by M. G. Harris
“Get off me,” I hiss, glaring.
He meets my glare with a sneer. Yet within a fraction of a second, something changes. His confidence seems to slide away. With a slight shiver, Rain Son stands up, slowly, reluctantly. He steps aside. The Mayans are open-mouthed with amazement, gasping, urging Rain Son to attack me. Rain Son himself looks as baffled as anyone else. When he faces me, I can see it in his eyes.
He’s afraid.
I’ve made his own body betray him. Rain Son has no idea how I did it. Neither do I.
Things happen pretty fast now. The audience of warriors and students scatters in the time it takes me to check my ribs, arms and legs for cuts and bruises. I don’t even get off the ground, just lie there with silent tears of pain streaming from my eyes. My torso aches badly, which makes me wonder if Rain Son cracked a rib.
I’ve never been beaten up this badly in my life. Rain Son was ready to cut my throat. One swipe from his blade and I’d have bled to death in minutes. You’d think I’d be relieved to still be alive. Truth is, I’m distracted by the throbbing ache of bruises, the rawness of sliced skin. I let out a couple of gasps as I turn over to find a less painful position. Really need to get my mind off the pain.
What did Martineau do to me? He injected me with something, but what?
Words start to come back to me; things Ollie said, and others in the Sect. Your Bakab ability is just the tip of the iceberg – didn’t Ollie say something like that? Martineau too – he implied that there was more to the genetic changes they made to me; way more than being able to resist the four different poisons that protect each of the Books of Itzamna.
Rain Son did exactly what I said. I spoke, he obeyed. As if he was under hypnosis.
I don’t know how it happened, but it’s connected to those genetic experiments. Martineau knew what to expect. He planned it.
He saved my life because he needs me to get the codex for him. But why? If he’s Madison’s father then he has the Ix gene too – he can touch the codex and not die. I can’t figure it out. Whatever the reason, it’s why I’m still alive. Martineau is going to use me to get the codex. He’ll do whatever damage he plans to inflict on the book. Then he’ll transport us both back to the twenty-first century. A parallel timeline in which there’s no way to stop the 2012 superwave.
Leaving Ixchel completely marooned in the Mayan past.
I shift again, moaning softly. Martineau and the king are watching me out of the corners of their eyes. They’re having some sort of quiet discussion, just the two of them. Martineau is scheming, no doubt.
Thinking about Ixchel actually helps me to handle the pain. I take my mind back to one of my favourite memories: me and Ixchel on the bus together, riding to Tlacotalpan. The nostalgia of it actually brings tears to my eyes. Hard to take in just how much has happened since then – it’s like thinking back to a simpler time. There was her and there was me and we were riding into the night together. The warmth of her skin as she leaned against me. Perfect. What I’d do for a chance like that again. I wouldn’t waste a second.
I make a decision. All this fighting is exhausting me. I can’t keep it up; there’s no energy left. I can’t make a complicated plan, can’t concentrate on two things. Between saving Ixchel and ruining Martineau’s plan, I choose Ixchel.
The king and Martineau finish their discussion. Yuknoom blots out the sun for a moment as he takes another long look at me. “Find out the truth, Chilam,” he instructs Martineau.
Martineau is still bowing long after the king’s footsteps fade away.
We’re alone when he finally reaches out a hand to help me up. I feel totally humiliated. Beaten up in front of a crowd and left to bleed on to the stones, without a single friend to help.
Martineau hauls me to my feet. I’m unsteady. He makes these irritated noises, like I’m some annoying, uncooperative child. After a minute or two he supports me with his arm. I almost burst into a sob right there, accepting help from him, from Martineau, after what he and his son and his stupid organization have done to me.
But I keep going, for Ixchel. I have to find a way to get to her.
Instead of heading towards the main citadel, we turn down a path into the woods. We walk for about five minutes, me stumbling most of the way. Then we reach what looks like a small village. The trees are thinned out here – just the occasional few for shade.
The suburbs of the Snake Kingdom?
There’s a big wooden trough in the centre, filled with water. It reminds me of the wooden troughs I saw in Switzerland, for watering cattle. Martineau takes me up to it, grabs a dry gourd that’s hanging from a post and dips it in the water.
He passes it to me. “Drink, use it to rinse your hands. Then clean your wounds.”
I do my best. I have to take my T-shirt off to get to all the cuts and bruises on my chest. That’s when I notice villagers are stopping in their tracks, looking at me. Martineau notices too. He glares at them and they keep away, but still steal little peeks at me when they think he’s not looking.
“Your skin is so pale, they can’t take their eyes off you. Makes me wonder if your mysterious Ek Naab isn’t hidden underground somewhere,” he remarks. Our eyes lock for a second. I hold my face muscles rigid, determined not to give anything away. Then to my amazement, he bursts out laughing.
“Foolish child. Of course I already know that Ek Naab is underground. Your poker face, though! Most impressive. Yes – I’ll remember that.”
Just how many Sect spies are there in Ek Naab?
When I’ve cleaned all the blood away, I look at my T-shirt. It’s soaked with sweat, stained with blood and dust. I don’t much want to put it back on. I check the cut on my calf muscle. It’s still bleeding a fair bit. I rip the sleeve off my T-shirt, douse it in water and rinse out the dust. Then I tie it over the cut.
Martineau inspects the damage. There are the knife cuts from the fights last night, all over my forearms. Rain Son’s carefully carved scratch on my cheekbone. Fresh cuts from today, which are deeper, on my arms and leg. Bruises all over my ribs from Rain Son’s kicks. It even hurts to breathe.
After a while he looks up. “I have medicines that I brought from the twenty-first century. But you don’t need them. This can be treated easily with what the Mayans have.” He smiles very slightly, a cold, empty smile. “You might enjoy being taken care of in the medicine hut. They’ll make a fuss of you, I’m sure of it.”
Martineau brought medicines.
“You injected me with something,” I say slowly, accusingly. “Something that made me do something to Rain Son. Didn’t you?”
Martineau purses his lips, gives a secretive look. “Yes, of course. Did you enjoy it? A little something that Melissa’s lab developed. We call it ‘hypnoticin’.”
“Melissa DiCanio – the boss of Chaldexx Biopharmaceuticals? They’ve found a way to hypnotize people?”
“I’ve already told you,” Martineau replies, “you’d be an asset to the Sect. We can get things out of you that no one else can.”
He won’t say any more, just leads me by the elbow towards a wide hut. There’s a strange smell coming from inside – a mixture of smoke and incense, herbs and spices. An old woman emerges from the hut, wearing an embroidered poncho. Her mouth is a curved line in her face; her expression doesn’t change one bit as she gazes at me. She holds a pot between both hands. For a second she reminds me of the images I’ve seen of the Mayan goddess Ixchel. The Healer – of course.
In complete silence, the old woman spreads the sticky grease from her pot on to all of my cuts and bruises. It smells faintly of pine.
“Tea tree oil mixed with white willow bark and arnica,” Martineau comments. “Antiseptic with pain relief. Now go inside and lie down. You’ll feel better soon.”
Then he leaves, taking both Bracelets of Itzamna and my only chance of getting out of here. Resigned, I follow the old woman inside the dark of the empty hut and lie down on a narrow cot bed made of palm leaves. I breathe o
ut slowly. Pain begins to ebb away from my wounds. The sensation of it leaving me is almost ecstatic. Small noises from the village filter through the woven palm walls. Quiet conversations, children laughing, crying, playing. Footsteps, wood being chopped. The sounds are soothing. Close my eyes and I could be in Ek Naab. I concentrate on an image of Ixchel and me lying on a beach somewhere, a perfect beach where there are no hotels and no tourists. Nothing and no one to disturb us, nothing to distract me from what I want to say.
The medicine seeps into my blood. I feel as if I’m floating away.
It’s dark when I wake up, alone. I notice the dancing flames of a fire through chinks in the walls of the hut. The smell of roasting pig fat is everywhere. It makes my mouth water. In the shadows of the hut, I hear something stir. Before I can sit up properly, there’s a sudden sound from behind me. Two arms wrap around my neck and chest from behind. A hand clamps over my opened mouth before I can make a noise. Against my ear I hear a curt whisper.
“Quiet. It’s Marius.”
He moves around so that he’s facing me. I can hardly make out his face in the dark.
“They think you’re out cold. The king has been asking questions. The whole city is talking.”
Astonished, I whisper, “About what I did to Rain Son?”
Martineau nods. When he speaks again, I can hear the strain in his voice. “You have them worried. You appear from nowhere wearing strange clothes; you fight with an acrobatic technique that they’ve never seen before. Then you command a warrior. Why capoeira?” He seems exasperated. “It doesn’t even seem particularly effective. So much flying around – rather wasteful, I’d have thought. Very attention-grabbing.” He pauses, staring, his eyes black hollows in the darkness. “The king is beginning to believe you may indeed be a demon from the underworld.”
“And that’s bad?”
“It could be extremely bad for you. Right now they’re wary, cautious. The king wants to see how much support you have amongst the gods. There’s going to be a special religious ceremony in an hour or so, at dawn. They will make a sacrifice. Every class of society will provide a victim.”
I stand up. “What did I do to Rain Son?”
“What?” he hisses. “Forget that. Listen to what I’m telling you! When the sun rises, the sacrifices begin. The king expects an answer to his question: are you a demon to be appeased, or destroyed?”
“Who’s he going to ask, you?”
“He asks the gods.” There’s a smile. “Naturally, we priests speak on the gods’ behalf.”
Seconds tick by while I think through what he’s said.
“You’re running out of time,” he says quietly.
“Give me a Bracelet,” I beg. “Take me to where Ixchel is. Just let us have a chance to escape. Please. You can do what you want with the codex. I don’t care any more.”
I hear the smile, the nasty smile in his voice as he replies, “What an innocent! Mr Garcia, even if I wanted to help you I couldn’t. You see, I suspect there was a reason for Ixchel’s rather hasty purchase by Lady Black Shell. Her family is long overdue to surrender a household member as a sacrifice.”
“Not Ixchel. . .”
“I’m afraid she’s the most likely candidate. Far better to lose a new, untrained servant like Ixchel than one of Lady Black Shell’s own trusted household staff.”
My tongue almost sticks to the roof of my mouth. “You’re saying that . . . Ixchel is going to be sacrificed?”
Martineau shrugs. “Probably. There’s nothing you can do.”
I hardly dare to ask. “How . . . will it happen?”
“She’ll be covered in jewels and purified in a steam house, with the other sacrifices. As the sun rises, they will all be hurled into the cenote. The death that drowns.” He pauses, seeming to relish the silence in me as I flinch at his words. After a few seconds he continues, “Obviously, Lady Black Shell’s household will be on high alert. It’s not unusual for sacrificial victims to run away before their time comes.”
“Please. You’ve got to let me go to her.”
“Indeed I will not. As I’ve already explained, without you I can’t get the Ix Codex.”
“Why not? You’ve got the Bakab Ix gene too. You must have – Simon has it. You’re his dad.”
There’s a long intake of breath. “Ah, well, it’s more a matter of where the codex is, to be perfectly frank.”
“Where?”
Deliberately, he says, “In a hidden tomb underneath the royal palace. One of the K’aan, the Snake Dynasty’s ancestors. Only someone of royal blood can enter the royal palace at night.”
“So that’s me out.”
Through tight lips he murmurs, “Leave the guard to me.”
“Huh. . .? But if the guard’s no trouble, why use me?”
“It’s the second layer of protection that defies me, sad to say.”
“Which is?” My mind is beginning to drift away from Martineau’s plan and back to the idea of rescuing Ixchel. But how? Right now I can’t think of a single thing I can do. Not without the Bracelet.
“Snakes!” he pronounces, almost triumphant.
That gets my attention.
“The most valued treasures of the Snake Kingdom are protected by deadly poisonous snakes. Rather apt, wouldn’t you say?”
I swallow. “You’re afraid of snakes?”
“Most certainly. Particularly the deadly variety.”
“I’m not going into a thing with poisonous snakes. . .”
“You don’t have a great deal of choice. The bites will hurt, definitely. But you’ll get out in time. I’m full of confidence in your determination. When you reach me, I’ll provide the antidote.”
I hesitate. “What kind of poison?”
“The wound becomes excruciatingly painful, swells and begins to rot. The only remedy known in this time is to amputate the limb.”
We’re both silent for what seems like ages.
“You’re kidding,” I say eventually.
Only he isn’t. I know, with a deep sickness in my guts and a chill of blood in my veins, he is totally serious.
When Martineau says nothing, I whisper, “What if I won’t?”
“There’s no other way out of this for you, boy. The king stands ready to order your capture. If the priests advise him that you’re a demon to be destroyed, you’ll be sacrificed. Marched up to the summit of the great pyramid and your chest cut open, your heart ripped out, still beating.”
My heart’s beating twice as fast already, just hearing his threat. My eyes go to Martineau’s arms, searching in the shadows for the telltale bump of the Bracelet of Itzamna on his wrist. As if he’s read my mind Martineau says, “I’m not wearing it. Naturally I realize what a threat to you I’ve become. I’m sure you’d stop at nothing now, to get your Bracelet. But you’ll return to the twenty-first century with me – only with me.”
Gulping, I murmur, “You can’t send me into a pit of deadly snakes. I might never get out alive.”
“I’d ask the same of my own son.”
I believe him. He’s thought nothing of using Simon Madison as an agent of the Sect – his own son, putting him in danger, ordering him to steal and lie and kill.
“What’s a few snake bites amongst friends?” Martineau says with a low chuckle. “Don’t you trust me to provide the antidote?”
I become conscious of the sound of my own breathing, rapid and anxious. I don’t reply to his question and instead turn away, rubbing my eyes with both hands. If I want the Ix Codex, this is the only way I’m going to get it. If I don’t take this chance, it’s all been for nothing.
Get bitten, get the codex, find a way to defeat Martineau. That’s my only way out of this.
In that moment, I feel powerless, numb with fear. Martineau has forced me into this. I hate him for it.
“I’m going to take you to the palace now,” he continues in a level voice. “Royal guards will be arriving here any minute. We need to leave before they get he
re.”
The cuts on my arms and leg still feel raw. There’s a dull ache in my ribs. Nothing like as bad I felt earlier but also, not the ideal physical state for breaking into a secret chamber guarded by snakes.
Snakes. Jeez. I’m not scared of them, not specially. But poisonous ones? I’ve had a snake bite before, the first time I was lost in the jungle of Campeche. It’s like being stuck with a hot poker.
We sneak out of the hut through a gap in the wall near the back. Martineau pushes me towards the trees, away from the centre of the village where they’re enjoying the hog roast. I wish I hadn’t smelled that meat cooking. Hunger is the last thing I need to worry about right now.