Journey Through the Mirrors (7 page)

Sebastian closed his eyes. As if sensing his master’s consternation, Bukya stood and let out a strong bark, casting aside Halima, who was leaning against him. “The voice of the earth has been disturbed,” Sebastian said, when he reopened his eyes.

A scream ripped through the darkening evening. It was Anita. Her violin and bow had fallen to the ground, and she was clutching her head. Bukya darted over to her, and the others quickly followed.

“What’s wrong, dear?” Lawrence asked.

“I don’t know.” Anita struggled to reply. She rubbed her temples, grimacing. “My violin keeps going out of tune, and now I have this terrible headache.”

Sebastian squatted next to her and placed his thumb on her forehead, gently massaging it for a few seconds. Then he said, “It is not your violin that is out of harmony. It is you who are out of tune.” Sebastian paused and glanced up at Lawrence. “I think it is time for one of our masterpieces to find a new home.”

5

Desire is the voice of an immortal soul.

—THE CHRONICLES OF SATRAYA

MEXICO CITY, 2:46 P.M. LOCAL TIME, MARCH 20, 2070

Logan and Valerie hurried down the long, darkened tunnel. They held their PCDs out like flashlights in front of them. Mr. Montez followed. The earthquake was over, and the shaking had stopped, but outside, many visitors lay wounded or dead, crushed by falling rocks along the aptly named Avenue of the Dead. Logan tried calling his son’s PCD, but there was no answer.

They navigated down one of the newly discovered tunnels that Carlos had mentioned earlier. The strung lights attached to the ceiling had been knocked out. The ground was lined with uneven bricks, and the walls and ceiling were reinforced with metal bracing. As they made their way deeper inside, they passed several anterooms where they saw frightened people huddled in the dark. Valerie quickly instructed them on how to get out of the pyramid safely.

They continued forward, maneuvering around the fallen beams and damaged bracing material, looking for any sign of the children and Carlos. Then they came to a gaping hole in the ground, where they had to
stop. “The earthquake ripped up part of the floor,” Logan said, eyeing the three-meter gap. “Should we jump?”

“Too far,” Valerie said. She grabbed Logan by the arm, leading him back to where some bracing had fallen off the tunnel wall. “We might be able to use this,” she said, bending to pick up one end of a beam.

“Good idea.” Logan grabbed the other end. Together they carried the heavy beam to the breach in the floor, and with the help of Mr. Montez, they were able to slide it across the gap.

“How are your gymnastic skills?” Valerie asked, as she stepped onto the beam and began to walk across, raising her arms to balance herself.

Logan bent down and held the beam steady, and once she was across, Valerie did the same from the other side, letting Logan and Mr. Montez follow. They continued, and the farther they walked, the worse was the destruction they saw. More bodies littered their path, and more of the tunnel’s bracing had given way. They instructed the survivors to wait by the opening in the floor until help arrived. Some did as they were told, but others took their chances and made their way over the beam.

Logan looked through the doorway of a chamber and spotted something on the ground: a red cap. “It belongs to one of the kids,” he said, running toward it. There was a large pile of stones that had fallen from the ceiling at one corner of the room, and Logan noticed the pieces of Jordan’s crushed PCD under one of them.

Mr. Montez was lifting stones from a pile of rubble. “Oh, no,” he said.

Logan and Valerie saw an arm extending from the bottom of the heap. They rushed over to help. The face was badly bruised but recognizable. Carlos. He was dead. In silence, they quickly removed more stones from the pile.

“The kids aren’t under here,” Valerie said with relief.

Logan surveyed the chamber more carefully. In the far corner, he spotted a one-meter-round hole in the floor. There were no ceiling blocks near it. “Looks like part of the floor collapsed here,” he said, walking over. He shone the light from his PCD down the hole. “I think
there is another chamber down there.” He called out for his children, his voice echoing.

Valerie and Mr. Montez hurried to his side, and they all peered down, waiting.

“Dad!” a voice answered from below. It was Jordan.

“Jordan!” Logan yelled back. “We’re here, we’re coming to get you!”

“You have to hurry!” Jordan said, his face barely illuminated by the light from Logan’s PCD. “Jamie’s hurt.”

Logan took off his shirt and wrapped it around his PCD. It glowed like a small lightbulb. “I’m going to toss my PCD down to you!” he yelled. “Move your sister, and move away from the opening.”

A rustling sound could be heard below. “OK,” Jordan said. “Go ahead.” Logan tossed his bundled shirt into the opening and a few seconds later the glowing ball hit the ground. “It’s down here now,” Jordan announced. He walked over and unwrapped the PCD from the shirt.

“Turn up the intensity!” Logan called.

“Is there another way down?” Valerie asked Mr. Montez.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “It seems the earthquake has exposed another secret chamber.”

Valerie nodded. “I’ll get some help,” she said to Logan. “Hold tight. I’ll be right back.”

Logan leaned over the hole. “Jordan, we’re getting help.”

“Hurry up! Jamie says her head hurts really bad!”

Mr. Montez examined the edges of the opening. “This floor is made of mica,” he said quietly. He raised his voice as he called down to Jordan. “Can you see a door or an opening of any kind?”

Logan could see the moving glow of the PCD as Jordan walked around. “There’s a lot of strange stuff down here.” The boy’s voice echoed upward. The light moved farther away from the opening. Jordan screamed.

“What is it?” Logan shouted. There was no answer. “Jordan! Jordan, answer me! Are you all right?”

A moment passed. Then Jordan’s illuminated face reappeared under
the hole. “There are two skeletons over there,” he said, his voice filled with horror. He pointed to his right. “They’re leaning against some kind of big archway. I don’t see any kind of door.”

“It might be a burial chamber or a place for sacrificial rituals,” Mr. Montez said.

“Go over and wait with Jamie,” Logan told his son. “Valerie should be right back with some help.”

Mr. Montez rose and took a seat on a large, flat stone. “It’s very strange, this earthquake,” he said. “They’re not common in this region. One of this magnitude has not occurred since the Great Disruption.”

The strung lights on the ceiling suddenly came on. “Looks like they restored power,” Logan said, looking through the doorway. Frightened people were running toward the tunnel’s exit. To Logan’s relief, he heard Valerie who returned with a rescue team carrying lanterns, equipment bags, and medical kits.

The four men threw a rope ladder down the hole. Logan grabbed a lantern from one of their bags, turned it on, and set off downward, Valerie’s warning to take it slow falling on deaf ears. He climbed about six meters down the ladder, with Valerie behind him, and the two of them reached the lower chamber.

“Dad,” Jordan said, hugging his father. “Jamie’s over here.”

She was sitting against a wall with Logan’s shirt wrapped around her head. “Jamie, honey, are you OK?” Logan asked.

“My head hurts,” she said.

Logan examined his daughter’s head. “I don’t see any scrapes or bruises,” he said.

“I don’t see any blood, either,” Valerie added. “Did you hit your head when you fell?”

“I don’t remember.”

“You’re going to be fine,” Logan reassured her, but she did not seem convinced.

Logan and Valerie stepped back as the rescue team arrived and began attending to Jamie.

Logan turned his attention to Jordan, who looked to be in good shape, considering. Logan pulled out the red hat, dusted it off, and put it on his son’s head. “So what happened?” he asked.

“We were on the floor up there, when all of a sudden, the ground started to shake and shake. People in the tunnel started screaming. Jamie lost her balance and fell to the ground, and I went over to help her.” His voice began to quiver. “Carlos was at the other end of the room when a bunch of rocks fell on him. Jamie and I tried to pull the rocks off, but they were too heavy. We tried, Dad, we really tried . . .” He was struggling not to cry, but tears filled his eyes nonetheless.

“It’s all right, Jordan,” Logan said. “It’s not your fault.”

Jordan nodded. “Jamie and I were still trying to get the rocks off of Carlos. Through the doorway, we could see people running down the tunnel. They were yelling and screaming, and a lot of them were hurt. The shaking kept going, and all of a sudden, we heard a big bang. The hair on our heads stood straight up, and then all the lights went out.”

“I wonder if that was the arc of light we saw,” Valerie said.

“You say the hair on your heads stood up?” asked Mr. Montez, who had been standing nearby. “Did you feel little shocks on your fingertips or your head?”

“Yes,” Jordan said. “My hands felt funny.”

Mr. Montez nodded, turning to Logan and Valerie. “Static electricity,” he said, before walking off as something caught his eye.

“Then what happened?” Logan asked.

“Jamie said her head started hurting. I grabbed her, and we tried to get out of the room and follow the people out of the tunnel.”

“Wait,” Valerie interrupted. “Jamie told you her head hurt before you fell down here?”

“Yeah,” Jordan replied. “Then all of a sudden, more rocks fell from the ceiling. That’s when I dropped my PCD, I think. We moved over to the corner of the room, and that’s when the floor broke apart, and we both fell through it.” Jordan wiped the last remaining tears away. “And then you and Valerie showed up.”

“Well, at least the two of you are safe,” Logan said.

A rescue worker approached them. “Aside from her headache, your daughter appears to be fine,” he said. “I suspect she might have a small concussion. We’ll get her ready to transfer up. It will be a few more minutes.”

“Thank you,” Logan said. He could see them lowering a small gurney via the hoist that had been set up above. Logan looked back at his son. “After all this, you’re going to be able to write one heck of a report.”

“Logan.” Mr. Montez’s voice called out from the opposite end of the room. “You must see this.”

Logan hesitated to leave Jamie, who was being readied for transport.

“Go,” Valerie said. “I’ll watch her.”

“You stay here with Valerie, too,” Logan told Jordan. “This chamber might not be structurally sound.”

Jordan shook his head, picking up a lantern. “I’m going with you,” he insisted.

Logan and Jordan joined Mr. Montez in front of a wall of murals depicting six marching men in colorful regalia. “They look very similar to the statue you found,” Logan observed.

Mr. Montez pointed to the head of one of the figures. “Look at their headbands.”

“The symbols of Satraya,” Logan said, startled to see the symbols in another ancient work of art. “And there’s that snowflake again. Similar to what we saw on the statue.”

Mr. Montez nodded his head.

“What is that smoke coming from their mouths?” Jordan asked.

“I do not believe that is smoke,” Mr. Montez said. “I think these
men are priests, and the wavy lines represent the prayers they are reciting. This mural is similar to others found in the compound of Tepantitla here at Teotihuacán. But none of the other murals includes the depiction of the symbols.”

Mr. Montez held his lantern above his head and moved to the center of the room, pointing to a number of small, half-meter-square openings in the rounded ceiling. Jordan started to count them. “Twenty-one of them,” he reported.

“They’re way too small for anyone to climb through,” Logan said, “and definitely too high for anyone to get to without some kind of ladder.”

“They seem to dart off in every direction,” Mr. Montez observed. “Very interesting.”

Logan and Jordan walked over to another section of the chamber, and on their way, Jordan tripped over something on the floor. Logan caught him by the arm before he fell. Looking down, he saw a dark circular platform on the ground. He called to Mr. Montez, “Isn’t this similar to the base of the kneeling man statue in the research center?”

Jordan bent down and brushed the dust off the surface, revealing a carved image of a coiled serpent at its center. A small red stone served as one of the serpent’s eyes.

Mr. Montez walked over and examined the platform, which rose to ankle height off the ground. “Yes!” he said excitedly, running his fingers over the etching. “It is made out of mica, like the one I showed you. And with another coiled serpent,” he added softly.

As Jordan continued to clean the surface, he inadvertently dislodged the red stone. “Sorry!” he said, trying to put it back into place. “I didn’t mean to.”

Mr. Montez gently grabbed Jordan’s arm, and before the boy could replace the stone, he bent down and placed his ear over the hole where it had been set. He smiled and looked at Logan. “You must hear this.”