Page 161 of Empire of Shadows

Ellie mounted the steps into the heart of Tulan.

She stood at the edge of an open plaza longer than a cricket pitch. The space was paved entirely in gleaming white stones. The structures that bordered it had to be the most important buildings in the city.

A sprawling palace complex lay to the west, punctuated by towers that reminded her of church belfries. Colonnaded passages lined the way between shallow ornamental pools and broken fountains.

Stelae dotted the perimeter, carved in a familiar night-black obsidian. Their surfaces were inscribed with some of the same figures Ellie had seen honored on the bas relief in the passage.

The altar stones at their feet still held fragments of broken offering vessels.

Looming over all of it was the temple. The pyramid was by far the tallest structure in the city. Its white stone tiers rose to a height which Ellie thought might rival that of Westminster Abbey—and that was frankly astonishing. She knew of no other pre-Colombian monuments that could even come close to it.

Nature had tried to reclaim the enormous, graceful structure. Here and there, it had succeeded in gaining a foothold. Roots had worked their way into small cracks between the stones, while little shrubs and vines marred what must otherwise have been a mind-boggling feat of engineering.

A squat temple structure crowned the top of the pyramid. Five elegantly arched portals fronted it, leading to an interior swathed in shadows. A narrow ledge in front of the entrance offered space for more public rituals.

Behind it all rose the steep, ragged face of the mountain. A waterfall glittered against its surface, trickling down to some unseen place behind the temple.

There were other pyramids as well. A smaller one lay to the east, and the peaks of a cluster of others emerged from further out in the canopy.

The last gasp of afternoon light slipped out from between the mountains and the bank of charcoal clouds which hung threateningly against the horizon. It turned the whole of what Ellie was looking at to a sun-blessed gold, giving her a heart-wrenching glimpse of what must once have been an astonishingly beautiful and powerful nation.

She took it in with wonder… and then with an uncomfortable sense of recognition. The white pyramid, the rows of waiting gods embodied in black stone, the broad stones of the plaza, and the graceful palace in the distance… it all seemedfamiliar.

Ellie shook the feeling off. Most Mesoamerican cities boasted a central temple district organized around a ritual square or plaza. She had probably just read about the arrangement so many times that it had taken up residence inside her mind.

The sunlight slipped away in a breath. The stones turned to a cooler gray as the wind picked up once more. It rustled uneasily through the leaves of the nearby trees.

“Foodstuffs, hammocks, fuel, and ammunition—inside!” Bones called out as the mules began to clomp noisily up the stairs. The foreman’s attention was focused on the encroaching clouds rather than on the wonders of the lost city. “Clear the most secure structure for quarters. We are preparing for rain.”

The word—rain—rang out like a curse, shivering down Ellie’s spine.

A quick gust of wind broke through the waiting stillness of the ruins, sending the trees into a restless sway.

The men hurried to their work, elbowing each other out of their open-mouthed gaping at the ruins. They loosed the crates and bundles from the mules, and then formed quick lines to shuffle the gear into some of the low, open structures that bordered the plaza.

None of the buildings had been properly cleared. There could be historical material under the debris layers inside. They certainly shouldn’t be used as camps.

Ellie bit back her protest. No one would listen to it anyway… and she was consumed by a rising, irrational feeling that there was somethingstrangeabout this place—something that went beyond the mere shock of a remarkable discovery.

“Hey,” Adam said, frowning down at her. “Everything okay?”

Ellie looked around the pale plaza, from the black sentinels of the nameless ancestors to the imposing, glimmering bulk of the temple—and then firmly shook the feeling off. She was a scholar. She approached the unknown with the twin weapons of knowledge and rationality. She knew better than to pay heed to something as illogical as a hunch.

“It’s nothing,” she asserted.

Adam looked concerned—but before he could respond, a call rang out across the stones.

“Mr. Bates! With me, if you will.”

Dawson waved imperiously from the foot of the pyramid.

Adam glanced down at Ellie again—this time with all the sharp focus of a promise.

“I’ll be back,” he said, then left her alone in a field of white stone.

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Thirty-Two

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