by Josh Woods
“You’re alive,” Jan said to the Queen of the Black Palace. “Hava, you’re alive. I thought they killed you. It’s me. It’s Jan. Don’t you remember me, Hava?”
What he said still made no sense, but he spoke with deep love. So Itzpapalotl trusted in his voice, and looked again deeply at the Queen, and only then did she understand. It was Hava, the maidservant. It was the frightened little girl who grieved so heavily at the death of her mistress, who had flung herself on the ground to comfort her pet, and who had faced death for it but held on nonetheless. Yet here she stood now, no less the same Hava that they had known at the beginning of this long night, yet no less the Queen of the Black Palace herself in all her glory, with all manner of beings at her command, with night at her very fingertips, with worlds beneath her feet.
She knelt beside Jan. She touched his face tenderly.
“See? You do remember me,” Jan said to her. “We’re alive. You and me, Hava, we’re together, and we’re alive.”
She spoke back to him softly. Her fingers were blemished by the blood and grime from Jan’s face, but she did not shy from this. She wiped it down her own face, a dark streak in her countenance, mirroring the slice she had given him.
Hava rose. She spoke again, talking to Jan, talking to others.
Jan asked what she was saying, but Itzpapalotl did not know either.
She saw Jan pulled up painfully to his knees, on his busted leg, by the stone shape that guarded him. It was graven with commandments, and she could see even the quarry his body had been dug from, along the banks of the Aqaba, long ago. It was a golem.
The wolf let go of her throat, also at Hava’s words, and the witch who had bound her hands pulled her up by her hair, to her knees as well.
And at Hava’s words, the cloud of a dead girl moved through the air of the room to her side. She spoke with Hava. This dead girl, there was something familiar in her image too. It was the other maidservant, Seph, whom Hava had murdered upon their crossing the threshold into the Black Palace. This Queen commanded even the ghosts of those she killed.
The ghost of Seph spoke to them, saying, “The Queen of the Black Palace knows you for who you are.”
“No, that’s Hava,” Jan said. “That’s not the Queen. Tell her it’s me. Ask her if she remembers me.”
The ghost of Seph said, “Hava knows you. You would both be slaughtered as enemies here at her feet had she not known you. Hava said the wound on your face was by her hand, though it was you who had saved her life, though it was you who had defied your masters and had shown her tenderness and mercy. Thus you both shall live. For she is Hava the Fierce, Hava the Merciful.”
“She knows me.” Jan bowed his head and was warmed by those words. “Hava the Merciful,” he said.
Itzpapalotl was relieved for him, but she would have more than mere life, for she would have him freed, and she would have Sledge freed. She did not come here to have her old life preserved, but to open the way for something more, to bear witness to another world. She looked at those she wanted by her side, Jan and Sledge, and she looked beyond them. The room was broad. She looked to its far ends and saw that it was a room of many doors. Each door was different, and each was shut, even one that had been opened recently, covered by a veil, just as those that had never been opened at all, standing and waiting since the time of their construction.
And then she saw her door.
She faced the obverse of it now, but she saw that it was her door, fashioned like great stone wings, studded with obsidian and moths caught in amber, the door of stories, the door of times to come. And though she could not reach it to do so herself, Itzpapalotl would have it opened.
“But will she let my friends go?” Jan said. “Tell her that I ask her to let my friends go. The one beside me, and the suit of armor.”
Seph said to Jan, “Because of your mercy, Hava lived to loose herself, the first of all things in the Black Palace. Thus all things shall follow her.”
“What does that mean?” Jan said. “Will she let them go?”
“Because of your mercy,” Seph answered. “All things shall be loosed, whether they be your friends or no. For she is Hava Who Binds. She is Hava Who Looses.”
“And Hava will do more,” Itzpapalotl finally said.
At that, she felt Jan watching her. And she could tell the ghost of Seph now watched her, already offended that she would speak of what her Queen would do.
“I see this,” she continued. “She is the Black Palace, and all its doors are hers. But one of them is also mine, and I will have it opened.”
Seph said, “Who are you to speak? Be silent and be humble, for you are but a beggar here.”
“I am Itzpapalotl.” She rose to her feet. “And I have passed through flame, and I will stand to face the Queen.”
The ghost of Seph cried for her to return to her knees, and the witch pulled on her by her hair. But she struggled back. Even though her hands were powerless behind her, she struggled. The wolf began barking at her and the witch screamed and tugged harder, but they were stayed by the words of Hava.
The wolf went quiet. The witch let go of her hair, and her Quetzalcoatl feather remained in it. And still she was on her feet.
They spoke among each other. And then Queen Hava came close to her, and stood in peace. And she looked up at her, waiting.
“She says that she will know which door is yours,” Seph said. “And she will know why your eyes are bound, and what you can see, and whether you are pained from the one that burns bright with the flame you passed through.”
“My door is on the far wall of this room,” Itzpapalotl said. “It is the obsidian butterfly. Yet I see all the doors of the Black Palace.”
Seph spoke to Hava, and then listened, and then spoke for her again, saying, “You can see all doors? And you tell the truth?”
“Yes,” she said. “What I see is true, and I speak it.”
Seph said, “Hava says that you are here to help her do what none can do, for you can see what she cannot. She wants to know if you would have every door opened, every door that you see.”
Itzpapalotl said, “I would.”
“And do you wish it now?”
Itzpapalotl said, “I do.”
The ghost of Seph moved back, and she would say no more.
Hava reached up and held the face of Itzpapalotl, and she brought them closer together, mouth to ear. And Hava whispered. She only whispered.
And Jan whispered simultaneously, “See every door, and open them all. The Black Palace opens, and all is open.” And then he grew louder, “See every door, and open them all. The Black Palace opens, and all is open.” And then his tone was not his own, and he screamed, and screamed, and screamed faster. “See every door, and open them all. The Black Palace opens, and all is open. See every door, and open them all. The Black Palace opens, and all is open. See every door, and open them all. The Black Palace opens, and all is open. See every door, and open them all. The Black Palace opens, and all is open.”
And then his languages went beyond him and all around them, saying it still but taken up in wild xenolalia, crying them all. And he would not stop.
And Itzpapalotl saw it. She saw it all. It was a dream of impossible geometry that stretched out from her, or she to it. She saw the creaking of wood, the popping of hinges, the grinding of stone. She saw a thousand doors, so they each crawled open. She saw a thousand golels, so they each rolled away from their portals. She saw a thousand seals, so they each cracked apart. She saw the chains that fell slack and made music. She saw the glass that shattered and sang. And at every link of the Black Palace in the world, each terminal of its strands like a mad web, behind each of its doors, under each tall bed that gave a dream of falling, along each wall covered by curtain, at each and every, like the mouths of the multitude, the Black Palace gaped. It breathed. It awoke. And she was overcome and was lost in the sight and saw yet more. She saw down the fathoms of the Hollow. She saw the Niflheim Gates of Nine,
one below the other, keeping back all that swam in the abysses except the incorporeal that rose like breath. And she saw their bars shudder. And she saw them groan. And thus was the first gate opened. And thus was the second gate opened. And thus was the third gate opened. And thus was the fourth gate opened. And thus were they all opened.
And her vision burned hot, and all went white.
She had hit the floor. And she finally gasped with a breath of her own. With each breath, the air came back to her, calming her lungs, slowing the spinning of her head. Her vision returned to darkness again.
The floor had been shaking under her, but it was settling.
Dust from the ceiling rained softly on them all.
Jan’s voice had given out, though he had not fallen since he was held by the hands of the golem. He coughed blood that came from him but was not his, and he breathed as desperately as she did. The map across his body glowed like cooling iron. He was branded by the patterns, which were now raised ridges on his skin.
Hava had fallen as well. But now she stood, steadying herself. And she stepped away.
Itzpapalotl climbed to her knees again and found in surprise that she used her hands. The thread had unwound from her wrists, and the needle had fallen away.
She saw Sledge holding the sides of his helm where ears would be, trying to shake the sound away. He too lifted himself from where he had fallen to the ground, and he kneeled again. His joints were his to move. His chain had snapped, and though he was still locked in that suit of dread, he was no longer bound and helpless as a slave. And his voice came through it, long and hollow, calling, “DiFranco!”
He struggled to regain his balance and to use his heavy limbs to stand, but he was kicked back to the ground by the ancient warrior, who held him by one of his ox horns and tried to wrap the snapped chain around him again like a leash.
Itzpapalotl yelled at him to stop, and she struggled to get back to her feet too. She would stop him. She would not have him take Sledge back into bondage, even if she could not defeat him, even if she had to offer herself in trade.
But the ancient warrior was stopped by Hava.
There were words between them, and Hava’s were the last ones. The warrior knelt to whisper something final to Sledge, and then he let him be, and walked away. He stood by a goat, as if he waited on a promise.
Hava walked by Jan, and with her slender touch, she guided away the stone grip of the golem. Jan was let go, and the golem followed her.
Itzpapalotl was freed, and Sledge was freed. And now Jan was freed, the last of all things in the Black Palace, as Hava was the first.
Seph said to Jan, “The lives of your masters are yours now. Learn from Hava, and use them well.”
“But where is she going?” Jan said.
“Remember who it was that freed you,” Seph said. “Remember, all. Tell her name out loud. Tell her name to the stars that are fixed in the heavens, and tell them that they too will be cut free and set spinning out, for she is Hava Who Looses.”
“No, tell her to come back,” Jan said. “I have something I have to tell her. It’s important. Let me tell her.”
“You love her, you poor fool,” Seph said. “Hava knows.”
Jan spoke softly, if only to himself, “She already knows?”
And they said nothing more to Jan, for they were leaving.
Hava went to that bed, and lifted forth the newborn, still caked with afterbirth. And though it was only delivered moments ago before them all, it was huge. It nestled its face into Hava’s shoulder, and as it cooed, it clacked its full set of teeth.
The golem followed her, and also reached into the drenched bed, and lifted from it the old witch, whose body was a slow wellspring of blood that knew no end.
And then all the others began to follow her. They made their way toward a far door that was covered with a veil, which fluttered from the draft of desert air from the far side, for that doorway was open, as were all doorways.
And Itzpapalotl saw their procession, for they were leaving as a vision of marvels. Hava, Queen of the Black Palace, rode forth on an infernal goat, which was fat from its age-long feast of souls. She guided it by a cracked horn in one hand, and she cradled the strange child in her other, with a brazen serpent now wrapped around her arm, a sly creature that said little of all it knew. At her back survived a fingerprint from the Flood; at her breast in the globe of a necklace, a living flake of Leviathan, the Chaos; high on her head, the straining remains of Lazarus, the Crown of Bones. And she was followed by the Assyrian lord, and by the golem of Aqaba, with its burden, the quondam and bloodied witch, and by the ghost of the murdered, and by the witch with thread and needle who rode a table of ash, and by the werewolf in rags, and by the shell of a ram’s skull whose demon had waited beyond in hiding, and by small fowl filled with spirits that were not their own.
And their trail was more than this, for Itzpapalotl saw the rends they had left in the world already, and a time to come would be held at bay no longer, not by the locks of the Black Palace, nor the walls of the mountains, nor the weight of the tide, nor the sun.
And at the vision, Itzpapalotl wept.
And soon, all too soon it somehow seemed, they were gone. They had left through that doorway, and its veil fluttered, alone.
The room was silent.
And no one else was there. The three of them were alone.
She stood, and helped Jan lean on her to walk, and they went to Sledge. With grinding noise and heavy strain, he got to his cloven feet, and he stood with them. She placed her hand on the plates of his shoulder, and then at a brow of the ox, where his heart would have been. Graven there was his new name, the Aleph. But he was no door of the Black Palace, and his suit would never open. There was nothing left of him to free from it.
She did not know whether he could feel her hand against his armor. She said, “Are you in pain?”
“I’ve been better,” he said with the voice of a vault. “I won’t get to feel that kind of pain anymore, but I hear everything.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But I’m glad you’re here with me.”
“I don’t know how long,” he said. “He will finish the other three, and then I will be drawn back to him, and I won’t have a choice. I don’t doubt him. He’s too cruel to lie.”
“Then will you come with me while you can?” she said. “The door is opened for me at last, and I will go to it.”
“I’ve been hearing the world out there. And he told me of many things. You need to know that it’s not going to be the same,” he said. Though she had never heard him cry before, nor could he now, it was in his voice nonetheless. “I’m going to miss it. I didn’t think I would. It’s not going to be the same.”
“Whatever it is, it would be better with you by my side,” she said.
He reached his gauntlet to her, but he would not hold her, for he did not trust his grip, nor the hissing devices that drove it. “I’m coming with you,” he said.
Jan watched the veil that Hava had lifted, the door she had taken. He was choked up with sadness.
“I’m sorry,” she said to him.
“She already knew,” he said.
“Are you going to follow her?”
“She left me,” he said. “She didn’t even ask me to come with her. She isn’t going to love me, not like I am now. Not until I’m different. She will see me again, and then it’ll be different.”
“Until then, will you come with me?”
“I will,” he said.
So they held close together and crossed the room of many doors. And they came to her door. Its great stone wings spread open, and she walked through it. And they were by her side. And she stepped out onto the platform where she was born, high on the stones of a temple. The people were all gathered below among the torchlight and leaves and feathers and drums, and they cheered for her, crying, “Itzpapalotl! Itzpapalotl! Itzpapalotl! Itzpapalotl!” And all was a dream of life in her sight. And like the wide wings be
hind her, she spread her arms for them, across the great opening of doors, and the wind of dawn reached through her hair, for amid the long rolls of thunder at the horizon, the old sun blinked slowly like a closing eye. The sky was fractured in ribbons, and fire rained in the distance, and she saw farther where jets screamed and great clouds bloomed, where vast slouching things arose and the globe poured full of forgotten and terrible wonders, and more were to come from the hand of Hava Who Looses, even as they stood there, for she saw that the days of hidden worlds were come to an end. The way was cut open, and every path was clear. And her people cheered for their herald, “Itzpapalotl! Itzpapalotl! Itzpapalotl!,” for she was with them again. And together the three of them went forth to the steps, for they would walk them together and enter the world that was to come.
The End
Appendix
I.
Pronunciation Guide:
Itzpapalotl (its-pay-PAY-lowt[kh])
tlepapalochihua ([t]klay-pay-PAY-low-KEE-hwha)
Hava (HAW-vaw)
Seph (sef)
Nachash (naw-KHAWSH, or NATCH-ash)
Ashurbanipal (aush-ur-BON-ee-pawl)
La Voisin (LA-VOY-zin)
Gróa (GROW-ah)
II.
Translations of Jan’s xenolalia from Chapter 23:
ca mjctlan, ca ylujcac, in otontemoc, in otontlachix:
“For thou hast descended into, thou hast beheld, the land of the dead, the heavens.”
[Cited by the Nahuatl Dictionary as being recorded by Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 6 -- Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy, No. 14, Part 7, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1961), 32.]
kai ēnoixen to phrear tēs abyssou kai anebē kapnos ek tou phreatos hōs kapnos kaminou megalēs kai eskotōthē ho hēlios kai ho aēr ek tou kapnou tou phreatos:
“And [s]he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke of the pit.”