The Labyrinth Key Read online

  A carved stairway descended from ground level, clinging to the smooth edges of the cenote, but the stairs themselves were empty at the moment. The steep stairs had once been used by the ancient Mayans centuries ago, as citizens made their pilgrimage to the pool for both recreation – and deadly ritual.

  The cenote of Ik Kil was considered sacred by the Mayans, who used the site for human sacrifice to Chaac, their rain god. Jewelry, gold, and bones had been excavated from its deep water by archaeologists and specialists. Who the bones had belonged to was a more complicated story. The pool rarely gave up her secrets without a fight. It was a mystical place, full of history and violence.

  The man sitting on the swimming platform was here today for neither ritual nor recreation and yet perhaps there were, in fact, elements of both. His blue eyes trailed the still surface of the pool, unbroken by any movement other than the occasional catfish on the prowl and the splash of the cascading waterfalls. The man wiped the sweat off his brow as he waited. The oppressive jungle heat seeped into his pores and the scent of earth and water clogged his throat. It felt thick enough to drink.

  Then, there. Was that a ripple? The man watched harder. As he did, a dark shape swarmed upward, cutting through the clear water’s depths. It appeared to be bigger than the catfish, but not by much.

  A man broke the surface with a gasp, shaking water out of his hair and wiping it from his eyes. He wore no more dive equipment than a mask and snorkel, having descended to the depths to meet them on their own terms. When his vision cleared enough to make out the man on the platform, he frowned, blowing spray. He swam over and clung to the side. When he pushed himself up into the sun, startlingly warm on his chilled skin, his muscles bunched and gleamed.

  “Well?” he asked, hauling himself out onto the platform, trying not to drip on the waiting man or his equipment. “Any news?”

  Sam Reilly grinned and assessed his soaking, breathless friend.

  Then he dug in his pack and handed Tom Bower a towel. “He’s here.”

  Chapter Two

  The sun blazed on the scrubby road as Sam and Tom arrived topside.

  Tom was still toweling his hair with his shirt and raised his eyes at the sight that greeted them. “Doesn’t exactly travel light, does he?”

  A small convoy of three black Jeep Sahara Wranglers stood at the ready alongside the scorching Mexican road. The last Jeep in the convoy was towing a small hyperbaric chamber, a not-so-gentle reminder of the risks when SCUBA diving uncharted, and labyrinthian, underwater cave systems.

  Sam squinted into the bright sun in appreciation – the gleaming black caravan made an imposing, sexy front of machinery. The impressive vehicles looked built to withstand – and return – cartel gunfire and Sam wondered exactly what their host’s connection was.

  The Jeeps were dusty from their trek through the unforgiving landscape, a stark contrast to the man who waited outside, hands tucked in his pockets with his simple cotton shirt hitched up outside them. He chatted amiably with people Sam could barely see – the flat, rugged faces of local laborers, built for hard lives and long stories and as much a part of the land that surrounded them as the rugged stones and spiky yucca sprouting from the thick jungle carpet.

  Sam reflected that Tom might have a point, but it didn’t matter. He’d rather be over-prepared than under, and even if it was a show to impress them, at least it looked like they were dealing with a man who knew what he was doing.

  Sam shrugged and hitched his bag higher on his shoulder. “He’s the one in charge. Not everyone’s got lungs like you.”

  He started forward with a wave and the man’s face broke into a wide smile; his bright white teeth sharp and startling against the canvas of his deeply tan skin.

  “Mr. Reilly!” the man called out, his hand outstretched, and starting forward through the jungle.

  Sam took it with familiarity, and said, “Armando! It is good to see you, my friend.”

  The man was roughly the same height as him, their eyes meeting level. Though they had exchanged many emails and several phone calls in the past few months, this was the first time they’d met in person and Sam was struck by the man’s commanding presence. He was well built and with a no-nonsense awareness that made Sam think he’d spent some time in the Mexican army; most likely before going off to college and diving into the ancient history of the land he’d been raised in. He’d dedicated his life to unearthing its secrets.

  He and Sam shook hands firmly, warmly. The man transferred his steely grip and his bright smile to Tom. “Armando Ayala,” he said, looking Tom square in the eyes.

  Tom returned the gaze, a brief smile on his lips. The man was a renowned historian and archeologist that specialized in Mayan artifacts. Sam had spoken highly about him on multiple occasions. “Tom Bower. Pleasure to finally meet you.”

  Sam started to hitch his bag higher, but a local was already collecting it from him. He relinquished it with a shrug of thanks. To Tom, he said, “Armando has spent the last ten years sifting his way through thousands upon thousands of the four hundred and fifty-year-old Mayan testimonies recorded during the Spanish Inquisition.”

  Tom’s brows rose. “Sounds like… enlightening reading. Not light, though.”

  Armando laughed, an easy sound. “No, not light reading. How much do you know about the history of the conquest of South America, Mr. Bower?”

  Tom slanted a glance at Sam and raised a sardonic brow. “I know they came in search of gold, as much as land. The quest for El Dorado took them deep into the Amazon, but the mythical city was never found.”

  Sam scratched his neck and held in his laugh. He still had a small pouch of golden pearls he’d taken from the Tomb of El Dorado, back in his house in Oregon.

  “Actually, they were after much more than gold and arable land...” Armando explained. “The conquistadors wanted power. They wanted economic supremacy. And there were a bunch of heathen natives taking up space, getting in the way. In the 1700s, the Spanish hold on the continent was shaky and needed to be solidified. Since money proved a questionable means of motivation, they turned to something much more reliable – violence in the name of religion. The conquistadors’ priests put South American ‘heretics’ on trial and forced them to divulge the locations of their temples of worship, where they celebrated their pagan beliefs.” Armando’s lips tightened. “And once those heretics had ‘confessed’ under pain of death, most of them were killed anyway and their holy places destroyed.”

  Tom shook his head in solemn regret. “The Spanish weren’t the first to use religion to forcibly achieve their goals, but it certainly looks like they perfected it.”

  “These people were my ancestors.” Suddenly the Mexican grinned. “But they were a clever bunch, and rumors of a mythical place lived on. Of the gateways to the gods, Elysium, Xibalba.” He glanced between Sam and Tom. “You’ve heard of these gateways?”

  Sam spread his hands. “Just what you’ve sent me. I confess, I was totally ignorant before that.”

  Armando’s smile slanted. “What about you, Mr. Bower?”

  “You might want to refresh my memory. Sam filled me in a little bit about the project, in terms of the technical diving required, but nothing about the history.”

  Armando gestured to the Jeeps which waited like panting panthers in the sun. “Shall we retire to somewhere more comfortable? There is water in the car, and some refreshments.” He’d noticed Tom’s damp hair, Sam’s sweat. “And, they are air-conditioned.”

  Sam allowed a smile to crease his lips. “Sounds good.”

  They settled inside the roomy Jeeps.

  Armando said something in gunfire Spanish and the driver handed him two bottles of sparkling water from a cooler between the front seats. Armando passed them out to Sam and Tom, who accepted with thanks. The bottles were followed by wet wipes, and the scent of disinfectant mingled with the scents of sun and dust. After wiping his hands, Sam finished half his bottle of water before wiping his mouth. />
  Sam said, “I’m sorry, I’m not used to this heat.”

  “She’s a brutal Mother, Mexico,” Armando said with a smile.

  “Tell us more about this Xibalba.” Tom turned to the historian, getting down to business. “I did a quick free dive into the cenote, but I wasn’t really sure what I was looking for. Beyond an entrance, I didn’t see much.”

  “Some people think it’s in Guatemala. Others think cave systems in nearby Belize are the entrance to Xibalba. But they’re wrong. It’s here. Here in the Yucatan.” He smiled. “In some Mayan legends, the Milky Way is viewed as the road to Xibalba. It was a holy place for the ancient Mayans, a place of sacrifice, death, and rebirth. Riches unimaginable. Incredibly valuable from a historical standpoint as well as in terms of treasure, such as gold, silver, and breathtaking jewels.” He straightened his cuffs. “I’ve dedicated my life to finding it, once and for all.”

  Tom raised his brows. “Have you had any luck?”

  Armando laughed. “Yes, actually. Persistence pays off in treasure hunting, as I’m sure you know. There were originally three specific locations that I believed might lead us to Xibalba – and a fortune in gold.”

  Sam leaned forward, water forgotten. “Where were they?”

  Armando’s eyes gleamed. “In the North Yucatan Peninsula. We’ve ruled out two of them already.”

  Sam’s breath quickened and he settled back, pulling at his collar in the heat. “Leaving just the one, correct location? Is that it?”

  Armando spread his hands with a soldier’s talent for self-deprecation. “That’s what I’m hoping.”

  But Tom was frowning. “If you know where it’s located, and you know how to get to it, why bring us in at all? Not…” he added, rubbing his nose, “that I’m complaining. I’m just… confused.”

  Armando grinned, rueful. “Because it’s a lot harder to reach than we, meaning us, are capable of reaching,” he admitted, glancing at the driver through the partition of the Jeep. The man said something in Spanish and Armando laughed.

  Tom’s brows rose. “Oh yeah? How come?”

  Armando smiled. “Because it would take a world expert in cave diving to reach.” He glanced between them and the Jeep rumbled to life without their being asked. “You want to know what Xibalba is, gentlemen. It’s much simpler to just show you.”

  Chapter Three

  The Jeep jerked and rumbled over the deserted roads.

  The flat landscape stretched for miles, blending into the horizon in a wall of heat shimmer and haze. Sam peered out the window, glad of the air blowing past them. With the windows open and the air-conditioning on full blast, the temperature inside was almost tolerable. He loosened his collar in the wind.

  Armando noticed his gaze and smiled. “Ah, yes… the Yucatan. Flat and barren. We’d be crazy to look for anything hidden, here. But that is what Xibalba wants you to think. Just as certain butterflies camouflage themselves to look base and unappealing, this land also hides her secrets.”

  Tom wiped sweat off his brow. “I’m sure she does.”

  Armando gestured out the window to the shrubby pale dirt. “Below the earth spreads a hidden life-web that has determined the direction of human settlement on this land for thousands of years.”

  Tom swigged from his bottle of water and wiped his mouth. He gestured with it, toward the landscape framed by the Jeep’s window opening. “You mean the water table?”

  Armando winced at hearing it described so crudely. “I suppose you could say that. I’m referring, of course, to the vast network of underground rivers and cenotes.” He turned to Sam with a gracious gesture. “We’ve spoken about them, Mr. Reilly.”

  Sam wracked his brain, feeling like an idiot. “You’re talking about the maze of linked cenotes?”

  Armando laughed. “Not ‘see-notes’. It is pronounced ‘say-NO-tay’. From the Mayan word ‘d’zonot’, which means ‘water hole’. These days, it can refer to any subterranean chamber that contains permanent water, underground lakes, pools… while some of them are singular, many are caves filled with pools and linked by underwater passageways or sometimes sinkholes, where a cave ceiling has collapsed. A bridge between the surface and all that lies below.” Tom’s brows rose, and Sam knew he was recalling his recent free dive site. He ran his hand through his still-damp hair, as if feeling it anew. Armando saw it and nodded. “The Mayans considered cenotes to be sacred spaces – entrances to their underworld. More specifically, to Xibalba, home of the gods, abode of one’s spirit after death.”

  “But where did they come from?” Tom asked, gesturing toward the arid landscape. “This place doesn’t exactly look… moist.”

  “It doesn’t now. But time changes all things. Millions of years ago, the Yucatan peninsula was actually a sprawling coral reef.” Sam stared in disbelief at the dust thrown up by the Jeep’s passage over the rough road. “During the last ice age, the water levels dropped, exposing the reef. The coral died and the jungle invaded.” Armando gestured dismissively to some unknown location. “You can still see coral fossils inland – far inland. They’re quite common.” He shrugged, and then continued despite their skeptical faces. “Centuries of carbon-matter build up created the forest floor you stand on today, but beneath, massive cave systems were formed as the coral dissolved. They’re spectacular, and if you have the time, you should visit them. Well.” His face changed. “What’s left of them, anyway.”

  Sam blinked. “What’s left of them? Why? Are they in danger?” He knew that Mexico was wracked by fault lines much like California, and it wasn’t impossible to imagine how such a fraught topography could wreak havoc on a delicate system of caves.

  But Armando shook his head. “No, not in the way you think. And in some cases, what’s ‘left’ of them is actually a good thing.”

  “How so?”

  “You see, many of the caverns have already collapsed. When the ice age ended, the caves flooded as sea levels rose. The water levels you see now leveled off around a thousand or so years ago. Give or take a few hundred. Scientists have carbon dated artifacts found in some of the caves in this area back almost ten thousand years.”

  Tom let out a low whistle. “Wow.”

  Sam leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his instincts and interest, piqued. Things were starting to make sense. “And you think that Xibalba is in one of these cenotes?”

  Armando spread his hands. “It is the most likely scenario.” His smile quirked. “Cenotes have been having something of a moment recently, in the scientific community, which is what made me think of it. In the past decade, archaeologists have found everything in their depths- from ancient, fossilized remains of camels, to giant jaguars.”

  Tom sputtered a laugh. “Camels?! Are you serious?”

  “Among other things… mammoths, sloths, horses… The flora and fauna were very different here, ten thousand years ago.” Armando continued. If he found Tom’s interruption elementary or objectionable, he had the grace to hide his distaste. “Human skeletons have also been discovered, with some being the oldest found in the Americas to date. All of these treasures, once thought lost, were found in underwater cave dives.”

  Tom shot a glance at Sam, looking suddenly uneasy. Sam recognized a person girding his sensibilities to the often-messy facts of history. “They found people in there?” He shook his head. “You go off to the water hole and you fall in, hit your head, and… Man. Rough day.”

  Armando laughed. “More than you know. Apart from human remains, they have found many artifacts not native to the area, which suggests they were brought in from the outside because they had value. Wooden artifacts, for example, that would not have otherwise been preserved. Weapons, idols, tools, jewelry, jade, textiles…” He waved his hand. “But that’s not the most interesting part. The fascinating thing is, many of these objects appear to have been intentionally damaged before being thrown into the underworld – as if the sacrificer was killing the object before it was sacrificed.” He paused to g
auge their expressions. “Even the humans.”

  Sam’s brow furrowed in thought, but he wasn’t surprised. They were Mayans, after all. “Human sacrifice?”

  “Yes. It’s undisputedly true that certain cenotes contain large numbers of human remains: male, female, even young children and infants.”

  Tom stared. “Children? Infants?” His lips twisted in disgust. “That’s barbaric.”

  Armando held up his hands, neither defending nor condemning his ancient ancestors. “Most people imagine the Mayans flinging beautiful women into the pit of hell, but research shows it was more commonly young men – young men who were either purchased or captured while their parents were working in the fields; warriors captured in battle; or even high-born, young nobles captured during conflicts with neighboring clans. They were usually killed prior to being thrown into the cenote.” His lips quirked. “But not always.”

  Tom folded his arms. “I still think it’s barbaric.”

  Armando’s eyes widened in surprise. “You were a warrior, from what Sam tells me, and your country fully supports the death penalty. This is the same thing.”

  “But they’re criminals! These people were executed for the gods!”

  Sam jumped in. “And Christians have done terrible things, too – the Crusades, the inquisitions…” He shook his head. “Better not to get into a one-upmanship of ancient cruelty. Better to just be glad we weren’t born back then.”

  Tom squirmed. “Just weird to think I was diving in someone’s grave and had no idea.”

  Armando shook his head. “History is brutal, but it is not all doom and death.” He smiled at Tom. “Don’t worry, Mr. Bower. The Mayans didn’t fling people to their deaths in all the cenotes. Only in certain ones. Others, purely recreational or domestic.”