Steampunk Omnibus: A Galvanic Century Collection (27 page)

"He says that when his people escaped, they left traps behind to deter pursuit," Penny said. "It may be dangerous."

"Does he know where they are?"

Penny turned her head towards the native. "
Na'atik tu'ux peets'
?"

He shook his head. "
Chowak ora. Biyeho k'iin maak.
"

"Only vague stories remain."

"We'll have to risk it," Aldora said. "I see no other way to retrieve the captives. Return to the village, Penelope -- we'll return for you once I've secured your father."

"I'll do nothing of the sort." Penny folded her arms. "I've been in the ruins, and you haven't. And you may still need me to translate for Amoxtli!"

"Child, it's far too dangerous for me to even consider..."

"I've been running from thugs and evading traps in ancient ruins since I was eight. And... and it's my father, Miss Fiske. I can't -- I cannot just wait for you to save him."

Aldora's face softened at the tears in the girl's eyes. "If I allow you to accompany us, you must do precisely what I say, when I say it."

"I understand, Miss."

"Very well then."

Aldora spared a last glance at the camp below. Ordinarily she would not even consider letting the girl tag along, but there was just something about Penelope that reminded Aldora of herself as a child. If they were as alike as she believed they were, an order to return to the camp would have simply lead the girl to tagging along at a distance, putting herself in even greater danger, and leading to potential exposure for all of them. It was safer to keep the wilful girl at her side.

***

The cavern entrance sat a short distance away, half-way up a short bluff, its mouth obscured with hanging vines. The tribesman cleared them away with the butt of his spear, then gestured towards the darkness beyond. He cast about briefly, gathered a bundle of rushes from under the bluff's overhang, and fashioned them into a crude torch. After lighting it with a primitive fire-drill, he stepped into the cavern entrance, followed by the girls.

Aldora was impressed with the way the people of the Lacandon managed to get by without modern technology, using the natural resources of the wilderness to meet their needs. It was so different from what the Empire had become, dependent on its engineering, dependent on the innovations of its Guild of Artificers to compete with the powerhouses of America and Prussia. The closest to self-sufficiency Britain got were the lowest classes, forced to adapt the available urban resources to their needs. Those of her own social class would be helpless without the infrastructure they'd built on the backs of the working class.

The Empire's growing dependency had never sat well with her. Unlike her fiancé who cheerfully exploited the system for what it was worth, Aldora despised being beholden to anyone.

The cave's walls were naturally smooth, carved with various blocky symbols, both abstract and geometric. Each block was part of a column, and the columns were paired off at regular intervals.

"What does it say?"

"Ba'ax xook?"
Penny asked.

"Xookik ma' ts'iib,"
Amoxtli held the torch up to examine the carvings.
"Mixbik'in na'atik. K'aax, ma' papah."

"He says he doesn't know -- he's a hunter, not a priest." Penny glanced back towards the entrance. "There's a priest in the village. Should we get him?"

"The old man?" Aldora asked. "It's not worth exposing him to danger, and I'd rather not let the captives wait much longer. Every moment counts. Let's go on."

Amoxtli's torch flickered and spattered as they moved through the cave, irregularities in the walls creating patterned shadows among the hieroglyphs. Blind cave beetles and lizards scampered away from the vibrations of their footfalls, retreating to just inside the radius of their light, like a constantly receding tide.

***

After a few hundred feet the tunnel merged with a cross-running underground stream. It looked as though the water had, long ago, crashed through a stone wall, above which was carved another Mayan glyph.

"Amoxtli says that that's Huracan, another storm god... this one was responsible for flooding the earth at the end of the last cycle."

"Interesting parallel to the biblical food," Aldora said. "And possibly a trap, one long triggered by the Spaniards pursuing his fleeing ancestors."

"Is there a way around?"

"I don't think so," Aldora said. "I think the trap was the sudden rush of water. The current seems swift, but not unmanageable, and it isn't terribly deep. We can just forge through."

Penny translated for the tribesman, and he nodded, pulling the cotton tunic off over his head. Instinctively Aldora looked away, doing her best not to steal a glance at Amoxtli's bronze flesh, his long, lean muscles, his unabashed nudity.

"The
Hack Wileck
don't have much modesty," Penny said.

Aldora stared into the water, definitely not noticing the way that the man's abdominal muscles stretched as he wrapped the tunic around the crown of his head. She cleared her throat. "Still, it would hardly be proper for us to be so exposed before a strange man."

"What if he went ahead of us?" Penny asked.

"Yes, that would do quite nicely," Aldora answered quickly.

Penny translated, and Amoxtli gave a noncommittal shrug before taking the lead, wading into the water without a care, its depth coming up to the small of his back. Aldora followed after him, holding her tunic above her head, acutely aware of the water caressing her hips and the bottom of her ribs, her breasts exposed to the cool air, while Penny brought up the rear, submerged to her shoulders. The current's incessant urging brought them along swiftly.

Their lead stopped and half-turned towards Aldora, who quickly covered her chest with her folded tunic. A grin quirked at the corner of his mouth, and he pointed at an engraved glyph in the ceiling. "
Cabrakan -- lu'um yat Xibalba. Yat ha' taam
."

"
Cabrakan
," Penny translated. "God of earthquakes. He also says that there's a drop off in the water ahead."

"Another trap," Aldora said, wading forward. "Triggered prior to the water trap. Perhaps a collapsing floor?"

"It's amazing that the Ancestors had the time to build these traps while running from the Spaniards."

Amoxtli had secured his tunic on his head and began to swim forward, torch held aloft. Aldora followed his example, wrapping her own tunic around her hair. "It's more reasonable to assume that they built this escape tunnel long before the conquistadors arrived. For protection against whom, though, I cannot say."

The group swam along until coming to a climbable bank. Aldora covered Penny's eyes while Amoxtli emerged and donned his tunic. The girls, after making sure that he wasn't watching, followed after, using the sturdy roots that emerged from the earthen bank to pull themselves up before dressing.

A broad but still limestone pool spanned the width of the tunnel ahead; Amoxtli examined it critically while waiting for the girls to catch their breath.

He glanced up towards the ceiling, pointing towards an engraving of a hook-nosed man in a headdress. "
Chaak. U peek chaak. Ch'iin baat.
"

"He says that that's
Chaak
. One of their gods. He's a god of rain and storms and lightning."

Aldora nodded. "Lightning. Hm. Hold on a second."

She stepped to the tunnel wall, clearing the vines away from a section to reveal black and richer green veins in the pale limestone. "See those striations in the limestone? I think that they're copper."

"Copper?"

"Not just copper. Iron as well. They run the length of the walls to that carving, and down into a ring formation below. This may be another one of the traps the ancient Mayans constructed."

"I don't see how."

She turned to Amoxtli and gestured towards his spear. "May I?"

He grunted, handing it over.

Aldora put the tip to the floor and brought her foot down sharply just below its flint head, snapping it off cleanly.

"
Pa'tal!
" he protested.

Aldora picked up the spear's head, cleaned it off, took aim, and then skipped it across the surface of the pool. Small trails of sparks kicked up from the water wherever it landed.

"What?" Penny stared in awe.

"Copper and iron are never found in limestone," Aldora explained, handing the spear's shaft back to the tribesman. "They had to have been placed there with intent, and if that god Chaak is a lightning god... copper, iron, and an electrolyte like saltwater are all it takes to make a simple battery."

"I had no idea that the Mayans were capable of making things like that," Penny said.

"Nor I, but from what I've read they left behind a legacy of mysterious clockworks that the Europeans of the time could scarcely comprehend. Primitive batteries -- even on such a scale as this -- do not seem beyond their capabilities."

"How do we get across?"

Aldora examined the walls and ceilings. "There are creeper vines holding fast to the cavern. If we are brave enough to chance it, we can attempt a climb, though I'll warn you that it shan't be easy."

She looked back from the wall to where Penny had been, only to find the girl gone. Aldora glanced around in alarm, finally spotting the girl clambering up the wall to the ceiling as nimble as a capuchin, fingers grabbing handfuls of vine.

"Penny wait! We don't know if the roots will support us!"

"Seems strong enough to me."

Having reached the ceiling, Penny hung by her fingers, crossing easily, hand over hand, all the way across the deadly expanse of electric-charged water.

Aldora watched in awe and horror, waiting for the fall that never occurred.

Penny dropped to the ground on the other side. "Made it!"

"You've scared me nearly to death." Aldora managed.

She crossed to the other tunnel wall, examined the vines, removed her sandals, and almost delicately began to climb.

Unlike Penny she didn't care to test the ceiling's vines' tensile strength, instead using the lattice of vegetation to climb sideways across the wall above the pool.

She dismounted upon reaching the other side, and glanced across the water to where Amoxtli was taking a few steps back away from the water, broken spear shaft held in his hands.

"I don't know if the roots would support Amoxtli weight," Aldora said. "Perhaps you should tell him to go back and wait--"

With a long cry the Lacandon tribesman ran forward, leaping as he reached the edge of the pool, leaping through the air like a jaguar.

He tucked and rolled as he landed, clearing the water, and coming to his feet next to the girls.

Penny clapped her hands. "Prime jump! That had to be at least six yards!"

"Yes," Aldora said, gazing at the guide's long muscular legs with a new appreciation. "Quite impressive."

Amoxtli gave a smile that brought a small blush to the gentlewoman's cheeks. "Ma' Bartel."

Penny laughed. "Hooch suit'!"

Aldora forced her eyes away from the lines of the Lacandon man's form. "Let's continue."

"There's a ladder here," Penny put a hand on one of its rungs, carved into the stone wall. "It's lit up above."

"Amoxtli will go first," Aldora said. "And then I. You come up when I tell you it's safe."

Penny nodded, stepping back, and allowing the Lacandon to make his way up the stairs.

"You fancy him don't you." Penny whispered.

She couldn't tell that Aldora's face had reddened in the darkness as their guide's torch had ascended with him. "That is not an acceptable topic of conversation."

"Yeah, but you do, don't you. A right buck, he is. Want me to crack you up to him?"

"That's enough cheek out of you, young lady." Aldora mounted the ladder, following up after Amoxtli.

She emerged into a tunnel lit with a gas lantern hanging on a hook. It wasn't until she turned to look behind her that she noticed the harsh uniformed men with rifles holding the guide silent. It took all of her willpower to avoid glancing down the ladder towards Penny as she audibly gasped, raised her hands, and backed away, just managing to hope that the girl would take the hint and stay hidden below.

***

The mercenaries remained silent as they escorted Aldora and Amoxtli through lamp-lit tunnels, and Aldora didn't volunteer any information herself. The uniforms they wore reminded her of those used by the Spanish infantry, but they were more subdued, a grey rather than light blue, rank insignia on the shoulders rather than the cuffs. Their hats were straw, in the style of the Mexican
charro's
sombrero. The uniforms had not withstood the jungle's rigour with grace, but the men's rifles seemed in excellent condition.

While the uniforms were nationalistically identifiable, Aldora noted that the men themselves were not. Of the three escorting them, two looked Hispanic, and the third possibly Eastern European. Russian, perhaps.