Warriors of Poseidon 03 - Atlantis Unleashed

dripping wet, flashed into her mind, and her mouth dried out even further than mere lack of water had caused.
    Great. She‟d die in the Guatemalan jungle of dehydration brought on by sexual fantasies.
    Wonder how they‟d word that on her tombstone.
    She reached the overhang a few paces ahead of him. It was a niche carved into the side of a small hill, and it smelled a little musky, like animals had made it a home over the years. It didn‟t seem to hold any now, but it stretched farther back into the hill than she‟d expected and she couldn‟t see all that far back into the darkened interior.
    Justice put a restraining hand on her arm. “I‟ll enter first and ensure that no animals are inside and jealous of their territory.”
    She swept her arm out in a “go ahead” gesture. “Be my guest, sword guy. I‟ll just wait here at the side, in case something comes barreling out.”
    He grinned at her and suddenly bent down and pressed a kiss on her lips. “You continually surprise me. Every time I expect you to disagree with me, you say something practical. Every time I expect you to go along without question, you tell me why I‟m wrong. Life will never be boring with you, will it, Dr. Keely McDermott?”
    With that, he entered the small cave, leaving her to stand there, fingers pressed to her lips, wondering how a future life with her had become such a firm assumption in his mind.
    Wondering why the idea of it didn‟t scare her one bit.
    “It‟s clear, but there‟s an opening back here and you‟re going to want to take a look,” he called out to her. “I‟d say we made a discovery, but it‟s obvious that somebody was in here before.”
    She bent a little to enter the cave, and was relieved to find that it opened up into a room with a fairly high ceiling. Looking around, she discovered something else.
    It was no cave.
    The walls were just that—walls—made of stone. They‟d found an ancient building of some kind, possibly even a Mayan temple or pyramid, considering the height of the small hill.
    The familiar chill raced up her spine. A piece of history that very few had seen in perhaps thousands of years lay before her. This was what she lived for—what she needed as much as she needed water to drink. She automatically reached for her pack, only to remember that it was safely ensconced in her room back in Atlantis.
    Where it didn‟t do her a damn bit of good.
    Biting off a few choice words, she followed the wall to a doorway carved into the back of the room. A faint blue-green glow emanated from the doorway.
    “Justice? Is that you?”
    “I‟ve recovered enough of my strength to give us a little light, Keely. You‟re going to want to see this.”
    She followed the light and the sound of his voice into the chamber and stopped, stunned.
    Three of the four walls were uncovered from the dirt and vegetation that covered the fourth, clearly the product of centuries of neglect. On each of the three walls, a mural spread in vivid, dramatic colors.
    “This isn‟t San Bartolo, but this is definitely another rendering of the Popol Wuh ,” she said.
    “Oh, Justice, why wasn‟t this reported? This is such an important find!”
    He crossed to stand next to her and she realized the light came from a glowing sphere that floated over the palm of his hand. He held it up like a lantern and leaned in to study the first wall with her. “The Popol Wuh ?”
    “It‟s the Mayan creation myth. Their creator, K‟ucumatz, the mother and father of all life, first fashioned men from clay or mud. But they were weak and dissolved in water, like this.
    Do you see this first image of the man figure dissolving in the river?”
    He nodded and pointed to the next image, sounding almost as excited as she was by the discovery. “And this? The tree being carved into a man?”
    She nodded, her hand reaching of its own volition to touch her fish carving. “Yes, K‟ucumatz tried next to make men out of wood, but they had no hearts or minds, so they couldn‟t praise their creator. That never flies with gods, you know.”
    She smiled at him, but he was lost in contemplation of the image. “I have sometimes carved figures that almost seemed as if they could step out of my hand and fly or swim or run away,”
    he murmured. “But of course they had no hearts or minds, either.”
    Keely thought of all the tough times that her carving, and the visions of Justice, had helped her through over the years. “I‟ve seen your