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Aaron Elkins: Curses!

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Aaron Elkins Curses!

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It would make anyone think of Palenque, the elegant ruin three hundred miles to the south in the even denser jungles of Chiapas. There, in 1952, in the staircase of a somewhat larger pyramid under a somewhat larger temple, Alberto Ruz Lhuillier had also found a room sealed behind a false wall, also containing a stone chest, much bigger than this one, with a finely carved lid. Inside had been one of the great finds of Meso-American archaeology. It was the skeleton of the ruler known as Pacal, lying regally on his back, swathed in the rich trappings of a Mayan lord: necklace laid upon necklace, enormous earrings, funerary mask, and diadem, all of polished jade; intricately carved rings on all ten fingers; a great pear-shaped pearl; a jade bead delicately placed between his teeth as food for his journey; a jade statue of the sun god at his feet to accompany him.

Howard stared hungrily at the chest. “What do you think is in it?” he asked Gideon and laughed again. His stiff, straw-blond hair was dark with sweat, as furrowed as if he'd been swimming. Gideon didn't like the feverish-looking red patches on his cheeks, or his vaguely reckless manner.

"Not much; the interior dimensions can't be more than two by two,” Gideon said reasonably, but Howard's excitement was practically crackling in the dank air, beginning to get to him. He felt the beginning of an ache at his temples and made himself relax his knotted jaw muscles. “If it's another royal burial I'm afraid they've scrunched him up a little to fit him in."

It was meant to ease the atmosphere. Harvey laughed dutifully, and a few of the crew members snickered, but Howard brayed; a nasal yawp that made the others glance uncomfortably at each other.

"You know what I'm going to do?” he said abruptly. “I'm going to get the lid up. Right now.” He rubbed his hands together mirthfully while sweat dripped from his chin. He turned to the laborer and spoke tersely in Spanish.

"Avelino, I want a tripod with a hand winch rigged up. And some bracing poles. Go tell the others."

Gideon frowned. This was a tricky operation, better left until the next day when preparations could be more calmly made. He began to say something but changed his mind. No director liked having his authority contested in public, and the leadership of the dig belonged in Howard's hands. Gideon was only there for a few weeks, strictly to analyze the skeletal material. Besides, it was always possible that Howard knew what he was doing.

For the moment it seemed that he did. His directions were concise and accurate, and the tiny Mayan workmen were used to lifting heavy things in cramped spaces. Working efficiently, they spoke quietly to each other in their soft, rustly language. In twenty minutes they had one edge of the lid raised three or four inches, enough to force several wooden rods under it to prop it up.

Howard jumped forward as soon as they were in place, his flashlight already flicked on. He knelt in front of the chest like a man before an altar and shone the light into the narrow opening, leaning forward to get his eyes up against the crevice. For long seconds there was no sound other than the clinking of the metal flashlight barrel against the rim of the chest as he moved it along.

He peered into the chest without saying anything, forearms braced against the rim, forehead leaning on them. The only sound now was an erratic flutter above their heads, like spattering fat: insects igniting against the lights. Nobody in the crew spoke, nobody moved. If they were like Gideon they weren't even breathing. Howard's back was to them, his soft, slabby shoulders buttery with sweat. He looked, thought Gideon, as if he were well on the way to melting into a greasy puddle at the foot of the chest, like something out of H. P. Lovecraft.

"Jesus Christ,” he said; tight-voiced and expressionless. “Gideon, look at this."

Swallowing hard, his neck aching with anticipation, Gideon moved forward, not sure whether Howard was looking at the find of the century or the letdown of his life. When he stepped into the recess, stalagmites crunched underneath him, a startlingly crisp sensation in the mucky heat. He dropped to one knee beside Howard while the others watched avidly. Howard shone the light into the chest for him.

Gideon leaned intently forward, profoundly grateful for his life. What other occupation offered moments like this?

Once he got used to the bobbing shadows from Howard's trembling flashlight his reaction was piercing disappointment. There was nothing in the chest but a few dusty, common objects like hundreds of other objects from dozens of other digs: a few jade beads in a heap; a pair of ear ornaments made from scallop shells; two painted plates; and two slim, rectangular, neatly folded bundles of bark lying side by side, also daubed with paint. They all had value from a scholarly point of view, but they were definitely not the find of the century. Why in the world had the Maya gone to such elaborate trouble to hide and preserve this homely junk?

But Gideon was a physical anthropologist; bones were his specialty, not artifacts. Howard was an archaeologist, and he knew better. The flashlight jerked in his hand.

"A codex!” he whispered thickly.

Gideon looked again and of course they weren't simple bundles of bark at all. Now he could see the glyphs across the tops of the leaves and the comicstrip-like panels with their gaudy drawings as the beam from Howard's flashlight picked them out. It was a Mayan codex, a pre-Conquest Mayan “book,” lying on its spine, opened in the middle so the two halves lay flat.

His lips parted for speech, but he couldn't think of anything to say. Maybe it was the find of the century after all. At least in Mayan archaeology.

Chapter 4

Literally of the century. There were only three other Mayan codices in existence, and the last one had been found in 1860. All of them were owned by state libraries-in Dresden, Madrid, and Paris-and none were yet completely translated. Assuming that the subject matter of this one was like the others', the fund of knowledge about Mayan ceremony, religion, and language had just been increased by a whopping thirty-three-and-a-third percent.

Howard invited the rest of the crew into the recess to have a look. Whether more than one or two had any idea of the significance of what they saw was doubtful, but they peered through the slit into the stone chest in respectful silence, then backed off a few steps to leave the two anthropologists to their professional talk.

"God, do you know what that must be worth?" Howard exclaimed with a rumble of laughter.

A telling comment, but not quite up to professional standards; not in Gideon's view. Its market value was irrelevant; the codex was the property of the Republic of Mexico and properly so. It would never be sold.

"It could be the most significant Mayan find since Palenque,” Gideon said stuffily, as much for the crew's benefit as Howard's.

It didn't do much to enlighten Howard. “I could get you two million bucks for that tomorrow,” he said. “Easy."

He laughed again and stood up. “Let's get on with it.” He turned to give instructions to the foreman on completing the delicate process of levering up the lid and getting it off without damaging the intricate inscriptions.

Gideon retreated to an unoccupied corner of the landing and watched quietly, occasionally wiping the sweat from his eyes. He was no expert in this kind of work, which had more in common with engineering than with anthropology.

Neither was Howard, it turned out. As he and the laborers grunted, pouring sweat, to wedge more poles under the lid, something went wrong. One of the poles was tapped too sharply with a sledgehammer and popped out like a cork to clatter on the floor. The great lid teetered to the right, swayed on its ropes like a colossal pendulum while the workers fought to balance it, and then, with agonizing slowness, tipped and went grinding ponderously over the rim of the chest with a sound like that of the last terrible block sliding into place at the end of Aida. It smashed into the wall, one of its richly carved corners crumbling away. That was bad enough, but on its way it also bumped against one of the props that had been erected as shoring while the passageway was dug out.

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