by M. G. Harris
“Yuknoom, like many Mayas, believed that any of the four books of Itzamna would make him all-powerful. He conquered Cancuén and invited the Traitor Bakab to join him in his court at Calakmul. At first, Yuknoom simply asked for the Ix Codex. And the Bakab refused. It is said that twenty of Yuknoom’s guards died trying to take the codex. Twenty! The ‘curse,’ it was said. Each death as bloody and painful as the next. And when the Traitor Bakab failed to help him find the other three books, or to decipher the Ix Codex, that’s how Yuknoom decided that he would die: a bloody, painful death. A death that lasted days.”
“Jeez. Why’d this guy betray Ek Naab in the first place?”
“Love. Power. Jealousy. Maybe none, maybe all three.”
It sounds as if the Calakmul letter conceals a pretty grisly tale!
Unprompted, he starts up again, his voice lilting.
“There was a storm, once, that destroyed an unfortunate city by the sea. Perhaps you know it? Tulum, they call it. A Caribbean nightmare: the devastation of the hurricane. Nothing survived. Trees were torn out by their roots, thatched temple roofs flew into the air, houses were stripped of walls. Crops even—blasted by the force of the storm. The sky filled with leaves, crops, palm fronds: it was the night of the leaf storm. The citizens of Tulum never did recover. Some events can shake a person so badly that it’s as though a tornado ripped them apart from inside.”
I stop walking, turn toward Vigores.
Why is he telling me this?
Without warning, something’s changed. I’ve lost all sense of guiding a harmless old man to his mysterious home. Now it’s me who feels lost. Vigores looks directly into my eyes. And once again, I have the weirdest sensation that he sees me as clearly as I see him.
“The world around us, it changes so fast. Ripples in the air become violent currents; before you know it, there’s a storm. You feel it, I know—you’ve carried a storm in your heart for some time now.”
I almost stop breathing.
Is he talking about my dream?
Vigores only nods, shushing me as if to soothe my nerves. “This storm … will carry more of us with it than just you. Mark my words.”
I want to ask Vigores to be clearer, more specific. There’s something about his eyes, though: they’ve glazed over. He seems lost in some interior world. With every passing second, I have a growing impression that he’s forgotten I’m here. Finally, he stops taking those slow, measured steps along the tunnel.
“This is far enough.”
He extracts a folding white stick from his sleeve.
“The universal tool of the blind,” he says with a sad smile. “Good-bye, Josh. We’ll meet again, no doubt. Remember what the poet said: Any life is made up of a single moment: the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is. It is your great fortune to have discovered this so early in life.”
“You think?”
For some reason, my doubtful answer makes him laugh, showing all the teeth of his upper jaw. “Share our faith in you, Josh. Embrace your adventure. Because it will, above all, be that.”
With that he turns away from me and continues down the dimly lit floral path.
I’m confused. After a second or two I call out after him, “How do I get back?”
“By turning right, naturally! Always right!”
Another left turn, tap-tapping along. Then he’s gone, leaving me wondering what’s just happened.
How could Vigores know about the leaf storm of my dream? It’s as though, for just a moment, he stared deep into my soul and reflected it back to me. I feel a sudden chill; the hairs on the back of my neck bristle.
The dream is my connection with Aureliano and my father. The dream is the key.
Chapter 30
In the Hall of Bakabs, Carlos Montoyo is alone, waiting for me. The table has been cleared, the lights dimmed. I almost miss him in the gloom.
“You’ve been honored, Josh.”
I don’t know what to say. He stands, walks toward the elevator to meet me.
“In the past five years, I’ve seen Blanco Vigores, oh, maybe five times. Three of them in the past six months. Those last three meetings have concerned your father, or you.”
I’m mystified. “Doesn’t the Executive meet regularly?”
“Yes. But Vigores doesn’t attend all meetings. We send a message, telling him what we will discuss. And his messenger returns with news of whether or not he will join us. Concerning the succession of the Bakab Ix, he hasn’t missed a meeting.”
“Why?”
Montoyo shrugs. “Who knows? Time must become very precious when one is so old. All in all, sightings of him are exceedingly rare.”
“What does he do down there, all alone?”
“The only one who knows—his servant and messenger—is sworn to secrecy. And that guy—he’s pretty old too. There are rumors, naturally. That he has a great library of books, a collection from the entire world. That he studies at length, and that he’s more knowledgeable than any other living being. And then there’s the story that he lives in what used to be Itzamna’s chambers.”
“Itzamna really lived here? And he really brought the four codices?”
Montoyo nods. “He inscribed them. Himself!”
“Thousands of years ago?”
“Approximately two thousand years ago.”
“Wouldn’t that have to make him, you know, a visiting extraterrestrial from an advanced civilization?”
I’m only half-joking, but Montoyo doesn’t laugh or even smile.
“Well, there’s always speculation. Itzamna was a technological prophet of some kind. Where he gained his knowledge—that’s unknown.”
“The answer’s down there, though, isn’t it? In the Garden? In the Depths? Why don’t you send out search parties, find where Vigores lives, see what’s going on?”
Montoyo seems irritated. “There are great dangers in the Depths, as I’ve already told you. As for Vigores, we respect his privacy. He’s brought only good things to Ek Naab.”
I don’t ask again. But I have the strong feeling that Montoyo is holding back. Big time.
Montoyo says, “We need your decision, Josh. Take the night, sleep on it. And let us know tomorrow. Okay?”
Walking back to Benicio’s apartment, I glimpse what passes for nightlife in Ek Naab. The plaza has been cleared of the market stalls. Round tables and chairs have taken their place. Couples and groups huddle around them, faces intimately lit with blue and red flickers from candles set in thick slabs of colored glass.
Montoyo insists that I wear the Bakab helmet all the way back. It’s for my own good, he says: “You need to learn to separate yourself from the role.” I try to imagine myself as a kind of superhero paraded through the streets. It works—I feel better. I even manage to work up a little strut.
There’s no sign of Benicio at the apartment. “He flies patrol most weeknights,” says Montoyo. Patrolling what, I wonder. And why? These are just two of the ten million questions I want to ask about Ek Naab and all its workings. I’m on the verge of information overload, but my mind won’t stop buzzing.
“You’re not tired?” Montoyo asks. I shake my head. Jetlagged is what I am, after staying up most of last night.
Montoyo searches through Benicio’s kitchen cupboards. With a murmur of satisfaction, he finds a canister and gets busy making coffee in a French press. A few minutes later we’re sitting on the couch slurping sweet milky coffee.
“Okay, Josh,” he says with a smack of his lips. “Now’s your time. I promised you I would answer your questions. So, go ahead.”
Answer my questions? Wow. If only this happened every day. Or if he could deal with the questions I really needed to have answered. Why did my father have to die? How do I get rid of the image of my sister’s head sinking underwater? Why can’t my mom be one of those totally together, I’ve-got-it-all-covered-no-problem mothers? Please, can I have my ordinary life back?
Maybe he senses my line of
thinking, because watching me search silently for something to ask, he says, “Things are confusing for you right now, yes?”
“Yes. Very.”
“What’s your biggest problem?”
“I suppose … thinking that you really can’t get anyone else to do this. That it’s all down to me. And the feeling that this is really not my job. If anyone’s, it should be my dad’s.”
“He’s let you down, yes? By not staying alive? By making this cup pass to you?”
I nod slowly. He’s right. At the heart of everything, that’s my problem.
“I would have to say, I agree with you. Andres let us down. Not only in allowing himself to be shot down or captured. But in taking the Bracelet of Itzamna.”
I stare blankly into my coffee. “Why didn’t the Executive mention that?”
Montoyo doesn’t miss a beat. “They don’t know, except for Vigores. And you’d better not tell anyone else.”
“What …?”
“I’m serious. It would severely complicate matters.”
I gaze at Montoyo, amazed. He’s a dark horse, that guy!
“Please tell me what it is. I won’t tell anyone that Dad took it, I promise.”
Montoyo nods, rocking slightly, his tone grave. “There is a collection of artifacts said to have been owned originally by Itzamna himself.”
“Extraterrestrial artifacts?”
He’s irritated. “Not extraterrestrial, Josh. Itzamna was human, we know that. He had human children. You are one of his descendants.”
“Maybe humans came from space. You know, originally?”
“Don’t you learn anything in school? Humans evolved on Earth. That’s proven, completely.”
Deflated, I say, “Oh.” Then, “So what is the Bracelet?”
“We don’t know its function. Another thing we hope to learn from the Ix Codex. Each of the four books of Itzamna details a different kind of technology. We’ve learned much from the three we already have. Over two hundred of our engineers and scientists are working right now trying to figure them out.”
“I thought they were decoded in the nineteenth century. What’s taken so long?”
“Let me ask you this: if Isaac Newton had come across blueprints for building a nuclear power plant, would he have known how to use them?”
“I guess not. The world didn’t understand physics in the same way back then.”
“There’s your answer. In the nineteenth century our scholars learned how to read the Books of Itzamna. Understanding what they meant—we had to wait for Einstein’s help there.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes—1905 and the Theory of Special Relativity. None of those books made any sense to us. Until we read Einstein. Then we could understand the Kan Codex. As scientific knowledge advanced, we gained sudden understanding of the contents of the books.”
“But that doesn’t help with the Bracelet of Itzamna?”
“No.”
“Where did he get it?”
“That’s just it,” says Montoyo. “I can only think that either Blanco Vigores gave it to him—or else he stole it from Vigores.”
“My dad went down to the Garden with Vigores?”
“Just like you.”
“Vigores and I, we just talked. I didn’t see any chambers of Itzamna. I didn’t see any artifacts.”
“All the same. I think Vigores and your father were involved in something. I think maybe it went wrong.”
My coffee’s finished now. I stand, pull off the woolen poncho, and replace it on the hanger.
“So this Bracelet of Itzamna—it’s important?”
Montoyo stands up too. “I have no clue what it does. But I doubt that it’s just a piece of jewelry. Blanco Vigores is a somewhat eccentric old man. I’ve never known him to do anything without good reason. If he gave the Bracelet to your father, it’s because he had a plan. I want to know what that plan was, what became of it.”
For a second or two I catch a whiff of Montoyo’s sheer determination, maybe even ambition to be in control. Seems that he doesn’t like it when he’s not at the center of things.
“You want me to find this Bracelet?”
“Yes, Josh. That’s your very secret mission, for me alone.”
I nod. “Okay. How?”
“As next of kin, sooner or later, they must return to you your father’s remains and any possessions they rescued from the wreckage. I simply ask that you look out for anything unusual.”
“You said my dad left here in a Muwan. Was he flying it himself?”
Montoyo nods. “Yes. It can be flown in a basic fashion with little training.”
“If it was captured, where would the Muwan be now?”
Montoyo laughs, apparently surprised. “Area 51, of course.”
“Area 51?! As in Roswell, that Area 51? You think they took my dad there?”
“At first.”
“And that’s where they strangled him?”
“That’s my guess.”
I sit down, brooding quietly. There’s no getting away from it—someone deliberately murdered my father. The Mayas may have sent him on a dangerous mission, but at least it was a mission even I could understand. Whoever killed him—they did it for their own purposes. They didn’t stop to think for a second what that would mean to Dad’s family.
I think about the weapons and technology that might now be put at my disposal. Deep inside me, anger squirms uneasily for the very first time.
“There’s no point in revenge,” Montoyo says, “if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Deliberately, I reply, “That’s up to me, isn’t it?”
“You will not even think about revenge! Like it or not, you are the heir of the Bakab Ix; you will carry out your duties; you will not allow personal vendettas to interfere!”
I just stand there, livid, returning his intense stare. “I do not have to live by your rules.”
“You think I care where you were born? You are a Bakab: it’s that simple. So, yes, you do have to live by our rules.” Montoyo grabs my arm, his fingers digging hard into the bicep. “Ignore your anger,” he implores. “Put aside your personal feelings. This agency—with them it’s not personal. Okay? It’s their living. Until you have the same professional outlook, you are no match for them.”
It takes all my self-control not to struggle against him. I must know seven different ways to get out of a simple hold like this. Yet, somewhere along the line, Montoyo’s won my respect.
Still gripping my arm, he adds, “You want justice, yes? That’s beyond your control. What you can do is bring back the Ix Codex and maybe the Bracelet of Itzamna too. This must be your revenge. Understand?”
Cold fury envelops me. “Let go of me,” I tell him quietly.
“You’re not a member of the Executive yet, Josh. When you turn sixteen and take my place, then you make your own orders.”
Finally he lets me pull myself free. Without giving him another look, I storm into the bedroom and throw myself into the hammock.
“Get some sleep,” I hear him say, his voice tired and dull. “Tomorrow, Josh, you must take your first action as the Bakab we have awaited.”
I wait for Montoyo to leave before I let myself fall asleep. Just like the night before, it takes me forever to get to sleep. The occasional shiver runs through me. My past, my future: it all brims with possibility.
Chapter 31
When I wake up, the place is totally quiet, totally dark. I roll out of the hammock, pad around the apartment looking for signs of life. It’s deserted. I gravitate to the kitchen, open the fridge. I find some sliced cheese and ham, fold them inside two flour tortillas, and warm them on the griddle.
It hits me then that I haven’t thought of Ollie and Tyler for a long time … since back when I tried to phone them, near the cenote. In fact, I haven’t thought of anything much, except what’s happening to me, and Ek Naab. I stare around the living room.
Can it really be so easy to step into an
other world, another life?
I’ve heard people say you can get used to anything. But it scares me how quickly I’m getting used to this. I don’t want to forget about everything else—I want to get this mission over with and get back to my life in Oxford.
Yet it’s hard not to forget. This is all so foreign, and at the same time eerily familiar. Part of the strangeness is the lack of ordinary things, like advertising posters and television and stuff. I’m sitting on the sofa, eating and wondering how the people of Ek Naab survive without television, when the front door opens. Benicio strolls in wearing a navy flight suit. There’s no insignia, badge, or anything. He might as well be a window cleaner for all his clothes tell.
Benicio doesn’t seem surprised to see that I’m awake, but he doesn’t look too pleased either. In fact, he’s got a face like thunder.
I take a guess. “Bet you’re fed up with babysitting me.”
“No,” he answers shortly. “It’s fine.”
But pretty obviously, it’s not. The sudden difference in Benicio really throws me.
I don’t really know any of these people.
I’m still wondering what to say when he breaks in, all businesslike. “Have you made your decision yet?”
“Yes. Don’t see that I really have a choice.”
“Well, that sounds real committed,” he says with a hint of sarcasm.
“I didn’t mean it like that. Well, maybe a bit. No, I’m in. I can do this.”
“Excellent,” he says without expression. What the heck is wrong with him? “Let’s go through your instructions again.”
“You know what I have to do?” I ask, a bit surprised that he’s in on it.
“I was part of the team that proposed and planned the mission,” he says, giving me a sharp look. “So let’s go over it again.”
I return my plate to the kitchen, hesitating on the way.
“Benicio. Is something wrong?”
He seems slightly irked. “No.”
I’ve never been much good at pressuring people to “open up.” Normally I’m only too pleased to ask once and then leave it at that. In this case, though, I’m too anxious.