Under the Moon of Taxoxcia
Chapter 3

Version Beta-3

By Tom J. Hyde

“Come on, Bethi, it’s just a legend!” Thomas Logan said, holding his torch over the ancient stone tablets.

“Shamanic practices around the world have been known to actually alter a human’s physiology!” she insisted under the glowing eyes of the Foxfolk statue. “I could name a dozen examples off the top of my head!”

“We’re talking about the genetic structure here. I doubt some ancient Rite could actually change the chromosomes from a Y to an X! It’s not possible. Let alone the existence of a humanoid fox!”

“Then why’d we go through this expedition, Tom?” Bethi retorted, stamping her feet in the dust.

“Because of the myths! These people have been dancing around African archeologists for centuries. The sheer fact that we found this place is the equivalent of finding El Dorado! And I want to know why these people believed in these fox-like creatures.”

“Maybe they believed it because it’s true!”

“Oh not this again, Bethi!” Thomas cried.

“After all we’ve seen together, Thomas Logan, I can’t believe you still don’t have the slightest bit of doubt.” Her hands went to her hips as her eyes flashed in the torchlight. “How many ancient civilizations believed in the power of magic?”

“Any sufficiently advanced technology will appear like magic to those who don’t understand it,” He recited, rolling his eyes. “And most of what we’ve seen is just that! Civilizations that don’t really understand what’s happening attribute events to magical influence. But even modern medical science can’t alter the DNA of a male human to a female human, let alone splicing it with another creature like a fox.”

Thomas winced at the sound of his own voice, laced with frustration at the old argument.

“So therefore it must be magic,” Bethi stated.

“Or it’s simply another myth to explain the change in political attitudes of the area.” Thomas tried to prevent his voice from going into lecture mode, but he was having a hard time of it.

“Okay, Tom, then answer me this. How can a people with almost no experience with other cultures or environments come up with the idea of a fox-like person when there isn’t a fox anywhere within a hundred miles?”

Thomas paused and Bethi pounced on the hesitation.

“You don’t know,” she said, poking her finger at him smugly. “The only idea you can think of is an outsider bringing that information to them.”

“It still doesn’t mean it’s magic. You’ve been searching for proof of magic for almost ten years now, Bethi. Why do you think you’ll find it here?”

“Because there is magic here,” she said, looking up Foxfolk’s shining orbs above her. “Can’t you feel it in the air?”

Thomas shivered. The only thing he felt was the maddening sensation of something watching him. He had it ever since the Way of the Paw.

“I think you’re exhausted, Bethi, whether you realize it or not. And it’s clouding your judgment. We need some sleep. And then we’ll continue our explorations in the morning.”

“No!” Bethi yelped, whirling on him. “I’m not closing my eyes until I actually see the Chamber of Red!”

“Why not?” Thomas demanded. His patience with the entire ordeal was beginning to wane.

“I won’t be able to get a wink of sleep! It’s all too exciting! All the answers are right here, just waiting for us to find them. Why waste time with sleep? You always said that you hated sleep anyway!”

“Bethi, please. After the last two days, we need rest!”

She looked down for a moment. When she looked up again, her expression changed from frantic energy to apologetic desire. She crept up and wrapped her arms around him. He found himself staring through her glasses into those beautiful blue eyes.

“Please Tom,” she whispered. He watched her pink lips move up and down with every word. “I want to see the Chamber. I need to see that’s its real. Just give me that, then we’ll rest and do a thorough survey.”

Somewhere in the back of Thomas’s head, a voice told him that he should insist, but he couldn’t do it. His willpower simply melted before his wife’s irresistible charm.

“Okay, Bethi,” he relented. “Let’s just be careful, okay?”

She giggled happily and gave him a peck on the cheek, then scampered to the doorway.

“Wait a sec,” he said, staring back down at the tablet. “Did it say anything about what happened to the people here?”

Bethi didn’t even glance back at him. “Nope! I guess we’ll have to keep looking!”

She vanished outside. The archeologist stared at the tablets across the room and wished he could read Malagasy for a moment. With nothing else to do, he once again followed Bethi outside. At first, he couldn’t locate her in the gloom. Even with the torch, he still had trouble seeing in the faint moonlight streaming from the thick canopy above. And it did only so much against the shadows of the abandoned settlement.

“Bethi? Where are you?”

“At the next gateway! Hurry up!”

The man frowned, then made his way to the gateway into the Wall of the Eternal. His eyes wandered over the shapes of darkened buildings scattered throughout the courtyard. He wanted to explore everything thoroughly, not rush pell-mell from one thing to another. Bethi usually was the careful and cautious one, wanting to plan out their expeditions to the last detail. It was very rare to see her in such a frenzy over a new discovery, even one that involved her precious ‘magic.’

He thought back to her comment about magic being in the air. Something about the way she said it sent shivers down his spine. He let out a low growl at himself as he turned and saw the faint shape of his wife against the Wall of the Eternal.

“This will lead to the Outer Sanctum!” she said, hopping up and down in frantic excitement. “The Chamber of Red will be at the very center of it!”

“Wait, how do you know that?” he stopped. “The journals said very little about the area around the Chamber itself.”

She paused for a moment. “I must have seen it on one of the other tablets. Anyway, let’s go!”

She darted into the passageway with Thomas close on her heels.

---

Bethi was beside herself with glee. She trotted over the bits of gateway through the Wall of the Eternal, practically floating off the ground. There was something so magical about this place that it made her heart pound just to be inside the walls.

“This will be the greatest find of our time, Tom,” she giggled. “Next to this, King Tut’s tomb will seem like finding lost change in the sofa.”

“Somehow I doubt it,” he muttered.

“Evidence of magical energies!” she cried. “We’ll never have to worry about funding again. We’ll be heroes!”

They broke out of the Wall of Eternity and were blinded by the brilliant glow of the full moon hanging in the star-studded sky.

“My God,” she whispered. In the heart of the settlement of the Foxfolk, the Outer Sanctum was open to the sky. While the rest of Taxoxcia was constructed around the native jungle trees, the stars shone down freely upon the courtyard purportedly containing the Chamber of Red.

The glowing moon poured into the Outer Sanctum, coating everything with a soft, milky light. In the center of the courtyard was a reddish rounded dome with two wide staircases descending into it. The dome looked perfectly new, as if it was raised only yesterday. Four Foxfolk females, each nearly fifteen feet in height, looked down at the dome, their stone faces eternally vigilant. Beyond that, the circular courtyard was a maze of broken stone paths and thick grass.

“It’s beautiful,” Bethi whispered, breaking the stunned silence of the two archeologists.
“Down those stairs must be the Chamber of Red!”

Yet something inside Thomas recoiled from the unearthly beauty of the place. Despite their immobility, the statues appeared to be watching him. A sense of being utterly exposed washed over him, making feel like a small mouse in the sights of an enormous hawk.

“Bethi, I’ve changed my mind,” he stated. “We’ll explore this in the morning.”

“What?” she gasped, pointing at the shining dome. “It’s right there, Tom!”

“No, something about this isn’t right. I’ve had a bad feeling about this since I entered the first gateway. I’m not going in there tonight and neither are you.”

“I’m not going to deny myself this just because of your paranoia!” she cried.

“Who cares if you see it tonight?” he shot back. “It’ll be the same thing in ten hours!”

“No! Then we’ll lose our chance!” Her eyes flashed.

“Lose what chance?” he said slowly, his eyes narrowing on her.

“You can’t stop me, Tom,” Bethi growled. “I’m going in there.”

He reached out and grabbed her arm roughly. “Listen to yourself! You’re supposed to be the cautious one!”

“Get your hands off of me!” She threw his hand off.

“Bethi! This isn’t like you!” he pleaded. “Something’s affecting you. Something in this place. Now let’s get out of here before it gets worse.”

“No!” she howled.

She bolted for the stairs.

Thomas just stood there for a moment, his face a rictus of disbelief. By the time he reacted, her fleeting form was already halfway to the stairs. Something screamed in his head that he had to get her away from that dome.

“Bethi!” he cried and bolted after her, dropping the torch. The constant globetrotting kept the both of them in top physical condition, but there was no way he could recover the distance before she made it to the steps. For a fraction of a second, he considered using the flare gun to distract her.

His legs burned with the exertion as he dismissed the idea. The flare could hit Bethi and might very well kill her. He wouldn’t dare risk that. His breath came out in great heaving gasps as he sprinted the distance, trying to catch his crazed wife.

When she stumbled momentarily, he thought he would have a chance. But she caught herself with a hand against the rough path and sprang back to her feet with inhuman agility. He bellowed her name again as she came within ten feet of the stairway.

At her approach, a blood red orb began to pulse with light above the stairs the woman was sprinting for. It bathed her in savage crimson as she threw herself down the stairs and out of his sight.

“Dammit Bethi!” he roared. There was a sound of creaking metal and stone while his voice echoed in the Outer Sanctum. A broken stone caught his foot and he sprawled to the ground, letting out a yelp of pain as he caught himself with his hands. He glanced at them and cursed when he saw blood begin to seep from the raw wounds on his palms.

Thomas scrambled back to his feet and ran down the rest of the way to the stairs. A massive door stood at the base of the stairway. Unlike everything else in Taxoxcia, it was sealed shut. The archeologist let out another stream of curses as he fumbled for his flashlight. On the door was a relief of the dome itself, a glowing orb shining down upon it.

He looked closely at the orb and saw a small bloody print there. Bethi must have scraped her hand when she fell. He glanced at his own appendage and grimaced, then slapped his palm against the orb.

The metal began to creak and the door swung inward. He caught the glimpse of dim red light in the corridor before him, but there was no sign of his wife.

He glanced back at the orb and realized that it was a symbol of the moon.

“The Rite of the Tail,” he whispered to himself. That had to be what Bethi was obsessed with. She wanted to actually see the Rite of the Tail. But why was she so determined to get there now?

He flicked his light back up to the relief of the moon. The combination of Thomas’s blood and Bethi’s blood looked suspiciously like a pawprint.

“This isn’t going to end well,” he muttered then plunged into catacombs of the Chamber of Red.