Ice Shock (21 page)

They take some navigating; we make slow progress through the cave. There's only one way out. A dark hole gapes ahead of us. Among the stalagmites and helictites, the flashlight doesn't reveal much of what's ahead. We don't see the blockage in the tunnel until I almost trip over it. I glance down just as my foot thuds against it.

A body. A human skeleton—wrapped in the ragged remnants of clothes.

Instinctively, we both leap backward. I don't know what's stronger—the shock or the revulsion.

The instant I recover, I'm fascinated. It's the first real skeleton I've seen. The tattered clothes look like a shirt tied loosely at the waist, and pants.

They look horribly familiar.

Ixchel crouches down, touches the hem of the shirt. She lifts it, examines the torso.

“This person was from Ek Naab. Look at the fabric—linen. We still use this weave too.”

I look closely at Ixchel's face. She's thoughtful, not disgusted. “There's no sign of injury,” she says. “This person might have died of hunger, for all we know.”

I ask, “Has anyone gone missing recently?”

Ixchel doesn't reply. She steps over the body and looks at it from the other side.

“You still want to keep going left?” Ixchel says.

“You want to go back?”

“I think maybe we should.”

I pause. Ixchel actually sounds nervous. I say, “If we go back,
they
might be there.”

Ixchel nods. “Yeah. But if we go deeper, who knows what we'll find?”

“Maybe we'll find the other way into Ek Naab. We know there is one.”

“You're sure?” Ixchel says.

I point to the skeleton. “How else do you explain him?”

“Chances are we'll never find it.”

“No, we should keep going,” I insist. “Until we come to a dead end; then we go back. That's the rule of the labyrinth.”

Ixchel sighs. “All right.”

“We have to have a system.”

“Okay.”

But she's obviously unhappy.

Somewhere along the trail I notice that the ground becomes moist, then damp, then soaked. Pretty soon we're sloshing through a few inches of water. Ixchel's sandals are soaked; my sneakers start to squeak. The sound of water echoes all around.

“There was no water before,” Ixchel points out.

“I know, I know.”

“This isn't the way we came.”

“Think I don't know that?” I shout.

“Nice going, Josh,” she says bitterly.

I clench my jaw. I'm sick with worry about getting out, feeling bad that I can't tell Ixchel what I know about what might be going on with the Sect. I can tell she's completely bewildered by what we saw and heard. It doesn't seem fair.

“Look, for what it's worth, Ixchel,” I begin, “I think you're on to something. But I still don't understand how it all fits together. How come no one in Ek Naab knows about the
room with sarcophagi, if it's so close to the city? Who else is in this Sect of Huracan? Back in Oxford, I found a list with names on it. There were hundreds of them! Ollie told me that they want all the civilizations of the world to collapse. Leaving just them! Can you even imagine that? Why? Why would anyone want that?”

“That's how it sometimes feels in Ek Naab,” Ixchel says. “Like we're the only people on earth. Like no one else really matters. Maybe the Sect wants to feel like that. Maybe they want the whole planet to themselves.”

“They believe they're some kind of superior race,” I agree, thinking of how Ollie had tried to persuade me. “And it's something to do with the Bakab gene.”

“But the Bakab gene doesn't give you any special powers, does it? Just the ability to resist the toxin from the codex.”

“And from the Adapter,” I add.

“Yes, that too.”

“And from whatever other … ancient technology we might find,” I say, taking care not to break my promise to Montoyo and mention any secrets of the Ix Codex.

“You think there's more?”

“There has to be,” I say. “The NRO has some of it—we know they have Muwans. The Sect has some of it. Both groups know there's more out there. And you know what? I think it's a race between us all, to get control of the pieces we need to stop the galactic superwave in 2012.”

“But the NRO … they must want to save civilization. They work for the American people, after all.”

“You'd think! But what if they're just clueless? Maybe for them, it's just about grabbing useful technology. Stuff that they can sell or use for themselves.”

“And where do you fit into all this, Josh?”

“Me?” I pause. “Honestly, I just want the truth about my dad.”

After another four hours in the tunnels, trying to keep track of the options we've tried, losing count of dead ends, the tunnel opens into another cave with smooth walls about ten yards by five. Ixchel shines her flashlight into every nook and cranny of the cave. There's no visible way out.

By now we're tired, hungry, and parched. And obviously lost.

The floor of the cave is uneven, with occasional lumps of rock raised above the water. Ixchel sits, arranges her body on three dry spots, and manages to lie down.

She whispers, “I'm so tired …”

Aching for rest, I cast my eye around for some other bits of dry land. My jeans feel uncomfortable now, stuffed with my dad's iPod and the Adapter in its plastic wrapper.

Ixchel and I end up about a yard apart, facing each other, two bodies contorted across the dry land, little human islands in a vast puddle.

“These caves are filled with echoes,” she murmurs. Her eyes are closing. “Don't you hear them? Footsteps ahead of
us, behind us. Faint voices, like a radio in a far-off room. Air that feels used up.”

She sighs almost contentedly, like she's giving in to sleep.

Hardly louder than a whisper, Ixchel says, “I think someone else is here too.”

I lie absolutely still, listening. Drops fall steadily into the puddle from water trickling through the cave walls. Ixchel's jeans scrub against rock as she tries to get comfortable. But no echoes, no footsteps, no voices. As far as I can tell, we're all alone down here.

“Think this water's safe to drink?” I ask. “‘Cause ours is all gone. If you really listen, you can hear it gurgling. I think it's flowing, you know? That means it could be all right.”

She barely manages a sleepy shrug. I cup my fingers and scoop up a handful.

“Seems okay …”

“Good,” mutters Ixchel. “Better not drink too much.”

But once I've got the taste for it, I don't want to stop. I slurp handful after handful. It tastes fine: a little warm, very slightly salty. I lean across to Ixchel and take the flashlight from her fingers. She's fast asleep.

The beam of light is much weaker than it was. There may
not be enough to get us back to the first cave, the one with the chimney. I try not to think about that possibility, or about how deep underground we are. I try not to think about the phrase “buried alive.” And I especially try not to think about that skeleton.

I switch off the flashlight. Above us, the ceiling of the cave glows faintly, with luminescent pink and white. Ixchel's drifted into sleep.

I don't want to be awake in the dark. Not alone, not here
.

The phosphorescent light dies out slowly. Finally, I give in and let my eyelids fall. Just before I drop off to sleep, I hear the distant buzz of quivering wings. Behind my eyes, colors flash inside my head.

I know almost from the beginning that I'm dreaming. In fact, from the instant I look down and see I'm wearing those linen pants and a matching white shirt. Or maybe it's when I glance to my right and see the girl next to me. We're holding hands. It doesn't feel wrong. Just the opposite—it feels perfect.

Okay, so this is a dream
.

I've become another person—Chan. I'm with this girl, Albita. Somehow I just know this stuff.

“We're going to get out of here,” I tell her.

She nods. “I know.”

She trusts me. And I trust her. We've been lost in these caves for hours. Somewhere down the line we became separated from the others. In the dream, I know all of this.
In the dream, this is what I think about as we slosh through tunnels filled with inches of water. It shimmers with a fiery orange, reflecting the weak flames of my fading torch. I think about all the tunnels we've already been down, making a mental map. In that map, there's only one place left to try. If that doesn't lead us out of here, then I know we're lost.

And if we're lost, it's just a matter of time.

My best friend has been lost here in the Depths for many days. Somehow six days passed before anyone noticed that he was missing. That's the way it is with Kan'ek sometimes. He can be strange.

Kan'ek is the firstborn of the Bakab Muluc. He has no brothers. That's why our search is so urgent. He's an
heir
, but I'm only a
spare
. My older brother will turn sixteen in two months. He'll begin his training with the Bakab Ix. If I go missing in these tunnels, will anyone come to rescue me?

We find the cave again, the one with the incredible ceiling of translucent, twisting helictites. This is it now; we're not far. We go back through the cave, then take the next left turn. We follow the tunnels deeper underground, walking through water that gets deeper by the minute.

Until we come to a solid wall. I look up, see that there's a ledge. The ledge is narrow, but leads to another tunnel. It's high, though. Not possible to climb up without help.

“You can climb up there,” Albita says, “if you get up on my shoulders.”

I stare at her, amused. “And how will you climb up?”

“You'll pull me.”

“What if I can't reach? You think I'm going to climb on your shoulders, and then risk leaving you behind?”

“And you think I'm going to climb on
your
shoulders and then risk leaving
you
behind?” she replies with a wide grin. “Listen, you have to do it my way. You're taller than me. More chance you'll be able to pull me up than the other way around.”

“Always telling me what to do … is this how it's going to be when we're married?”

Albita's grin widens. “It works so well for us! Anyway, you shouldn't worry so much about me. I'm not as delicate as you think.”

I begin by throwing the torch up onto the ledge. The first few times, it just rolls off. On the fourth attempt, it stays. It hardly matters anyway. I'm estimating we have less than thirty minutes of light remaining.

Albita braces herself against the wall, wedging her small feet in to form a triangle with the wall and the ground. I place a foot on her hip, another on the wall, and then land as lightly as I can on her shoulder. It gives me just enough height to reach the edge of the ridge with my hands. I pull myself up and lie on the narrow ledge. It's too narrow to fully lie on, so I'm sideways. I jam myself in as safely as I can, and reach down with my right hand. She stretches up. We both gasp
with the effort of it. Our fingers keep missing each other by the narrowest margin.

Eventually, she gives up.

“It's no good. I'll stay. You go ahead and bring help.”

For a long moment, our eyes lock.

I say quietly, “No.”

I swing back down, suspend myself from the ledge. Through gritted teeth I say, “Climb up along me.”

Albita hesitates for a second. Then, without a word, she grabs hold of my ankles, and I feel my fingers take her weight. She's not heavy, but on top of carrying my own weight, I think my fingers are going to pop out of their knuckles. The tendons in my wrist feel as though they're stretched to snapping point. Albita moves quickly, clambering up my back and shoulders. It's over in a matter of seconds. Then I have to find the strength to pull my own weight up all over again.

A few seconds later we sit side by side on the ledge. I look at Albita, watching her brush strands of long, straight hair out of her eyes.

“I don't want to leave you behind again,” I tell her.

Albita leans across and kisses my cheek.

“Of course,” she whispers.

We get to our feet and edge along the rock. Further along, we reach another opening.

I hear water. It's unmistakable. The sound of loud, steady
dripping echoes from a cave not far from our position. We rush ahead, reaching the cave within a minute.

The ceiling is so low in places that we have to stoop. The torch illuminates enough for us to see that the cave is filled mostly by an underground lake. The surface is opaque and reflects ribbons of flame-colored light. It mirrors the overhanging limestone rock. When I lower the torch to just above the surface of the water, I can see that it's clear, all the way to the rocky floor of the lake.

There is only one way into the cave by foot. Any other exit must be through water.

“This water comes from somewhere,” I say. “We'll wade through it.”

I pass Albita the torch and lower myself into the water. This deep, the temperature is quite a bit lower than the puddles we've walked through. My teeth begin to chatter almost right away. The cold seeps into my bones. Very rapidly, the lake becomes deep. It becomes obvious that wading isn't going to be an option for long.

I clutch the torch as we swim, holding it above our heads. The water tastes salty, not like the water in the tunnel streams. We reach the other end of the lake, where there's a rock wall.

I turn to Albita, both of us treading water.

“I'll have to swim for it. Wait here a minute. I'll come back for you.”

Albita can't keep the tremor out of her voice when she
replies. “No, don't. Stay. It's too dangerous. It's dark. You won't be able to see.”

“If you hold the torch here, I might.”