Even though it must be more than a thousand years old, the entrance to the undertomb shows no sign of ageing. It gleams pristine and untarnished in the flickering light of the acetylene lamp. The yellow glow from the lantern reveals a glistening surface that can only be gold. The portal is crafted with intricate carvings. Inscribed in the fascia are the pictograms and hieroglyphs of an ancient, almost forgotten tongue. There is no handle or keyhole to be seen.

As his companions follow him into the antechamber, Lord Rathbone, the leader of the expedition, is already stooping to examine the door. His face is aglow with eager anticipation as he holds the lamp aloft to better cast its glow across their find. The elderly American scholar, Professor Charles Christian, is close on his heels, scurrying across the dusty, stone-hewn floor with a nimbleness that belies his years. He polishing his glasses on a ragged, grey handkerchief before he too peers at the carvings, scrutinising them carefully. Following at a more sedate pace as befits her status, Pamela, Lord Rathbone’s attractive young ward, makes her way across the chamber, lifting her skirts as she walks to prevent them from trailing in the dust of the floor, and shivering slightly in the chill air. Harold Wimborne brings up the rear of the party. Most of his attention is focused on watching the sensual movement of Pamela’s slender form, rather than looking where he is stepping. As a result, he nearly stumbles on the uneven ground.

At the sight of the golden portal revealed in the lamplight, Harold is distracted from the seductive swaying of Pamela’s hips. His eyes widen and he gasps in awe. "If that is solid gold, ‘sunlight carved from the bones of the Earth’ as the legend says, then it must be worth millions." His voice is a whisper, yet the echo of his words resonates about the antechamber, clearly audible to all those within.

A forbidding look from Lord Rathbone silences his mercenary speculations. Without raising his head from his examination of the carvings, Professor Christian verbalises the unspoken thoughts of the raffish, English peer.

"Harold! We are scientists, not plunderers and looters. We stand here on the brink of possibly the greatest archaeological discovery of the century. I venture to suggest, greater even than Carter’s unearthing of the tomb of the boy king of Egypt."

He raises his head to look at the avaricious adventurer. "It might seem alien to your character, but please show some sense of reverence and decorum. If the legends do speak the truth, and our finding this ‘doorway of the sun’ suggests this might indeed be the case, then before us lies the death chamber of Xanquipu, last high priestess of the Mayans."

When his attention is drawn once more to the door, it is to find that Lord Rathbone is already heaving to push it open. On the other side of the barrier lies their goal. This is the grail for which they have endured the insects and snakes of the Yucatan jungles, the desertion of their native bearers, attacks by head-hunters, and pursuit by the deadly leopard-men. It is for the purpose of finding this lost tomb that the nobleman put together his expedition.

The English lord is a strong man. Working alongside the shepherds on the farms of his Hertfordshire estate, he has more than once carried an ailing sheep from its pasture to the barn, or hammered out horseshoes in the village forge. Yet now, his straining muscles make no visible impression on the door. Whether because it is locked in some indeterminate fashion, or because of its sheer weight, the portal refuses to move. Thankful for the excuse to avoid another lecture in the ethics of archaeology, Harold saunters across to add his shoulder.

For long minutes the two of them struggle. Harold is no weakling himself, but even together they fail to move the gleaming door. Finally, the English Lord concedes that brute strength alone will not gain them entrance and calls a halt to their efforts. He turns to the professor.

"The pictures engraved here may be more than ornamentation, though they bear no resemblance to any language I have seen before. Professor! You have been examining them. Can you fathom their meaning?"

The august Professor takes his time answering. "The language is most strange. If it were not an impossibility, I would say that some of the runes are Cuneiform, the language of ancient Sumer. Others are similar to the Hieratic script that superseded hieroglyphics in the Egypt of the pharaohs; yet the pictograms with their animalistic images are clearly Mayan. If this is so, then I believe that I can translate the text."

He kneels before the door, jotting down notes in a small pocketbook. His scratchings are every bit as cryptic to the other party members as the writing on the door itself. As the professor scribbles, he seems to grow more and more excited. Even before he speaks, the agitation he displays reveals that they have indeed found the tomb they are seeking. Still, it is over an hour before he struggles to his feet, clearly stiff with the cramp, and turns to face his companions.

"The language is a mix of Sanskrit and Hieratic Egyptian, blended with other pictograms that can only be local in origin. The text is not clear, and their are nuances of dialect with which I am unfamiliar. While I cannot be entirely certain, the first part reads, ‘This Daath of the sun guards the entrance to the Ain wherein lies the mortal form of Xanquipu. May she rest here undisturbed’."

"Then it seems we truly have an intriguing blend of cultures." Lord Rathbone interjects. "As I recollect, both ‘Daath’ and ‘Ain’ are terms of Kabbalistic origin, meaning respectively ‘secret gate’ and ‘void’. Forgive me, professor. I should not have interrupted you while you were speaking. Blame it on my excitement at this historic moment. Please continue with your translation."

The professor does not seem the least put out. He merely nods to acknowledge that his leader has correctly interpreted the ancient words from the Kabbalah before continuing to read from his notebook.

"Then we find a warning to tomb robbers. This appears to be duplicated in each of the three languages. It is worded in a similar style to the warnings found in the Pyramids of Egypt and the Valley of the Kings, although the curse is much more bloodthirsty. I will not bore you with the details."

Again he is interrupted.

"A curse?" Harold’s hoarse voice again sends echoes scurrying among the shadowy recesses of the walls. "And this door is too heavy for us to open without mechanical aids. Perhaps we should mark our location, and return here at a later date in greater numbers and with suitable equipment."

"In case you have forgotten, Harold, the leopard-men are still outside." Lord Rathbone’s words are a sobering thought, and his hand strays to the pistol at his belt as though to reassure himself that it is still there. "While they did not enter the clearing in the forest where we found the entrance to this temple, they pursued us through the miles of jungle with such tenacity that I cannot believe they are not still within the trees, awaiting our return. Nor will Herr Von Stromm easily be deterred, and he was barely a day behind us when we disembarked at Campeche."

Harold goes white, clenching his fists in anger. "I have not forgotten them. I am no coward, but I would rather face the dangers of the leopard-men, or of Von Stromm’s brown-shirted thugs, than a curse. At least the Nazis and the beastly natives can be killed with a bullet."

"Curses are nothing but primitive nonsense. I don’t understand how a man of the world such as yourself can be so superstitious in this day and age. This is the twentieth century we’re in."

Harold looks as though he is about to respond with his fists, but manages to curb his temper. "You happily dismissed the leopard-men as ‘primitive nonsense’ until they attacked us. There are still vast swathes of the world as yet unexplored, and science has not yet found an explanation for every phenomena."

"Curses are not merely something for which mankind hasn’t yet found an explanation. They’re not based on scientific fact at all. They’re nothing more than aboriginal mumbo-jumbo. You’re a fool for believing in such tosh."

For a moment it seems that the two are about to come to blows.

"Gentlemen, please. Do we not have problems enough that you must argue over such trifles?" Professor Christian steps between the two, glaring at them through his owlish spectacles, like a schoolmaster admonishing two unruly pupils. Were their situation not been so desperate, it would be an amusing sight.

"If you will permit me to finish my translation, I believe I may have found an escape from our predicament."

Harold and Lord Rathbone glare across at each other for several seconds more before the nobleman decides to postpone the confrontation till a more opportune moment. He turns his attention once again to the problem of the doorway, and to the professor.

Satisfied that he has the party’s attention once more, the academic continues his exposition.

"Through this door lies the tomb where Xanquipu lies, the Ain or Void, as the message written here reveals. I believe that the Void may be an allusion to the vast subterranean caverns and tunnels that connect the Caribbean with the Pacific Ocean, and extend Southwards through the mountains to Peru and beyond. If I am correct, there is a known exit from the labyrinthine complex barely two day’s walk West from here. If we can but enter through the door, we may avoid those who wait for us outside the temple."

Harold is still dubious. "That’s all very well, Professor, but we still need to find a way to enter the tomb. The door won’t open for us, and it isn’t going to rust away."

"But it will open for us. All we need is the key. The last part of the inscription reads ‘Those who seek entrance, let them first place the Ring of Fire in the Heart of the Sun’."

"The Heart of the Sun is surely this circular recess in the centre of the portal. You see?" He points out the hollowed section in the surface of the door to the others.

At first I thought it was just a part of the carving, but the shape reminded me of something I had seen before. As I pondered it, I recalled watching the dawn from the balcony of our hotel in Mexico City, and the reflection thrown on the wall by the talisman we had recovered from Von Stromm and his men."

"By George! The circlet that we found there, engraved with the map that enabled us to locate this place." Lord Rathbone's tone is jubilant. "Pamela. Do you still have the artefact?"