by Greig Beck
“They didn’t realise that they were creating a feeding pattern. To the orthocones they were just an easy and abundant food source.” Aimee was examining the stains on the pillars.
Monica, Alex and Aimee sat down with their backs against one of the walls and followed Matt with their torch beams to give him extra light. They drank sparingly of the little remaining water, and finished the last dusty crumbs of their dark chocolate. Nothing had ever tasted so good.
“Look!” Matt pointed to some rings embedded up on the walls and a similar one high up on the giant stone door they had recently come through. “I bet they had some form of system rigged up so they could open and shut this door from up there, probably from behind the other broken door. They lashed their sacrificial victims to the pillars and then retreated behind their own door so they could open the gateway to the underworld in safety.”
Monica brought her torch beam back down to the crude half-built wall at the base of the ramp. “They were going to seal it off but never finished. Hmm, wonder why?” Monica posed the question and then answered it herself. “Oh, shit. It must have found another way in.”
Alex pushed his hands up through his hair and expelled a long breath between his teeth. The implications of this were horrifying—they could be ambushed and now there was no going back. Best not to have them dwelling too much on it. “Perhaps. But even if that were true it was a long time ago. We’re not home just yet, but we’ll make it now.”
“I agree with Alex. There haven’t been people here for thousands and thousands of years. This would have disrupted the normal feeding patterns of the creatures and I doubt they could remember how to get into the city after all those centuries.” Aimee was doing her best to support Alex and offer some good news to the exhausted group.
“But you said it yourself. We don’t know how long these things live. What if it’s the same creature or what if they have the ability to pass on their memories like, like . . .” Monica was trying to remember some Discovery Channel nature program she had seen in another life, when Aimee assisted.
“Flatworms.”
“That’s them. Could it remember, Aimee?”
“We just don’t know. We don’t know how long today’s giant cephalopods live, let alone a creature that should have been extinct four hundred million years ago and may have caused the collapse of the first great human civilisation. However, I doubt very much it could live for tens of thousands of years. But the problem we have down here is that this is a very different world to ours with unique environmental effects resulting in very different natural laws. Could it find a way in? Sure, given enough time; it’s certainly smart enough. Could it remember a way in? I just don’t know, but there are studies now on cellular inherited memory where transplant patients are recollecting tastes, smells and even images from the donor. I’ve read papers on memory inheritance that . . .” Aimee stopped talking. She had forgotten herself; the look on Monica’s face told her the information wasn’t helping.
Alex noticed that Aimee had omitted to share her theories with Monica about the image of the girl and baby in the old-fashioned clothing. He got to his feet and walked back towards the giant stone doors. He removed his glove and placed his hand flat on the polished red stone. He felt for vibrations and more; he felt for the leviathan’s presence—there was nothing. Aimee approached softly behind him and spoke quietly when she was close.
“Sorry, I don’t think I was making things better back there.”
“Don’t worry about it; we’re all exhausted. But I’ll tell you one thing. I have no intention of donating my organs to this thing.”
“Ha, is that what they call battlefield humour, Captain Hunter?” After all they had been through Aimee still managed to laugh gently at their predicament. Alex couldn’t help resting his eyes on her beautiful upturned face, now dusty and streaked by the tracks of perspiration and tears. She made him feel at ease and comfortable; he liked that.
“So, Dr. Aimee Weir, how does a sensible, modern woman like you end up a paleobiologist working for the government?”
Aimee rested her back against the red granite and tilted her head up towards the dark domed ceiling. “Well, my father always said people with brains will rise to the top—boy, I’m glad he can’t see me now, miles below the surface of the world. Fact is, I’m a science nerd. While all my friends were going to the beach to lie on the sand and improve their tans or rub lotion on their boyfriends’ backs, I was over in the rock pools turning over stones to look at the tiny creatures. My grades were always good and after sailing through chemistry and biology, I got hooked on solving the world’s energy problems by creating a biological synthetic fuel. Except I didn’t know I was working for the U.S. Army until a week ago. Not sure it would have mattered; sure doesn’t now. Now it seems such a small issue, as if it belongs to someone else while we’re all hiding down here in the dark.”
She smiled at Alex and moved a little closer. He noticed the set of her jaw was still strong. She’s a brave woman, he thought. A strand of her hair had fallen out from under her helmet and hung across one of her blue eyes. He wanted to reach out and push it back behind her ear but stopped himself. His eyes saddened as he thought, she can never know me.
“We better start climbing again, we’re nearly home.” Alex walked away.
They climbed the ramp to the upper doorway, the silence broken only by their soft footfalls. Dust gently floated in the beam of their lights, making the rays stand out like wide lasers in the pitch darkness.
Aimee shivered—it was much colder here. “Look.” She exhaled and her breath created a small fog in the light beam. “We must be closer to the surface now.”
Alex pulled his stratigraphic sonar from his backpack and pointed it at the roof. After a few seconds the small screen lit up with the readings he was seeking. “Still says we’re about a mile down, but I can’t tell how deep we are in the catacombs, how much is rock or how much of that is ice.”
Matt turned back to the group after reading the carved glyphs in the wall. “Could be a problem—the Aztlans seem to be similar to the Olmecs or Aztecs, who made extensive use of caves. Some of their artifacts and burials have been located many miles deep inside cave systems. My guess is they had been exploring and excavating the underground cave system for hundreds of years. They were obviously adept at stone cutting, so could easily have dug down many levels, perhaps miles. They could also have found the cave system and simply modified it for their use, which means this could be very deep indeed.”
Aimee picked up the conversation. “Either an earth tremor opened the caves to the lake below, or they simply broke through on one of their daily digs. We know the creatures below are hunt-adapted for either full darkness and near dark environments, so vibrations from the digging would have been very attractive to them. They would have broken through and come face to face with one of their gods.”
“Man, I’d pay a dollar to see the look on the face of that first guy.” Matt laughed at his own joke and Monica couldn’t help giggling as well; she elbowed him good-naturedly in the ribs.
From the doorway behind them came the sound of small rocks falling. The group froze and for a few seconds stood like statues, all focused on the large entrance they had only just come through.
“Probably just some of the debris settling,” Monica said.
“I’m sure that’s what it was. Let’s go.” Alex didn’t believe their pursuer would give up. Though the man-made tunnels would give them better protection, he couldn’t help thinking that it hadn’t saved the Aztlans.
Twenty-five
Having pulled back from the rock fall, the creature surged forward to test the boulders that barred its path. It pushed some out of the way, but encountered far too many for it to get much more access and the confined area didn’t allow it to bring its enormous strength to bear. It laid its long clubs against the solid walls and grew still—it could sense the small vibrations of movement coming back from the warm bloods—they
were still close by. It withdrew its tentacles and unfolded itself out of the rift crevice, back into the larger cave. Long-past images flashed into its brain. It knew there were other entrances it could use.
The bleeding from its ragged stump had slowed now to little more than a trickle and in a few hours it would be sealed over and the regeneration would commence. However, the bleeding had created a river of blood, not debilitating for a creature of its size but enough to create an irresistible blood scent trail that attracted all manner of carnivores from the lake cavern now far behind it. As the creature pursued the humans, it unknowingly drew behind it a silent, pulsating wave of teeth and claws.
“It doesn’t look like it’s been destroyed, more like it was just abandoned.” Monica’s observation seemed accurate as there was little sign of devastation or that the Aztlans had been pursued through the tunnels by a giant cephalopod. The corridor opened into a larger chamber perhaps 200 feet long with a high carved ceiling. Around the walls the glyphs were interspaced with carvings of pictorial scenes sculpted in splendid detail. The raised stone tableaus showed a level of craftsmanship that would have challenged some of the greatest artisans of today. Beautiful scenes of what the countryside must have been like, displaying heavily wooded forests or fields of low plants like grass. Many were of hunting parties capturing all manner of strange beasts of enormous proportions.
“Aimee, do you recognise these animals?” Matt was touching his hand to some magnificently carved images of great land creatures.
“Wow, they’re perfect. Diprotodon, dromornis, thylacinus. This is a window to our past.” Aimee pointed as she marvelled at the closest thing modern humans would ever get to a living representation of the long-extinct mega-fauna beasts.
“Say what? Dipdo who?” Monica smiled at their enthusiasm and encyclopaedic knowledge of the obscure as Aimee scrutinised another scene of a giant land-based lizard caught by the Aztlans in a sophisticated noose trap.
“And this reptile could be a megalania. These are all perfect images of extinct reptile and mammalian creatures—giant animals that died out tens of thousands of years ago. This one here, the diprotodon was the big brother of today’s cute and cuddly wombat, but it stood as tall as a grizzly bear with claws to match. This here, the dromornis, was a thunderbird. Ten feet tall and over a thousand pounds, they were fearsome predators and voracious meat eaters.”
Aimee stepped in closer to look at more of the fantastic images when Matt spoke. “It’s not uncommon that we should find these. Many early civilisations depicted hunting in their religious and artistic carvings. It’s the closest thing we archaeologists have to snapshots of the flora and fauna of the times.”
“And what’s this one?” Monica was pointing at a creature that looked to have a strong, four-legged body but instead of jaws it had a curving beak and two strong wings folded across its back.
Matt looked at it, looked at Aimee, who shrugged, and then shook his head. “A griffin? Nah, impossible. They obviously included some mythological creatures as well.”
Matt looked again at the strange winged creature. The detail was perfect, right down to the tiger-like striping across its muscled back. He shook his head and moved on to the start of a series of more detailed and royal-looking glyphs. “OK, here we are; it’s the story of Aztlan. Looks like it’s set out in chronological order—now where does it start?” Matt’s lips moved silently as he drew out the meanings from the stone story before him.
“Ah, and here is where we begin.” Monica and Aimee followed Matt around the chamber’s perimeter as he told the story of a civilisation now long dead for many millennia.
Meanwhile, Alex scanned the room, looking at the entrances, the debris size, and shape, and the ceilings above. He strained all his superhuman senses for any sound or sense of movement or life other than their own. For now they had time to look at the life and death of perhaps the first great civilisation the world had ever known. Maybe it could tell them how to fight the creature or, better yet, escape it.
“Bear with me as this’ll be a subjective translation. I’ll be filling in the gaps myself with what I think fits or looks right.” Matt turned and shrugged, then went back to the glyphs. “The Aztlans believed they were raised by the gods from the very soil itself. The gods lifted, or maybe that’s crafted them, from earth and stone and gave them the world as a gift. This symbol means they went forth over the waves and knew of many other lands. These lands were mainly populated by the ‘hairy men’ or ‘hairy people.’ This is incredible. This history could be around fifteen thousand years old—at that time some continents had creatures like saber-toothed tigers and mammoths roaming their plains. Most of the indigenous natives would have been little more than hunter-gatherers. To them, this advanced race must have been awe inspiring.” Matt continued reading from the wall, pointing at one symbol, giving its meaning and then moving on to the next.
“Aztlan was a land of sunshine and abundance. The people were healthy, crops were plentiful and the gods cherished them. They believed of all the world’s people they were the favourites of the gods. This looks interesting; this symbol could mean an earthquake. One day the earth started to shake and many of their buildings fell down. They were all thrown to the ground. They believed they had angered the mightiest god in Xibalba, the underworld, and he was coming to punish them himself. I bet this was when their digging broke through to the subterranean sea. Before then, it had probably been undisturbed for hundreds of millions of years.”
Matt pointed to an image of small figures kneeling before a giant, tentacled creature. “Introducing Qwotoan himself,” Matt read on. “The following pictures show more and more Aztlans kneeling before Qwotoan. Looks like they were upping the sacrifice ante each month, but all it was doing was feeding an ever-growing appetite.”
“Feeding dependency, they created safari park lions. The creatures made humans their natural food source,” Aimee said.
Matt nodded and continued, “Qwotoan was also coming up into the city and taking the people without waiting for the sacrifice ceremony.”
“How? How was the creature getting into the city?” Alex stepped forward eagerly.
“Doesn’t say, I’m afraid. He was haunting them with visions of their lost ones—this must be the mimicking we’ve seen before. The people were terrified, and with all the sacrifices they were making, I think they actually started to thin out their population.” Matt was pointing at one of the images depicting hundreds of tiny figures kneeling before the waving tentacles.
“The people decided they had had enough and forced the king to act. The king assembled his army and put his two most trusted warriors in charge—this is the bit we know. It tells again of the brothers Hunahpu and Xbalanque who are sent into the underworld to, it looks like, negotiate with Qwotoan, with—and here’s those number glyphs again—about two thousand warriors. Hard to tell whether their job was to fight or be sacrificed. Either way, the king hoped to attain some sort of peace for Aztlan.”
Matt moved along the wall again. “Ah. Damn it, and here is our brave Hunahpu’s reward.” Matt’s training had taught him to be dispassionate about events that occurred long in the past—they could not be changed, only learned from. Many cultures had very different concepts of mercy and sometimes an execution was actually an honour. However, he couldn’t help feeling sad for the brave little warrior whose footsteps they had followed, who had survived one of the most dangerous and fantastic journeys in the history of his or any race, and who had unwittingly even guided them up from the depths.
“After Hunahpu had led the royal troops into the underworld, after he had lost his brother, after he had found and fought the great beast and managed to return alive, he was executed by the king for failing in his divine duty.” Matt shone his torch on the pictoglyph. It showed a warrior figure being torn apart by several oxen-like creatures. Matt seemed to be in a trance and his eyes watered, not just from the dust they had been kicking up. To bring him back Monica poin
ted at the next picture along.
“Even I can read this one. They’re using fire to drive the creature off.”
“Looks like it. They used fire, or Kinich Ahau’s gift as they refer to it. I think they had their fires burning in the mouths of the caves for decades. It never drove it off, only slowed it down—the creature was always finding new ways to get to its food supply.” Matt moved to the next pictoglyph and started to read, “Their winters were growing longer and colder, and because of the change in seasons there was less food. They believed that Qwotoan had cursed them and all their land. This could be the onset of the glaciation epoch when Antarctica was becoming frozen again. The timing tallies with our geological and meteorological evidence that puts it at about twelve thousand years ago.”
Matt moved along again. “The new king commanded they build a giant fleet of boats and collect as many of their animals and seed crops as they could. He and his generals would command an expedition to sail in different directions and find a new Aztlan; he would take his bravest warriors, the alchemists, the priests and the healers. Looks like all the elite and intelligentsia had been chosen to get the hell out; the rest were to remain behind and wait for the boats to return so they could be transported when a new home was discovered.”
The last pictoglyph was incomplete and Matt could tell the drawings and writing was of a slightly different style. Perhaps the previous artisans had departed in the boats. Matt read the last words from Aztlan, “The cold is always with us. There is no food and no wood for our fires.” The last piece was more a lament of resignation and similar to the one they had seen in the upper caves at the beginning of their journey. “Qwotoan is angered and is always among us.”
“Those poor people.” Monica was shaking her head as if to blot out the image of the remaining Aztlans trapped in a city that was becoming iced over, with a giant hungry creature waiting for the fires to go out so it could rip them to pieces in the dark.
