toxin into my bloodstream, where a leech forced it out through an incision in my arm.

  Elemental mercury poisoned me, too. I could feel the silvery substance slithering through my veins. I shuddered, wanting to purge it, but every time I tried to use my talent, something zapped my shoulder, scattering my concentration.

  It hurt enough I struggled.

  The next zap knocked me out, and when I woke, I itched.

  Yep, I remembered that sensation. I hated the rashes from cinnabar exposure; few talents could cure it, and most doctors left it to heal naturally. A thousand fire ants crawled over my skin. I didn’t need my skin, did I? If I scratched it off, it would heal faster, wouldn’t it?

  Someone, likely anticipating my reaction, h
ad wrapped my hands in mittens and layered tape over them. I hissed curses, and a nurse dressed in white stepped into view, offering a smile. “Good morning. I’m Kayla. Do you know why you’re here?”

  The nurse sounded American, but northern. Hadn’t I been somewhere hot and dry?

  Damn it, I didn’t want to deal with any more mysteries.

  I glared at my reddened arm. “Cinnabar exposure.”

  “That’s right. You were found at a ruin with critical poisoning.”

  Huh. I hadn’t realized I’d allowed so much of the cinnabar to get into my lungs. I thought I’d prevented the worst of it. Bummer. Glowering at the wretched mittens of anti-scratching, I pointed in the general direction of my foot. “A snake bit me.”

  Kayla frowned. “We hadn’t noticed any bite marks, and you haven’t had any symptoms of poisoning. Of course, your rashes are rather severe. If you were bitten, it was likely a non-venomous species. We’ll do a blood test to confirm there are no toxins in your bloodstream. Do you remember your name?”

  “Summer Cassidy. I was working near Los Horcones, Mexico when something went wrong.”

  While the mittens covered them, I could feel the bracelets around my wrists, pleasantly cool against the rashes.

  “You were in Mexico?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mexico.”

  I frowned at the doubt in her tone. “Where am I?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I don’t have a clue. Last I checked, I was in Mexico.”

  Her expression turned neutral. “I’ll go fetch the doctor.”

  I had no real experience with doctors, but I was willing to bet when the nurse didn’t know how to handle the situation, it wasn’t good. Where the hell was I that having come from Mexico was so much of a problem?

  She left without a word, which made me wonder if all nurses were so abrupt. My name hadn’t surprised her. Why had the mention of Mexico sent her bolting out of the room in a hurry?