Near the top of the mountain Hunt noticed a terraced formation, sort of like wide steps had been cut into it, like pictures he had seen of Asian rice paddies. He figured it was some sort of erosion pattern caused by rains sluicing down from the top of the mountain peak. Finally, Jayden reached the summit with a quiet whoop and a holler that he made sure wouldn’t carry too far in case anyone could hear somewhere down below. But a few steps before Hunt and Maddy got to the apex with him, he said, “Bad news, guys. It’s still forested as far as the eye can see.”
Hunt and Maddy clawed their way the remainder of the distance to the summit, with Hunt giving Maddy a final shove to make sure she got there safely. Then Hunt stood and took a look around. Jayden was right. Behind them, in the direction from which they had come, they could see the jungle with the ocean in the distance. In front of them, a vast expanse of jungle extended to the horizon.
Jayden put a voice to Hunt’s thoughts. “And to think I thought of Cuba like Havana, with city streets and ‘50s cars and nightclubs and stuff.”
“Yep. Doesn’t look that way from here, does it? On the bright side, there’s a lot of police and military presence in Havana, so that’s probably not a good place for us to be, either.”
Maddy sat on the ground and put her head in her hands. Hunt was afraid she was going to cry. He was about to move to comfort her when an outcropping of rock a little ways down the opposite slope from the one they had ascended caught his eye. Without a word, he walked down to it. Again, he noticed the odd terraced layout to the ground, which he thought was strange since there was no reason to do any kind of agriculture way up here. As he stepped down the terraces, Maddy’s prior words came to him: “There’s another pyramid…” and then it hit him.
This mountain. The broad base and pointy top. The terracing. The proximity to the supposed southerly location of Atlantis mentioned in the lost Critias pages. Hunt’s skin prickled with awareness.
We’re standing on a pyramid!
Easy now, Hunt told himself, leaning on the rocky outcropping. Just because it has some superficial characteristics of a pyramid doesn’t mean it is one. If it is a pyramid, though, he reasoned, that means there should be some way to get inside. He recalled no caves or anything like that at the base where they had walked up. Of course they hadn’t walked all around the base of it. He eyed the way down the opposite face, noting that they would be able to walk down it easily enough. Maybe we should look for entrances at the base on this side, he thought. He was turning around to convey this line of reasoning to Jayden and Maddy when he spotted a cleft in the rocky outcropping.
A dark space lay between two rocks, itself shrouded by a clump of scraggly ferns. Hunt moved to it and parted the plant life to have a look. A rift wide enough to accommodate a man extended down into darkness.
He called up to Jayden and told him to bring Maddy down here. By the time they slid down to the opening, Hunt had already dropped inside. “Come on down. There’s a vertical shaft here with cutouts in the rock we can use as ladder rungs.”
Jayden and Maddy also entered the chute. “What is this, a cave?” Maddy asked, her voice echoing in the enclosed space.
“Not really. I think it’s your missing pyramid.”
Chapter 35
Hunt descended the vertical rock chute rung by rung. Looking down, darkness prevented him from seeing what lay below, but it was quiet except for the sounds of Jayden and Maddy’s climbing, several rungs above him.
“Be a good guy and give me a head’s up if you fall, Jayden, so I can brace myself.”
“I was planning on taking you with me.”
Then Maddy said, “Guys, I realize this is all fun and games for you military types, but I’m really nervous, okay? Please stay focused.”
“Who’s got a light?” Hunt asked, changing the subject. “I had to toss mine into the ocean when I hijacked the patrol boat.” The darkness enveloped them a little more with each rung downward.
“Be glad I carry a tube of waterproof matches wherever I go,” Jayden said. He flipped open a latch on his belt buckle, steadying himself against the rock wall with one hand, and then lit one. The sizzle was accompanied by a flame and then they heard a snapping noise as Jayden ripped a stalk from a plant that grew out of the wall. He set it on fire, pleased that it lit relatively easily, having been kept dry down in this vertical chamber.
“Grab some more sticks when you see them,” he said, “because farther down there might not be anymore. Hunt and Maddy collected a few that they stashed in their waistbands, and then they continued on their way straight down. Since Jayden was the one carrying the torch, he had to go slower, but it also meant that he could see better. That’s why Hunt was surprised when he heard Jayden call out that something was written on the walls.
“What, like graffiti?” Hunt called up, worried that he was about to have his hopes dashed that this was an ancient pyramid upon finding out the local gang members have left their mark down here. But it was Maddy, who was closer to Jayden on the wall than Hunt, who responded first
“Oh my God, these appear to be genuine works of art. There’s a bull here, Carter. Bulls are symbols long associated with Atlantis!”
“Let’s keep going.” Hunt continued with his descent, now noticing that there were paintings on the walls in front of him. A naval scene, with longboats being rowed by dozens of warriors, shields in place. Another of a great city, a city built on a series of canals formed in…Hunt nearly gasped as he formed the words in his mind: …formed in concentric rings.
Atlantis!
“You’re going to love this next one, Maddy. But don’t lose your focus on the wall. Keep your footing.”
Carter continued climbing down, and shortly after he heard Maddy gushing over the scenic rendering. “Amazing! It’s got to be Atlantis! I can’t even—”
“Something coming up here.” Hunt’s words put an end to Maddy’s sentence. “Looks like it’s the end of the ladder — it’s opening up into a chamber of some sort.”
But oddly enough the ladder didn’t come to an end on the floor of the chamber, but about six feet up. Hunt waited for Jayden to come down lower with the torch, so that he could see the floor better, to make sure it was in fact a floor. When Jayden came to within a couple of rungs of him, he could see the flames casting his own shadow in wavering shapes on a floor that looked to be made of solid rock tiles.
“It looks solid to me, Jayden. I’m dropping down.”
“Nice knowing you, buddy, if it turns out to be some weird illusion, or if the tiles are breakaway…”
Hunt dropped before Jayden finished his joking around. The thump of his feet hitting the stone reverberated throughout the mountain-shrouded pyramid. “I’m standing on solid ground, not to worry,” Hunt reported. “Come on down.”
Jayden dropped in first, his flaming torch flickering wildly as he fell, and then Maddy made the drop as well. The three of them stood in awe of their new surroundings. They had come to an antechamber of sorts, with the vertical chute emptying out into a polygonal room not seeming to be any standard shape. The ceiling was high and multi-faceted, and the walls were decorated with richly painted murals much more detailed than the ones in the chute on the way down. These, too, depicted scenes of a maritime city, of thriving commerce, culture and everyday life: oxen plowing fields, fishermen hauling in nets bursting with seafood, fish pens for aquaculture, musicians performing in front of socializing crowds, children playing in a field, and a pantheon of god-like figures, looking down on it all from sky-blue heavens above. Other than the artwork, the chamber was unadorned.