The Aztec Code

by Stephen Cole

  Ramez didn’t react as loud whoops and cheers and applause went up from the rest of the group. Honor just stared, her grin splitting her face wide open. ‘Incredible – for the mechanisms to still work after all these centuries …’

  Traynor flung his arms about her. ‘Did you ever doubt it?’

  ‘This can’t be happening,’ Tye whispered to herself.

  ‘I’m gonna die,’ said Ramez dully. ‘But ’least my nephews are gonna live. Yeah. They’ll be OK.’

  Honor looked over, a self-satisfied smile on her pallid face. ‘I do hope they don’t drink from the tap.’

  Tye frowned. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning Coatlicue is going to feast on the poison in men,’ said Honor, ‘and in women and little children, too.’

  Still catching his breath, Jonah stared in awe at the Temple of Life from Death in all its sinister glory, disgorged from deep within the earth. Even half-caked in soil, the dark majesty of the monument remained. Shaped like a pyramid, it stood as tall as a house. Row upon row of gruesome stone skulls had been carved into the base of the pyramid, and above them, steps had been cut into the sloping walls at precise intervals. Each was adorned with stylised stone reliefs of serpents, hummingbirds and jaguars, interspersed with false windows, presumably blocked up to stop the mud getting in.

  ‘Guys!’ he called again. Please let them be all right. ‘You need to see this. Come on out.’

  ‘Remarkable.’ Jonah jumped at the sound of Coldhardt’s voice behind him. The old man stepped out from behind a broad, twisted cacao tree that stood just clear of the ruptured earth, gazing up in wonder. ‘Truly remarkable.’

  ‘One word for it,’ Jonah agreed.

  Coldhardt gathered up chunks of porous white stone from the mudslide. ‘You see? Light, like pumice. Loads of the stuff, packed around the temple with dead branches and plant roots to form a light protective layer – to ensure rainfall drains away swiftly, so that the soil around it isn’t weighed down.’

  ‘Easier to push up, I guess,’ agreed Jonah, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘But that thing’s still got to weigh tons! How could a bunch of primitive priests design a mechanism to lift something as big as that?’

  Coldhardt’s eyes bored into his own. ‘Perhaps they had help.’

  It felt to Jonah as if a shadow had passed over the sun. ‘The presence?’

  ‘It’s impressive engineering all right.’ Motti had emerged cautiously from the cover of the trees, and Con and Patch were just behind him – muddy and scratched but otherwise unharmed. ‘But whoever built it messed up. That boulder they used to mark the spot – it’s caved in the south-east corner of the temple.’

  Jonah got up to look properly, and saw Motti was right. That corner of the pyramid had risen up right underneath the enormous boulder and, being unable to shift it, the stonework had crazed and collapsed.

  ‘Perhaps it’s not a mistake,’ said Con slowly. ‘Perhaps it was designed that way.’

  Coldhardt looked at her expectantly. ‘Go on.’

  She shrugged. ‘Well, the priests must have constructed the temple underground, filling it as they went, yes? And then the temple was sealed up, with no way in – or out. So perhaps the rock wasn’t just a marker. Perhaps it was designed to break open the temple as the building rose up.’

  ‘Sort of like a teaspoon cracking open an egg,’ said Jonah.

  ‘A giant ten-ton teaspoon cracking an egg shaped like a pyramid,’ Motti corrected him.

  ‘Certainly it’s been recorded that Coatlicue’s attendants sealed themselves inside with their goddess till death,’ said Coldhardt, ignoring them both. ‘They would doubtless wish to be sure she could leave the temple.’

  ‘Or that the chosen ones the priests thought would come some day could get in,’ Jonah suggested.

  ‘Either way, it’s an ingenious theory, Con. Let us put it to the test, and see if an opening has appeared.’

  Patch hung back, twiddling distractedly with the headphones round his neck. ‘Do we have to?’

  ‘Aw, c’mon, cyclops.’ Motti affected a bit of a swagger as he led the way over the ridges of mud and debris to get to the temple entrance. ‘Where’s your sense of adventure?’

  Coldhardt turned to Patch. ‘Anything on the radio?’

  ‘Don’t think it’s workin’ right. So bleedin’ humid here, I think the circuits have gone a bit funny.’ Patch pulled the headphones wonkily on to his head and started twiddling with the muddy radio receiver. ‘I dropped it in the mud too, that can’t have helped –’ Suddenly he jumped and snatched his fingers away as if the dial had bitten him. ‘I’m getting something now, though,’ he said, his voice high and wavery.

  They listened. It was a rustling, crunching sort of noise.

  ‘Footsteps?’ ventured Jonah.

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Patch nodded. ‘Lots of them.’

  ‘Company’s on its way,’ said Motti grimly.

  ‘How long do we have?’ asked Con.

  Motti jogged over to the collapsed corner of the temple. ‘No way of knowing,’ he called back. ‘But we’re gonna need a while.’

  ‘What’s up?’ said Patch.

  ‘The designers did foul up. That boulder’s completely mashed this part of the pyramid.’ He pointed to a chunk of broken stonework. ‘You can see from the remains of this arch – there was an entrance there. But it’s totally caved in.’

  Coldhardt awkwardly scaled one of the higher furrows in the land to see. ‘Can we move the debris ourselves?’

  ‘Don’t think so.’ Motti gestured towards the jumble of cracked and shattered sandstone. ‘Can’t see us shifting it without machinery.’

  ‘There has to be another entrance,’ said Con desperately.

  ‘What,’ Motti retorted, ‘you think maybe the priests climbed in through the roof and abseiled down?’

  ‘Check right round the pyramid,’ Coldhardt roared, and Jonah and the others hurried to obey. ‘I shan’t be cheated. I shan’t be cheated now!’

  Jonah skirted the perimeter, checking for any cracks in the sandstone. The rows of skulls seemed to stare at him as he searched, as if challenging him to find a way inside.

  He ran into Con, Patch and Motti at the rear side of the pyramid. From their solemn faces, he didn’t even bother to ask if they’d been successful. They trudged back to rejoin Coldhardt.

  ‘No joy,’ said Patch. ‘How about plastic explosive?’

  Coldhardt shook his head. ‘Too risky,’ he said, a little more controlled now. ‘The noise of the explosion would alert Traynor and his followers to our presence here. With the element of surprise, we stand a chance of outwitting them. But if they come in expecting trouble …’ He flashed a brief, cheerless smile. ‘As you may have observed, there are rather more of them than there are of us.’

  ‘Thirteen, minimum,’ Jonah agreed.

  ‘Maybe more if they bring the bruisers from the penthouse,’ Patch added.

  ‘We’ve played with worse odds,’ said Con defiantly.

  Coldhardt dabbed distractedly at his face and neck. ‘Of course, so many people stand a far better chance of clearing a way through …’

  Motti sighed. ‘Right. Traynor and his priests will be able to get inside where we can’t.’

  ‘Then we can hang back and let them get inside,’ Patch said. ‘Let them take all the risks –’

  ‘And all the treasure,’ Con put in sourly.

  ‘– then follow them inside and sort them all out,’ he concluded optimistically.

  ‘What, with three of them for every one of us? We won’t stand a chance!’ Jonah sank back heavily against the nearest mudpile. ‘Maybe we should just face it. Everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been through – it’s all been for nothing!’

  Tye felt an instinctive dread at the sight of the temple, towering over the tops of those few trees left standing. Huge piles of soil, stone and sticks spewed from great gaping wounds in the earth. It looked like a war had been fought here.

&n
bsp; Traynor signalled that his followers should hold back, but they had already stopped in silent wonder, even Honor.

  ‘You see?’ Traynor breathed. ‘It’s worked. The temple has been raised.’

  ‘Imagine the power required!’ squeaked Douglas, polishing his glasses, impatient to scrutinise the temple properly. ‘The foundations must have been built upon special platforms propelled upwards somehow. Some kind of fluid-based system, primitive hydraulics? I don’t understand –’

  ‘We shall understand, Douglas,’ Traynor assured him. ‘Coatlicue will be stirring inside.’ He turned to address his priests. ‘Our faith has been rewarded. We have shaken the earth and reclaimed the temple from the underworld. Already we have wrested life from death.’ He walked over to Ramez and placed paternal hands on his shoulders. ‘And with the heart and blood of this boy, we shall strengthen and sustain Coatlicue. We will give her the energy she needs to fully awaken.’

  ‘Please, I …’ Ramez looked at him, eyes clouded over, like he didn’t understand. ‘I can’t do this.’

  Traynor smiled almost kindly. ‘Anyone can die, boy. It’s easy.’ He turned to his bodyguards. ‘Sedate him.’

  ‘No!’ Tye shouted. She started forwards but Xavier restrained her.

  ‘Her as well,’ said Traynor casually. ‘For what I have in mind, we’ll need her docile.’

  One of the bodyguards pushed a pill into Ramez’s mouth, clamped one hand about his cheeks and used the other to push a water bottle to his open lips. Ramez swallowed mechanically. ‘Thanks,’ he said quietly.

  ‘No!’ Tye squirmed in Xavier’s grip as the same man approached with another pill. His thick fingers pushed into her mouth, and she bit down on them hard. He grunted with pain and cuffed her round the face. For a moment she was stunned – and the pill was pressed into her mouth. The neck of the water bottle bashed against her teeth, dug into her gums as water sloshed out. But she managed to keep the pill beneath her tongue, only pretending she’d swallowed it down.

  ‘In a quarter of an hour or so you’ll feel so much more relaxed,’ Honor assured her.

  Tye discreetly pushed the pill up between her teeth and her cheek, and hoped she could spit it out before too much had dissolved.

  ‘All right, we need to shift the rubble here to get inside,’ Traynor told his priests. ‘We’ll work in rotation again. Proceed slowly and with caution – there may be defences we need to bypass.’

  Tye stared at him hatefully. ‘This is like one big field trip to you, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s the culmination of plans I’ve been nurturing for almost ten years,’ he said. ‘Now, here, the dream becomes a reality. I shall speak to Her.’

  ‘Fluent in Aztec, are you?’

  He shook his head. ‘The Mesoamericans spoke in many tongues – Nahuatl, Tarascan, Mixtec, Zapotec … She understood them all.’ He smiled smugly. ‘Speech is simply the manifestation of thought. She will know the strength and truth of my words.’

  The bodyguards were already piling into the rubble, hefting great slabs of sandstone away between them. Tye watched them worriedly. ‘Say this presence does exist, say it can give you secret knowledge and power – what are you going to do? Dress up your followers as Aztec warriors and attack the White House?’

  Traynor’s gaze turned on her, hard and unblinking. ‘When my biological agents start killing millions in key cities all over the world, then people will listen to me. Then people will respect the old gods.’

  Tye felt like she’d been punched in the stomach, and stared at him with disgust. ‘You’re going to blackmail the world into worshipping Aztec gods? You’ll kill them if they don’t?’

  ‘I won’t have to,’ Traynor said triumphantly. ‘I’m about to prove that what the Aztecs deemed a deity was something far greater than that. A living entity. A presence.’ He half laughed. ‘There’ll be no need for faith in this world any longer. The presence exists – measurable and definable. It tried to give the ancients power, only their minds were too primitive, they had no ears to hear. But I am ready to listen, and when I present absolute proof that the gods exist … when I become a spokesman for the gods … who will not listen? The world shall follow me.’

  Tye shook her head. ‘You’re totally mad, aren’t you?’

  ‘No. I am simply right. And now I must prepare.’

  ‘Got to put your make-up on? Look your best for the old goddess?’

  ‘I must show respect for the old traditions. Demonstrate that I understand them. That I am truly worthy.’

  Worthy of a straitjacket, Tye thought miserably as he walked away. She saw Honor smirking to herself, watching the rest of the priests as they worked.

  Tye shivered, and looked around her. She suddenly felt as if she was being watched by someone – or something – from the trees close by. Imagination? Paranoia?

  Or waking spirits?

  Whatever, she couldn’t afford to keep this pill in her mouth a minute longer. She pretended to wipe her mouth, then dropped it on the grass. No one seemed to notice, no one spoke or shouted. She wondered how much she’d ingested.

  Maybe it didn’t matter. Watching the pitch-black entrance to the temple grow slowly wider as the debris was cleared, like a mouth opening to swallow them all, Tye couldn’t imagine ever sleeping again.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Tye stood beside Ramez just outside the temple entrance. The way inside had been cleared.

  Not that Ramez seemed to even notice. He stood swaying slightly, docile, his eyes glassy. An Aztec eagle warrior helmet had been placed over his head – it looked as if his sweaty face was peering out through the bronze beak of an enormous bird – and a tabard had been placed over his shirt, covered with bright blue feathers. He looked weird, beautiful and pathetic, all at once.

  Tye’s vision kept drifting in and out of focus – the drug they’d tried to give her was clearly strong stuff. While acting dazed and droopy herself, she was secretly pinching the skin on her arms, hoping the pain would help to keep her alert.

  Suddenly she jumped as Traynor loomed up in front of her, the strip of ochre make-up smeared across his mouth once more. He wore a loose-fitting jaguar-skin robe that looked stained with blood, and an incredible feathered headdress in turquoise and blue. Behind him the rest of his priests were assembling, all in their own Aztec gear: jewelled wraps, skirts with geometric prints, zigzagged cloaks, sandals laced with gold thread. Honor looked striking in her white knee-length silk skirt and a blouse decorated with suns and birds. On her head she wore a golden crown enhanced with a plume of short, stiff orange feathers. Tye saw how uncomfortable she was feeling, how impatient she was to get on.

  ‘We’re going in,’ Traynor announced simply. He turned to the bodyguards. ‘Take the girl in first – ahead of you.’ He smiled across at Honor. ‘If there are any traps in there waiting to be sprung, she’ll be the one who pays the price.’

  Tye blinked sleepily, all the time wishing she could rake her nails down Traynor’s face. So this was why they’d kept her alive. As for how long she’d stay that way …

  The biggest of the two bodyguards shoved her forwards into the temple’s entrance. Tye knew she had to pretend to be drugged and drowsy. But the truth was, she was terrified. The darkness inside was absolute, and it was fiercely cold. Her skin was already rising with gooseflesh. No one had set foot in here for centuries. She wanted to turn and run out into the warm sunshine.

  But she knew there could be no going back.

  ‘Take a candle,’ Traynor instructed, his voice sounding boomy and dead in the freezing passage. ‘No flashlights. I want nothing out of place in here.’

  An oily yellow light spilled on to the sandstone. In the gloom she saw two bundles of sticks stood in a skull-shaped holder carved into the passage wall.

  ‘Somebody light those torches,’ snapped Honor.

  The bundles of sticks ignited into pale, smoky flame as soon as the bodyguards set a candle to them. Now Tye could see more of her surround
ings. The passageway was wide and paved with flagstones. A few metres ahead stood a large archway.

  Tye was shoved forwards, and stumbled on reluctantly towards the archway, the flickering light making it seem that weird, misshapen shadows were reaching out all around. The shuffling steps of the people coming in behind her sounded like strange creatures woken by the light, shifting about, resentful at the intrusion. The corridor grew danker, the air staler as she reached the archway.

  It was the gateway to an inner chamber. The bodyguard with the torch came closer behind her so she could see more clearly.

  Not a good thing.

  The room was a labyrinth of stone pillars stretching up into the darkness. At least a dozen stone biers were arranged around the chamber, flanking the pillars. A body lay on each, clad in fine regalia. She heard the bodyguard swear under his breath, the first words she had ever heard him say.

  ‘A crypt,’ Traynor announced. ‘These are the bodies of Coatlicue’s attendants.’

  ‘Where will the treasures be stored?’ Honor asked.

  Cut to the chase, why don’t you, thought Tye.

  ‘Perhaps the spirits of Coatlicue’s attendants remain here to guard them,’ Traynor said reverently. ‘Perhaps the treasures are stored in the chamber beyond.’

  Tye peered into the inky blackness, trying to see the entrance.

  And caught a glimpse of movement.

  ‘There’s something there!’ she hissed and pointed dumbly into the shadows, starting to shiver.

  By the flickering light of the flames, Traynor cautiously explored the area. ‘There’s a door,’ he reported. ‘And there are steps leading up. Nothing else.’

  ‘With that pill we gave her, I’m surprised she’s not seeing pink elephants,’ joked Douglas feebly.

  Xavier crossed to join Traynor at the wooden doorway and peered at the pictograms carved there. ‘Yes, look. This is where the treasures have been stored. Waiting to be recovered.’