Black Rain

For a minute or two longer, the Chollokwan continued to hack at it. But as they exhausted the fury in their hearts, they began to step away. One by one they turned from the hideous creature, moving to their wounded and cleansing themselves in the falling rain.

At first, no one in the NRI group stirred. They looked on in disbelief, unsure of what to do. Danielle gazed through the storm, but not a single beast could be seen alive. The only things moving in the clearing were the native warriors and the wind-driven sheets of rain. It was hard for her to believe, but the madness had finally come to an end.

As her sense of balance returned, she asked McCarter and Devers to speak with the Chollokwan, and then began to pick her way across the temple’s roof, looking for Hawker. As she approached the stairs, he reappeared.

He struggled to the top, looked over the carnage and then glanced at her and the others. Seeing that they were safe, he turned around and sat down on the top step, looking out over the rain-soaked clearing.

Danielle made her way to where he was and sat down beside him just as the thunder crashed again. “You okay?” she asked, half shouting to be heard above the storm.

He looked at her and nodded, appearing too exhausted to speak.

She looked across the clearing at another flash of lightning and then pulled her wet hair back from her face. The rain was still pouring, but the wind was at their backs. “I can hardly believe it’s over,” she said. “I can hardly believe we’re still alive.”

As he managed another exhausted nod, she turned her eyes skyward, squinting as she looked up through the rain, laughing at the sudden joy that it brought to her. “It’s a beautiful feeling, being alive.”

He turned to her and smiled, a satisfied look creeping onto his face. “They have a saying in Africa: the rain is life.” He looked around and then back into her eyes, staring at her for a long moment. “The rain is life,” he repeated. “The rain is life.”

The thunder crashed above them and he closed his eyes and leaned back against the temple’s wet stone roof.

She smiled and then reached out to touch his face. Without a word, she lay down beside him, both of them alive and reveling in the glorious, pouring rain.

CHAPTER 51

The weather pattern had changed across Brazil. The feared El Niño and the high-pressure ridge that had been fu

Amid the sheets of pouring rain, the Chollokwan began the somber after-tasks of war. As they swept their dead from the field, they came upon the body of Pik Verhoven and carried it off without a word. In time they would place his body beside the other warriors, and the cremation ceremony would begin. Around the great fires there would be sorrow, but also chanting and singing as the smoke carried brave spirits to the sky.

The NRI team’s survivors would not witness the ceremony, as they remained in the clearing with a group of Chollokwan warriors.

Under partially reconstructed tents they waited out the rains. On the second day the Chollokwan brought them food. With game in short supply, it was a powerful gesture.

As he finished a small bite of some type of fish, Hawker turned to Danielle and McCarter. “How long do you think it will take them to cut a new stone for the temple’s roof?”

“They said it would be done,” McCarter replied. “But I didn’t see any stonework at their village. Truthfully, I doubt they have the skills.”

“That’s what I thought,” Hawker said. He put down his plate, slipped out of the makeshift tent and hiked toward the temple through the misty rain. McCarter and Danielle followed him, crossing the clearing, climbing up the stairs of the temple and then down into its interior.

Cautiously, Hawker disco

Alerted by the noise, several of the Chollokwan came into the temple. At first, they appeared surprised by the commotion, but they quickly realized what was being done. They grouped together to assist, turning their attention to the massive chunks of rock lying about, pieces of the stone that had once sealed the building. They slid the jagged sections toward the well, lifting them up and dumping them into the pit one by one.

As they worked Hawker continued his assault on the well’s surrounding wall, and when that was finished, he turned his attention to the altar. The natives shouted to their brethren up the stairs, and soon a daisy chain of sorts had begun, with the Chollokwan bringing in baskets full of rock and wood and even small boulders, all to be poured into the well.

Exhausted, Hawker relinquished the hammer to McCarter, and after a few minutes he turned it over to Danielle, as they took turns destroying the altar. In thirty minutes the job was all but finished, the bulk of the Mayan altar broken up and shoved over the edge, a massive pile of stone jamming up the hollow well.

The Chollokwan continued to add to the pile, promising to fill the well right up to the top. The plug of rubble would weigh ten tons or more, making it impossible for any more Zipacna to escape from the underworld.

As the Chollokwan men left to get more stone, Danielle rested against the wall, the sledgehammer heavy in her hands. Her gaze drifted around the room and then back to the ruined altar, where a trace of light caught her eye.

“What is that?” she said, gazing at a soft glow amid the debris.

As Hawker and McCarter looked on, she leaned the sledgehammer against the wall and stepped toward the object. Crouching amid the dust and pulverized rock, she cleared some of debris aside and the glow brightened marginally. She reached down and pulled a glowing object from the mess. It was a triangular-shaped stone, the size of a large dictionary.

She gazed at it, wiping the dirt and dust from its surface, ru

“It’s warm,” she said, carefully feeling the object.

“What is it?” Hawker asked.

She shook her head. “I have no idea. Unless it’s from …” She considered the fact that the Martin’s crystals and the small radioactive cubes had sat in revered positions on the altar. It made her wonder if she might have found what she was looking for after all.

Upon rescuing Susan and finding the cave to be barren, she’d concluded there was nothing there to be found. But after Kaufman’s explanation of the electromagnetic radiation, she’d begun to doubt that assessment. The electro-magnetic pulse had to come from somewhere.

“Remember the Tulan Zuyua story,” McCarter said. “The parsing out of the gods, their essence given in special stones.”

Danielle nodded and as she stared at the stone once again, a presence appeared in the foyer to the altar room. She turned to see the Old One standing there, another native supporting him. He looked as frail as ever, but his eyes were bright. He walked slowly toward Danielle, regarding the glowing stone as he went. He did not seem to be surprised.

“Garon Zipacna,” he said.

Without Devers there to translate, they did not understand him.

“Garon Zipacna,” he repeated, thumping lightly on the center of his chest.