Excavation

“Look at the pattern. It’s so large that I almost missed it.” Sam pointed with his flashlight’s beam. “The various tribes in ancient Peru-the Paracas, the Huari, the Nasca, the Moche, even the Incas-none of them had a written language. But their pictographs and ideograms, found in drawings and woven in their textiles, were elaborate and unique to each tribe. Look at this pattern. The two golden rectangles at opposite corners connected by snaking zigzagging lines. Where have you seen that before?”

Maggie took a step closer. “Sweet Jesus, you’re right. It’s a huge pictograph.” She turned to face Sam, eyes bright with excitement. “It is Moche, not Inca.”

“It’s just like Uncle Hank had figured,” Sam mumbled, his voice awed. “We’re in a Moche pyramid.”

“What? When did Professor Conklin mention anything about the Moche?”

Sam realized he had misspoken, letting out his uncle’s secret. Sam sighed. Considering their circumstances, any secrets now seemed ludicrous. “Listen, Maggie, there’s something my uncle’s kept from you all.” Sam quickly recounted how the professor had discovered that the Sun Plaza here matched the tip of a Moche pyramid found along the coast. “He made the discovery just before he left with the mummy.”

Maggie frowned. “So I wasn’t the only one keepin’ secrets…”

Sam blushed, remembering his own lambasting of Maggie for keeping facts hidden. “I’m sorry.”

A long stretch of silence ensued. Maggie finally spoke. “It makes rough sense. Considering the complexity of the room, the Moche were better at metallurgy than the Incas. They also built elaborate canals and irrigation systems for their lands, with crude pumps and gearwork. If any of the tribes was capable of constructing this trap in precious metals, it would be the Moche.” Maggie nodded toward the pattern. “You’re the expert epigrapher. What does it mean?”

Sam explained, using his flashlight as a pointer. “See how the stair-step pattern connects the two gold rectangles. It depicts the rising of a spirit from this world to the realm of spirits and gods.” Sam turned to Maggie. “It basically means this is the gateway to Heaven.”

“Jesus…”

“But that’s not all.” Sam shone his light on the ceiling, where an inverted image of the floor’s pattern was depicted in tile. “Each gold tile on the floor has a matching silver tile above it and vice versa. The Moche…and the Incas for that matter…believed in dualism. In the Quechan language, yanantin and yanapaque. Mirror imagery, light and dark, upper and lower.”

“Yin and yang,” Maggie mumbled.

“Exactly. Dualism is common in many cultures.”

“So what you’re saying…” Maggie found her eyes drifting to the two mutilated corpses.

Sam finished her statement, “Here also lies the gateway to Hell.”

From across the ruins, Philip stared at the collapsed hilltop. The entire roof of the subterranean temple had caved in on itself, leaving a clay-and boulder-strewn declivity ten feet deep. A smoky smudge still hung over the sunken summit like some steaming volcano, silt forever hanging in the moist air.

Philip remained near his post by the communication tent, but he wasn’t due to contact Sam for another half hour. Philip hugged his arms around his chest. The Quechan workers were all but useless. Pantomiming and drawing out his instructions were the only ways to communicate with the uneducated lot-and still, they often mistook his orders.

However, Philip was beginning to suspect some of their “misunderstandings” were deliberate, especially after he had insisted the Indians attempt to redig the original shaft, defying Sam’s own warnings. The Texan’s assessment had quickly proven valid; the temple had collapsed further when some of the laborers attempted to pry loose a particularly large slab of granite. One of the Indians had broken his leg when the roof gave way. Ever since, the Quechans had grown sullen and slow to respond to his orders.

Upon reaching Sam earlier, Philip had deliberately sidestepped mentioning his own culpability for their near tragedy. Luckily, poor communications had saved him from having to explain in detail.

Philip glanced to the jungle’s edge. If nothing else, at least the workers had discovered the partially excavated tunnel of the looters near the foot of the jungle-shrouded hill. From his calculations, he estimated another forty feet of tunnel would have to be dug before reaching the temple itself-and at the current pace, it would take closer to four days, rather than the two-day estimate he had given Sam.

“That is, unless help arrives first,” he grumbled. If not, the others were doomed. Even if the temple remained standing, which was doubtful, water would become more and more crucial. Even in this humidity, death by dehydration posed a real danger. Help must come. He would not have the deaths of the others on his hands-or his resume. If such a scandal broke with his name associated with it, he risked losing any chance of a future position at Harvard.