Part 4 (1/2)
The bottle contained a strong salt solution, and the carvy's hide began to melt. It flopped to the floor, squeaking and dying.
The second one came at him again, but he sprayed it in midair and it fell immediately to the floor where it flopped about like a landed fish.
”Jay,” he called upward, ”your spray bottle idea worked.”
”All right,” Jay called back.
”Dad, be careful!” said Lila.
He hooked the spray bottle back onto his belt and explored the floor of the pit with his flashlight. He saw no more carvies.
”Lower away.”
His feet finally came down on the bones, pressing them into the thick layer of carvy droppings that covered the floor. Under his weight, they crumbled. He stepped out of the rope loop and yelled, ”Okay, pull it up.” Then, turning in the direction of the burial temple, he found the long, narrow tunnel Lila had talked about. Penetrating deep under the earth, it swallowed up the beam of his flashlight in limitless, black distance.
”I see the tunnel,” he called. ”Come on ahead. It's all clear.”
Above, Dr. Basehart and his men pulled the rope back up as Jay motioned to Lila.
She saw his signal, but shook her head. ”No, you go first.”
It was usually Jay's custom to go last, so he could keep an eye out for his sister. But as he considered her previous encounter with this pit, he understood. ”Okay. I'll wait at the bottom for you.”
”It's a deal.”
Jay pulled a cap down over his head and some gloves on his hands for protection, and Dr. Basehart's men lowered him. Then it was Lila's turn. She put on her drooping, billed, army surplus cap, an extra long-sleeved s.h.i.+rt, and some gloves, and then sat on the wall and swung her legs over the pit.
And then she froze.
”Ready?” asked Dr. Basehart.
Of course she was ready. She was just ...
She pulled in a deep breath. Come on, Lila, she thought. Get a grip. You can't get scared now, not with everybody watching. She'd crawled into plenty of deep, dark places with her father and brother. This was nothing new.
But something about this ugly, smelly hole turned her stomach. She felt unsteady. Her hands were trembling.
”Yeah,” she finally forced herself to say. ”I'm ready.”
Mustering just enough courage, she put her weight on the rope and went over the wall, through the tangled leaves and branches ... and into the dark throat of the pit.
”That's it,” came the voice of her father from below. ”Easy does it.”
She began to rotate on the rope. The walls of the pit moved around her making her dizzy; she felt herself getting sick.
She could hear Jay and her father talking somewhere below her. ”Who do you suppose these people were?” Jay asked. ”Sacrificial victims, most likely,” her father answered, ”thrown into this pit after the ceremony on top of the Pyramid of the Sun.”
She couldn't look down. ”How much farther?” she called, her voice betraying her fear.
”Only six more feet, sis,” answered Jay. ”No sweat.”
Her feet touched down on the crunching, crumbling bones and soft droppings, and she stumbled a little. Jay and Dr. Cooper reached out to steady her.
”You okay?” Dr. Cooper asked. His voice sounded far away.
No, she thought. ”Of course I'm okay!” She was still having trouble standing up.
”The ground's firm a few inches down,” Dr. Cooper reported.
Strange. To her, the ground seemed to be moving in waves like a water bed.
As her father led the way into the tunnel, he talked in hushed, excited tones, as he always did when he was in the midst of discovery. ”I don't think this tunnel was dug by Jose de Carlon. The tool marks and workmans.h.i.+p are too much like the pit itself. And it's been here so long there are limestone formations. The Oltecas must have chiseled it out.”
”Cool,” said Jay, following just behind him. ”Maybe this was supposed to be a secret pa.s.sage into the tomb.”
”Watch your head and where you step.”
There was only room enough for them to squeeze through the tunnel in single file. They had very little headroom thanks to the sharp, menacing stalact.i.tes that hung from the ceiling. The floor was no better; jagged stalagmites poked up like daggers everywhere. To Lila, they looked like teeth, and she had the overwhelming impression they were walking into a monster's jaws. The flashlights of her brother and father created sharp, spooky shadows that lunged and leaped all around her head. She kept her light low and her head down. She didn't want to look.
After what seemed like an endless journey through the belly of a monster, Dr. Cooper finally announced, ”Okay, there's something up ahead. You see that?”
”Wow! It's got to be the tomb!” said Jay.
Lila stopped. Tomb. The very word terrified her. She'd never been terrified of a tomb before, but she was now. She put her hand against the cold limestone wall to steady herself. The tunnel felt like it was pitching, rolling.
Dr. Cooper and Jay had entered a room, or was it a hallway? There was a flat wall directly in front of them, but the room seemed to stretch a great distance to either side of them.
Dr. Cooper s.h.i.+ned his light both ways and could see that the hall turned a corner at each end. ”This pa.s.sage might go clear around the base of the pyramid, kind of an outer hallway around a room in the middle.”
Back in the tunnel, Lila forced herself to take more steps forward. She dared to look up and saw that her brother and father had found a room of some kind.
”Lookitthe formindiss inscriptonida walllll ...” she heard her father say.
”Den mebbe idwazda curse dey watogginbout ...” she thought Jay replied.
She took off her gloves and rubbed her ears. It seemed so noisy in this place. A roaring sound everywhere ...
Dr. Cooper scanned the relief carvings on the wall. ”Yes ... pictures of the serpent G.o.d and human sacrifice. You know, human sacrifices were often dressed up in gold and finery donated by the people. Considering what a greedy scoundrel old Kachi-Tochetin was, I wonder if the priests used this pa.s.sage to sneak into the pit and strip the dead.”
Jay could imagine the scenario. ”They kill the victim on the Pyramid of the Sun, throw the body into the pit ...”
”As a sacred offering to some form of G.o.d ...”
”And then sneak into the pit through this tunnel to get all the gold and jewels for themselves.”
”Could be they had quite a scam going here.” Dr. Cooper s.h.i.+ned his flashlight up and down the long pa.s.sage. ”But if that's true, then there has to be another way in and out.”