He pressed a hand against his throat. He’d cast an illusion and the jade necklace now appeared an ordinary tie, but it was there. She perceived it without seeing it. “And you look weaker too, more frail,” he muttered.
He had not gazed out the window, the scenery did not concern him, but now he turned his gaze there, ignoring her. He spoke as if talking to the desert, the sand and the sky, not to her.
“I must return home. Every second away is unbearable. Xibalba needs me and I need it. At times I think if I spend much more time in this land I will not be able to return to where I was…to who I was.” He shook his head “You wouldn’t understand.”
“I do understand.”
“Please,” he said dismissively.
His poised indifference offended her. He was being rude, cruel, and rather than accepting this as the whim of a god she spoke, harsh and loud.
“You don’t realize it, do you?” she asked. “You don’t see the way you are turning my world upside down. I was someone in Uukumil, someone I may never be again.”
“I’ll remove the bone shard as soon as I have my throne back, I won’t waste a second,” he said, and the words were like a blow. She raised her head high.
Casiopea stood right in front of him, so that he could not glance out the window and ignore her. She almost felt like grabbing him by the lapels of his jacket to emphasize her point. “It’s not the bone shard,” she said “It’s everything. I have no idea where I’ll go after this, what I’ll do. Did you ever even wonder about that? You’ll return home, but I’ve forsaken mine. My family won’t take me back.”
“It is not the same.”
He stood up. The desert heat shrank the boundaries of their compartment, drawing him closer to her. She thought about a story Mother had told her one time when she was bad, about wicked girls combusting into balls of fire. She could swear she was about to be scorched, but she stared at him.
“I can feel the taint of your mortality in me, and I must scrub it off, soon,” he went on.
“You talk as if I’m poisonous,” Casiopea protested.
“You are,” he said, careless and cold. “And I’m poisonous to you, killing you with every breath you take. If you had any common sense you’d understand why I grow weary. If I had my eye back I might be stronger, if I was in Mérida…but I am here, incomplete. You are not foolish, you must have some idea…”
As he spoke, the words grew sharper, and she realized something, hearing him speak, something that ought to have been obvious from the moment they had woken up and he’d sat, morose, in his corner of the compartment. “You are afraid,” Casiopea said in wonder.
Afraid of death. Of life? How to define it. It was clear then, the nervousness, the way he stood, the timbre of his voice. And why wouldn’t he be? Immortal, suddenly faced with the possibility of mortality, of all his plans gone asunder. Casiopea was not able to summon much fear for herself, although she was aware that she was dying, that he was drawing her essence away, and when he was full she’d crumple, a wilted flower. For the moment she was more interested in his reaction.
He jerked his head up, annoyed, and did not reply.
“You should have told me. I thought you feared nothing,” she said, pressing on.
“Quiet now,” he said, his voice low. “The things you name grow in power.”
She closed her mouth and stared at him, wondering what black luck she was inviting by speaking as she’d done. There was magic to be reckoned with and the rules of gods she didn’t comprehend. She’d made him speak, and maybe she ought to have let him be quiet, as he’d wanted.
“I’m sorry,” Casiopea said in a whisper.
“It is no matter,” he replied, casually, and she realized there was pretense in his voice; he was rattled but would not show it openly.
Casiopea nodded, but his distress was palpable, a frightened creature that circled the room.
“Let’s see what they are serving in the dining car. It’s probably something disgusting, like roast beef,” she said, because she’d had a chance to look at the menu and had been dismayed by all the American dishes.
She took him by the hand and before he could object, dragged him out of their compartment. But rather than stopping in the ornate dining car, with its silver and crystal and porcelain, she kept going until they reached the observation car. There were tables, arranged with stationery so people could pen letters to their families, plush chairs, and panoramic windows offering an excellent view of the receding tracks. The observation car served drinks and light food, functioning as a lounge, but right that moment there was no service and there were scarcely any other people there. Everyone must be having a proper dinner in the dining car or else had turned in for a nap. It made perfect sense to sleep the evening away.
Casiopea sat down, and Hun-Kamé sat next to her. For the moment the thought of food was forgotten, and she rested her head against the glass.
“Well, if we are going to sit here doing nothing, we could have stayed in the compartment,” he said after a while. “What’s the reason for this excursion?”
“Not everything needs a proper reason. I wanted to get out of there,” she told him. “Do you want to go back?”
“I suppose not. One compartment is as good as another.”
The rattle of the axles was very loud. Clack clack clack. Casiopea smiled.
“I like the train, but I think I will fall in love with the automobile,” she said, tapping her foot to this rhythm.
“Why is that?”
“This heads in one direction, back and forth in a line. But can you picture an automobile? Cutting in whatever direction you will, winding down roads. Did you see them in the city? You could do as you pleased in one of those,” she said, thinking of the vehicles that had rolled before their eyes, providing an exciting chaos to the streets in downtown Mexico City. Along with the night swimming and the dancing, this was one of her secret, deepest wishes.
“You want to go back home,” she said. “I don’t want to go back. Not for a thousand years, and yet…I don’t know what I’ll do if I’m not taking care of Grandfather and fetching the groceries. I’ve never seriously thought of it, and now it seems I should. Or maybe not, maybe it’s too soon. Maybe there’s no point in talking about automobiles when I don’t know if I’ll live to be nineteen. But it would be fun, wouldn’t it? To ride one. Maybe to ride it with you.”
He tossed her a strange look she’d never seen before. She catalogued all his looks and thought she knew them by now. This look she did not recognize. It reminded her of the movement of a match as it strikes the box.
“With me?”
She felt abashed, tried to shrug it off. “It’s only daydreams.”
“Casiopea,” he said. His voice had a deep, pleasant rumble to it. He let his hand fall upon hers.
Again she had the sensation that she was in the belly of a whale, swaying gently, as she had had during the ride from Mexico City to El Paso. She recalled that Jonah was thrown into the sea to appease God, and he lay nestled inside the creature, but she could not remember, for the life of her, what had happened to him.
His thumb stroked over her knuckles. and Hun-Kamé leaned down in what she took to be a motion to kiss her. He had been afraid and uncertain, and now he was composed, and it was she who felt a shiver go down her spine.
She remembered a story she’d read or heard—she could not much remember where—about men who took advantage of women on trains, using the privacy of the compartment as a means for mischief. It might have been the priest who issued the warning during a sermon, it was the kind of thing he might lecture them about. Ride a train and find yourself with a bold, strange man. Kiss a man and soon enough he’ll be taking liberties with you. Wait a little and you’ll be carrying a bastard baby to be baptized at the church, with a single surname to his name.
Y
es, men could be brazen on a train.
And so could women, she mused. She was, after all, here, with him. Chasing adventure, a fancy. Chasing something.
There was tightness in her throat, and the sun shone harshly through the window, making his dark eye even darker, as if he objected to its light and conjured more shadows. Since she’d cast away seven layers of decency already, she decided one more would not matter, and if he attempted a kiss she’d allow it.
“I like your daydreams, dear girl,” he said quietly.
“I’ve never said them aloud before,” she told him.
It was true. She’d pressed all her fantasies like dried flowers in books, carefully hidden where neither Martín nor Cirilo would see them. Rarely, late at night, had she allowed herself to contemplate them. If she’d declared them in a loud voice Casiopea would have let them take root inside her, and she could not have that. Instead, she polished them in secret, precious bits that they were, but bits and not wholes.
She understood now, his paucity with words.
He did not kiss her. He hovered next to her, pressed his forehead against her own instead, which was worse than any liberty he might have taken, more raw.
“Words are seeds, Casiopea. With words you embroider narratives, and the narratives breed myths, and there’s power in the myth. Yes, the things you name have power,” he said.
Casiopea clenched her hands together, and her heart clenched too, and she nodded solemnly, though she also sighed when he drew away from her.
They were quiet and they were foolish, both of them, thinking they were treading with any delicacy, and that if they somehow moderated their voices they’d stop the tide of emotion. The things you name do grow in power, but others that are not ever whispered claw at one’s heart anyway, rip it to shreds even if a syllable does not escape the lips. The silence was hopeless in any case, since something escaped the god, anyway: a sigh to match the girl’s own.
Vucub-Kamé walked in the gardens of his palace, past ponds filled with minuscule glowing fish, until he reached a lake of considerable size. He set a hand upon one of the ceiba trees growing next to the lake, bigger than any of the other trees, its massive roots dipping into the water. The ceiba trees in Xibalba had a silver cast, but this particular one was brighter than the rest, its leaves more luminous, almost iridescent.
The lake was special too, its waters never reflected anything. Not a leaf nor a branch, nor the figure of the Death Lord circling it. Though curiously clear, the waters seemed bottomless and no fish swam there: only the Great Caiman, in its depths, which had traveled the seas when the world was young and teemed with the fury of chaos. Shards of chaos remained in the water, which was why it rejected reflections and why Vucub-Kamé could not read portents in its depths. Curiously, auguries function following the principles of order.
Or not so curiously. After all, prophecy traces clean paths. Vucub-Kamé’s ability lay in witnessing the arrow of what might be, of following the thread of order among what others thought was simple chance. Men also had this gift, but being a god, his power was unparalleled. Yet the more time passed, the more disorganized his visions of his own future became.
Vucub-Kamé had not tried to divine the future since leaving Xtabay’s home, but he had been considering the facts as he knew them, considering them very carefully. And pacing, pacing beside the lake and wondering about the strength of chaos upon his finely laid plans.
Vucub-Kamé was alone, the attendants of the god having been dismissed for the time being. Yet now two men approached the Death Lord, bowing low when they reached him. Aníbal and Martín. He’d sent for them. After they had abased themselves sufficiently, Vucub-Kamé bid them rise.
“How do you find my kingdom?” Vucub-Kamé asked Martín. The heavy obsidian necklace around his neck accentuated the harshness of his face, giving his words an added weight.
“It’s interesting,” Martín mumbled. He was prosaic and, lacking any desire for the fantastic, he would have rather kept his eyes shut the whole journey. Best ask a slug what it thinks of the architecture of a city.
“Do you think you can walk its road alone?” the god asked, aware now that there was no need for formalities and polite inquiries with the Leyva boy, and somewhat irritated by this since the vanity of gods extends to their constructions, and surely he desired to hear a long exultation of the beauty of the Black City.
“Martín progresses,” Aníbal said.
“Quickly, I hope.”
Aníbal inclined his head, a deferential nod. Vucub-Kamé began to walk again and the men trailed behind him, dogs waiting for scraps from their master. In the trees black birds stared at the trio but did not sing. The god had been irritable as of late, so they wisely kept their mournful melodies to themselves.
“Your brother is dead, Aníbal,” Vucub-Kamé said casually. “The problem with the old goat is he is always underestimating the difficulties of certain tasks.”
Vucub-Kamé turned around to stare the Zalazar man directly in the face. The god did not appear displeased, but the wind that had been tugging at his pale hair ceased, growing shy.
“Listen with care. Hun-Kamé and the girl will arrive in Tijuana soon. You, Leyva, will meet them there.”
“I?” Martín asked. “What for?”
“Because I set the tone from the very first step and because I want to offer certain terms to your cousin.”
“What terms?”
“The details don’t concern you. You’ll meet them and kindly escort them to Tierra Blanca. And you, Aníbal, will be polite too. No gnashing of the teeth or foolish revenges.”
“They killed my brother,” Anibal said.
“As if that was but a temporary condition.”
“It’s the principle, my lord, and you know precisely how—”
“I know precisely how much of an idiot you can be sometimes,” Vucub-Kamé replied, his voice harsh. “But I am not interested in stupid displays of pyrotechnics and whatever rough magic you command. Hun-Kamé and the girl will be received like honored guests. Especially the girl.”
Aníbal Zavala had assisted Vucub-Kamé in overseeing the construction of the structure in Tierra Blanca, as well as in the manufacture of the axe that had robbed Hun-Kamé of his head. Yet that did not mean the god would treat him kindly if he were to disobey.
“Casiopea?” Martín scoffed.
“Bind that tongue of yours. You may speak when I ask a question.”
Vucub-Kamé’s eyes were the color of ashes that have lain in the hearth for a long time, all warmth leached from them. Had Martín been paying more attention he might have noticed this before speaking, but he was not a man of subtleties. Now the eyes had grown colder, and Martín snapped his mouth shut.
“Your cousin will be like our dearest friend; she will be offered delicacies and gifts. You will speak kindly to her and attempt to make her see, once more, how much easier it would be to side with me. You understand now, boy?”
“Yes,” Martín said.
“Make sure that progress you spoke of turns to certainty,” Vucub-Kamé said, turning his gaze to Aníbal.
He did not even bother ordering them away. The men bowed and left of their own accord, the impatience of the lord encouraging them to flee like scared buzzards.
Vucub-Kamé stood by the lake, alone now, to weigh his worries. It had occurred to him that he had found the kink in his plans: Casiopea Tun.
She was the seed of all this trouble, having opened the chest in the first place. Despite this, Vucub-Kamé had considered her as a minor piece in the game—someone had to open the chest, it did not matter to him who did, nor when.
But Vucub-Kamé had begun to worry about the exact value of the mortal.
Symbols are of importance both to sorcerers and gods, and Vucub-Kamé ought to have identified this particular symbol before. Casiopea, l
ike certain tiny, colorful frogs in the jungle, was more dangerous than one could imagine at first glance.
She was, after all, the maiden, and there is power in this symbol.
One time the Lords of Xibalba had executed two mortal men when the men challenged them to a game of ball. The bodies of the mortals were buried under the ball court in Xibalba, but the head of one of them was placed on a tree. A maiden approached the tree, and when she reached up toward it, the head of the dead man spat into her hand. Pregnant in this magical way, she gave birth to the Hero Twins who returned to avenge their dead father, and eventually succeeded in restoring him to life.
Although mortals mangled the story in the telling—for the tale concluded with the defeat of the Lords of Xibalba, and the gods persisted—there was a smidgen of truth to the myth. But what mattered was not the veracity of the story, but its power. The symbol. The hidden meaning. A woman and rebirth and the restoration of something lost. A vessel, a conduit through which everything is made anew.
There she was, the girl, accompanying Hun-Kamé, and it could mean she was nothing, strictly an ordinary girl with ordinary thoughts and the weak flesh of all things that will die. Or she could be something else. How to tell, there was no clue. There was magic in the air, the dance of chaos and fate, and Vucub-Kamé grew grayer in his discontent, wondering how to dislodge this bit of sand that had sunk into his eyes and irritated him greatly.
The girl.
Had Vucub-Kamé been able to kill Casiopea, no doubt he would have. But it was impossible, with her human body protected by the strength of a god.
He had thought to bribe the girl. That was why he’d sent Martín to find her in Mexico City, hoping he’d convince her to side with him. He could offer her the bounty of the seas, strings of pearls and jewels from the earth, the kind of promises that make fools of men. Or else a way with magic, the capacity to weave necromantic spells and bid the dead speak. Power, too, over an entire city, an entire length of coast—he might even keep his end of the bargain.
Gods of Jade and Shadow Page 22