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Lazlo took a shaky step back. Sam inched forward and knelt in front of the six-foot-square depression and then turned to Remi. “Do you have your knife with you? Afraid I left mine at the motel,” he confessed.
“No well-dressed girl goes tunnel crawling without one,” she said, and handed it to him. He unfolded the five-inch blade and locked it into place, then leaned forward, one hand steadying himself against the edge of the depression, and stabbed it into the dirt in front of him. The knife penetrated into the ground. He sawed with it, then removed the knife and handed it back to her.
“Whatever it is, it’s too hard to cut.” He took the handle of his long aluminum flashlight and pounded on the ground. The unmistakable hollow sound of a cavity answered him. After a final thump for good measure, he stood and nodded.
“Let’s get some wood from the research tent and put it across this area. What do you want to bet when we excavate it, we’ll find a deep hole with a lot of very sharp objects at the bottom? Obsidian blades or spears? It’s a drop trap.”
Antonio and Sam went for the planks left over from the shoring project while Lazlo, Maribela, and Remi waited by the depression. They returned with four planks, easily long enough to span the area. Lazlo helped Antonio set them in place, and Sam tested the makeshift bridge before walking across.
“Mind that you don’t slip off. Could be fatal,” Lazlo warned.
At the end of the tunnel they found themselves facing a large carved doorway sealed with stone bricks, carefully mortared in place rather than the haphazard rockwork of the other crypt. Antonio and Lazlo went back to the ladder, mounted it in search of tools, and returned with the picks.
The brick barrier proved more solid than the other, but in half an hour the first stone block shifted, quickly followed by three more. They redoubled their efforts and soon had an aperture large enough to squeeze through. Remi and Lazlo led the way, Maribela behind her with the lamp, while Sam and Antonio relaxed.
“Oh my . . . this looks like the real thing,” Remi said, her hushed voice still audible in the confined space. Sam shouldered his way into the vault, where Remi was gazing at an ornate sarcophagus resting on a pedestal—but unlike the platform above, this one was covered in carved figures. Sam approached her and regarded the top of the coffin while Lazlo did a slow scan of the otherwise empty room, his flashlight eventually coming to rest on the pictographs adorning the sides and top of the sarcophagus.
“Who wants to help get this open?” Sam asked.
Antonio and Lazlo moved to the opposite side and nodded at him. Lazlo set his flashlight on the stone floor. “Ready when you are, old boy. But it looks heavy.”
“Hey, your sister and I can help, too. Move over, Fargo,” Remi said, and slid next to Sam. Maribela joined Antonio and Lazlo on the other side and, on Sam’s nod, they heaved.
The lid moved a few inches. They tried again, and then again, each effort edging it farther open. When they’d cleared two feet of space, they stopped and Remi directed her flashlight inside.
Remi gasped, as did Maribela. Sam let loose a low whistle and stepped closer.
“The legends were true,” he said quietly, his hand on Remi’s shoulder.
The figure was mummified, but his long red beard and hair were intact, carefully braided in an ornate style, with small jewels woven into the strands. He wore a tunic of chain mail, a classic Viking helmet, and had a steel sword clenched in one hand and a spear in the other. A battle-axe rested by his side and a shield covered his lower legs.
Antonio regarded the length of the sarcophagus. “What do you think he was? Hundred eighty centimeters? Assuming his body stretches the full length of the coffin.”
“More like six feet something. He was tall, that’s for sure. A Viking,” Sam said.
Maribela looked at him strangely. “You seem so sure.”
Sam told them about the longship on Baffin Island and their eyes widened.
“So that’s why you were so interested in the legend,” Antonio said. “You knew it likely corresponded with fact.”
“Yes,” Sam admitted. “And now we have further proof that the cultures overlapped in ways nobody’s ever imagined.”
“Look at this,” Lazlo said, shining his flashlight on the underside of the coffin lid. “There’s an inscription.”
“What does it say?” Remi asked.
He studied it for several long seconds before answering. “I can’t be sure. My runic alphabet’s a mite rusty, but, on first glance, it looks like a eulogy of some sort. I’ll need to see the entire thing to be able to do a reasonable translation.”
“Could you do it from a photograph of the interior lid and another one of the part that’s exposed at the foot of the sarcophagus?” Remi asked.
“I suppose so. Care to do the honors?” Lazlo invited. Remi slid her phone into the spacious coffin and took several photographs, then repeated the process with the exposed underside of the lid. When she was done, she photographed the entire exterior of the sarcophagus as the rest of them studied the carvings on the walls.
“Bit odd that there’s no booty, isn’t it? Didn’t the legend specify an emerald the size of a small car?” Lazlo asked.
“It did. But that could be an exaggeration. I don’t see anything in here. Do you?” Sam asked. Both Antonio and Maribela shook their heads. Maribela played her light across an elaborate pictograph.
“This appears to tell the story of Quetzalcoatl’s conquest of a large Mayan city. Maybe Chichen Itza.”
