the photograph. “It represents the planets across the star fields; it’s the path between the natural and the supernatural worlds. And that figure there is the jaguar sun god.”
Max took the picture from him and looked at the fine detail of the carvings, something he had simply not comprehended before. “So does this mean something?”
There were four more photographs laid out on the maps, but Flint ignored them for the moment and kept the first one taken at Xunantunich. “Did you have any other pictures from the jungle?”
“No,” said Max. “These were all I ever had of her on her last field trip.”
“I think she was pretending to be a tourist in this one,” Flint said, the cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. “In case anyone was following her, because someone like your mother would have known these places. In each of these photographs, your mother is moving to different ancient sites. Most of these are not known to outsiders. Maybe a few archaeologists and the local people who have ventured into the jungle as their guides, but these places are not where tourists go. She was going deeper and deeper into the jungle.”
Max was fascinated more than ever by the pictures of his mother, because now she was telling him a story. “Do you think she was trying to tell me, or somebody else, about where she was going?”
Flint shrugged and flicked the soggy, extinguished cigarette away. A rattling cough accompanied the shake of his head. “I don’t know.” Then he went through the remaining pictures, touching each one as he explained their location to Max and the meanings of the cut-stone panels. “These carvings with the bird feathers, they’re priests, shamans. They did all the blood sacrifices. These here, these are Serpent Warriors.”
“Serpent Warriors?” Max said. The image of twisting snakes coiled about their victims leapt into his mind. “Did they use snakes when they fought their wars?”
Flint reached out and took a spear that leaned against the wall. “No. That’s just what the warriors were called, but you spend time out here and you’ll see boa constrictors take wild animals, crush them and swallow them whole. You’d better hope you don’t tangle with one of those.” He handed the spear to Max. “This is one of the weapons the warriors used.”
Max felt the weight of the spear and fingered the flint head-a heavy blade, its edges flaked to slice into the enemy’s flesh.
“They were called teeth of lightning, those spears. And they also had stone knives cut into the shape of a jaguar paw. It was a mean way to fight, but they were warriors who fought face to face-you have to admire that. Fight or die. Simple choices.” He held the photograph up. “See these carvings?”
Max took it from him. The picture showed his mother standing next to the remains of a temple where the jungle had swallowed most of the building, but she held her hand against a stone carving, her face turned toward the camera. Max looked hard at what her hand rested against. One of the images was of a figure Max took to be some kind of holy man or chief. He sat on a stool, emblems on his arm, and he wore a headdress, but his elbows were bent, offering something in the palm of his hands. It was a severed head.
“The stool is made from the bones of sacrificial victims,” Flint told him. “That’s where the head came from.” He pressed his finger onto the map. There was no sign of any village or town or anything that could be called a settlement. It was in the middle of nowhere. And it was very close to the dark, shaded patch on the map.
Max was uncertain if what he felt was nervous excitement at finding the route his mother took into the jungle or an increasing sense of doom. Were these pictures shot shortly before his mother died, or had she gone on alone, deeper into the jungle, to meet her fate?
“These must have been taken by her guide,” Max said. “Do you think we could find him?”
“Perhaps. He’d be Maya, and there wouldn’t be too many who could go that deep into the mountains. And not this place. Nobody goes in-or comes out. I believe in the old ways. There are
“
“Jungle spirits. Shamans can create animal forms.
Max had learned from his time in Africa never to deride ancient beliefs. There was no reason to doubt that shape-shifting could serve evil purposes as well as good. One of the photographs showed his mother standing next to carved images of a sacrifice. Danny Maguire had told him that on the khipu.
There were other carvings: young children, bound together like slaves. “Was this a war party? Were these the children of the people being sacrificed?” Max asked, remembering Danny’s message.
“You’re beginning to get pretty good at this, son.”
“It had to be a dangerous place for one reason or another. Someone I knew sent me a coded message. I don’t understand why she is there, or why she is touching this particular stone carving.”
Flint pointed at an area on the map. “Twenty years ago a vast biosphere reserve was created to help save the rain forest and the animals and plants, but that’s always under threat because of oil pipelines and the need for slash-and-burn farmland. That’s where environmentalists have been killed. Illegal logging and oil both bring wealth to a poor country and power to a few.” Flint began rolling another cigarette, busying himself, spilling tobacco into the paper, but he had one eye on the boy. Waiting.
Max studied the map and saw a dotted area colored light green, the small word
“My mother was involved in trying to protect the rain forest and plants for medicines-I know that. She was really brave, my mum. Could she have got into trouble there?”
Flint stayed silent and laid the last photograph on a dark, shaded area. The picture had a plume of smoke curling upward in the background. Max already believed this to be near a volcano. His eyes sought out the contour lines on the map. The dark mass was nowhere near the biosphere. He pointed at an area. “Is that where this photograph was taken? There’s another reserve, isn’t there?” Max asked.
Flint smiled. The boy had a brain, and he knew how to read a map. Maybe there was hope for him after all.
“Aha.” Flint licked the edge of paper, smoothing the wonky roll-up. Max plucked it from his fingers and put it behind his ear.
Flint was surprised. “Bad habits stay with you a long time.”
“I don’t want a lecture, Flint; I want answers. My mother went here, didn’t she?” he insisted, touching the dark mass that spread like a virus across the paper, its edges creeping into the forests. “What is it?”
Flint gave up cigarette making and circled the darkened area with his hand, as if drawing out mute information from the creased paper. “No one really knows, but it was established as a place of special scientific interest, whatever that might mean. It was the same company that set up the biosphere reserve, so their intentions were good.”
“Who are they?”
“Zaragon.”
Max knew that name! It resounded in his memory-but from where? He could not place it. It would come, in time, and that might give him another clue to the mystery surrounding his mother’s death.
“The area is prone to earthquakes,” Flint continued. “An active volcano sits in the middle of the reserve, and every now and again it bursts through the lower cracks in the mountain. Lava spills down through the ravines but then gets swallowed up by the huge underground caves. There are old, hidden ruins, but no one’s been in that jungle for thirty years, maybe more. It’s a place where the Maya are allowed to live as they have always lived, without outside interference. No one else is allowed in. It’s a forbidden zone,” Flint said.
Max felt the shiver of anticipation. He was sure this was where his mother had gone. He almost whispered,
“They say it is the place of the jaguar god of the underworld,” Flint said.
Max looked at Flint, who averted his eyes. What was he thinking? What was he unable to say to Max’s face? If his mother had gone into this forbidden zone, was Flint telling him that she may have been sacrificed? The thought sickened him, images too appalling to even think about flashing through his mind. He shook his head. “You can’t be sure she went in there.”
