Moon Mask (20 page)

But, dominating it all, rearing above the city with majestic glory, towered an enormous step-pyramid. Not unlike the famous Temple of Kukulkan at Chichén Itzá, the pyramid’s four faces were lined with protruding stairways, balustrades decorated with snarling jaguars and feathered serpents, rising to its flat-topped summit two hundred feet above its base. Covered with only the hardiest vines and vegetation which struggled to survive in the usually lightless world, the pyramid’s white face, glistening with moisture, reflected the firelight and cast it aglow.

Trapped
within the fiery depths of the Xibalban Ball Court as razor-edged projectiles shot from the walls, Benjamin King stared in both awe and horror at his surroundings.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “We’ve got a problem.”

15:

The Ball Game

Xibalba,

Sarisariñama Tepui,

Venezuela,

Nathan
Raine ripped the night vision goggles from his face, spitting out a curse as the eruption of firelight seared his retinas. Before he could do or say anything, however, a razor-edged ball sliced through the air above his head, taking a lock of black hair with it.

“Might want to keep your head down,” King warned.

“You think?!” He glanced about at his surroundings, now lit up by the fire glow, his vision quickly having to adapt from the muted, other-worldly green glow of the NVGs to the intense blazing red of the cavern. “What the hell’s going on, Benny?” he demanded.

“You walked us smack bang into the middle of a Mayan Ball Game. And not just any ball game,” he added. “A ball game in the Mayan
Underworld
.”

Raine could only think of one thing to say. “Oops.”

Down the far end of the avenue, one of the Chinese soldiers panicked and made a run for the curtain of fire blocking off the entrance. Whatever it was he intended to do when he got there, he didn’t have a chance to demonstrate. One of the razor-edged balls slammed with colossal force into the back of his head, pummelling his skull and splashing out brain matter and gore. He fell forward, into the intense fire and, somehow still alive for a fraction of a second after impact, gave out the most blood-curdling scream Raine had ever heard.

“Well, I guess that way is out of the question,” he said, glancing at an identical wall of fire blocking the other exit.

So close!

Another ball whistled above him, hit the far wall and bounced back. “Whoa!” He jumped out of its path, watched it until its inertia died and it rolled down a groove, into a hole at the base of the wall to be, no doubt, reloaded.

“Any ideas?” he asked King.

“Hey, you’re the super-duper action hero. You come up with something.”

Gunfire rattled from the far end as one of the Chinese soldiers tried firing at a ball. But the balls were not hollow and could not be burst. The solid lumps of rubber weighed in excess of nine pounds. At least the flying balls of death were keeping them distracted, however.

“Okay,” he said to King. Another ball flew out. He tracked it and both men crawled out of its path. “Tell me about these ball games. What’s the big deal?”

“You mean, other than the balls of razor sharp metal?”

Despite outward displays to the contrary, Raine was not a stupid man. He had been in enough tight situations to know that he needed to utilise every possible asset. The biggest asset in any situation was knowledge. Right now, he needed King’s knowledge.

“Ben!” he snapped.

“Okay, okay,” King struggled to wrap all his thoughts together. “The Mayan Ball Game, or Mesoamerican actually. Um, it’s called
Tlatchtli
in Náhuatl-”

“Something useful, Benny,” Raine urged, rolling to the left as a ball shot to his right.

“I’m trying, I’m trying!” he rubbed his tired eyes hard with the palm of his hand, trying to focus, then he looked up and took in his surroundings. “Okay, up there, I’m guessing they’re the twelve lords of Xibalba.” He pointed to the very top of the enormous walls at six statues on either side, sitting in thrones. While some distance away, he could make out the depictions of tortured human beings carved into the thrones, while the statues themselves depicted the personifications of the lords: Hun-Came (One Death) and Vucub-Came (Seven Death); Xiquiripat (Flying Scab) and Cuchumaquic (Gathered Blood); Ahalpuh (Pus Demon) and Ahalgana (Jaundice Demon); Chamiabac (Bone Staff) and Chamiaholom (Skull Staff); Ahaalmez (Sweepings Demon) and Ahaltocob (Stabbing Demon); and finally, Xic (Wing) and Patan (Packstrap).

They sat atop the cornice, below which the slanting eighty-foot high ‘Apron’ walls depicted scenes of human sacrifice.

“These are the ‘Bench Walls’,” he indicated the vertical walls rising twenty feet above the ‘Playing Area’. About six feet up their sides were twelve holes, spaced out underneath the statue of each Lord, six to a side. From these, the vicious balls were spat, as though propelled by the Mayan demons. Another twelve holes at ground level directed the balls back inside.

“The Ball Game was much more than football is to the British, or baseball is to you Yanks,” he explained, dodging another ball. A cry from the Chinese followed the near severing of an arm. “It was a deep, spiritual ritual, played for at least three thousand years, though I’m guessing this place is older than that. Sometimes it was just played for fun, but often it was associated with battle and with human sacrifice- the losers would quite literally lose their heads.”

“Soccer hooligans, huh?”

“In myth, the Xibalbans took it one step further. They used a ball, covered with razors, to injure, humiliate, and eventually kill the players. They killed Hun-Hunahpu, the father of the Hero Twins, the central heroes of the Popol Vuh . . . the Mayan bible,” he very crudely answered Raine’s quizzical look. “The Hero Twins eventually came to Xibalba and were challenged by the Lords to a Ball Game.”

“Did they win?” Another ball bounced against the far side and almost slammed back into King’s shoulder, missing by an inch.

“Uh . . . not really. They allowed themselves to be defeated and eventually killed, so that they could return to life and trick the Lords.”

“So, you’re saying we’ve got to die to win?”

King frowned, not liking what he was saying any more than Raine.

“How was the game played?”

A bouncing ball nearly took out Raine’s leg as King answered. “No one knows for sure. There were probably two teams who had to stick to their own side of the court. If it was anything like the modern day descendant,
uluma,
it was a bit like volley ball, only without the net. The teams had to bounce the ball to one another using only their hips until one team didn’t return it.”

“So it doesn’t always involve shooting razor-sharp balls jettisoned from holes in the wall?”

“No.”

Raine cursed, unsure of how King’s knowledge benefited them after all. He considered trying to block the holes on the ground, but even if they could prevent the balls from shooting at them, they would still be trapped within the fiery gates with half a dozen pissed off Chinese soldiers!

But then, gazing up, he noticed a further series of holes in the Bench Walls, again six to a side, only these were almost at the top, twenty feet above the ground.

“What are they for?” he asked.

King looked. While the holes shooting the balls were designed to look like the mouth of a snarling jaguar, the higher holes were worked into carvings of snakes.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “On several ruined courts, archaeologists have found protruding stone rings. Theoretically, if a player got the ball through the ring – almost impossible considering they were twenty feet off the ground – then it would be an instant win.”

Raine stared at the holes for several more seconds. “It’s not volleyball,” he realised. “Its basketball.”

Then, before King could protest, Raine rose to his full height, spinning the assault rifle he carried so that he held the barrel. Like a baseball bat, he swung the rifle’s stock at a ball as it hurtled towards him.

The ball and the rifle struck with a metallic clang, before the rubber bounced off the weapon and hit the wall. It came back at Raine and he changed his position, ducking as another ball rushed at him from behind-

The hilt of the sixteenth century cutlass struck the second ball and sent it rebounding back. King felt the jar of impact shudder through his muscular shoulders and then stood back to back with Raine, each of them parrying against the flying balls of death.

“Are
they insane?” Lieutenant Xan muttered in Mandarin as he watched the two men play the ancient ball game.

“Yes,” Ming said thoughtfully. “A little.” And then the colonel was on his feet, barking at his men to rise also. He flipped his QBZ-95 around, just like Raine, and used it like a bat, slapping at the balls as they came near.

“Down!”
Raine and King both shouted at the same time. Leaning against one another’s back, they dropped to the ground as the two balls, one from either side, flew above them, hit the far walls-

“Up!”

Again, bracing each other, they rose to their feet just in time to smack the balls back. This time, Raine managed to get under his and hit it from beneath, increasing its altitude. It hit the wall, only two feet away from one of the holes, bounced back-

He ran and leapt at it, swinging his rifle like a club. He smacked the ball at the centre of its gravity and it flew towards the hole. For a second he thought he had missed again, but then it slipped inside the wall, vanishing.

Almost instantly, to the rumble of stone, one of the jaguar heads spewing out oil into the Ball Court’s exit, choked and died. The raging fire at either end of the avenue diminished ever-so-slightly.

Spurred on, caring now more for their own lives than the mission, the Chinese soldiers ‘upped’ their game, throwing themselves into their swings.

Ming struck home first, followed by Xan.

One of the soldiers hit a ball. It slammed into the wall, bounced back. He ducked. It missed him. But a second ball, rebounding off of one of his comrades, slammed into his back in an explosion of blood and a cry of agony.

King struck home on the next one, his ball slipping inside a serpent’s mouth. Each time one of them scored, another jaguar head ceased belching flame and the curtain of fire shrank a little more.

But there were still eight balls left, firing out constantly now, bouncing back and forth, and all the men, Raine and King included, grew weary from hitting the heavy rubber.

“Benny!”

Two balls hurtled towards the archaeologist at the same time. He hit one and tried to duck the other but Raine hit it just in time. It hit the wall and came back at him forcing him to dive to the side. Its airborne momentum spent, it hit the floor and rolled down the incline, into one of the holes on the ground. Water pressure pushed it back into ‘firing’ position and only seconds later it was shooting towards them again.

One of the Chinese soldiers scored. The fire dimmed.

“Benny,” he called. “Back up towards the fire.” He knew that as soon as they were safe from the balls and the flame, the Chinese commander would be back on them in seconds.

King did so, smacking at another ball. On the rebound, he scored. Seconds later, so did Raine. He glanced at him, too much enjoyment twinkling in his blue eyes.

“You’re actually enjoying this, aren’t you?” he accused.

“Blows baseball out of the water!” he said, avoiding decapitation by a fraction of an inch.

Down the avenue, Ming scored again, then so did one of his subordinates.

Four balls left.

Raine looked at the fire. It was about six foot high now, still too much to jump. The heat rolled off of it, stinging his eyes with its oily perfume. He almost missed another ball, the rubber and metal glancing off his rifle’s stock.

Lieutenant Xan scored another.

Three balls. Five feet.

Ming glanced in his direction, eyes narrowed. He began to advance towards him, swinging at a ball that came too close.

King scored another hit!

Two balls. Four feet. Still too high.

With only two balls flying through the air, the danger had now diminished enough for Ming to reverse his rifle and take aim.

“Benny, when I say jump . . .”

“Jump?” King asked sarcastically.

A red laser sight trained itself on Raine’s chest just as a ball flew towards him. But, instead of hitting it towards one of the goals, he shifted his feet and threw his full weight into the blow, hurtling it down the length of the Ball Court, directly towards Ming.

Panicked, the colonel barely had time to move, rolling to the left but the razor-edged ball nevertheless sliced across his cheek, ripping out a wad of flesh and blood.

He howled in agonised fury but forced himself to stay focused, grasped his weapon, reacquired his target just as Xan slammed another ball into the goal.

The flames dropped another two feet.

“Jump!” Raine bellowed.

Ming fired.

16:

Pyramid of Death

Xibalba,

Sarisariñama Tepui,

Venezuela,

The
onslaught of bullets blasted apart the stone steps on the other side of the wall of fire as Raine and King touched down, their clothing singed, their nerves frayed.

With the entire city now illuminated by the conduits of fire, King didn’t have to rely on Raine to guide him. In an instant, they both found their feet and hurdled up another steep set of three foot high stairs to a wide platform, cut in half by a wide and surprisingly fast flowing aqueduct. An ornately carved bridge, now half crumbled and all-but ruined, spanned the water and on the far side a number of one and two story temples littered the base of the pyramid.

They were entering the sacred district of Xibalba.