'You could waste years looking for it,' said Rodgers.
'It must be buried under landslides and the erosion of almost five centuries.'
'I'll bet the Incas sealed it off by causing a cave-in,' Pitt ventured.
Shannon was not about to allow the men to go first. Scrambling over rocks and slinking into dark recesses was her specialty. She eagerly slipped down the rope as smoothly as if she did it twice a day and crawled into the narrow aperture in the rock. Rodgers went next, followed by Giordino, with Pitt bringing up the rear.
Giordino turned to Pitt. 'If I get caught in a cave-in, you will dig me out.'
'Not before I dial nine-one-one.'
Shannon and Rodgers had already moved out of sight down the stone steps and were examining the second Demonio del Muertos when Pitt and Giordino caught up to them.
Shannon was peering at the motifs embedded in the fish scales. 'The images on this sculpture are better preserved than those on the first demon.'
'Can you interpret them?' asked Rodgers.
'If I had more time. They appear to have been chiseled in a hurry.'
Rodgers stared at the protruding fangs in the jaws of the serpent's head. 'I'm not surprised the ancients were frightened of the underworld. This thing is ugly enough to induce diarrhea. Notice how the eyes seem to follow our movements.'
'It's enough to make you sober,' said Giordino.
Shannon brushed away the dust from around the red gemstone eyes. 'Burgundy topaz. Probably mined east of the Andes, in the Amazon.'
Rodgers set the Coleman lantern on the floor, pumped up the fuel pressure and held a lit match against the mantle. The Coleman bathed the passage in a bright light for 10 meters (33 feet) in both directions. Then he held up the lantern to inspect the sculpture. 'Why a second demon?' he asked, fascinated by the fact that the well preserved beast looked as if it had been carved only yesterday.
Pitt patted the serpent on the head. 'Insurance in case intruders got past the first one.'
Shannon licked a corner of a handkerchief and cleaned the dust from the topaz eyes. 'What is amazing is that so many ancient cultures, geographically separated and totally unrelated, came up with the same myths. In the legends of India, for example, cobras were considered to be semi divine guardians of a subterranean kingdom filled with astounding riches.'
'I see nothing unusual about that,' said Giordino. 'Forty-nine out of fifty people are deathly afraid of snakes.'
They finished their brief examination of the remarkable relic of antiquity and continued along the passageway. The damp air that came up from below drew the sweat through their pores. Despite the humidity they had to be careful they didn't step too heavily or their footsteps raised clouds of choking dust.
'They must have taken years to carve this tunnel,' said Rodgers.
Pitt reached up and ran his fingers lightly over the limestone roof. 'I doubt they excavated it from scratch. They probably hollowed out an existing fissure. Whoever they were, they weren't short.'
'How can you tell?'
'The roof. We don't have to stoop. It's a good foot above our heads.'
Rodgers gestured at a large plate set on an angle in a wall niche. 'This is the third one of these things I've seen since we entered. What do you suppose their purpose was?'
Shannon rubbed away the centuries-old coating of dust and saw her reflection on a shining surface. 'Highly polished silver reflectors,' she explained. 'The same system used by the ancient Egyptians for lighting interior galleries. The sun striking a reflector at the entrance bounced from reflector to reflector throughout the chambers and illuminated them without the smoke and soot given off by oil lamps.'
'I wonder if they knew they were paving the way for environmentally friendly technology?' murmured Pitt randomly.
The echoing sound of their footsteps spread ahead and behind them like ripples on a pond. It was an eerie, claustrophobic sensation, knowing they were entering the dead heart of the mountain. The stagnant air became so thick and heavy with moisture it dampened the dust on their clothing. Fifty meters (164 feet) later they entered a small cavern with a long gallery.
The chamber was nothing less than a catacomb, honeycombed with crypts hewn into the walls. The mummies of twenty men, wrapped tightly in beautifully embroidered woolen mantles, lay head to toe. They were the mortal remains of the guards who faithfully guarded the treasure, even after death, waiting for the return of their countrymen from an empire that no longer existed.
'These people were huge,' said Pitt. 'They must have stood two hundred and eight centimeters or six foot ten inches tall.'
'A pity they aren't around to play in the NBA,' muttered Giordino.
Shannon closely examined the design on the mantles. 'Legends claim the Chachapoyas were as tall as trees.'
Pitt scanned the chamber. 'One missing.'
Rodgers looked at him. 'Who?'
'The last man, the one who tended to the burial of the guardians who went before.'
Beyond the gallery of death they came to a larger chamber that Shannon quickly identified as the living quarters of the guardians before they died. A wide, circular stone table with a surrounding bench rose out of the floor that formed their base. The table had evidently been used to eat on. The bones of a large bird still rested on a silver platter that sat on the smoothly polished stone surface along with ceramic drinking vessels. Beds had been chiseled into the walls, some still with woolen covers neatly folded in the middle. Rodgers caught sight of something bright lying on the floor. He picked it up and held it under the light of the Coleman.
'What is it?' asked Shannon.
'A massive gold ring, plain, with no engravings.'
'An encouraging sign,' said Pitt. 'We must be getting close to the main vault.'
Shannon's breath was coming in short pants as the excitement mounted. She hurried off ahead of the men through another portal at the far end of the guardians' living quarters that led into a cramped tunnel with an arched ceiling, similar to an ancient cistern wide enough for only one person to pass through at a time. This passageway seemed to wind down through the mountain for an eternity.
'How far do you think we've come?' asked Giordino.
'My feet feel like ten kilometers,' Shannon answered, suddenly weary.
Pitt had paced the distance they'd traveled down the stone steps since leaving the crypts. 'The peak of Cerro el Capirote is only five hundred meters above sea level. I'd guess we've reached the desert floor and dropped twenty or thirty meters below it.'
'Damn!' Shannon gasped. 'Something fluttered against my face.'
'Me too,' said Giordino with obvious disgust. 'I think I've just been garnished with bat vomit.'
'Be happy he wasn't of the vampire variety,' joked Pitt.
They descended along the tunnel another ten minutes when Shannon suddenly stopped arid held up a hand. 'Listen!' she commanded. 'I hear something.'
After a few moments, Giordino said, 'Sounds like someone left a tap on.'
'A rushing stream or a river,' Pitt said softly, recalling the old bartender's words.
As they moved closer, the sound of the moving water increased and reverberated within the confined space. The air had cooled considerably and smelled pure and less stifling. They rushed forward, anxiously hoping each bend in the passage was the last. And then the walls abruptly spread into the darkness and they rushed headlong into what seemed like a vast cathedral that revealed the mountain as incredibly hollow.
Shannon screamed a full-fledged shriek that echoed through the chamber as if intensified by huge rock concert amplifiers. She clutched the first body that was handy, in this case, Pitt's.
Giordino, not one to scare easily, looked as if he'd seen a ghost.
Rodgers stood petrified, his outstretched arm frozen like an iron support, holding the Coleman lantern. 'Oh, good God,' he finally gasped, hypnotized by the ghostly apparition that rose in front of them and glistened under the bright light. 'What is it?'
Pitt's heart pumped a good five liters (a gallon) of adrenaline through his system, but he remained calm
