He dropped to his knees beside her. “But I saw you get eaten. That worm swallowed you up.”
“It spit me back out,” she said. “I guess that thing didn’t like the way I tasted.” She coughed through her giggle.
“But I got a splinter. When someone close to me burns I get one. You were gone.”
“Must’ve been for someone else.” She hacked as if something clogged her throat. Nasty black blood bubbled out of her mouth.
He wiped her face with his hand. “Here. Drink some water.” He opened his parasol and dripped the rain into her mouth. Parts of her poor face were crusting over.
He cupped her bushy head, leaned her against his chest and kissed the top of her head. Seeing her again was his happiest moment yet, but also the most devastating blow to his heart. It didn’t appear that she would last very long. The Nothing had sunk its fangs in her really good.
“What’re you even doing way out here?” he said. “I told you to meet me in paradise.”
“That story is probably as long as the one you’d tell me about how you got here,”—cough—”I think I met those draggles you told me about though. The four of them looked out for me for a while,”—cough—”and then we got separated. I hope one day you get a chance to meet them too. They were the kindest, gentlest creatures I ever met here, except for Gimlet.”
“You’re the fifth,” said Cross.
“Fifth what?” she asked.
“I thought there were five draggles. But you said there were only four of them. You were there the entire time, and I didn’t know it.”
Footsteps shuffled over to them. “What’d you find?” asked the Raven.
“We have to help her,” said Cross, rocking Cottontail in his arms. “Whatever saved you from the Nothing, we need to do that again for—”
“Cottontail?” said the Raven.
Cross stopped rocking. “You know her?”
“We’ve met briefly.”
Cottontail gazed up at the Raven and smiled. “She’s the one who got me into paradise. Her and one of those squal things. But he was one of the good ones.”
“You were in paradise?” asked Cross.
“I had hoped to find you there,”—cough—”and I did. I called after you, but there was a lot of commotion after the explosion. You didn’t hear me. And you left in a bit of a hurry. I chased after you for a while, but then I got lost again. Oh, and this woman came to me.” Black blood spilled from her excited lips.
Cross covered her mouth. “Don’t talk. You just rest.” He held her body close to his and rocked her.
“But I have to tell you about this woman,” said Cottontail. “I ain’t never seen a spirit glow like that before or since. A brilliant glow was around her whole body. She was like an angel. A real one. Like from Heaven. I thought she was coming to take me away from this place. Even though she didn’t, she was still so pretty and nice. She told me where you would be. That’s why I came here. To find you. She said if I found you again, you would help me, and I would help you. We would help each other. Then I would be free to leave.”
“What did she mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“I have an idea.” The Raven held up a calabash.
“You never told me what that did to you,” said Cross.
“Nothing. It’s just fruit.”
Cottontail sat up. “I’ve wanted to taste Bolon-Hunahpu’s fruit ever since I met him.” Parts of her little spirit chipped away where the Nothing had taken over.
Cross held her back down to his chest. “That stuff’s no good for you,” he said. “I have something better. Fresh water.”
She pushed the umbrella away. “You have work to do. And I can’t follow you. I never could.”
“No. You’re coming with me. You’ll never want for nothing, and never need for nothing. I’m gonna give you all the barbot wings you could ever ask for. You can talk my ear off all day long. I won’t get mad. I’ll tell you everything I know. I promise.”
“Sometimes it’s not good to know things. Sometimes you can know too much.” Cottontail kissed his cheek and held her hand out for the fruit. “No matter what,” she said. “I don’t want you to look.”
Those were his mother’s final words to him. He laid Cottontail down on the cold floor and backed away from her. The Raven removed her justaucorps and blanketed Cottontail with it.
CROSS OBEYED COTTONTAIL’S FINAL WISH and refused to watch her burn. It wasn’t fair. He had grown sick of watching people he cared about die first and second deaths. And the fact that the Raven had held on to Diamond Tooth’s carved calabash gave him more panic.
From her own experience, she knew what effect the fruit had on a soul and didn’t tell him. In fact, she lied about it being simply fruit in front of Cottontail, but she couldn’t fool him. She had a plan and was keeping him out of it. He thought he could trust her, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t trust anyone. He had to get to Skull Hill before her.
With the last Toran less than a mile away, almost in his grasp, he sneaked out of the temple, leaving the Raven inside tending to Cottontail.
He found an already saddled barbot lying asleep, and next to it, a discarded colossus-haired coat. He threw on the coat and poked the barbot awake. It squawked. He untied it from the lava-filled trebuchet and mounted the bird. Its wings flapped, and they climbed to the ruthless blue sky. The coat crackled and sparked, but he was protected from the heat, and the barbot instinctively knew the safest height to fly. It even maneuvered out of the path of heat gusts as though it could anticipate them. A blurry blob of air hummed pass him and exploded before the barbot.
Boomph. The barbot yelped and dipped hard to the left. Cross whipped his head around and spotted the Raven yards away, standing beside the lava-filled trebuchet, wielding the hammer. He assumed that object had been destroyed in the ladder explosion. She must’ve gone searching for it while he was sleeping in the foxhole.
The Raven cocked her arm back and pounded the air. The ripple floated up to him seemingly in slow motion.
Boomph. The air exploded to the left. The barbot squawked and rolled to the right, almost dumping him off its back. He latched onto the reins.
Boomph. The barbot limped. His stomach squeezed. Wind rumbled past his ears. He braced for impact. The barbot took the brunt of the collision with the ground, but the crash threw him.
He rolled into a trebuchet filled with lava. It was already aimed in the Raven’s general direction. He adjusted the angle and released the lever. The arm on the trebuchet snapped, and the lava shot straight up in the air. He dove out of the way. The lava splashed back onto the trebuchet, melting it.
He staggered to his feet and sprinted as lava plopped down around him. Boomph. The force rocked him in the back and knocked him off his feet. He tumbled down a hill and slammed into a spear staked in the ground.
A head was jammed onto the tip of the spear. Beyond that impaled head, he discovered thousands more. Rows of them circled a ritual arena in the center of the valley of heads. He had made finally it to Skull Hill.
He stripped out of the itchy coat and dashed between the heads to the center bone orchard, where thousands of skulls formed the circular arena. A few of the spears surrounding him held up skulls as boney as Bolon-Hunahpu, but most of the heads still had all their spirit flesh as if they were intently severed with a specific purpose in mind.
A green jaguar roamed around in between the heads aimlessly. It was frail and wandering as though it had nowhere to be, no purpose and no home. It was all alone, and it paid Cross no mind as if it were simply too tired to put up a fight.
Until he had accidentally freed the jaguars from their house, they couldn’t be found anywhere in the underworld except Xibalbá. Sinuhe may have been right about the impact Cross had on the underworld. He was like King Midas. Everything he touched transformed. He was a bane to the underworld and everything in it. But he could wish it all clean and save himself at the same time if he found the Toran.
He spun around in the center arena, overwhelmed by all the heads surrounding him from all sides. They sprawled across the valley as far as the horizon. He sprinted in a random direction and checked the heads for names written on them, specifically the name, Sebelius. Not a word was written on any of their foreheads or cheeks and no scribbles were on the spears that impaled them.
In a bout of frustration, he spoke into the open, “How the hell do I find Sebelius?”
“I do not know any Sebelius,” said the stringy-haired head in front of him. “My name is Rickshaw. Can you help me?”
Cross ignored the head and asked the skull beside Rickshaw, “I’m looking for Sebelius. Are you him?”
“I am not,” said the skull. Its jaws clunked together just like Bolon-Hunahpu’s when he spoke.
“Do you know where I can find him?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t help you. But can you please help me?”
Cross proceeded on to the next head and the next and several more. None of them were Sebelius. One head called out its name before Cross could get close enough to hear it.
“Wait, I didn’t hear you.” He raced over to the shrunken head. “What’s your name again?”
A head on the second row called out its name and pleaded for help.
“Wait your turn,” Cross said to it. “Now tell me your name,” he demanded of the current sallow head. It remained silent.
Cross gripped the head with both his hands. “Tell me your name. Are you Sebelius?”
“I’ll tell you if you promise to help me,” said the tiny head.
“No, you first,” said Cross.
“Not until you—”
“Forget it,” said Cross. “You’re not Sebelius, so it doesn’t matter.” He pushed the spear over. The head clumped to the ground and rolled. Three voices rang from rows he couldn’t see. Five voices next. Ten voices after that.
“If your name ain’t Sebelius,” he said, “shut the hell up!”
Half the heads in the bone orchard screamed their names, trying to outshout one another, begging for help. The other half soon joined in, and it all became just noise. Sebelius could have been calling out and Cross would never hear it.
“One at a time!” said Cross. “I can’t hear you all.”
“Help me, Charlie!” One of the heads in the third row knew his name.
He raced over to it. “Jesse?”
“You wouldn’t leave an old friend like this, would you, Charlie? Please help me.”
“Friend? Friend!” Cross mushed his palm in Jesse’s face and tipped him over. He picked Jesse’s head up in both his hands and kicked it into the valley.
“I never got the rest of my stuff back, you bastard!”
He ran around listening to the screaming heads. If they weren’t Sebelius, he knocked them off their spear. Eventually, the last one standing would be Sebelius.
He tripped over a slimy tentacle lying in an aisle. He followed the tentacle with his eyes. It was attached to a beast about as massive as Grum. The tentacle beast lay on its side, dead. It resembled one of those worms that had swallowed Cottontail, but he could now see the entire thing. He wouldn’t have been surprised if it was the mother of all the worms.
He scoured the valley, for whatever was capable of killing the beast, hoping it was long gone by now. The bald head in front of him yelled so loudly that Cross couldn’t even make out what the stupid head was saying.
“TIZEYE. MYMSELYUF! IAMSEBELIUS! I AM SEBELIUS! Tis I! Tis I!”
“Sebelius?” asked Cross.
“Have you come to help me?” asked Sebelius.
“Are you really Sebelius? Don’t lie. You saw what I did to the others.”
“Yes, yes. It is the truth. You’ve come to help me, haven’t you? Thank the Heavens.”
“Don’t go thanking the Heavens just yet.” Cross stooped down and raked up the ground around Sebelius with his hands.
All the heads silenced their tirade, and a spade landed next him.
“You’ll do better with the proper tools,” said the Raven.
Cross grabbed the spade. “Don’t you wonder what killed that thing?” He pointed to the dead tentacle monster. Before the Raven could answer, a shovel landed at her feet.
“You killed it, Cross.” Diamond Tooth emerged from between the impaled heads. The barbot she must’ve rode in on squawked at the top of the hill.
Her arrival made things ten times worse, but she also brought the astrolabe with her. There was nothing he could do except go with the moment. The Great Goddess would get him out of this predicament.
“I’m glad you have so much confidence in me,” said Cross. “But that thing was dead before I got here. I didn’t kill it.”
“Not directly,” said the demon. “Every action you ever made lead to the indirect death of this beast. And the poor thing was only here doing its job.”
“Yeah? What job was that?”
“Sanitizing the underworld,” said the Raven.
“What a stupid job to die for,” said Cross. “I hope it’s in a happier place now.”
“It wouldn’t have had any mercy on you,” said Diamond Tooth. “That serpent’s name was Níðhöggr. And it was searching for you, Cross.”
“Searching for me? What for?”
“Who isn’t searching for you? You’re the Man Who Remembers. Whoever sent that beast after you hoped one of these heads would be yours. They wanted a taste of the living world and went about getting it through your memories. Ironically, the collector had no idea that their collection sat right on top of the last Toran. Which reminds me, you two should be digging.”
With no other choice, Cross scooped dirt with the spade. He believed in his heart that the Toran was his. Somehow he would get his hands on the astrolabe and leave the underworld forever.
“You’re not digging, Raven,” said Diamond Tooth.
The Raven reached for the hammer at her waist. Diamond Tooth aimed her tiger claws. Cross backed away on his bottom.
“Burn me, and you’ll never get out of here,” said the Raven.
Diamond Tooth rolled her eyes and lowered her bagh nakhs. “What do you mean?”
The Raven pounded the ground with the hammer. Sebelius and all the dirt beneath the bald head blew away. The dust settled over an empty pit. A pit with no Toran.
Cross hated himself for letting his guard down and trusting the Raven. He allowed his emotions to blind him. “You lied to me!” He threatened to hit her with the spade. Ropey danced in his face, and he held back.
“Passing through the Toran is a privilege,” said the Raven. “We’re gonna have to earn it.”
“And how do you suppose we do that?” asked Diamond Tooth.
The Raven’s boots clunked over skulls as she stepped into the arena. She picked up a brilliantly white skull. It must’ve been brand new or it was recently cleaned by that sanitizing monster.
Using the inside of her sleeve, she wiped off any smudges it may have had. “This one’s easy to spot.” She held the skull up in their view. “And it doesn’t talk. I’ll carve the true name of the head that the Toran is buried under on the inside of this skull. The last one of us standing…well, you get the idea.” She used Ropey’s head to carve the name with a gritty scrape that made Cross cringe. She sat the skull in the center of the circular quarry, and he crossed himself.
Out of fear, he almost suggested that they share the Toran, but something told him that the astrolabe could only be used by one soul at a time like all the other objects of the dead. It was a necklace, and the wearer would most likely have to take it with them back to the living.
Even if they had decided to take turns using it, he knew Diamond Tooth would want to pass through the Toran first, and she’d never go through the trouble of sending the astrolabe back to the underworld for him and the Raven. Plus, it seemed that the demon and the angel wanted to burn each other once and for all.
The Raven backed away from the skull, staring at the dem
on. Diamond Tooth paced around the edge of the arena with a squint in her eye. Cross stepped backward, away from the two of them, volleying his eyes between the demon and angel. All three of them backed away from one another until they spaced almost evenly along the edge of the arena.
Standing in their chosen spots, the three stared each other down. Cross calculated alliances and dangers and odds. Neither Diamond Tooth nor the Raven liked him very much, and both had a reason to burn him.
Diamond Tooth’s gaze danced from him to the Raven, the Raven’s glare jumped from Diamond Tooth to him.
Time stopped. No wind blew. The rumble in the burning blue sky silenced. The underworld itself seemed to be watching the show and enjoying the suspense. The Inferno, many miles away, sat calm. The war sounds dissipated.
Facing off with the demon of pain and suffering and the fallen angel feared by that demon at the same time reduced his confidence. It would have been a terrible battle if he faced either of them individually, and Sinuhe had mentioned that the right kind of disturbance could alter his fate. This battle could be that interference that kept him away from the Toran. If his old friend was correct, then he had a frighteningly serious chance of burning to Nothing.
He failed to control his heavy breathing. He heard every breath entering and exiting his lungs and knew that the Raven, with her excellent sense of hearing, could detect the pounding of his heart. He also knew that not only could Diamond Tooth smell the distress leaking out of his pores, she could also see much better than either he or the Raven under the dim light of the blue sky. And he was pretty sure that the six demons that he and the Raven slaughtered in Lokantarika were Diamond Tooth’s spawn, which meant that she added revenge into their standoff. He knew all too well how revenge could consume a soul. That kind of rage in a demon would be much worse than any anger he could ever possess.
The demon’s fingers stretched and retracted, preparing to shoot tiger claws at a flinch. The Raven stood casually, arms at her sides. Ropey laid limp around her waist, but it was always ready to strike in a flash.
Cross twiddled his fingers over the Peacemaker in his holster and the parasol at his waist. He doubted he would be as fast as them, even though he possessed a weapon that fired lightning, and assumed he was going to be the first one to get burned if the Great Goddess didn’t give him a hand. They would probably take him out first because he was the easiest target, and then they would battle over his shriveled ash for the Toran.
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