“Even kings are not safe here” was the inscription on the stone door to the underworld. Professor Talbot has waited his whole life to be here. He was studying Mayan death masks of great kings in newly discovered tombs in the northern Yucatán. It was a race against time as the pyramid complex had laid undisturbed for millennia has been cleared of brush and overgrown trees, and already bandits and treasure hunters had broken into the site and dug a 25 foot tunnel into an earth mound above the temple complex. Disturbing a treasure trove of skeletons, rare scrolls and archeological evidence that was destroyed forever as a protective moat flooded the tunnel.
The bodies of 8 local men were recovered and the damage they did was unbelievable. Untouched tombs are rare, more rare are mayan books that survived the purges of the Catholic church. He is already behind schedule and now dealing with bandits and looters made him worried about the state of what awaits him in the depths bellow. Talbot had to don a scuba tank and follow a team from the University of Mexico City down into the flooded tomb of the God King of Xibalba.
Talbot remembers sadly earlier looted tombs of the Aztec, where priceless artifacts where smashed to remove gold teeth and gems inlaid in skulls and death masks of Tezcatlipoca the Smoking mirror. Now in rancid water barely above freezing they descend into the underworld. Black water fills the hallway beyond the 80 ton stone door they had to raise out by crane.
Their dive lights only illuminate 3 feet in front of them, the other researchers are ahead on a guided rope line to stay connected. Visions of corpses and poison arrows that fell the looters fill the tunnel as locals were unwilling to recover cadavers killed in tomb looting due to local superstition, likely allowing the academics to incur casualties first before they raid the tomb again once its safe.
This was not Talbots first tribe down here to these temples. He had spent his youth after world war one and university in Europe, down in sweltering heat of the jungles of Chiapas, Oaxaca and Guatamala discovering Mixtec Zouche-Nuttal Codex of Pre-Colombian inscriptions on kings and the universe. Being betrayed once before by the British Museum he was apprehensive about involving other academics but this find was not his and he was lucky to have been invited by his friends in Mexico.
Talbot was kind of superstitious, since his first forays into archeology, he feels followed by the trickster god Tezcatlipoca of the underworld, known as “the smoking mirror.” Haunting his dreams and filling the lonely hours of the night with shrill screams of torment form the underworld. Feeling as if he was being driven mad by demons and devils of Meso-American cosmology. Demanding he rediscover their worldview and bring artifacts up into the light.
Professor Talbot is torn from these tortured reminiscences as there is a struggle head. One of the Mexico City staff is struggling with their air tank and pushing past him roughly as blood fills the water. Talbot lets them pass but doesn’t follow. Ahead is a dry chamber where he will make the tunnel impassable. Alone in the dark, he weaves his body around fallen pillars and traps that have killed many in the days before his team arrived.
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As his light falters, shocking sights of shrieking skulls of dead kings flash before his eyes as his water logged flashlight does not cooperate and his dive lamp gives off only a dirty moss colored light. Above the far-off dawn has broken through holes in the roof, turning the sky the color of a stormy sea, darkening the brilliant starry sky under angry black clouds before sunrise. Feeling the floor around him, he finds scraping metal, jagged swords and conquistador armor rusting around rotting bones.
Some earlier treasure hunters must have fallen here in Spanish times. Finding a torch, he lights old dry wood wrapped with deer skin and dry palm leaves. Filling the chamber with golden light, he sees the shining eyes of countless corpses adorned with shining jade, gold, turquoise and pyrite. The chamber was full of corpses. This was the meeting point of empires, The Aztec, Maya, Olmec and Mixtec all considered this region holy and dedicated to the gods of the underworld. Clay and jade masks shaped to represent yet unnamed deities leered at him. Googley eyed monsters representing the Jaguar, Eagle, Toad and River Fist take on a horrible dancing the flickering torch light.
On an alter on a raised platform, he finds the centerpiece. A death mask of the lord of Xibalba. His shaking hands reach out, goose bumps raise on his neck as he grasps the cold inlaid stone mask. It is heavy, like something made of marble and gold but it wasn’t. It was thin and felt like it was made of obsidian and some other dark metallic material from the heart of an asteroid. His fingers tremble with an energy from inside the carved skull face. Its undead hunger drawing on his lifeforce.
Something bit him on his leg and he drops the mask as it rolls into the darkness he feels some biting insect has climbed the inside of his pants. Swatting at what ever it in, feeling some large spider fall from his pants leg. Panicking he realized he has lost the mask into a hole in the floor. Looking down into the hole, he sees easy foot holds to descend into the depths. He scrambled down into a pit another 70 feet into the darkness. Here is a luminous underground lake, blue and green light dance across the ceiling.
A voice terrorized his mind, a scratchy and cruel voice reaching out across time. A shriveled figure seizes the sides of his head. Looking into the eyes of this horrific wraith of a dead king, he is transported into the distant past. A time where a mighty king goes on a journey into the underworld to find his stolen bride. Fighting vengeful ghosts and denizens of the underworld with a funeral mask and an obsidian sword that was so sharp it opens chests and heads at a molecular level. Talbot feels sharp elephant grass cut his skin, feels leeches and insects biting his legs. He feels all the power of a god king from a lost epoch.
Haunted visions of a thousand nameless kings who died in torment, ravaged by disease and immortal visions from the demonic knowledge lost to untold horrors. The curse of the underworld crawls into his soul with monstrous anamosity from wars fought and families beating hearts wrenched out of still beating chests. He howls and shakes, trying to free himself from the skeletal embrace of this dead king. A snarling smile crosses the green corpses face, filling Talbot with centuries of anguish. He falls alone, waking up wearing the funeral mask on top of the pyramid. His hands shaking as he watches the Mexico City team rush back in looking for him. A celestial map fills the sky with a beautiful last scream of starlight across the lip of dawn.