“Why didn’t you tell me? I could have tried to help. At least you would have had someone who understood what was going on.”
“Would you have understood?” she asked. “Really?”
Kat hesitated. “Well . . . maybe not then. I had enough problems after losing my mom to cancer when I was a kid. I put on a show, like I was the strongest girl around. I might not have understood giving in to anything. I couldn’t even admit to my own pain and loneliness.”
Megan looked down again. “I think it’s why I don’t trust men, don’t even like most of them. He filled me with so much hate. It makes me crazy sometimes, too.” She stopped suddenly and looked earnestly at Kat. “You won’t look at me like Pete does?”
“Who cares what Pete does?” said Kat. “I have a feeling he’s crazier than all of us. But you can talk to me whenever you like. I’ll always be here to listen . . . . Well, not always.” She paused. “I guess it’s time for me to confess something, too.”
Megan drew in an expectant breath. Kat’s behavior throughout this expedition had been beyond extreme. She’d suspected something heavy was happening in Kat’s life too.
“I have cancer again, Megan. You know I had it earlier, but it’s back, and I guess I really am dying.”
Megan gasped. She’d assumed that Kat’s problems were due to her marriage breaking up. She’d noticed Ray putting the moves on her lately. She hadn’t imagined anything this serious.
“Oh my God, Kat! What are you doing here? You should be at home, surrounded by doctors. Why would you come down here?”
“I’ve been asking myself the same question. Basically it’s because I’m not thinking clearly. I thought I could find some revolutionary curative bacteria down here that could save me. Silly, huh?”
For the first time since college Megan wanted to touch someone. She leaned forward and hugged Kat with all the affection she’d held in reserve for so many years. They clung to each other for several minutes, then Kat gently freed herself from Megan’s arms and smiled through her tears. “We’ll be okay,” she said. “If we can find the Mayans’ access to this chamber. Have another look at those glyphs.”
Megan didn’t know how Kat could say that. Escaping this cave wasn’t going to save her. Neither would it erase Megan’s past. How could they be okay? But maybe Kat was still clinging to hope, and Megan wasn’t about to voice her doubts and rob her even of that.
She wiped her eyes and turned back to the glyphs. She read once again. “Some of these symbols denote battles—victories in battle,” she said, her voice a little shaky. She thrust the emotions away, groping for rational thought. “Which wouldn’t explain why the Maya shunned this site. It mentions some ancestors, some from Palenque, so the site is connected. Ah, here it is. The discovery of the cave.”
Kat squinted at the symbols, tilting her head. “How do you figure?”
“This glyph denotes the Underworld, but it’s also used to mean cave, because they were one and the same in Mayan thought. Here is the bat symbol again, and . . . This almost looks like a sketch of the cavern we’re in—a diagram that even shows where the king’s sarcophagus should be. Just beyond the bodies.”
“Great,” said Kat. “Is there anything in the diagram that points to an exit?”
Megan scanned the rest of the map, but saw nothing that could be interpreted as a tunnel upwards. Just the lake, the boulders from the breakdown, the funerary chamber, and a small pond. A strange symbol had been inserted in juxtaposition to the pond: a vulture, followed by water, and a number of broken dots leading to the symbol for man, but at an odd angle. A long-time friend had just decoded this symbol, but she’d forgotten the interpretation. Some archaeologists assumed it had something to do with jumping or falling, but in the highly symbolic tradition of the Maya, it likely had far more extreme implications. Death was one assumption, but Joline had worked out that it was more than that. As Megan suddenly remembered, a chill washed through her as cold as glacial melt water.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Mark yelled and pitched the bat out of his face. The creature squealed and reversed course, flapping over to Jorge, who nonchalantly rebuffed the attack as if he were swatting a fly. The vampire bat fluttered into a smaller tunnel that led off to the side. Jorge gazed at the sixty-centimeter opening with a cocked eyebrow, and Mark had the sneaky suspicion that the man wanted him to crawl in after the creature.
“Not that way,” he said uncertainly, “right?”
Jorge’s hydrogen sulfide monitor bleeped into the green. He removed his mask before he turned to Mark sporting a huge grin. He shook his head deliberately, as if in slow motion.
Mark scowled and whisked off his own mask, trusting that the air was breathable now. “You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Immensely. Even if I don’t survive this trek, it will have been worth it.”
Mark wiped a shaky hand through his hair. Would Jorge willingly give up his life just to see the rich man grovel? Were their chances so slim that the man was already contemplating death? Neither one of these possibilities made him eager to follow Jorge, but when had he been eager?
“Why do you think you might not survive?” he asked.
“Well, there is the fact that you have never done any caving and are likely to do something stupid that might cost me my life. And there is the fact that this cave has more than the average number of potentially lethal challenges. Not to mention the fact that this ancient city is cursed.”
“I thought you didn’t really believe in that.”
“I will stop believing in it when I see a satisfactory explanation. Now we have to crawl for a while again. Cover your skin as completely as possible. Gloves. Scarf around your face. Nothing exposed.”
“Why?” Mark asked, although he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what was coming next.
“Just a precaution,” said Jorge. He strode toward the left, to another aperture in the cave, perhaps two centimeters larger than the one the bat had entered. Before he bent down, he wrapped a scarf around his face and pulled on his climbing gloves. Mark swiftly followed his example, swathing all but his eyes in flannel. When he was finished, Jorge had already disappeared. Mark dropped to his knees and began crawling. His helmet collided with the rock ceiling more times than he cared to contemplate, but the angle tipped downward in a gradual slope and he realized, with a heavy sigh of relief, that they were finally descending. The intermittent light from the narrow tunnels to the surface had faded and they’d escaped the scene so familiar to Mark—so reminiscent of his past.
They crawled for an hour, sometimes slithering on their bellies, sometimes shuffling on hands and knees or in a crouched position, gradually descending into Mother Earth. Before long, sweat began to weep from Mark’s skin and saturate his coveralls, gloves, and the scarf he sucked air through. When the scarf sagged he didn’t bother to reposition it. Jorge scrambled on up ahead, the scrape of his shoes and the obliterating shadow of his pack the only indication he was still close by. Since they’d begun the crawl, he’d led Mark through a series of gauzy filaments that dangled from the ceiling like beaded curtains. They’d also passed through thick slimy mud that oozed beneath Mark’s knees and squelched up between the fingers of his gloves. At one point the mud was so deep, his hand sank right into it, allowing it to worm its way between his glove and the cuff of his coverall.
“Finally,” he heard Jorge mutter. The tortuous tunnel had opened up into a gigantic cavern, as spacious as a sports arena, but strewn with lopsided piles and mounds of boulders. “Breakdown Hall,” said Jorge.
“Breakdown?” asked Mark.
“When part of the cave ceiling collapses, leaving behind giant slabs of bedrock, that is called breakdown. We’ll rest here and have a snack.”
Mark eyed the arched rock ceiling with a renewed pounding of his heart. The entire dome was carved through with cracks and roofed with tenuous fragments that barely clung to the surface. When would the next boulder plunge d
own and crush the unfortunate caver walking beneath? Jorge seemed unperturbed as he plunked down on a slab and fumbled for his pack. Mark’s stomach rumbled, despite how knotted and cramped it was. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until they’d stopped. He stripped off his gloves and peeled the scarf from his face as Jorge withdrew a can of tuna and some granola bars. Halfway through reaching for the proffered food, though, Mark paused. A stinging, itching feeling was badgering his face and the crease of his wrists.
“What the—?” The itch was so irritating that tears welled up in his eyes and he couldn’t resist the urge to scratch.
Jorge glanced over. His eyes had taken on a wicked gleam. “Feeling a bit uncomfortable, are you?”
“Okay, Jorge. Another great joke at my expense. What the hell is this?”
“I told you to keep covered. I remember the Itchy Passage well from when I passed through here before.”
“You were here before?” asked Mark, eyeing Jorge while raking his fingernails over his skin. “I thought you said no one has ever come here before.”
“No, actually I said they have. The archaeologists, the modern explorers—I mentioned you may see them. These men must have spotted the ruins by satellite. Guided by a fearless Maya, they ventured into this cave, even exclaimed their desire to penetrate the deepest section as your wife most likely did, but they never returned. I heard the story from the Mayan guide who stood vigil by the cenote for many days until he eventually gave up. After that I was curious, but cautious. I attempted the system, but I was sensible enough not to go as deep.”
Mark’s chest constricted to the point where breathing was becoming a chore. This didn’t bode well for Kat. Others had explored this cave and they hadn’t returned either. He took a deep breath and tried to expel his fear along with the air. He had to proceed under the assumption she was still alive.
Something else Jorge had said troubled him, though.
“How do you know it’s the deepest section when no one has ever come back to confirm that?”
“Good question,” said Jorge, looking far too smug. “I know because of the legends, the writings on the Mayan palace. I suppose the cave could go deeper, but it is the deepest the ancient Maya ever traveled.”
Now Jorge had him baffled. “The Maya came down here? How did they do that without scuba gear, and—and gas masks?”
“There was another way in, I believe.”
“Another way. An easier way?” If there was an easier way, he was going to strangle Jorge.
“Yes, there must have been. Without modern equipment, this route would have been too difficult. But no one has ever found it. Even if they had, I don’t think I would have taken you down the easier way. This is far too enjoyable.”
Mark scowled. The man was a regular comedian. “What causes this itching?”
“Not sure,” said Jorge. “There was a substance like it in one of the other caves near Tapijulapa, but I don’t know if the scientists determined what it was from. Some thought the pH in the mud was acidic, or it could be some microscopic creature. All I know is that it itches like the devil for a few days.”
“Lovely,” said Mark. “What other little surprises have you got in store for me?”
“I never said it would be a picnic,” said Jorge, handing Mark a can of tuna and a granola bar. “Make sure you drink sufficiently before we climb the rocks.”
“Why?” asked Mark.
“Because you won’t have time in the next couple of hours.”
“Goody.” He couldn’t suppress a glare as he scarfed down his tuna, in between scratching. Then he emptied his water bottle and queried Jorge with raised eyebrows.
“You can refill at the next stop,” he said. “I have iodine to add to water from the cave. Let’s get going.”
Mark wasn’t sure he could move again, let alone climb a colossal rock pile, but he struggled to his feet, hefted his pack and rebreather onto his back, and began the fifty-meter ascent over talus and pitted boulders. The footing was treacherous, the rock so slick with moisture that he slipped and fell half a dozen times, saving himself by catching the edge of a slab to avoid tumbling back down toward the Itchy Passage. Jorge sprang up, quick and sure-footed as a goat, pivoting toward Mark every now and then in sadistic glee and beckoning with a wink. After nearly two hours, they reached the crest of Boulder Mountain. Jorge barely took a breath before he launched down the other side, zigzagging across the slope. Mark tried to follow the Maya’s path as he hopped from one sturdy boulder to the next unstable one, but soon lost track. He had to use all his concentration to keep from rock sledding down to the bottom on his backside. About halfway down, he slipped and couldn’t catch an edge. He slid feet-first, his pack and rebreather jarring against the rock and sending shockwaves up his spine, his helmeted head jouncing up and down. His body gathered speed as he hurtled toward the bottom, but just as he sailed past Jorge the man reached out and snagged the strap of his pack. The halter around his chest choked back his descent.
Mark gasped as flashes of pain tore through his ribcage from where the straps dug into his chest and erupted in his spine and shoulders from where he’d barreled into the rocks. He took a moment to shake off the effects of the tumble, then guardedly got to his feet. He nodded reluctant thanks to Jorge, but as he aimed his flashlight down to the bottom of the breakdown mound, he couldn’t see solid ground. The light from his and Jorge’s helmets seemed to catch only particles of dust swirling above a black pit.
“Wh- what is this?”
“First vertical shaft,” said Jorge. His face looked positively grim for the first time in this hellish trek.
Mark wrinkled his forehead and asked, bracing himself. “How far down?”
“Thirty-six stories.”
A chill flushed through Mark, leaving his sweat-soaked skin icy. “Thirty-six stories,” he repeated. If Jorge hadn’t caught him . . . He felt an enormous infusion of gratitude toward the man, but it stopped abruptly as if an intravenous line had been pinched off. “Why didn’t you tell me there was a shaft at the bottom of this rock pile?” he growled.
Jorge shook his head and looked away.
“If you had at least warned me, I would have been more careful.”
Jorge met his eyes again with a charge snapping from them. “You would have crawled, and I don’t think we have the time to inch over rocks. We must hurry.”
The urgency in his voice, not the menace, made Mark shed his anger. They did have to hurry. Kat might be injured or trapped. “I guess we should. How do we get down?”
“Rappel, of course,” said Jorge.
Every weary muscle in Mark’s body seemed to stiffen at the thought of dangling over a thirty-six story drop.
“I’ll set up a belay device,” the Maya continued, “so you can rappel down. Try to keep clear of the cliff face. You don’t want to get snagged on an outcrop, or shear the rope on a sharp rock.”
Mark nodded and gulped.
Jorge rummaged through his pack, extracted a belay plate and another harness, and attached the nylon rope and carabiners to let Mark perform a controlled descent. He slung the device toward Mark, his eyebrows raised, no doubt questioning whether Mark knew what to do with the thing. Although he hadn’t rappelled in a cave before, he certainly had done enough rock climbing with daredevil Kat in his ten years of marriage. He attached the belay device snugly around his hips and buttocks, while Jorge pounded a piton into the strongest slab of rock. At first Mark hadn’t noticed the peg that had been tapped into the rock a meter to the right of Jorge’s, its own length of nylon rope dangling over the cliff. Kat had definitely come this way.
“Why don’t you use the other rope?” asked Mark.
Jorge looked up from his hammering. “There will be more of us on the return trip. It’s best to be over prepared. Besides, I tend to trust my own work over others’—it’s just a precaution.”
“Okay,” said Mark. If Jorge hadn’t performed a one-handed catch of his flying body, he
would have been reluctant to be the first one to go over the edge. But it made little sense for the man to save him from a fatal fall, then turn around and trigger one.
The Maya handed him the rope and he clipped it onto his harness. Jorge gestured to Mark, without a grin this time—after you. Mark fiddled with his links for another minute—the only delay tactic he could come up with—took a deep breath, and slipped over the side. Using the descender, he let himself slip by degrees, the only visual the dew-studded rock in front of him and a wide black gullet below.
“Doing fine,” yelled Jorge from above. “Keep going. You’re down about four stories.”
“Lovely,” said Mark. “Thirty-two to go.” He delicately unclamped the roller, let slip, and pinched again, traveling downward in a slow steady pace. He remembered everything Kat had taught him—keep your feet out to give you some distance from the rock, keep alert for sharp outcrops below, keep your rope intact.
Gradually, as he lowered himself into the depths, the light from Jorge’s helmet receded. It was nothing but a muted glow above him. He felt as if he were alone, a lost star in the emptiness of space, except for the tons of rock over his head. Fresh sweat beads broke out on his body at the resurging wave of cave-phobia, further weighing down his already sodden clothes. His breathing quickened again, signaling the onset of another moment of panic. Then Jorge’s voice broke through the din of his panting.
“You’re almost to a ledge in the middle. Take a rest and I’ll join you.”
Mark saw the outcrop below his feet and quickly stepped onto it. Slight, but solid. He couldn’t believe he’d only come halfway. Part of him wanted to sail on down, right to the bottom, and get this over with—the part that wasn’t shivering. Seconds later Jorge slammed down beside him.
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