Ruins (11 page)

The diamond-like walls throbbed and pulsed. The bone-chilling cold had van-ished from the oily surface, which now radiated a prick-ling warmth, a sunny richness that flowed through him like melting butter.

Salida pressed some of the glyphs, trying to stop the frenzied activity—but instead he saw the tiny jewel-like components inside the glass case whir to life.

It seemed to him more amazing to know that this artifact had been constructed by the ancient Maya at the dawn of history. They had used gears and primitive machinery to develop their calendars ... but this device seemed amazingly sophisticated, even for modern construction, without any recognizable gears, levers, buttons At the core of the gadget, light began to grow, cold yet searingly bright...

as if a pool of mercury had flared into incandescence.

Salida stepped back, now frightened and anxious. What had Aguilar given him?

What had he done? How could he stop it?

Outside, the dogs and the peacocks set up such a racket, it sounded as if they were being flayed alive.

The light within the crystalline object became blind-ing, reaching an unimaginable peak. The last thing Salida could make out was his glass of wine rattling next to the artifact.

The dark red liquid rolled in a furious boil.

Then the light reached its critical point and leaped to another level. Its intensity increased a thousandfold. The heat and energy washed over Salida so rapidly he never had time to register the immense explosion ... or even a second of pain.

Cancun Friday, 8:05 a.m.

Gentle white clouds rode high against the sunshine, and the sea gleamed as turquoise as a Beverly Hills swimming pool. Tour groups flocked out of the hotels along the thin strip of land between the ocean and the lagoon, waiting in courtyards and traffic turnarounds to catch scheduled buses departing for the famous Maya ruins at Chichen Itza, Tulum, Xcaret, and Xel-Ha.

Marble fountains filled with Mexican coins sprayed next to the lobby courtyard of the Caribbean Shores Resort. A battered Jeep bearing three people approached, swerving around old taxicabs, vans, and the diesel-belching tour buses before it pulled up to the hotel entrance. The driver blared the horn, waved his hand, and honked again impatiently, offending the white-uniformed bellmen who stood in the open doorway. They scowled down at the Jeep, but the driver pulled closer to the curb, parked, and honked again, ignoring the stares from the staff.

Waiting just inside the lobby next to other tourists ready to go on day trips, Mulder grabbed his duffel and turned to Scully. "I'll bet that's our ride."

She set down her Styrofoam cup of coffee next to a sand-filled ashtray and picked up her own bag. "I was afraid of that."

Vladimir Rubicon followed with his backpack and his own duffel, flushed and eager. "I'm sure everyone else enjoys their vacation here in glitzy Canciin—but to me this just isn't, uh ... isn't the Yucatan. Might as well be Honolulu."

Inside the Jeep, Scully recognized Fernando Victorio Aguilar by his floppy ocelot-skin cap and his long dark ponytail. Aguilar waved at them, flashing white teeth in a grin. "Buenos dias, amigos!"

Mulder took Scully's bag and threw it with his own in the back, while Rubicon stuffed his personal equip-ment in the crowded compartment. Two dark-haired, brown-skinned young men rode in the vehicle with Aguilar, ready to help.

Rubicon took the strangers in stride and crowded into the back seat. Mulder slid in beside him.

Aguilar patted the passenger seat for Scully. "For you, Senorita—beside me, where it is safer, eh?" He turned around, looking at Mulder and Rubicon. "Are you ready to be off? You are properly dressed, ready for the jungles?"

Rubicon fingered his thin goatee. "They're prepared enough," he said.

Mulder leaned forward. "I even brought my hiking boots and bug repellent."

Scully looked over at her partner in the back seat. "Yes, the essentials."

The lanky "expediter" looked freshly shaved, his cheeks and chin glassy smooth. Scully could smell his aftershave. He rubbed his fingers along his face. "It will take many hours to get to where we must leave the roads and brave the jungle."

"And who are our new companions?" Mulder asked, gesturing to the other two squashed with him and Rubicon in the back of the Jeep.

"Helpers," Aguilar said. "One will drive the Jeep back, while the other will accompany us into the jungle. He's worked with me before on such expeditions."

"Only one helper?" Rubicon said, leaning forward. "I expected we'd require, uh, much more assistance, more supplies. I paid—"

Aguilar cut him off with a nonchalant wave. "I already have guides and workers waiting for us at the rendezvous point with supplies, Senor. No need to shut-tle them all down to the end of the Yucatan."

Aguilar tugged the brim of his cap and shifted the Jeep into gear, roaring off and squealing around a lum-bering tour bus that tried to pull out at the same time. Scully squeezed her eyes shut, but Aguilar honked the horn and wrestled the Jeep to the left, running two wheels onto the damp grass before he screeched around the bus and increased acceleration toward the main road.

Aguilar took the Jeep southwestward, toiling through the crowded hotel zone and following the coastal high-way, whipping around curves, dodging buses, mopeds, bicycles ridden by careful but unhurried people.

They passed weed-overgrown ruins beside the road, small temples and eroded limestone pillars, some covered with illegible graffiti, none highlighted in any way, not even so much as a roadside marker. The jungle had swal-lowed them up. Scully found it amazing that artifacts a thousand years old weren't treated with more reverence.

The drive continued, with Aguilar paying more atten-tion to Scully than to the road. He roared along like a madman or a professional, depending on how much credit she wanted to give him. Aguilar managed to cover as many miles in an hour as a scheduled tour bus would do in three.

At first they followed the coast, heading southwest on Mexico 307, passing the popular seaside ruins of Tulum, then continuing inland, past small, poor towns bearing names such as Chunyaxche, Uh-May, Limones, and Cafetal filled with tiny white-washed homes, log shacks, gas stations, and supermarkets the size of Scully's kitchen.

Scully unfolded a tattered, grease-stained roadmap she found jammed between the dashboard and wind-shield. With a sinking heart, she saw that no roads, not even dirt tracks, marked the area where they were headed. She hoped it was a misprint, or an old map.

The low jungle sprawled out endlessly on either side of the highway. Women walked on the wide, powdered-limestone shoulder wearing brightly embroidered white cotton dresses, the traditional garment that Vladimir Rubicon identified as a huipil.

As they continued inland, the curves got sharper, and the flatlands gradually gave way to hills. Mulder pointed out small white crosses and fresh-cut flowers beside the road at certain points. He raised his voice to be haard above the wind rattling through the flimsy window; of the battered vehicle.

"Mr. Aguilar, what are those for?" he said. "Religious sites? Roadside shrines?"

Aguilar laughed. "No, those mark locations where loved ones died in traffic mishaps."

"There seem to be quite a lot of them," Scully pointed out.

"Yes," Aguilar said with a snort, "most other drivers are quite inept."

"I can see that," Scully agreed, looking directly at him.

From the back Mulder sat forward. "We'd better take particular care around those two-shrine curves."

After eating an early lunch at a roadside cantina that was little more than a table and an awning, they set off again, driving at breakneck speed for two more hours. Scully found herself feeling queasy and roadsick, espe-cially after the stuffed chiles she had eaten. The cafe's menu had been quite limited, though Mulder had enjoyed the fresh, thick tortillas and the chicken stew.

"How much farther?" Scully asked Aguilar in the middle of the afternoon. She eyed the thickening gray clouds.

He squinted through the windshield and flicked on the wipers to smear smashed bugs across his view. He peered intently, looking alongside the road, but remained silent for a long moment. "Right here," he finally said and slammed on the brakes.

Aguilar pulled off the side of the road onto the pow-dery white shoulder, where a little mud track emerged from the thick jungle. The Jeep slewed from one side to another, fishtailing across traffic. Behind them a bus blatted its horn and casually passed them in the opposite lane without bothering to look for oncoming vehicles.

Aguilar climbed out to stand beside the groaning vehicle, while Mulder popped the back door, stretching his legs. Scully emerged, drawing deep breaths of the humid air filled with the damp aromas of the surround-ing rain forest.

Overhead, the morning's cottony clouds had meta-morphosed into thicker cumulus clouds, the kind likely to become thunderheads before long. Scanning the low jungle they were about to enter, though, she wasn't sure if rainfall could even penetrate the thick vines, weeds, and undergrowth.

The other two passengers in the back seat climbed out the driver's side of the Jeep and opened the rear, hauling out Mulder and Scully's bags. They handed the backpack to Vladimir Rubicon, who bent over, massag-ing his stiff, bony knees.

Mulder looked at the tall grass, thick vines, palms, creepers—an impenetrable mass of foliage. "You've got to be kidding," he said.

Fernando Aguilar laughed and then sniffed. He rubbed his cheeks, where stubble had already begun to bristle. "Well, amigo, if the Xitaclan ruins were right beside a four-lane highway, it wouldn't exactly be an untouched and unexploited archaeological site, eh?"

"He's got a point," Rubicon said.

As Aguilar spoke, a group of dark-skinned, dark-haired men suddenly appeared out of the jungle, as if from a cheap movie special effect. Scully saw a clear dif-ference in these people from the Mexicans she had encountered in Cancun.

They were shorter, not well nourished or well clothed: descendants of the ancient Maya, who lived far from the cities, no doubt in small, unmapped villages.

"Ah, here is the rest of our crew, ready to work," Aguilar said. He gestured for the other Indians to take the supplies and the backpacks, while Aguilar himself removed several canvas bags from the Jeep. "Our tents," he said.

Mulder stood with his hands on his hips, scrutinizing the jungle, sniffing the humid air. "It's not just a job, Scully—it's an adventure." Mosquitoes flew around his face.

When the Jeep was completely empty, Aguilar pounded on the hood to signal that he was ready for the replacement driver to go. One of the dark-haired young men scrambled into the driver's seat without saying a word. He simply grabbed the shift lever and roared off, swerving the Jeep back onto the road with-out pausing to look for traffic. With a belch of oily exhaust, he proceeded down the highway.

"Let us be off, amigos," Aguilar said. "Onward, to adventure!"

Scully took a deep breath and adjusted the laces on her boots. Together, the group plunged into the jungle.

Slogging through the underbrush, fighting with both hands against the branches and weeds and creepers and vines, Scully soon longed to be back in the Jeep, no mat-ter how bad Fernando Aguilar's driving.

The Indians ahead of them were a flurry of activity, hacking away the most obtrusive debris with stained machetes, grunting with the effort but making no com-plaint. Beautiful hibiscus and other tropical flowers splashed rainbow colors on either side of the path. Water stood in puddles on the rocky ground.

Thin mahogany trees with twisted trunks and smooth bark protruded in every direction, swallowed by thorny shrubs and flower-ing weeds. Ferns brushed Scully's legs, sprinkling droplets of water from frequent rainstorms.

They paused to rest beside a tall gray-barked "chew-ing gum," or chicle tree, its trunk slashed and scarred from the sap the locals had harvested over the years. Scully noticed that their helpers chewed diligently on wads of chicle sap. Aguilar allowed them to stop for only a few minutes, then they trudged on, wielding their machetes.

Before long Scully was hot and sweaty and miserable. She had half a mind to write the manufacturer of their commercial bug repellent to complain about its ineffec-tiveness. It had been late afternoon before they even started on the path, which allowed them no more than four hours of hiking before they would have to stop and set up camp.

Scully asked about it, and Aguilar simply laughed. He patted her on the back, and his touch made her uncomfortable. "I am trying to ease you into the long march, Senorita," he said. "It would be impossible to reach Xitaclan within a day, so this way we take the drive and several hours walk, then we camp. After a good night's sleep, we press on tomorrow, refreshed and ready to conquer the distance, eh? By midafternoon on the next day, we should reach the ruins. From there, per-haps, you will find your missing friends. Maybe their radio is just broken."

"Maybe," Scully said doubtfully.

The heat was incredible, the air moist and thick like a steam room. Her hair hung in stringy wet strands, cling-ing to the sides of her face. Dirt and smashed bugs cov-ered her skin.

Overhead, howler monkeys chattered and shrieked, charging through the treetops. They leaped from branch to branch, creating an incredible chaos.

Parrots screamed rough-throated calls, while jewel-toned hummingbirds flitted silently in front of her eyes. But Scully concen-trated only on plodding along, avoiding the murky pud-dles and limestone outcroppings, stomping down the undergrowth.

"I'll make you a deal, Scully," Mulder said, wiping perspiration from his forehead. He looked as miserable as she did. "I'll be Stanley and you be Livingstone, okay?"

Vladimir Rubicon trooped along without complain-ing. "We've only traveled two hours off the road," he said, "and look where we are! See how easily there could be immense ruins yet undiscovered in the Yucatan? Once the people abandoned them, the jungle rapidly covered them up—and they live only in, uh, local legends."