back Monica pointed at the next picture along.
“Even I can read this one. They’re using fire to drive the creature off.”
“Looks like it. They used fire, or Kinich Ahau’s gift as they refer to it. I think they had their fires burning in the mouths of the caves for decades. It never drove it off, only slowed it down — the creature was always finding new ways to get to its food supply.” Matt moved to the next pictoglyph and started to read, “Their winters were growing longer and colder, and because of the change in seasons there was less food. They believed that
Matt moved along again. “The new king commanded they build a giant fleet of boats and collect as many of their animals and seed crops as they could. He and his generals would command an expedition to sail in different directions and find a new Aztlan; he would take his bravest warriors, the alchemists, the priests and the healers. Looks like all the elite and intelligentsia had been chosen to get the hell out; the rest were to remain behind and wait for the boats to return so they could be transported when a new home was discovered.”
The last pictoglyph was incomplete and Matt could tell the drawings and writing was of a slightly different style. Perhaps the previous artisans had departed in the boats. Matt read the last words from Aztlan, “The cold is always with us. There is no food and no wood for our fires.” The last piece was more a lament of resignation and similar to the one they had seen in the upper caves at the beginning of their journey. “
“Those poor people.” Monica was shaking her head as if to blot out the image of the remaining Aztlans trapped in a city that was becoming iced over, with a giant hungry creature waiting for the fires to go out so it could rip them to pieces in the dark.
Aimee also couldn’t help feeling pity for the small race of people who had loved the sun and were doomed never to see it again. “They would have been forced into the city because of the cold, and that’s exactly where the orthocone wanted them.”
“We don’t know that for sure and probably never will — perhaps a few survived. What if some of them escaped down to the underground sea? There’s certainly food, water and warmth. Who knows what was living on the far shores down there.” Monica smiled weakly at Aimee, looking for some sort of confirmation that perhaps the small race didn’t all perish.
Aimee nodded and turned to look at Alex who had been silent behind them; his eyes were half closed and he looked to be in a trance, listening intently to something only he could hear.
Alex was straining his senses to try and pick up any sound or impression that they were being followed or about to be ambushed. He couldn’t feel the sliding vibrations or hear the wet slithering sound that told him that the creature was near but he could not help the feeling in the pit of his stomach that it was close and they were extremely vulnerable.
One by one they pulled themselves out of the sand on the black beach with a leathery, sliding sound. Each of the worms was roughly thirty feet in length and as thick around as a large horse. The blood-red segmented bodies were covered in short bristles that increased in length towards their feeding end, which was little more than a hole with hook-like teeth circling the entrance.
These creatures were the stuff of nightmares. Adapted to living beneath the wet, black sand, they had never existed in any fossil record.
The Antarctic worms hesitated at the mouth of the cave, their blunt heads raised and waving back and forth, tasting the air as their bodies pulsated greasily. In a quivering peristaltic motion they moved into the cave the humans had escaped into. However, it was not the scent of the small mammals that drew them out of the sand; it was the orthocone’s blood that they followed. Even though the nightmarish creatures were blind, to them the blood trail was as wide and clear as a well-lit highway.
Twenty-six
The large room ended in a doorway that was blocked, but not by a conventional stone door or a cave-in; the blockage was from a large, rounded, rough-hewn boulder of granite that had been purposely rolled in front of the door to seal it off. Matt watched Alex test the stone and, satisfied by something, called him over for assistance.
He looked at Alex incredulously; the stone looked to weigh several tons and the idea that just two men could shift it was to him at the very least a waste of time and at worst a lot crazy. Matt put his shoulder to the block and felt the huge mass of the boulder. However, when Alex put both his hands against the stone, braced his feet on the floor and began to apply all his strength, it moved. The grinding movement of the large stone made the very floor underneath them vibrate as it slid a few inches at first, then a few feet. Matt could see Alex had bared his teeth and the veins in his neck bulged; he decided he needed to push a little more himself — though he felt he might have been there for counterbalance purposes only.
A stone that large had to weigh many tons — movable with several draught horses, maybe, but not by a single human being. Matt looked at Alex and said, “How did…”
The opening was at a width they could now fit through. Alex turned to wink at Matt and slid through.
Colder, much colder. Alex realised that although they might soon be free of the caves they would have another problem; none of them were dressed for the surface of the Antarctic. His own cave suit was ripped and punctured in many places and he’d noticed pieces missing from the others’ suits as well.
Alex brought himself back to the present — no use getting ahead of the situation just yet. There were plenty more problems to be dealt with right now. He found himself in another large chamber and soon realised that what he had at first taken to be debris littering the floor was actually thousands of skeletal bone fragments. Given what they had already been through, Alex didn’t think a few bones were going to make anyone squeamish anymore. He couldn’t detect any imminent danger so called Aimee, Matt and Monica through.
The four of them looked at the sea of bones covering the floor in all directions. Aimee and Matt crouched down and were quickly sifting through them.
“Perfectly preserved; definitely human. Maybe it’s some sort of burial chamber that was used because the ground had become too frozen for them to bury their dead?” Aimee said as she held a broken skull and jawbone in her hand while looking at the teeth. Most of them were missing and huge abscesses in the bone were plainly visible. She turned the skull over and could see a crack running right down the cranium area that had never healed. “Looks like this is what killed him or her though — some sort of accident.” Aimee turned the small yellow skull over in her hands.
“I don’t think so.” Matt was holding some longer bones in his hands. “Look at this.” He held out the bones for Aimee, Monica and Alex to see. “Notice those grooves on the thigh bone and again here on the rib? I’ve seen these marks before on bones recovered from mass graves during the great European famine of 1316. They’re teeth marks, human teeth marks. These people were eating each other.”
“Cannibals? They turned into cannibals? This is a nightmare; what would make them eat each other?” Monica was clearly shaken, her mouth trembling in both horror and disgust. Matt put his arm around her shoulders.
“Aztlan, the superpower of its time at the height of its scientific, architectural and artistic life cycle, perhaps the cradle of all civilisations, returns to barbarism within a few years. Maybe they were right; maybe their gods did abandon them. By now, even their harbours would have been iced over, making it impossible for any of the Aztlan fleet to return even if they wanted to. Forced below ground to escape the freezing conditions, running out of food to eat and wood to burn. Poor hygiene, malnutrition, did I forget anything? Oh yeah, a giant carnivorous beast was running amok in the caves below them. Man, I will never complain about having a bad day again, ever.” Matt was surveying the room as he spoke. “Do you think the eaters are here among the eaten?”
Alex toed some of the bones aside with his foot. “It was the only resource they had left; each other. Humans have an enormous will to survive. Looks like these people were sealed in; can’t tell whether they did it themselves to keep the creature or their captors out, or whether it was by the cannibals using this as their killing room.”
“Perhaps they were still praying for the sun to return. They couldn’t know that over ten thousand years later
