She walked around the nearest building. From the rear she could see something that hadn’t been completely visible before—another, larger structure, and the gaping black maw of an entrance. Temple or palace; she wasn’t enough of a Maya scholar to know what the building might be. The narrow-stepped stairway leading to the top of its platform did not rise very high as such buildings went. The rear of the building was butted up against a limestone ridge, and jungle growth had nearly obscured the roof and walls.
The black square of the entrance seemed to lead right into the steep hillside. She knew that the Maya had considered their temples to be artificial sacred caves, their portals gates to the world of the gods. The doorway drew her with its mysterious promise of secrets hidden from daylight.
On impulse she crossed the hundred yards to the building and paused at the entrance. Cooler air brushed her cheeks. She leaned against the stones and peered into darkness. There was no hint of light inside, but obviously the way had been cleared by someone, and not too long ago. That meant anything of value within would have long since been looted.
But there was a feeling deep in her gut that her ritual must be enacted here, a place held sacred so long ago. She had to go in.
Mac squared her shoulders and clasped her pendant. It was no longer merely warm, but almost hot to the touch. The stone must have remarkable properties of heat transference if it could take on her body’s temperature so quickly and hold it so well.
She considered removing the pendant to see if it would cool off again, but somehow she felt the need to keep it where it was until she was ready to consign it back to the earth. Superstition, she thought. But what if it was? No one was around to know she’d taken the first dangerous step from solid reality into a realm of uncertain fantasy.
The next step was physical. She dug out her flashlight, switched it on, and started into the entrance. She didn’t expect to go very far. There would probably be a series of smallish rooms, all dark and damp, where once priests or lords had carried out sacred ceremonies. She shivered a little in spite of the heat, remembering tales of human sacrifice and self-mutilation. Maya lords had routinely drawn their own blood from body parts as gifts to the gods…
“Okay, Homer. You used to love telling me those stories when I was a kid, but they don’t scare me anymore.” She swung the flashlight beam back and forth, surprised that she still hadn’t reached the rear of the building, or even a partition. Instead the walls came closer together the farther inward she advanced, until she was in a long, narrow tunnel.
By now she had to be under the limestone ridge itself. She stopped to run the flashlight beam behind her, along the uneven floor and up and down the walls. Plain and bare, as she’d suspected. Disappointment washed over her.
What did you expect? There wasn’t likely to be some fantastic altar conveniently available for her ceremony. Still, the urge to keep going was too strong to resist.
“I know what you’d say, Homer. Get to the end before you turn back.” At least the flies and mosquitoes hadn’t followed her. She focused the flashlight dead ahead and kept walking. And walking. Something was definitely crazy here. She’d never in her life read about underground tunnels among the Maya ruins. If such a discovery were to be made, it would have been done long since.
She glanced at her watch, grateful for the illuminated dial. Ten minutes she’d been walking, albeit at a very plodding pace. This was crazy. If she didn’t hit a wall or something in the next few yards, she was going back.
At the requisite few yards, an instant before she turned away, her flashlight beam splashed against a wall. Stone rose in front of her, solid and implacable.
And not plain. No, definitely not plain. The entire surface was crowded with Maya glyphs. Undefaced, unchipped, uncracked, as if time itself had stood still within this strange hallway.