Dateline: Atlantis Read Free

water during the Ice Age, about eleven hundred years ago.
    â€œThey always were there,” Gabriel says, through the narrow chasm and striding across a vast beach where the caves open again to land. The beach once was a seafloor crawling with crabs and starfish. “You didn’t know where to look.”
    Amaryllis puts her hand on Garret’s shoulder and feels blood pounding through the large artery near his neck. He shakes her off, for he’s already snapping photographs.
    â€œIt’s real,” she mumbles, then turns to follow Gabriel.
    What can a journalist say about a wonderland that she is witness to? What can she feel when she stumbles upon a treasure so ancient, so unexpected, so ghostly that it makes her want to weep? In fact, Amaryllis did weep when she found this place. For a short time, she wandered around the neighboring town in the Yucatan, crying in bookstores and libraries, dropping her tears on page after page of history books. She cried for the Maya and their lost world. She cried over the wanton destruction by the arrogant Spaniards. She sobbed for the burned books and smashed treasures. But mostly, she wept for what would become of her when she let the world know of this hidden land. No longer would she be a young reporter slugging away at stories about plucky entrepreneurs. She wouldn’t be pining for a Pulitzer Prize anymore. She’d have one. And what would she do then? The entire trajectory of her life will have changed.
    Gabriel hurries to the first pyramid, which is so thickly encrusted with barnacles, shells, and crustaceans that it’s barely recognizable as stone and masonry. It looks instead like a giant sea palace, fashioned by crafty dolphins and deft ocean turtles. Rounded and softened by the constant ocean currents, the pyramids have none of the sharp angles associated with the Maya culture. They look like lumpy sandcastles ready to dissolve back into the surf.
    The guide chips at the coating on the walls until he reaches bare rock. They catch a glimpse of Maya glyphs. They are unmistakable, although completely unreadable to the Anglos. Gabriel taps at the rock until he finds the complete phrase.
    â€œJaguar prize,” he says.
    Clicking and whirring fill the reporter’s ears as Garret records the moment. In a second, what has been covered for centuries is now written in light in Garret’s mechanical box.
    They spend the afternoon exploring the pyramids, four in all. Three of them are small, fifty feet or so in height, and appear to be ceremonial structures, for the restored artwork depicts activities sacred to the Maya: bloodletting, vision-questing, hunting. Garret asks about the human sacrifices. Gabriel throws down a small hammer and walks away.
    â€œThe Spanish used sacrifice as an excuse to wipe out the Maya culture,” Amaryllis whispers to Garret as Gabriel disappears behind some rock. “The Aztecs gave everyone a bad rap. The Maya rarely resorted to human sacrifice.”
    â€œThe pyramids were supposed to be altars…”
    â€œForget it, Garret. The pyramids were astronomical structures.”
    â€œI was taught…”
    â€œThey taught us all wrong…”
    By the time they work their way to the final pyramid, Garret fills his camera bag with used film and digital chips. Nearly out of ammunition, he loads his final chip. He needs to take his shots wisely now, for the last pyramid, a huge structure, looks to be much more than a ceremonial center. Amaryllis’ skin begins to sizzle. She realizes the pyramid has a narrow opening.
    Gabriel is inside when they squeeze through, climbing slowly up the dripping staircase. Inside the pyramid, the air is torrid and the walls seep a lichen-laden fluid. In the dark, aided only by the occasional flicker of Gabriel’s flashlight, they climb what could be one hundred feet. At the apex is a tiny chamber containing a jaguar-shaped throne, encrusted with jade. Steal it.