Black Rain

Guatemala, Belize and Mexico, never to return to Tulan Zuyua.”

She clicked the remote and brought up a new photo, a Mayan ruin somewhere in Central America. “Many in the academic world consider Tulan Zuyua to be a myth,” she explained. “And that we’re as likely to find it as we are to locate Atlantis or the Garden of Eden itself. And if it is real, most experts believe it will be found buried under some other Mayan site, the way old San Francisco is buried under the present-day city.

“We, on the other hand, expect to find the great city here in the Amazon, thousands of miles from where anyone would have even thought to look.”

Danielle clicked to the next slide. It displayed a weathered stone with raised markings on it, fronted by a tape measure for scale. “This artifact came to the NRI several months ago, though it was recovered from somewhere in the Amazon some time before that.”

Another click, another photo: a picture of the stone from a different angle. McCarter found himself squinting to make out any details.

“As you can see,” Danielle said. “The surface of the stone is extremely weathered and most of the markings are almost invisible. But through a type of computer-assisted analysis called a micro-density relief, we were able to reconstruct some of the patterns, and the results were surprising.”

The next slide displayed the same stone, this time with a computer-generated outline overlaying it. “These patterns are consistent with only one known writing system: Mayan hieroglyphics. And these two glyphs are well known. One is the name of a person, Jaguar Quitze, one of the original Mayan humans. The other, which was only partially reconstructed, is believed to represent Venus, the morning star.”

McCarter studied the pattern formed by the computer-drawn outline. Clearly Mayan in style, but the underlying rock was so worn down he wondered how they could derive anything from it at all. Well-meaning guesswork perhaps.

While McCarter considered this, Danielle explained more of the NRI’s theory. “Eight months of work has put us in possession of several other items that seem to confirm the existence of the Mayan writing system within the Amazon, but none of them offered proof quite so dramatically as the one stone we do not possess.”

The next image was different from the others, a scanned copy of an old, sepia-toned glossy, complete with a crease running diagonally through one corner and brown discolorations along the edges.

The photo showed two men beside a large rectangular stone. One man had his arms folded across his chest and a foot up on the block. The other man crouched beside it, pointing to something on its face. The image brought to mind a pair of fishermen posing beside a prize catch.

“This photo was taken in 1926 on Blackjack Henry Martin’s first expedition into the Amazon. He left from Manaus in April of that year and did not return until March of 1927, when he was finally chased out of the jungle not by native tribes, wild animals or swarming insects, but by two months of torrential, seasonal downpours.

“Martin, as you may know, was something of a minor celebrity at the time. A wealthy adventurer and a self- described fortune hunter who scoured the globe in search of rare and valuable items, preferably those worthy of a little newsreel footage.

“While he was untrained in any formal way, Martin did record his adventures in a marginally professional manner, and before leaving the stone behind, its dimensions were recorded and this photograph taken.”

She clicked the slide show forward.

“By using another type of computer modeling, one that examines light-source angles and shading density, we were able to enhance the photo, especially this section.” She used a laser pointer to indicate specific parts of the photo and then advanced to the next image—a cropped and magnified view of the large stone with the outline of a new glyph written over it.

As he studied it, recognition hit McCarter in a flash. He’d seen the glyph many times before. During a two- year stint in Yucatan he’d seen it and touched it and traced its outline over and over again. “Seven Caves,” he whispered aloud. “Seven Canyons.”

Danielle smiled. For a moment she was in awe. She looked at the others. “Seven Caves and Seven Canyons are other names the Mayan people use for Tulan Zuyua.”

Susan Briggs opened a notebook and began writing something. “You don’t have to take notes,” McCarter said.

“I know,” she said. “I like to.”

McCarter nodded politely.

“According to Martin he discovered this stone on November 17, 1926, on the side of a prominent rise, a mile from the banks of a secondary tributary they were exploring. The exact location is unknown; the only geographic reference Martin offered was its distance from another landmark he discovered, a place he called the Wall of Skulls.”

The name lingered in the quiet of the room and McCarter glanced at Susan. Her eyes were wide, her face alight with interest. Good for her, he thought.

Danielle continued. “Martin’s notes recall his feelings upon first sighting the wall.” She read from a tattered copy of his autobiography.

“A sight of prominence and order this day, after so many in a land of chaos, disorder and nature in its endlessly tangled forms. The Wall is horrible and yet it is grand. A thousand skulls at least must be part of it. Enemy or friend, it remains unknown, for we were prevented from examining them by the foot soldiers of the tribe known as Chollokwa. Four of whom stood upon its crest when we arrived. Spears they held at the ready and adornment of headdress upon their brow, proud men, all of them with the bearing of Rome’s finest legions.”

“They welcomed him,” she added. “In fact, according to Martin, they insisted that they’d been foretold of his arrival. And they took him to their village in the forest, a few days’ hike from the river.”

She finished up. “By using this information, along with the help of a local trader who claims to have been told of the wall and taken near it, we think we can find it rather quickly. In a week, or perhaps two at the most.”

A week or two. McCarter almost laughed at the timetable. He wondered if she knew how absurdly hard it was to locate anything within the jungle. But then again, that was the least of their problems.

“My interest is piqued,” he said. “Especially by what Martin apparently found out there. But all you’ve really shown us are grainy pictures, a man’s self-serving writings and computer-generated guesses that, with all due respect, might as well be Rorschach inkblot tests. In other words you’re seeing what you want to see. I’m afraid it’ll take more than that to convince me.”

Curt but polite, Danielle replied, “I would expect no less. But then, I’m not finished yet.” She brought up another image, a photo displaying a group of four clear hexagonal crystals.

“These are the Martin’s crystals. A group of quartz objects our intrepid explorer claimed to see during a Chollokwan rain-calling ceremony. The crystals themselves are unremarkable, made of simple quartz with various inclusions. What turned out to be quite remarkable was another object related to them. An object Martin called the cradle.”

Danielle brought up the next image: a golden tray with slots in it, one for each of the crystals, with a fifth slot that went unexplained. “This is the cradle. It’s made of a gold/brass alloy similar to today’s eighteen karat blend. The crystals from the earlier photograph were stored in it—hence the name. That connection was of great interest to Martin, but our research focused on something he largely ignored.”

She switched to a new photo, which showed a design carved into the gold; it almost looked like Braille.

“This is a close-up of the underside of the cradle,” she explained. “It is in fact a highly detailed star pattern. A representation of the night sky as viewed from the southern hemisphere. It is consistent with Mayan art at other ceremonial centers.”

McCarter stared at the picture. It did look like a view of the night sky. He saw a horizon line and what he thought was the Southern Cross. He also realized that the photo had been taken so closely that it showed only a small portion of the underside of the cradle.

Before he could ask why, Danielle clicked to the next photograph. And as he stared at the new image, McCarter forgot about his previous question and found himself struck silent. This time the symbols appeared clearly, perfectly preserved in the surface of the non-corrosive metal. No guesswork was involved, no highlight or computer enhancement needed. The symbols were easy to read in the unretouched photograph, and he knew them well.

Danielle explained to the rest of the group. “This glyph represents a place the Mayan people called Xibalba—