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Back Beneath the Dark Ice
Chapters (42)
  1. BENEATH THE DARK ICE
  2. Table of Contents
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Acknowledgements
  6. Prologue
  7. One
  8. Two
  9. Three
  10. Four
  11. Five
  12. Six
  13. Seven
  14. Eight
  15. Nine
  16. Ten
  17. Eleven
  18. Twelve
  19. Thirteen
  20. Fourteen
  21. Fifteen
  22. Sixteen
  23. Seventeen
  24. Eighteen
  25. Nineteen
  26. Twenty
  27. Twenty-one
  28. Twenty-two
  29. Twenty-three
  30. Twenty-four
  31. Twenty-five
  32. Twenty-six
  33. Twenty-seven
  34. Twenty-eight
  35. Twenty-nine
  36. Thirty
  37. Thirty-one
  38. Thirty-two
  39. Epilogue
  40. One
  41. Two
  42. Three

The others had squeezed through quickly; no one wanted to be left more than a body length behind. Matt now shone his torch around the walls and ceiling. “The early Mesoamericans used to play a game that was part basketball and part football nearly five thousand years ago. This might be one of their Great Ball Courts. If these Aztlans were the forefathers of the Olmecs, Aztecs and Mayans, then we should be able to assume that they had similar or in some cases identical cultures.”

Matt stopped again to study one of the carvings. “The games look very similar. In most of these races the arenas were of significance to the people and their gods. The courts were considered to be portals to the Mayan underworld and were built in low-lying areas or at the foot of great vertical constructions. In fact, Mayan legend has it that the mythological Hunahpu and Xbalanque played a ball game with the lords of the underworld. I’d say that this tunnel will probably lead us to one of their open-air courts.”

“Open air? I like the sound of that. Hey, be careful!” Monica grabbed Matt as he was about to put his foot in a hole cut into the floor.

“What is that? Is that for drainage?” Alex had noticed that the holes were cut in the floor near the wall every hundred feet or so.

“Probably, a culture this well established and advanced would have had some form of drainage and sewerage system constructed. Most likely it’s gravity based, so it could be flushed downhill. There’s probably all sorts of sewerage tunnels underneath us as well.”

Alex groaned to himself. This was likely how the creature managed to get into the city after the Aztlans sealed the deep sacrificial chamber, and there was a good chance it was also how it planned to ambush them again now. “Let’s move on, quickly now.”

Image

The tunnel was becoming more ornate and the architecture more magnificent. Large trapezoidal stones fitted together, forming a perfect seal. Jutting stone corbels of fierce creatures interspaced with large oval stone heads with benevolent stares looked out at the small group as it hurried along the tunnel. Smaller side doors gaped open and these offered little more than black holes into unknown passages of the Aztlan city. Their breath steamed in the torchlight and for the first time, ice crystals crunched under foot.