Deity (13 page)

Sweat
quickly dampened Lori’s brow and trickled between her breasts. She missed the
light, airiness of her cargo pants which had been traded for the tight confines
of the wetsuit, a suit clearly unsuitable for hiking through the captured,
muggy air of a Mexican rainforest. To make matters worse, the vegetation hummed
with swarms of insects.

Thankfully,
a hundred yards into the forest they came upon a small cenote, its cool, shaded
waters welcoming them twenty feet below.

“This
is a popular swimming hole with the locals,” Chac explained.

“Dr.
Webb found his fresco down there?” Lori asked, swatting at a cloud of mosquitoes.

“Not exactly.
But that’s where we
start. Underground channels connect this cenote to at least five other cenotes
before draining somewhere out there in the ocean. It’s all part of the water
system that developed around the perimeter of the Chicxulub Crater.”

“We’re
standing in a crater?”

“Actually,
we’re standing above it. The coastal depression created by the meteor has been
filled in with sixty-five million years of silt and erosion. The only
indications that a crater ever existed at all is through geological data and by
the collision rift along the terra firma portion of the perimeter. Water collected
along this rift and eroded the limestone around the perimeter zone, creating a
chain of wells and cenotes.”

“That’s
amazing,” Lori said as she strapped on her fins.

Chac
smiled. “There aren’t many people in this world who have gone swimming in a
cenote.”

“This
will be my second,” Dr. Peet said, half-heartedly. “And I wasn’t too fond of
the last one.”

“At
least you’re jumping into this one on your own free will,” Chac said with a
slap on Dr. Peet’s shoulder.

Chac
did a final gear check, adjusted his own mask and mouthpiece and finally
stepped up to the edge of the cenote. He lifted a finned foot in a gymnastic
show of sinewy balance and stepped off the ledge and plunged into the water
below. Lori followed, hitting the water in anticipation of escaping the
bloodsucking insects and relieving the heat within her wetsuit. She managed to
accomplish the first part. The water, however, was warm.

She
heard Dr. Peet splash into the water nearby but she was already following Chac
as he powered his way toward the bottom of the well. The water quickly darkened
around Chac’s surprisingly bright wrist light, reminding Lori to turn her own
light on. Deeper and deeper they kicked, the pressure intensifying and
imploring a sense of panic that Lori had to choke back.

Finally,
they reached the cool, silty bottom where Lori thought she detected a slight
current swirling around them. This was where Chac had warned they would use
most of their oxygen if they weren’t careful.

Chac
hesitated to hook a guideline to the mouth of the channel. Then with a sweep of
his arm he suddenly pulled Lori in close to him. She found a hold on the diver
propulsion submersible that had been attached to the front D-rings of his
harness and, with one arm holding her tight against his solid
frame,
Chac launched them slowly against the current of the
channel.

Lori
found herself in a claustrophobic world of confinement and absolute darkness
held at bay only by their wrist lights mingling against the limestone walls. She
was suddenly aware of her reliance on that light, on the gas flowing from the
tanks on her back and on the guideline steadily spooling from Chac’s hand. And
she was utterly reliant upon him.

Her
light beam caught glimpses of skeletal stalagmites and stalactites within
occasional silty pockets that shielded them from the current, but they were
nothing like the cumbersome underwater forests she’d been expecting. In fact,
save for the steady current, there were few obstacles to speak of. Chac simply
powered on through darkness.

She
had no idea how far they’d gone when he finally stopped the submersible and
released her, allowing Dr. Peet to catch up with the spare submersible. The
channel walls and ceiling had dissolved into a deep void where there was only a
crushing darkness like none Lori had ever seen before. She might have been
convinced she’d gone blind were it not for her tiny wrist light now reduced to
a slivery, drowning glow vainly reaching for an end that wasn’t there. She was
weightless in a cosmos with no stars.

Then
something grabbed her arm. Lori’s heart jumped in her throat until she realized
it was only Chac, slowing her ascent for decompression. He held them all to a
painstakingly leisure pace, suspended above the current until suddenly, finally,
they broke through the surface of that black water. The beams of their wrist
lights groped for reflection and found it only on each other’s wet faces.

Chac
removed his mouthpiece. “Welcome to the Mural Room,” he said, his voice
cracking off the surface of the water.

“Where
are we?” Lori asked.

“It’s
an underground well,” Chac said as he pulled himself through the water. “Think
of it as a cenote with a roof.”

“I
can see why it would be dangerous for Matt to come here alone,” Peet said,
breast stroking after them.

“That’s
why I’m certain he didn’t come here when he disappeared,” Chac said.
“That, and the fact that all of his diving equipment has been accounted
for.”

The
splashing of their movements grew louder as the sound reflected off obscure
cavern walls. It was then that Chac said, “There’s a rock shelf here…”

Too late.
Lori’s knee had already slammed into
the coarse limestone. She winced as the pain throbbed through her leg but she
continued onto the shelf which gradually rose out of the water. Soon enough
they were standing on dry ground, shedding their oxygen tanks near a wall. Lori
was immediately enthralled with the brightly-colored anthropomorphic figures
that emerged within the beams of their lights.

“How
did you find this place?” she asked.

“Cave
diving is Matt’s hobby,” Chac responded some distance away. Lori hadn’t noticed
that he’d stepped away. “He’s usually underwater when he’s not looking for
Jesus. He spent a lot of time in the Riviera
last year until he turned his focus to the Chicxulub cenotes. When he found the
murals painted all over this cavern, the Riviera
caves were all but forgotten.”

His
voice faded beneath the sudden sputtering of a generator. Lori caught the scent
of exhaust and then as the generator powered up to a steady drone, an old
incandescent floodlight dimmed, then brightened against the wall not three feet
away.

Like
a black ghost slipping back toward the light, Chac returned from the generator
concealed in the darkness beyond. Lori realized he had already shed his diving
fins so she proceeded to release the spring heel straps of her own.

“Documenting
these hieroglyphs was excruciatingly painful until we got this equipment in
here,” Chac said in a distracted tone as his eyes scanned the limits of the
light. “The lamps make a world of difference, even with the filters we use to
keep the murals from fading.”

“And
you say one of these figures interested Dr. Webb?” Lori asked as she studied
the remarkably colorful wall.

“He
calls it his Jesus fresco,” Chac said. “I call it the Calendar Deity. It’s
right over here.”

Kin

At
first glance, Dr. Webb’s Jesus fresco was just as Lori remembered from the
photo attachment in Dr. Friedman’s e-mail. The full anthropomorphic figure
stood almost Egyptian-like against the porous limestone wall; feet pointing forward
with shoulders square to the viewer. Both arms were extended before it,
carrying a ball-like object as though reverently carrying a sacred object to
altar.

The
figure was off to the side, separate from the palette of murals decorating the
limestone beside Lori. The drawing was joined by five blocky Mayan
hieroglyphics but otherwise, it was secluded from the main frescos and nearly
escaping the ring of lamplight.

“I
can’t help but notice its similarity to The Trader petroglyph,” Dr. Peet
murmured.

Lori
was way ahead of him. It was the Jesus fresco’s familiar shape that had
immediately captured her interest from her computer screen. It was far more
elaborate than the lone Trader petroglyph pecked into the Utah sandstone, but the basic shape was the
same, right down to an unidentifiable object held out between both hands. Aside
from the five blocky glyphs, the only difference in the Jesus fresco was an
apparent halo floating above the figure’s head.

At
least, that was the only difference.

Now,
standing face to face with the fresco, Lori recognized a new disparity. The
Jesus fresco had changed from the original picture Dr. Friedman had e-mailed
her. Given Chac’s stunned silence, he noticed it too.

“That
can’t be,” he mumbled as his hand instinctively reached for the new anomaly.

Above
the figure’s head where the halo had been, there was now only a hole
approximately six inches in diameter and carved a full three inches into the
stone. Strangely, square-cut teeth extended around the entire hole, giving it a
gear-like appearance.

Chac’s
fingers traced the depression with his fingers. “This wasn’t here before.”

Lori
touched the stone near the hole,
then
rubbed her
fingers against her thumb to sample the residue texture of the wall. “
The algae’s
been removed,” she observed.

“That
doesn’t surprise me,” Chac said. “Matt’s been cleaning, restoring and
documenting this fresco.”

Lori
wasn’t satisfied. “Look. This hole completely cuts out one of the hieroglyphs.”

She
had noted the position of the five Mayan glyphs in Dr. Friedman’s e-mail. One
glyph floated just below the figure’s feet while the others looped around the
front with the last glyph floating above the head, encapsulated by the halo
which was now precisely where the gear-shaped hole had been cut out of the
wall.

“What
is the significance of the hieroglyphs?” Dr. Peet asked, studying the wall over
Lori’s shoulder.

“They
represent the five cardinal points of the Mayan Long Count Calendar,” Chac
explained.

“One
glyph for every thousand years on the calendar,” Lori guessed.

“Not exactly.
The five glyphs are
Kin, Uinal, Tun, Katun, and Baktun. They represent the numbering system of the
Long Count. There are twenty Kins to a Uinal, eighteen Uinals to a Tun, twenty
Tuns to a Katun and twenty Katuns to a Baktun. Thirteen Baktuns complete a full
calendar cycle. In other words, there are twenty days to a Uinal month, eighteen
months to a Tun year and so forth. Each glyph was represented here except the
first glyph, Kin, has been cut out.”

“Why
would Dr. Webb cut the Kin out?” Lori pondered out loud.

“Perhaps
out of anger,” Chac said. “These hieroglyphs were the cause of some heated
debates between us. I believe this fresco represents a Mayan priest or prophet
who brought the knowledge of time to the people.”

“A
priest like Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl,” Lori guessed again.

“That
was my original assumption,” Chac said. “According to the Yucatec legend, there
was a man who arrived, bringing with him wisdom and peace. They called him Kukulkan.
The only man I know who fits that description is Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl.”

“But
I’m guessing that theory didn’t sit well with Matt,” Dr. Peet said.

“He
insisted this fresco represents Jesus Christ. He somehow convinced himself that
the calendar glyphs indicated the day of Jesus’ second coming.”

“And
what day is that?” Lori asked.

“There
are no numbers associated with the glyphs so the glyphs alone do not specify a
specific day. However, Matt believes the
lack of numbers represent
the moment when the last Kin of the last Baktun has passed—when all points of
the Long Count Calendar are zeroed out.”

“And
when will that be?”

“December
21st.”

Lori
gasped. “So the end of the world truly is coming.”

Chac
smiled. “I suppose, if Matt’s interpretation of this fresco is correct.”

“But
you aren’t convinced,” Lori said.

“I
don’t even think it represents Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl anymore.”

“What
do you mean?”

“I took a sample of the paint and found that it dates far
later than all the rest of the murals in this cavern. The data shows this
fresco was painted somewhere in the mid to late nineteenth century. Topiltzin
Quetzalcoatl was banished from Tula in the year
987 AD and would have landed in Yucatan
shortly after, so clearly this isn’t first-hand documentation of his arrival.”

“And
Jesus Christ lived nine centuries before Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl,” Dr. Peet
added. “So if this mural was created in the nineteenth century, how can Matt
conclude it documents the future arrival of Jesus Christ?”