“From this window, at night, with no artificial light, the view of the Milky Way rising above El Castillo is spectacular. The Maya believed it was the mystic road that souls walked into the underworld.”
“A road in the sky that leads underground,” Bones said. “Sure. Why not?”
“So the hole leading to heaven is a doorway?” Maddock said.
“It could mean doorway or portal, but the word is most often translated as ‘maw.’”
“Maw. Mouth.”
Griego turned to Bell. “Show me the pictures again.”
Bell opened his laptop and Griego flipped through the stills until he found the one with the glyph Bell had mistaken for ‘cenote.’ He tapped his finger on the adjoining carving. “When I see this, I'm certain of it.”
“I have to confess,” Bell said. “I have no idea what that is.”
Griego shone his light at another section of the wall, and traced an image that was roughly the same. “It isn’t a glyph. It’s a constellation. Serpens.”
Bones leaned down and scrutinized the image on the screen. “It looks like Humpty Dumpty to me. Got the big oval in the center and the stick arms and legs. Come to think of it, it looks like one of Angel's self-portraits.”
She punched him in the shoulder, hard enough to make him wince. “Ow.”
“I gotta agree with Bones,” Maddock said. “I don’t see a serpent.”
“That's because it doesn't just represent a serpent. The central figure is Ophiuchus, the snake bearer. The horizontal line running through it is the serpent: Serpens Caput, representing the serpent’s head, and Serpens Cauda, the serpent’s tail.”
Bell was also unconvinced. “The Greeks saw Ophiucus and Serpens in the stars, but that doesn’t mean the Maya did.”
“True,” Griego admitted. “And our understanding of Classic Maya astrology is woefully incomplete, but some iconography is universal. Scorpio, just to name one example, is the same in both cultures.”
“So what’s the message here?” Maddock pressed. “Follow the stars?”
“If you connect the temples of old Chichén Itzá —walking the path as the ancient priests would have, starting to the south at Edificio de las Monjas—The Nunnery.” He pointed to the back wall and then began moving his fingers, pointing out the general location of the unseen monuments. “The House of Dark Writing. El Caracol — here.” He turned and pointed out the window to a pyramid they had passed on the way in. “The Tomb of the High Priest, there. And there… ” He pointed to a spot to the northeast. Maddock couldn’t see a temple there, but just a hollow with no trees. “The cenote. The serpent’s maw. It’s all connected. The new city, with El Castillo, the temple to Kukulkan, the feathered serpent, at its center, follows the same path leading to the other sacred cenote. The Maya believed that Kulkulkan went ahead of Chaac, the rain god, who lived at the bottom of the cenote. This symbolism appears over and over again in their architecture.”
“Kukulkan,” Bones echoed. “The Aztecs called him Quetzalcoatl, right? We know all about him.”
“Kukulkan was the chief deity of the Post-Classic Yucatec Maya,” Bell said. “The Kiche called him Q'uq'umatz. But the worship of the feathered serpent deity traces back to a much earlier tradition. In the Classic period, he was Waxaklahun Ubah Kan, the War Serpent.” Bell sounded breathless, but not because of his disability. “They would have followed the same design in the placement of their holy cities. This is what the guidestone is trying to tell us. Follow the path of the serpent to find the City of Shadow.”
Griego looked at him sharply. “Ciudad de Sombre? Is that what you seek? I would have thought you had learned your lesson by now, my friend. Please don’t mention that I helped you. I have a reputation to protect.”
“You don’t believe Xibalba was connected with a real place?” Angel asked.
“Whether or not it was, searching for it panders to the sensational. You might as well search for Atlantis, or the Seven Cities of Cibola.”
Bones coughed loudly and Maddock grinned. “Thanks for the help,” he said. “We’ll say we figured it out from watching the History Channel.”
He let the matter of their goal drop while they made their way out of the tower, but when Bell paused for a rest, Maddock approached him. “So now we’ve got a map. What’s the next step?”
“We have to find the start of the road. A sacred site that corresponds to the serpent's tail. I’ll need Internet access to compare astronomical charts and Maya cities.”
Maddock nodded. “I know a guy who might be able to help with that.”
Bell nodded. “My instincts tell me we’ll need to look to the south. The alignment of the guidestone in its original setting, and the serpent path here in the architecture all seem to follow that basic rule.”
“How far south?”
“Honduras. The ancient Maya capital of Copán. It was a major city in the Classic period, and a major cultural capital. It’s also almost exactly due south of here. If we can locate this glyph in the ruins there, we’ll know we’re on the right track.”
“Maddock,” Bones’ voice had lost its usual sardonic edge, a sure sign that something was wrong. “Don’t be obvious about it, but take a look at my eight o’clock.”
Maddock made a show of stretching, as if trying to work out a kink in his neck, to hide a visual sweep of the area indicated. As he did, he glimpsed someone ducking into the woods about seventy-five yards up the trail leading back to El Castillo.
“He rabbited,” Maddock said. “Did you get a look at him?”
Bones shook his head. “No.”
Miranda now took note of their discussion. “What’s up?”
“I think we attracted some unwanted attention.”
Miranda evidently knew better than to question the assessment. “How do you want to play this?”
“I think it’s time to take in a little culture.” He turned to Griego and Bell. “Would you mind walking us through the route you just showed us?”
Bell started to protest. “I don’t think that’s really—”
Miranda cut him off. “Dad. We really need to do this.” She took his hand and led him down the steps.
An uncomprehending Griego just shrugged and went ahead of them down a footpath. “I can show you the rest of the Casa Colorada group. The House of Dark Writing may be of interest to you in your search.”
As the archaeologist launched into a comprehensive history of the site, Maddock lingered with Angel, ducking behind the south end of the observatory. A few seconds later, a lone figure came into view. He had the dark hair and complexion of a local, but wore nicer clothes and, more tellingly, wasn’t carrying an armful of cheap souvenirs. Maddock drew Angel further along the side path, out of the man’s view, and waited until he had passed before creeping forward slowly, just in case the man wasn’t alone. There was no sign of other watchful eyes, and the man did not appear to have noticed that anyone was missing from the group he was following, but Maddock remained wary.
“He’s following us, all right.”
“You think he’s just another hired gun?” Angel whispered.
“Hard to say. I guess we’ll have to ask him. Wait here.” He started forward, moving swiftly but stealthily, trying to stay directly behind the man to avoid detection.
Further up the trail, Bones was putting on a show, gesturing wildly and talking loudly about the structure they were approaching — the Nunnery.
It wasn’t an actual nunnery, and never had been, but that didn’t stop Bones from making obscene jokes about it.
Maddock got within ten yards of his quarry before the man realized he was being stalked.
He whirled, a panicked look in his eyes, and then bolted.
Maddock made a grab for him, but the man slipped through his fingers, and charged off at an oblique angle, headed for the treeline.