by J; P Voelkel
“On the contrary, young lord. To brachiate is to swing by one’s arms through the trees. It is not common behavior for howlers, but in this beautiful place I am tempted to try it.”
Max laughed. “Go for it!” he said. “I’ll follow the old driveway and I’ll see you at the castle.”
He watched as the large black howler climbed the nearest tree trunk and disappeared into the foliage. Wishing that he, too, could swing through the trees instead of having to watch every timorous step for biting ants and sleeping snakes, Max began to make his own way to the castle.
But Lord 6-Dog was gone only a few minutes before he returned with a great crash of branches and landed inelegantly at Max’s feet.
“What’s wrong?” asked Max. “You’re trembling.…”
“I shake with anger, young lord,” said Lord 6-Dog. “Thou wilt not believe what I saw from the treetops. It is the Temple of Blood … the pyramid of K’awiil … home of the Yellow Jaguar.… It is here.…”
“Here?”
“Right here, in the center of the castle.”
“It must be a copy,” said Max.
“It is the real thing,” insisted Lord 6-Dog. “I would stake my life on it.”
“But how is that possible?”
“K’awiil was by far the smallest pyramid, little more than a ceremonial staircase leading up to a temple. I wager the conquerors dismantled it and transported it hither in their galleons.”
Now it was Max who was shaking. He was about to lean against the nearest tree when Lord 6-Dog stopped him. “It is a trumpet tree, young lord. Biting ants live in its trunk.” The king guided Max to a nearby ceiba tree and cleared the leaf litter from between its huge buttress roots. “Sit here, young lord.”
Max sank weakly to the ground. “What does this mean?”
“It means that some scoundrel has dared to steal the very stones of Maya kingship. It was at this temple that the Jaguar Kings held their weddings and coronations.…”
Max could tell from the distant look in his brown monkey eyes that Lord 6-Dog was a thousand miles and a thousand years away. “But what does it mean to us?” he asked impatiently. “Is it good news or bad news? Does it make our mission easier or harder?”
Lord 6-Dog thought for a moment. “Dost thou remember how the Black Jaguar slotted into the altar stone at the Black Pyramid? Here at K’awiil, there was a throne that worked in the same way. When the Yellow Jaguar and the throne made contact, a portal was opened to Xibalba.…”
Max considered his words. “You mean that if the Yellow Jaguar and the throne are still inside, we could take the stone to Xibalba from here?”
Lord 6-Dog nodded. “Thou couldst sup with the Death Lords this very night!”
Max gulped. “I have to find Lola first.”
“There is no time for that, young lord. If we leave this place, who knows when the door will open again?”
“But Lola’s supposed to come to Xibalba with me.… We’re a team … like the Hero Twins.…”
“I will be with thee.”
Max’s stomach was churning like a washing machine. “But Chan Kan said—”
“There is no time for doubts, young lord. Come, we must enter the castle.” Lord 6-Dog began to climb the ceiba tree. “I see a way in.”
“Up there? You’re kidding me.”
“It is the way.”
With a great deal of effort and pain, holding on to the thick vines that circled the trunk, Max hauled himself up to the great crook of the tree where Lord 6-Dog was waiting for him.
“Stop …,” wheezed Max. “I … have … to … get … my … breath.”
“Look,” said Lord 6-Dog, pointing at a broken window halfway up the castle walls. “We can enter through there. Follow me along the branches.”
“I can’t do it,” said Max. He clutched the tree trunk, paralyzed by fear and vertigo. “We’re too high. The branches won’t bear my weight.…”
“Dost thou call this high?” scoffed Lord 6-Dog. “Imagine if thou wert a Maya king, standing on the uppermost platform of a majestic pyramid, top-heavy from the weight of thy enormous headdress, looking down at thy people like ants in the plaza below.”
Max shuddered at the thought. He knew from firsthand experience how steep some of those pyramids were.
“But I’m not a Maya king, am I?” he said. “And I’m not a monkey, either!”
“Trust me,” said Lord 6-Dog. “I will not let thee fall.”
In the end, it was the thought of impressing Lola with his athlesticism that drove Max on. By inching along and not looking down, he eventually reached the broken window.
“Well done, young lord.”
“So we’re just going to have a quick look and report back to the others, right?”
“Watch thyself on the broken glass,” replied Lord 6-Dog, disappearing through the window.
Reluctantly, Max followed him.
He found himself in a once-grand room, now carpeted with dead leaves and furnished with rotting antiques, everything spackled with a white crust of bird droppings. A mouse popped out from the stuffing of a velvet cushion and scurried out of sight.
“Out here,” called Lord 6-Dog from the doorway.
He was in an open hallway, like a minstrels’ gallery. Max leaned over the balustrade and saw a similar gallery running around every floor below them. It seemed that the castle was built around a courtyard, but all the windows looking onto the central space had been bricked up and plastered over.
“The Yellow Pyramid must be on the other side of that wall,” said Max. “Let’s go find the others and come back later with flashlights.”
He turned to Lord 6-Dog, but Lord 6-Dog was gone.
“Make haste, young lord!” echoed his voice from the great stone well of a spiral staircase.
“Come back!” yelled Max, but he knew he had to follow.
The long hall at the bottom of the staircase was narrow and impersonal, like a corridor in a big hotel—but in place of vending machines, laundry carts, and abstract art, it was lined with rusting suits of armor, moth-eaten tapestries, oil paintings in gilded frames, and tattered, ancient battle flags. There were doors at intervals along the outer wall, but none on the courtyard side.
The light was fading fast. A movement above his head made Max jump, and he looked up to see a flurry of bats waking from their roost in the rafters.
Lord 6-Dog nodded approvingly. “Bats are the creature of this day, Ak’bal. It is a good omen, young lord.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” As Max was squinting up with distaste at the flying mice, he felt a dash of something land in his hair. “Aaargh!” he screamed. “It pooped! I’ve got bat poop in my hair!”
“I believe the correct term is guano,” said Lord-Dog.
“Can we go?” asked Max. “We’ve seen enough. We need to come back with Lola and Lady Coco.”
When Lord 6-Dog turned to answer him, his brown monkey eyes were glittering. “No, young lord, the time is now. Canst thou not feel it?”
Max analyzed his feelings. All he felt was fear and a deep sense of misgiving.
There was a faint sound. Max froze.
“What was that?” he whispered to Lord 6-Dog.
All was silent.
They began walking again and, no matter how lightly he trod, Max’s footsteps echoed on the stone floor.
On and on the corridor stretched.
Another sound, louder this time.
They stopped in their tracks and listened.
It was the unmistakable sound of marching footsteps, like a distant army on the move. Max looked back, but could see no one behind them.
The marching ceased abruptly, and all was silent again.
Now what?
Were they watching?
Waiting?
Taking aim?
“Over here, young lord,” called Lord 6-Dog from farther down the corridor. “I have found the door!”
Max ran over to him. He was stand
ing in front of a tall black slab, set flush into the wall.
“I recognize this of old,” said Lord 6-Dog. “It is the Door of Truth from the Temple of Blood at K’awiil.”
In the dim light, Max made out the profile of a seated figure carved into the stone. It had sinister reptile eyes and a little anteater snout, topped by a tall, highly polished forehead, surrounded by flames of stone.
“Who’s that?” asked Max.
“It is K’awiil, god of kingship and lineage.”
“What’s wrong with his foot?”
“It is not a foot, it is the head of a snake.”
“Gross.”
As Max studied the carving, he saw that this curious character had one ordinary leg and, in place of the other leg, a snake with its head resting on the ground where the foot should be.
“So how does he walk?”
“He spins like a tornado.”
The marching footsteps began again, much louder now.
To Max’s horror, a sea of bobbing torches rounded the far end of the corridor. Rank upon rank of steel helmets glinted in the torchlight.
“They’re coming; we have to hide,” whispered Max as he pulled Lord 6-Dog into an open doorway across the hall. They flattened themselves into the shadows and held their breath as the marching footsteps came nearer and nearer.
Max glanced around the room. It was a great hall with soaring arches and a vaulted ceiling. The walls were decorated with yet more weaponry and suits of armor. The air was thick with dust.
Don’t sneeze, don’t sneeze, he told himself.
The footsteps drew level with the doorway. Max sneezed.
The footsteps stopped dead.
There were a few moments of agonizing silence.
Then a voice cut through his bones like an icy wind.
“Show yourselves,” it said. “Or do you hide like cowards?”
Max stayed perfectly still, not daring to breathe, but Lord 6-Dog, indignant at this insult, puffed out his chest in readiness to step out. Horrified, Max clamped a hand over the monkey’s mouth and pulled him back, trying to restrain him. They scuffled in the shadows.
“I see you need persuasion,” said the voice.
The castle filled with light as the moldering wall torches blazed into life. There was a clanking of metal as the suits of armor around the room stood robotically to attention. Max saw now that there were no faces beneath the helmets, nor bodies beneath the armor. The suits were empty.
Moving as one, the invisible knights drew their swords from their scabbards with a deafening metallic rasp that resounded through the castle.
“There is no blade sharper than Toledo steel,” said the voice.
The ghostly army was advancing, their weapons pointing menacingly at the two interlopers.
Lord 6-Dog nipped Max’s fingers.
“Ow!” he yelled, letting go of the monkey.
In one bound, Lord 6-Dog had pulled a dagger off the wall and was out in the corridor, swaggering like a prizefighter and bellowing, “Who dares to call the mighty 6-Dog a coward? Show thyself! I cannot duel with empty air!”
Max squeezed his throbbing fingers in his armpit and assessed the enemy.
In front of them, behind them, stretching into the distance, were more massed suits of armor. A chilling array of pikes, lances, halberds, and rapiers were brandished in Lord 6-Dog’s direction.
“Stand down, Your Majesty!” Max begged him. “You can’t fight all of them.”
“Watch me,” thundered Lord 6-Dog.
He leapt onto the nearest armored shoulder and knocked off its helmet. The headless soldier thrashed around blindly. “Where is thy battle chief?” he demanded of it. “Who was it that spoke?”
“It was I,” said the voice, and the army parted to allow a short, stocky figure, a soldier, evidently the captain of the guard, to step into view. The torchlight glinted off his conquistador helmet, leaving his face in shadow.
“Have at thee, varlet!” challenged Lord 6-Dog, thrusting at the newcomer with his blade. The disembodied knights instantly leapt forward to protect their leader with a barrier of swords, but the captain himself seemed only mildly surprised to be threatened by a talking monkey.
“Did you say your name is Lord 6-Dog?” he asked.
“Thou wilt not forget it when I carve it into thy heart!”
Oblivious to Lord 6-Dog’s thrusts and parries, the captain stroked his chin thoughtfully. “You are Ahaw Wak Ok of the Monkey River, son of Lord Punak Ha and Lady Kan Kakaw?”
“What of it?”
“At ease, men,” commanded the captain. “Return to sentry duty.”
With a disappointed air, the suits of armor put down their weapons and clanked back to decorative positions in corridors and alcoves.
The soldier fell to his knees and prostrated himself at Lord 6-Dog’s feet. “Thirteen blessings, mighty lord,” he cried. “I am your unworthy descendant, Punak Mo.”
Lord 6-Dog stared down at the captain in amazement for several seconds before his little body visibly relaxed. He laid his dagger on the floor and made a kingly flourish with his monkey hand.
“Thirteen blessings to thee, good cousin,” he replied. “This is truly a strange meeting.”
Lord 6-Dog gestured for the captain to rise, and he did so, shaking his head in wonder. Man and monkey regarded each other from head to toe, taking in the eccentricities of each other’s appearance. Now Max could see that although the captain wore the helmet and breastplate of a Spanish conquistador, his face was distinctly Maya.
“Forgive me for asking, cousin,” said Lord 6-Dog, “but why dost thou sport the armor of the oppressor?”
“My own clothes have long since worn out, Your Majesty, so I found new ones in the castle.” He smoothed the yellow plume in his helmet, then polished his breastplate with his sleeve. “It pains me to admit it, but this Toledo steel serves me better than the padded cotton soaked in brine that our foot soldiers used to wear.” He laughed. “But you, too, have an interesting disguise, Lord 6-Dog. I had heard rumors that my most revered ancestor had returned to Middleworld in the body of a howler, but I did not believe it until this day.”
Lord 6-Dog nodded. “I have unfinished business in Middleworld, cousin. But before I tell thee more, let me present to thee my brother-in-arms.” He looked around for Max and, seeing him cowering against a wall, beckoned him forward. “Come, young lord, come and meet my esteemed descendant.”
As Max walked unsurely forward, before Lord 6-Dog had even introduced him, the captain dropped to the floor again, this time at Max’s feet.
“Thirteen blessings, young lord,” he said. “I am sorry I did not recognize you sooner. Punak Mo is honored to be at your service once again.”
Baffled, Max turned to Lord 6-Dog for an explanation, but the monkey-king just nodded encouragingly. “Say, ‘The honor is mine,’ ” he whispered.
“The honor is mine, Punak Mo,” said Max obediently.
The captain got to his feet, all the while gazing at Max with the sort of dewy-eyed pride that mothers bestow on babies in diaper commercials. “Please,” he said, “call me Captain Mo, like in the old days.”
“The old days …?”
Captain Mo looked hurt. “Don’t you remember, young lord?”
“Remember what?” asked Max. “I think you’ve got me confused with someone else.”
“What the young lord means to say,” interjected Lord 6-Dog, “is that time has changed him. He may look still like a foolish adolescent, but he is not the callow youth that he once was.”
Captain Mo nodded sadly. “All of us who saw those days were old before our time. But whatever sorcery keeps him young, I am glad to see him back.”
Max looked from Captain Mo to Lord 6-Dog and back again. “Would someone please tell me what’s going on?”
“You are asking for my report?” asked Captain Mo eagerly.
“Uh, okay,” said Max.
Captain Mo stood to attention. “As
you know, young lord, I am the last high priest of K’awiil. It is my sacred duty to guard the Temple of Blood. When the invaders dismantled it and brought it here, I supervised every brick of its rebuilding, and I have guarded it ever since. Though many have challenged my dominion, none have succeeded in evicting me. I have faithfully patrolled these walls since the last bak’tun.”
Max stared at him blankly.
“We thank thee for thy vigilance, Punak Mo,” said Lord 6-Dog. He nudged Max with his hairy elbow.
“Thank you, Captain Mo,” said Max.
The captain was smiling as he bowed his head humbly.
“So tell me,” said Lord 6-Dog, “does the door operate as of old?”
“It does indeed. Do you remember the protocols, Your Majesty?”
“As if it were yesterday …”
“What protocols?” asked Max.
“You never could remember them,” replied Captain Mo, with a chuckle. “Don’t worry, I will help you—as always.”
Max shook his head. He’d had enough. He was getting increasingly worried about Lola. What if she’d missed Lady Coco and gone back to the square? He should have waited for her. Why were they wasting time with this weirdo and his magic tricks? He needed to get back and find Lola.
“Look,” he said, “I don’t know who you think I am, but I need to go. I have to meet someone. It’s urgent. I think she’s waiting for me.…”
“Indeed,” said Captain Mo, with a wink. “She has waited long enough.”
“Surely she will wait just a little longer?” ventured Lord 6-Dog.
“No,” said Max. “We need to go now.”
“Ah, the impatience of young love,” sighed Captain Mo.
“She’s not … We’re not …”
Captain Mo smiled. “You don’t have to explain to me, remember? I was your trusted accomplice. But you are right. We are wasting time. Let us begin.”
Captain Mo handed a flaming torch to Lord 6-Dog. “It’s dark out there,” he said. Then, having taken off his helmet and breastplate to reveal a simple white robe, he began to sway and dance in front of the door, all the while chanting in Mayan.
Max put his head in his hands. It was like being trapped in a never-ending tourist show, and a bad one at that. “Quick,” he whispered to Lord 6-Dog, “while he’s not looking. Let’s make a run for it.”