Dustin Thomason: 12.21

He was trying to keep his eyes on her as much as possible. She seemed stable, but it was hard to know to what extent her symptoms could be exacerbated or accelerated by an arduous hike through the jungle in hundred-ten-degree heat. She would have been better off back in Kiaqix under Initia’s care. But he knew she was right that he never would have found the city without her.

Now they had to zero in on the king’s entombment temple, the last structure built in Kanuataba before its collapse. Paktul had described the construction as a haphazard project, rushed to completion and built with inadequate resources. Excavating a temple would ordinarily require serious equipment, but Volcy and his partner had been able to do it with pickaxes. So it was likely shoddily built or left unfinished.

The foundation will be laid in twenty days, less than a thousand paces from the palace. The viewing tower shall be built to face the highest point of the procession of the sun and will create a great holy triangle with the palace and the twin pyramid of red.

“To the ancients, a holy triangle was a right triangle,” Chel explained. “They were considered mystical.” There were many examples of the Maya using 3-4-5 right triangles in the layouts of their cities, construction of individual buildings, and even religious practices. The most notable use of them in urban planning was at Tikal, where a series of integral right triangles was centered on the southern acropolis. “Jaguar Imix wanted his tomb in a triangle with one of the temples and the palace. The twin temples should be easiest to find first.”

“So we’re looking for the red temple?” Stanton asked.

“It won’t actually be red. Red is the symbol of east.”

“So we’re looking for the one that is farther east?”

“The one that faces east into the plaza.”

The closer one got to a central acropolis, Chel told him, the larger the structures became, so she knew they were getting warmer. Stanton’s arms were exhausted from cutting through brush. The machete felt like its weight had multiplied, and its blade had dulled. Even small branches took too much effort to clear. Sweat poured into his eyes.

Then, twenty minutes later, they came upon a colonnade of pillars. They had been nearly covered with moss, and birds’ nests sat atop at least half, but they were still standing, taller than the stela, twelve of them in a square. Whatever original patio joined them had been buried beneath the underbrush long ago, but immediately Chel knew: They were exactly as Chiam had described them.

Her uncle made it here after all.

“Then we have to be close, don’t we?” Stanton asked.

”This was a meeting place for upper classes,” Chel explained. “It wouldn’t have been far from the palace.”

“Do we keep going in the same direction?”

But she wasn’t listening. Stanton followed her gaze. Ahead of them, the sun’s last rays poked through the leaf canopy and struck white stone. Chel let go of his gloved hand and set off almost blithely, paying little attention to the countless obstacles in her path.

“Wait!” Stanton called out. But she didn’t respond.

He hurried after her. Before he could catch up, something flew into his mask, nearly knocking him over. Stanton swatted at it uselessly with his flashlight, until it flapped off behind him. He watched it go—a bat, beginning its nightly hunt. When he turned back toward Chel, the last light of day was gone. The stone that had caught her eye only a moment before had disappeared into the darkness.

It wasn’t until he’d closed the gap between them that he finally saw what she’d found. She was standing at the base of what had once been stairs, long crumbled away after a thousand years. Stanton’s eyes traced the sloping overgrowth that climbed upward from the ground. It was a temple that dwarfed everything else.

“Don’t take off like that again,” he said. “I’m not gonna lose you out here.”

Chel didn’t look at him. “This is one of them,” she said. “It has to be.”

“The twin temples?”

She nodded, but seconds later she was on the move again.

CHEL STEPPED UP to a sprawling limestone substructure. It was built lower than any temple would be, and the walls were half standing, but she recognized it as soon as she saw it and started climbing. Her cotton pants and long-sleeved shirt were wet and heavy. Her hair scratched the back of her neck. But she continued up the overgrown stairs, hopping from one small ledge to the next until she reached the first of six enormous platforms.

“What are you doing?” she heard from below.

She waved Stanton off, concentrating. Chel pictured thirteen men seated in a circle in front of her, their heads covered with animal headdresses, all clapping in agreement with the man who was speaking. All except one—Paktul.

Stanton took her hand as he reached the top.

“This is the royal palace,” she whispered.

Stanton gazed out over the series of raised platforms. “So this is where…”

“They cooked,” Chel said without emotion. He’d expected her to be shaken by standing in the place where her ancestors had prepared human flesh. But Chel’s expression was fixed and focused as she looked out into the darkness once again.

“According to Paktul, the palace is the second point on the triangle,” she said. “So if it’s a three-four-fi ve right triangle, then the distance between—”

Suddenly Chel felt dizzy. Her legs were weak.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she lied. “Then the distance from the palace to the twin temple is the first side of the triangle.” She pointed west. “They never would’ve built a burial temple in the central plaza, so it has to be that way.”

“Do you need to rest more before we go?”

“Once we find the tomb.”

Stanton helped her down from the palace. They trudged on through the underbrush by flashlight, pushing in the direction the right triangle led them. Stanton continued to whack through brush with the machete, but still refused to let go of Chel with his other hand, even when fighting through the most diffi cult bits. She was so overheated she felt she might vomit, but she forced it down and kept going.

It was Stanton who spotted it first. From afar it looked like a small mountain, overgrown with small shrubs. It had a square base, maybe fifty feet on each side, and it rose into a four-sided pyramid three stories high. They were fifty yards off from the entrance, but even with all the overgrowth Chel could see that this building was unfinished. The slabs of limestone hiding under the dirt and trees weren’t properly cut, and they weren’t properly fitted.

“Is it the king’s tomb?” Stanton asked.

Chel circled the massive pyramid in search of an inscription. She found none, but when she reached the northwest corner of the temple, something gleamed in the beam of Stanton’s flashlight.

Something metal, left on the ground.

Volcy’s pickax.

“ THE AIR DOWN THERE ALONE COULD INFECT A HUNDRED PEOPLE. You need to put it on.”

Stanton held out the biohazard suit.

So much sweat already poured off Chel, she couldn’t imagine ever feeling cool again. “I’m already infected. You said heat would only make it worse.”

“The higher concentration you’re exposed to, the quicker it can act. The sooner…”

She didn’t make him finish the sentence.

He helped her into the suit. Chel had no idea how she’d get herself into the tomb with it on; it was as bulky as it was hot. She’d been in plenty of tombs before, and she’d never been claustrophobic. But the idea of descending into the catacomb with this thing on—she imagined it would feel like being buried alive.