Domain (41 page)

Photosynthesis was born.

As planetary oxygen levels rose, calcium carbonate was withdrawn from the sea and locked up in rock formations by marine organisms, drastically reducing the planet’s atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide. This rock-limestone became Earth’s storehouse for carbon dioxide. As a result, the level of carbon dioxide stored in sedimentary rock is now more than six hundred times the total carbon content of the planet’s air, water, and living cells combined.

Wade Tokumine aims the beam of light along the dark surface waters of the cavern. The subterranean stream is laden with ten times the concentration of carbon dioxide. This part of the carbon cycle occurs as a result of the dissolved CO
₂
reaching its saturation point within the limestone. When this happens, the carbon dioxide precipitates out as pure calcium carbonate, creating the stalactites and stalagmites that now proliferate in the Sarawak caves.

Wade turns around in the longboat to face his guide, Andrew Chan. The Malaysian native and professional spelunker has been leading tours through Sarawak’s caves for seventeen years.

“Andrew, how much farther to this virgin passage of yours?”

The light of the carbide lamp catches Andrew’s smile, which is missing two front teeth. “Not far. This section of the cavern craps out ahead, then we go on by foot.”

Wade nods, then spits out the stench of the carbide fumes. Only 30 percent of Sarawak’s caves have been surveyed, most of these remaining inaccessible to all but a few of the more experienced guides. When it comes to charting unexplored passages, Wade knows Andrew is second to none, a caver exuding a strong case of “booty scoop lust,” an incurable psychological condition common among “Speleo-boppers.”

Andrew guides the longboat to a ledge, holding it steady so Wade can climb out. “Better put your brain bucket on, lots of loose rock ahead.”

Wade fastens the helmet to his head as Andrew ties one end of a very long coil of rope known as a
hog
to the boat, tossing the rest over his shoulder. “Stay close. It’ll get a bit narrow. There’s plenty of sharp popcorn sticking out along the walls, so watch your clothes.”

Andrew takes the lead, guiding them through a pitch-dark catacomb. He selects a tight, inclined passage and enters, allowing the hog line to feed out to mark their route. After several minutes of steady climbing, the passage squeezes to a claustrophobic tunnel, forcing them to crawl on all fours.

Wade slips on the wet limestone, tearing the skin along his knuckles. “How much farther?”

“Why? You getting entrance fever?”

“A little.”

“That’s ‘cause you’re a keyboard caver.”

“What’s that?”

“A keyboard caver’s someone who spends more time reading the cavers’ mailing list than actually going—hold on. Whoa, what’s this?”

Wade crawls forward on his belly, squeezing in next to Andrew to take a look.

The tunnel has opened to a massive sinkhole. Looking up, they can see stars still glimmering in the early-morning sky, the surface a good seventy-five feet above their heads. Andrew shines his light below, revealing the bottom of a massive hole, another thirty feet down.

A luminescent amber glow casts bizarre shadows from within the pit.

“Do you see that?”

Wade leans forward to get a better look. “It looks like there’s something glowing down there.”

“This doline wasn’t here earlier this morning. The roof of the cavern must have just collapsed. Whatever’s down there probably fell straight through and landed in that pit.”

“Maybe it’s a car? Someone could be trapped down there.”

Wade watches as his Malaysian guide reaches into his backpack and pulls out a Knobbly Dog, a rope ladder made of a single length of wire, the rungs threaded through the middle.

“What are you doing?”

“Stay here, I’m going to climb down and have a look.” Andrew anchors one end of the ladder to the ledge, then allows the Knobbly Dog to unravel into the dark recesses below.

The sky above has turned gray by the time the spelunker steps down into the pit. The early-morning light barely penetrates the darkness and swirling wisps of limestone dust.

Andrew stares at the inanimate creature dwarfing him in the subterranean pit. “Hey Wade, I don’t know what this thing is, but it ain’t no car.”

“What’s it look like?”

“Like nothing I’ve ever seen. It’s huge, like a giant cockroach, only it’s got big wings and a tail, with a bunch of weird tentacles sticking out all over its belly. It’s balancing upright on a pair of claws. They must be pretty hot, because the limestone’s sizzling beneath them.”

“Maybe you ought to get out of there. Come on, we’ll call the park rangers—”

“It’s okay, the thing’s not alive.” Andrew reaches out to touch one of the tentacles.

A neon blue, electromagnetic shock wave slams him backward against the far wall.

“Andrew, you okay? Andrew?”

“Yeah, man, but this sonnuva bitch is packing a serious charge. Oh, shit—” Andrew jumps back as the creature’s hydraulic, mechanical tail rises, reaching up toward the sky.

“Andrew?”

“I’m leaving, man, you don’t have to tell me twice.” The guide starts climbing up the ladder.

The amber orb along the side of the being’s upper body begins flashing, darkening to a crimson hue.

“Come on, climb faster!”

White smoke pours out from beneath the creature’s talons, filling the vertical shaft.

Wade feels himself getting dizzy. He turns around and slides, headfirst, down the slick tunnel as Andrew pulls himself up and over the ledge.

“Andrew? Andrew, you behind me?” Wade stops his inertia and shines his light back up the tunnel. He can see the guide, lying facedown in the narrow crawl space.

Carbon dioxide
!

Wade reaches hack and grabs Andrew’s wrist. He drags him down through the crawl space as the rock around him grows hotter, scorching his skin.

What the hell’s happening
?

Wade stumbles to his feet as the passage widens. He hoists the unconscious guide onto his shoulder and staggers toward the longboat. Everything seems to be spinning, getting hotter. He closes his eyes, using his elbows to feel his way along the sizzling limestone walls.

Wade hears a bizarre bubbling sound as he reaches the subterranean stream. Dropping to one knee, he rolls Andrew’s body into the longboat, then climbs in clumsily, nearly tipping them. The cave’s walls are smoking, the intense heat causing the underground river to boil.

Wade’s eyes are burning, his nostrils unable to inhale the searing atmosphere. He bellows a suffocating scream, thrashing about wildly as his flesh blisters and chars away from the bone and his eyeballs burst into flames.

JOURNAL OF

JULIUS GABRIEL

C
hichén Itza—the most magnificent Mayan city in all Mesoamerica. Translated, the name means:
at the brim of the well where the Wise Men of the Water live
.

The Wise Men of the Water.

The city itself is divided into an old section and new. The Maya first settled in Old Chichén in AD 435 their civilization later joined by the Itza tribe, around AD 500. Little is known about the daily rituals and lifestyles of these people, although we do know they were ruled by their god-king, Kukulcan, whose legacy as the great Mayan teacher dominates the ancient city.

Maria, Michael, and I would spend many years exploring the ancient ruins and surrounding jungles of Chichén Itza. In the end, we felt convinced of the overwhelming importance of three particular structures, these being the sacred cenote, the Great Mayan Ball Court, and the Kukulcan pyramid.

Simply put, there is no other structure in the world like the Kukulcan pyramid. Towering above the Great Esplanade of Chichén Itza, the precision and astronomical placement of this thousand-year-old structure still baffles architects and engineers the world over.

Maria and I eventually agreed that it was the Kukulcan pyramid the Nazca drawing had been intended to represent. The inverted jaguar within the desert icon, the serpent columns at the entrance to the temple’s northern corridor, the icon of the monkey and whales—everything seemed to fit. Somewhere, hidden within the city, had to be a secret passageway into the Kukulcan’s inner structure. The question was—where?

The first and most obvious solution that came to us was that the entrance was hidden within the sacred cenote, a naturally formed sinkhole located just north of the Kukulcan. The cenote was yet another symbol of the portal to the Mayan Underworld, and no cenote in all the Yucatan was more important than the sacred well in Chichén Itza, for it was here that so many maidens were sacrificed after Kukulcan’s abrupt departure.

Of more importance was the possible connection between the cenote and the Nazca pyramid drawing. Viewed from above (just as in Nazca) the sacred well’s layered, circular limestone walls could easily have been interpreted as a serious of concentric circles. In addition, the carved Mayan serpent heads, located along the northern base of the Kukulcan pyramid, point directly at the well.

Intrigued and excited, Maria and I put together a scuba diving expedition to explore the Mayan cenote. In the end, the only thing we found were the skeletal remains of the dead—nothing more.

Alas, it would be another structure in Chichén Itza that would change our lives forever.

There are dozens of ancient ball courts in Mesoamerica, but none rival the Great Ball Court at Chichén Itza. Besides being the largest in the Yucatan, the Great Ball Court, like the Kukulcan pyramid, is a structure that has been painstakingly aligned with the heavens, in this case, the Milky Way galaxy. At midnight of every June solstice, the long axis of the I-shaped field points to where the Milky Way touches the horizon, the dark rift of the galaxy actually mirroring the ball court overhead.

The astronomical meaning behind this incredible design cannot be overstated, for, as I have discussed earlier, the dark rift of the Milky Way is one of the most important symbols of Maya culture. According to the
Popol Vuh
, the Maya book of creation, the dark rift is considered to be the road that leads to the Underworld, or
Xibalba
. It is here where the Maya hero, One Hunahpu, had journeyed to the Underworld to challenge the evil gods, a heroic, though fateful, challenge ritualized by the Maya in the ancient ball game. (All members of the losing team were put to death.)