“A cenote?” Maddock asked.
Bell shook his head. “Not exactly. Cenotes are naturally occurring pools, caused when limestone caverns collapse. The geology here is all wrong for that. This is a cistern. A man-made reservoir. The Maya of the Petén region didn’t have lakes or rivers, so they collected rainwater in enormous cisterns called chultuns.”
Bones regarded the pool with uncustomary apprehension. “Do we dive it?”
“We’re the first to find this,” Miranda said. “It’s probably full of sacrificial offerings. Dad, this is exactly what you’ve been looking for.”
Bell gave a patient smile. “There may be some trinkets in there, but unlike the cenotes, the chultuns were primarily utilitarian.”
“So this isn’t an entrance to the Underworld,” Maddock said. “Symbolic or otherwise.”
“Correct. And if this is indeed the City of Shadow, dedicated to worshipping the Lords of Death, then we may actually be looking for a temple.”
Maddock, who normally would have jumped at a chance to dive, felt an unexpected measure of relief at the reprieve.
They cleared a path around the chultun and kept going. Their trailblazing uncovered more artifacts — stone benches and carved blocks that might once have been stelae. Thirty feet or so beyond the cistern, Angel uncovered another stelae, still standing but considerably more weathered than the first.
Miranda moved closer to capture a video record. “Another guide dog?”
Bell reached out for the effigy, but as he did, Maddock saw something moving atop the stone marker. Bones shouted a warning, but before he could do anything else, there was a flash of movement. It looked like a vine — emerald green, flecked with gold — but it was moving, springing toward Bell’s outstretched hand.
And then something else moved, striking even faster. The blade of Angel’s machete slashed through the air between Bell and the stelae, slicing the vine-thing in two. One piece dropped at Bell’s feet, while the rest of it began coiling and writhing atop the standing stone before falling away into the jungle beyond.
For a moment, no one else moved. Bell looked like he might pass out. Then Miranda let out her breath in a long sigh of relief. “That was too close.”
Bones bent down and looked at the severed end of the creature. “It’s a palm pit viper.”
“Poisonous?” Angel asked.
“Venomous,” Bones corrected. “Poison refers to something you eat. Venom comes from something that wants to eat you. And yeah, their venom usually won’t kill you, but since we can’t exactly head to the ER, it’s probably best not to test that theory.” He pushed into underbrush beside the stela, evidently looking for the rest of the snake. “It’s a shame you had to kill it,” he went on. “These things are… ”
There was a sudden noise of branches breaking and then Bones was gone, swallowed by the jungle.
CHAPTER 15
“Bones!” Maddock and Angel shouted, moving toward the spot where Bones had disappeared, heedless of whatever danger lay concealed in the undergrowth.
Bones was shouting too, though the noise of branches rustling and snapping partially drowned him out. The tumult subsided and for a moment there was only an ominous silence.
“Ow,” Bones muttered.
Maddock bent back some of the foliage, searching for his friend. “Bones? You okay?”
“It's cool,” Bones called out. His voice seemed to be coming from ground level. “Watch your step. There’s a hell of a drop off there.”
Maddock let out a relieved sigh, then took the machete from Angel and began clearing the foliage away to reveal an almost sheer cliff-face just beyond the weathered stelae. Bones was standing about ten yards away, the top of his head level with Maddock’s feet.
“It usually takes a bottle of Wild Turkey to make me fall like that,” he said, gingerly rubbing a knee. “I enjoy rolling down a hill as much as the next kid, but there’s a lot of rocks poking out of this one.”
“This isn’t a cliff,” Bell said, standing at the edge of the drop-off. “Not a natural one, at any rate. This is a ball court.”
Maddock peered out across the verdant landscape. Despite the thick jungle cover, he could just make out the undulations of the terrain. The long I-shaped depression like a perfectly straight river valley where Bones was standing, and beyond it, maybe fifty yards, another steep slope rising up. It wasn’t hard to imagine the area cleared of vegetation.
There had been a large ball court at Chichén Itzá —over five hundred feet long, half as wide, with thirty-foot high vertical walls. This court wasn’t quite that big, and the walls had more of a slope, but Maddock could see the similarity.
“The ball game held enormous spiritual significance to the Maya,” Bell went on. “It was an intrinsic part of their religion.”
“So you’re saying they’d be okay with Tebow taking a knee to pray,” Bones quipped.
“Oh, most assuredly,” Bell said, not catching Bones’ mischievous tone. “The ballgame was invented over three thousand years ago by the Olmecs, but it was just a game for them. For the Maya, it was a sort of passion play. The ball represented the sun and the changing seasons, and the players were gods, battling each other to control the heavens. The ball game was a central aspect of the Hero Twins legend, and of particular significance to the Lords of Xibalba. The pyramid will be close.”
He turned toward the north end of the long depression. “It will probably be that direction.”
“Shouldn’t we be able to see it from here?” Angel asked.
“I could climb a tree and take a look,” Bones suggested.
“None of the trees around here will hold your fat ass up,” she retorted. “But it’s an idea.”
Maddock shook his head. “If there’s a pyramid here, I doubt you’ll be able to see it unless you’re standing on it. We’ll just follow the ball court to the end.”
He tied a safety line around the stelae overlooking the ball court, mostly for Bell’s benefit, and then they made the descent, one at a time, to join Bones at the bottom of the depression. The jungle had reclaimed the ball court along with the rest of the city, so forward progress continued at a glacial pace, and before long, Maddock noticed the shadows deepening as the sun sank into the western sky. He knew that base camp was only a short trek away, but making that trip in the dark was patently foolish. They had already had one close encounter with the local wildlife, and snakes were only one of the many creatures that could inflict anything from a painful bite or sting, to a fatal wound. Most of the creatures preferred to avoid encounters with humans, but in the dark, a single misstep could prove disastrous. But of even greater concern to Maddock were the jaguars which roamed the forest; the big cats with their notoriously strong jaws — capable of crushing turtle shells and caiman skulls in a single bite — might not shy away from them but actually stalk them as prey in the darkness. He was about to call for a turnaround when they hit what appeared to be a dead end. Directly in front of them was a solid vertical wall, rising higher than Bones could reach. Maddock scraped away the vegetation to reveal blocks of cut stone.
“This is a structure,” Bell said, stating the obvious. “A courtyard wall, or possibly the base of a pyramid. We have to explore it. There will either be a gate or steps leading up to the next level.”
Maddock checked his watch. The smart play was to head back and pick up again in the morning, but if they were able to actually find the city before dusk, they could continue exploring it by flashlight and, if they located any structures still standing, utilize them for additional cover and protection from jungle predators.