The last to finish deploying the explosives was Diablo. He had used his pickaxe to widen a channel at the northern edge of the slab and was stuffing the C4 deep inside it. When he finished, he laid down his pickaxe once again and slowly climbed up out of the hole. “All done.”
“Then take cover and detonate the explosives!” the Snake King ordered.
The enormous explosion achieved the result they needed, blowing the second slab into smithereens all over the cave floor. When the dust settled, it revealed a gaping hole in the sandstone and beneath it, another long passageway receding into the darkness below. A dozen large black bats flapped and fluttered out of the darkness and buzzed around them for a few seconds before flying away up the entrance tunnel.
“What the hell?” Tarántula said.
Novarro made the sign of the cross. “Camazotz!”
The Snake King’s face hardened. “Death bats. I expected them. We are venturing now into their world, the Underworld.” The men mumbled and grew restless. Before any of them could speak, the Snake King shouted, “Move on!”
They walked down the passageway for a few moments until reaching a large cavern, inside which were more treasures than any of them had ever seen before. Gold and silver, emeralds and diamonds, golden trays, necklaces, earrings. It went on forever. Tarántula was mesmerized by the hoard and couldn’t stop his mind running wild with the thought of the power so much wealth could buy. He turned to speak to the Snake King but he was already gone.
Scanning the cavern, he found him in the far corner, standing in silence on his own beneath a large colony of black bats hanging off the rocky ceiling. He was in front of an alcove carved into the cave wall, mumbling to himself and trembling with fear. When Tarántula saw what had mesmerised his boss, he felt his heart skip a beat.
Resting on a raised stone slab, he saw a large metallic capstone. It looked like nothing he had ever seen before. Silver, but not silver. Copper, but not copper. Metal yes, but since when did the surface of metal swirl and move around like it was made of water? At its apex was some sort of cap, carved into the shape of Huracan’s angry face.
The Snake King was staring into the capstone with blank eyes. The reflection looking back at him was terrifying. His eyes were clear enough, but the rest of his face was obscured by his mask of green jade. Intricately carved snakes fashioned from onyx and turquoise squirmed from the holes carved for his eyes and mouth and gave him a powerful sense of his own royal power. He had discovered the mask himself after an excavation in Calakmul. To the Maya, and to him, jade was more precious than gold and until this moment he had coveted the mask more than anything.
He studied the capstone more closely. Movement. Was something moving inside the metal?
He heard himself gasp at the very idea.
Could it be the legends were right all along? Was this polished metal capstone, once the property of the original snake kings, really a portal to another dimension? Could he access the real Underworld with its magic? Would it reveal the future like the legends said? Did it hold demons within its enigmatic heart? And what if the demons inside could climb out into this world? The questions buzzed in his head like static electricity.
He turned away from the capstone. Already, too scared to look again in case he saw something he didn’t want to. But then, was this not the whole purpose of his life’s mission? He looked back into the polished metal. More of the strange smoke patterns swirled within its shining coppery surface. Smooth and wispy and curling in delicate tendrils and then dissipating into nothing.
His breathing quickened.
“What do you see, boss?”
He heard a voice out of nowhere. He was dimly aware of someone moving beside him.
Tarántula.
“What do you see?”
“This is the capstone we have been searching for,” the Snake King said, humbly. “This is the Stormbringer that Montesino described. We have found it. It is mine at last. I have the power.”
“Power, sir?”
“Huracan’s power. This is my destiny, my loyal servant. Somewhere in this capstone is a power far greater than anything any mortal man could ever imagine.”
He stared at the capstone like it was a living, breathing creature, reaching out and stroking it with his fingers. “It’s not made of any metal we currently understand, my loyal servant. It’s something entirely different. Something completely rare and undiscovered. The ancients gave it a name in their own language which translates roughly as the metal of the gods. I will call it, divinium.”
Still stroking the ancient reflective capstone, he marvelled at its brilliance in the low light of the flashlights bouncing around in the chamber. It seemed not only to reflect the beams of these flashlights, but to soak them up and then radiate them out again several magnitudes stronger. The glowing grew stronger until it was as bright as the midday sun.
“It’s beautiful.”
He leaned closer and studied himself once more in the strange new metal. His jade mask seemed even brighter and more dazzling inside the capstone. He reached out toward his reflection. Or was his reflection reaching out toward him? He wanted to climb inside and join this other strange world. Walk among the souls in the Underworld. Dance among the demons. Lead them back into this plane and raise the bloodiest hell anyone had ever seen.
Later.
For now, the capstone’s ancient power had a more prosaic task.
He leaned closer and his staring intensified until he finally saw it. And heard it. Gunshots. He was knocked from his reverie by the sound of more shooting. He turned and he
