The Seven Serpents Trilogy

by Scott O'Dell

  I still had no real idea who Kukulcán was, what he had done while he lived on the island, his nature and ambitions. Since I was posing as Kukulcán and accepted as Kukulcán by the people, I could not go among them, or to the Council of Elders or to the priests, and say, “Who am I? What have I done? What is it that I should do?”

  It occurred to me to seek my identity in the archives kept by the priests and housed a short walk from the palace. The building was squat and had a stubby tower from which the stars were watched and read. It was surrounded by a field of broken columns and stelae, but in side there was an attempt at order.

  My presence caused much excitement among the ar chivists who were there to greet me, word of my coming having been passed along by the dwarf.

  Xicalanco, a lean-jawed priest in charge of the ar chives, and his helpers lay face down on the terrace as I approached. It took the better part of a day to get them on their feet, to open doors that had been closed for many years, and to find the books that pertained to Lord Kukulcán.

  Since I had never attempted to read more of the Mayan language than the inscription on the tomb that Cantú had shown me and the glyphs scattered throughout the palace, it was necessary to ask for Xicalanco’s help.

  The archivist rummaged around in a dark cubbyhole and finally came out carrying two books covered with the dust of centuries. By now the sun was setting, so I asked him to bring them to the palace early the next day. While I was still eating breakfast, he came with five helpers, each carrying an armful of books.

  “Where do you wish to begin, Lord of the Evening Star?” Xicalanco asked.

  “Begin at the beginning,” I said.

  “When you came to the land of the Maya, Lord of the Night Wind, or when you came to the Island of the Seven Serpents?”

  “To the island,” I said. “That was in what year? My memory deserts me.”

  “There are signs,” Xicalanco said, “that you first ap peared in 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu, but it is only a rumor.”

  This Mayan year, after some thought, I translated into the Christian year 3111 BC. “The rumor is false,” I said. “I would like true dates, not rumors. The date of my ap pearance is much later.”

  Xicalanco searched among the books laid out on the floor and handed one to me.

  I handed it back, not wishing him to know that Kukulcán, god of the Maya, could not read the Mayan glyphs. “You have a pleasant voice,” I said. “I will lis ten.”

  The book was not in the form I was accustomed to. Though of the same size as those I had used at the semi nary, its pages folded from side to side, like a screen, and opened one fold after the other until it was some ten feet in width, with ends glued to hardwood boards.

  Xicalanco read in his deep-toned, pleasant voice.

  I understood about half of what he read, enough to know that the account, covering the period from the year 800 after the birth of Christ to the year 910, was lit tle more than a list of dates. The day, the month, the year that Kukulcán saved the maize harvest by bringing rain to parched fields; the night that his twin star shone bright in the heavens; the hour, the day, the month, the year he left the island and sailed on his snakeskin raft into the east.

  The Maya were fascinated by dates. Time and the stars ruled their lives from minute to minute, from birth to death. They held them in thrall, as helpless as a serpent’s cruel eye holds its prey.

  In truth, I learned nothing from Xicalanco and his many books, although we spent more than a week going through them. They were beautiful works—the glyphs painted in bold hues on cream-colored paper of a high gloss—but they did not answer any of the questions that concerned me.

  CHAPTER 4

  COULD CEELA’S GRANDFATHER, THE OLD MAN WHO LIVED AT THE FOOT of the volcano, answer my questions? As a high priest Ah den Yaxche must have heard the legends about the young captain who came to the island from a far land, stayed among the people for centuries, taught them his ways, became a god, then mysteriously disap peared.

  When Xicalanco gathered up his books after a futile hour of reading I turned to the dwarf. At the moment he was finishing his second helping of maize cakes and his third bowl of pink frijoles.

  “Don Guillermo, today we send for Ah den Yaxche.” “Why, Lord Serpent?”

  “Because I wish to talk to him. He knows who Kukulcán was, what he did while he was on this island, which I do not. Nor do you.”

  “Can you be certain that he won’t repeat everything you ask him?

  He’s an old man in his dotage. Can you trust him?”

  “I trust myself.”

  “What if he refuses to come?”

  “Bring him!”

  “Today the pearl divers return from the south. I need to gather the crew we spoke about and make our plans for floating the ship. I’ll go for the old man tomorrow, if it pleases you.”

  “It doesn’t please me. Go today.”

  The dwarf went off whistling, a sign that he was in a bad mood. Late in the afternoon he returned with news that Ah den Yaxche was ill.

  “Did you talk to him?” I asked.

  “No, to the two aunts and the grandmother.”

  “To the granddaughter?”

  “She was nowhere in sight.”

  Two days later I sent him back with an escort of pal ace guards. The following day I heard a commotion on the palace steps and, looking out, witnessed the arrival of the dwarf and curtained litters containing Ah den Yaxche, the women, and my friend Ceela.

  I expected the old man to come forth, but the curtains remained closed until a guard flung them apart. Still he did not appear. His hands and feet, it turned out, had been tied with heavy cords. I ordered him unbound.

  Confused, as well he might be, Ah den Yaxche stood stiffly gazing at his surroundings. For a moment I feared that he was about to take to his heels. I turned to his granddaughter for help, but Ceela lay mute, flat upon the terrace stones, her face covered. The others were huddled on their knees.

  Overcoming the temptation to speak to the old man in a godlike manner, I apologized for the trouble I had caused. After some moments of hesitation, during which he again seemed to be at the point of running away, he gathered up the women and we all trooped inside, except for Ceela, who had to be carried.

  The old man followed me into the throne room, but when I seated myself on the jaguar bench and bade him to make himself comfortable on the deerskins spread at my feet, he shook his head and continued to stand.

  In no way did he fit the person I expected to meet. All of the Maya I had seen were short, not more than five feet in height, sturdily built, beardless, and bronze skinned.

  Ah den Yaxche was the opposite in every way. Dressed in a long white robe, he was taller than I, whip thin, and pale. He was not tattooed or decorated with earrings and nose plug, and he wore a beard.

  The beard stirred my memory. Somewhere in my studies I had seen a drawing of an Egyptian priest. He was tall, dressed in a long robe, like this man, and had the same small beard that curved outward and came to a point. The two men might have been brothers.

  My guest stood in front of me and looked everywhere except in my direction. He was trying hard, I presumed, to swallow his ire at being snatched up, bound hand and foot, and carried off against his will to face a god un known to him.

  There was a long silence. The old man glanced toward the windows, and again I feared that he was about to flee.

  I offered him a bowl of fruit. He shook his head. I had not heard the man speak a word. Perhaps he could not speak. Perhaps he was mute. At least he could hear.

  “You have been sick,” I said, hoping to soften his anger. “I trust you are better.”

  The silence deepened. Just as I decided that he was mute, the old man cleared his throat and to my great surprise said, “I have not been sick.”

  To my further surprise, he spoke without a trace of anger and in the firm voice of a young man.

  “If you were not sick,” I said with some anger, “what in th
e name of Itzamná were you?”

  “Confused in my thoughts,” he said.

  “Are you confused now?” I said. “I have questions to ask and I don’t have the time to listen to confused an swers.”

  “No longer,” the old man said. “I did not want to talk to you while my thoughts were confused. Now my head is very clear.”

  He walked to a window and glanced out. Fog was slowly engulfing the city.

  “I seek your advice,” I said. “As you are a high priest, one who has seen life on this island, your answers should be helpful.”

  “Either of help or not of help,” he answered, “my answers will be truthful.”

  “The truth is sometimes of help,” I said, repeating rather pompously, I fear, advice given me long before by my teacher, Father Expoleta.

  The old man looked at me for the first time. There was no sign of awe or reverence in his glance. It should have warned me of what was to come.

  “Let us begin with the most important truth,” he said, framing his words precisely, assuming that my knowledge of Maya was imperfect. “You are not the Feath ered Serpent. Instead, young man, you are an impostor.”

  Pausing to gauge the effects of his words, the old man looked down upon me as a schoolmaster might confront a student who has committed some thoughtless prank. I returned his gaze resolutely, but inside, in the marrow of my bones, I flinched.

  “Those are dangerous words,” I wanted to say.

  I could remind Ah den Yaxche, standing stiff and censorious in his long white robe, that I could have him seized, as he had been seized this very day, and placed in a cage with the rest of the prisoners, those who had not been sacrificed in my honor. There he would await the hour when he himself was laid out upon the stone and his heart removed.

  These violent thoughts raced through my mind, but wisely I remained silent. I was moved by the man’s cour age. What did he hope to gain by speaking to me as an enemy? Nothing, I was certain, that was worth the loss of his life. Of course, what seemed like courage could also be the simple outpouring of an old man gone soft in the head.

  I was calm, at least I tried to give this impression. I forced myself to smile. “You are a man of intelligence,” I said. “You were once a high priest. How can you make this mistake?”

  He did not answer, but went on looking down at me in a critical way, as if I were an unruly young man who needed a lecture he had not quite decided upon.

  “How can you harbor any doubt?” I said, deciding that it might be wise to give him a quiet warning. “Such a doubt could cause you harm.”

  “There is not one doubt,” he said, as if he had not heard me. “There are many. They go far back, to the day that my granddaughter saw the big canoe with the white wings sink beneath the waves. She brought the word. She saw you in the sea. She saw you lie on the shore. Not like a god, but like a dead man you lay on the shore.”

  “Gods,” I said, “sometimes face adversity.”

  “They do not lie helpless like dead people until the sun warms their bones and brings them to life again.”

  Fog drifted into the room. The old man shivered and pulled the robe around his thin shoulders.

  “Nor do gods sleep in hollow logs,” he continued. “Without a fire, eating what they find in the sea and for est.”

  As he went on to describe the life I had led during my months on the beach, I recalled ancient gods who had met greater trials than mine—Prometheus, chained to a rock while a vulture pecked at his liver; Vulcan, whose father pushed him from heaven, who fell to Earth, tak ing a day to do so—but these gods Ah den Yaxche had never heard of.

  The old man gave out a sigh. “Kukulcán did not live in this way,” he said slowly, as if he spoke the words against his will. “He was not a vagabond.”

  “What was he, then?” I said, seizing the chance I had hoped for.

  “He was a god.”

  “But what made him a god? What did he say? What did he do?”

  I was afraid the old man would turn the questions back to me and say that since I presented myself as the god Kukulcán, I should know what made me a god and also what I said and did as a god, that I should not have to ask him.

  He searched his memory for a long time, until I began to think that he had forgotten my questions.

  “The Feathered Serpent came from the east,” he said. “From where the sun rises. He came in a big canoe that was as big as this room and had turned-up ends. Or this is what I have heard from my father and he from his fa ther, far back, far back.”

  I had read somewhere, or heard it spoken of, that in the days before Christ many boats had sailed out of the Mediterranean Sea through the Straits of Hercules and were seen no more. Could this man with his pointed beard, who looked like the drawing I once had seen of an Egyptian priest, be descended from these early voy agers?

  “The Feathered Serpent went among the multitudes and talked words that they could understand,” the old man said. “He talked also to the nobles and priests, in different words but words that meant the same.”

  Ah den Yaxche walked to the open window and glanced out. Again I was fearful that he would disap pear. Then he turned away and slowly cast his eyes about the room, at the broken stones of the floor and at the walls riven by the storms of many years.

  It seemed that he had forgotten what we were talking about.

  “What did Kukulcán say when he spoke to the people and the nobles?” I reminded him.

  Gathering his thoughts, the old man said, “He spoke of many things. But chiefly he spoke against war and the taking of prisoners and the killing of prisoners. He was likewise against the killing of beasts and birds. He was against all killing.”

  “Kukulcán preached,” I said, “but apparently no one listened, judging from what I see now.”

  “They listened. Everyone, even the nobles and priests. That was a time when there was much happiness on our island and the people built many temples. But then came the bad times, when the Feathered Serpent left and sailed to the east. When he was gone, the people slipped back into their old ways.”

  “Back to barbarism, where they are now. And this is why, centuries after he was gone, you gave up the priest hood and fled to the jungle to live on a poor milpa at the foot of a volcano.”

  “This is why,” the old man said. “Yes.”

  “You turned your back on the city and disappeared.” My anger was building again. “You have turned your back on me. You wouldn’t be here now if I had not sent guards to haul you in.”

  “It took a long time to make up my mind,” Ah den Yaxche said. “When I did make it up, when I decided that you were an adventurer and a common impostor, then I had another matter to decide.”

  He looked down at me like some ancient Egyptian judge.

  “You are an impostor,” he said, “but the people think otherwise. They have lived in fear. The city was seized by fear. There has been death in the streets and sadness in every house. You have changed this. You have brought happiness to the City of the Seven Serpents.”

  I had heard something like this already from Cantú the dwarf. But Cantú was a friend, whose life and fortunes were bound up with mine. At the moment Ah den Yaxche was neither a friend nor an enemy.

  “What you are saying, old man, is that I am a god so long as you permit me to be. Unless I do as you wish, unless I follow your ideas about religious matters and affairs of the city, you will take it upon yourself to ex pose me.”

  “You put it in a crude way,” he said. “I will not make suggestions that are unwise.”

  “Who is to judge whether they are wise or unwise?”

  “You and I. We will judge.”

  “What if we disagree?”

  “Why should we? Both of us desire the same thing.”

  “And what is that?” I asked, sensing our first disagree ment.

  “A happy place where people live in peace and love each other. As it was in the day when Lord Kukulcán ruled the city.”

&
nbsp; “The first thing, esteemed sir, is to have a city. Not what I find now—a place where buildings have fallen into ruins, the temple and streets are choked with rubble. We need to rebuild the city. And while we are re building it we must find ways to protect it.”

  “From what?”

  “From the horde that is ready to descend upon us.”

  “Of which you are the first?” Ah den Yaxche said, speaking in his young man’s voice. “No, not the first. The first was Guillermo Cantú and his twenty-one com panions. The twenty-one companions were sacrificed to the gods. Cantú was the only one left. But now there are two.”

  Cuidado, old man, be careful, was on my tongue to say, but I swallowed hard, saying as gently as I could, “And while the city is being reclaimed from the jungle I’ll destroy the hellish altar stone and its bloody vases.”

  “This you cannot do and live,” Yaxche said.

  An echo of the dwarf ’s warning.

  “And I’ll also destroy the hellish beast and serpent idols that infest the temple. I will turn the temple into a place of worship of the one true god.”

  The old man cleared his throat. “I have heard of this god you speak about. My granddaughter, Ceela, has told me about this one. We both laughed. We laughed together. I laugh now at all this foolishness.”

  He towered above me, thin arms folded on his chest. He fixed me with a cold eye.

  Wisps of fog, whiter than the smoke from the brazier, drifted through the window and settled between us. From the fields around the palace sounded the voices of a chanting multitude. From far off I heard the cries of circling geese.

  CHAPTER 5

  DEEMING IT WISE TO HAVE AH DEN YAXCHE LOCATED WHERE HE could be watched, since it was foolish to trust the old man, found quarters for him that morning among the many rooms of the palace, placed guards at his door, and forbade him to leave the palace grounds. Ceela and the women were located nearby and given permission to come and go as they pleased.