The River of No Return

by Jon Voelkel

  It was a woman, to be sure.

  “I am sorry, Ix Sak Lol. I am not your mother.”

  Lola tried to hide her disappointment. “Hello, Princess Inez. How nice to see you again.”

  “I came to tell you that I am safe. I escaped the Death Lords’ lair and found my beloved Rodrigo. Nothing can part us again.”

  “I’m happy for you. We have much to thank you for.”

  Princess Inez, who’d married Rodrigo Pizarro, a conquistador and one of Max’s ancestors, had guarded the Yellow Jaguar in a Spanish castle, until Max had set her free. In return, Inez had taken Lola’s place on that fateful shark ride down to the Maya underworld.

  “And I thank you, on behalf of all who hate the Death Lords, for making this stand. My Rodrigo says—”

  Inez disappeared abruptly.

  “What’s happening up there?” asked Ixchel.

  She beckoned to the vision serpent to pick her up, and it moved to obey, then froze, hissing and retching as if trying to eject something.

  A rope flew up out of its throat and lassoed one of its fangs. After some huffing and puffing, a head popped up. A head in a pith helmet. The rest of the body followed, rappelling its way up the snake’s gullet.

  Under the pith helmet was a young man in spectacles—a good-looking young man, with floppy bangs and movie-star stubble. His white open-necked shirt was rolled up at the sleeves and showed off his California tan.

  “Be with you in a jiffy!” he exclaimed.

  They watched openmouthed as he used a long blowpipe to prop open the snake’s mouth and tested it to see if it would hold.

  Pleased with his ingenuity, he doffed his pith helmet to the audience. “Sylvanus Griswold Morley at your service. The Sylvanus Morley.”

  He looked at them expectantly.

  They looked back blankly.

  He tried to jog their memories. “Vay Morley? Excavator of Chichen Itza? Translator of Maya glyphs? Undercover agent for the US navy—?”

  “I know you! I’m named after you!” Max burst out.

  “Now you’ve got it! Not many chaps called Sylvanus these days, so I’ve taken a bit of a shine to you, young Murphy. You’re an adventurer after my own heart! So I’ve come for a good old chin-wag.”

  “Are you dead?” Max asked warily.

  “Yes, sirree. Kicked the bucket in New Mexico aged sixty-five, but I was the bees knees in my prime, so that’s how I like to present myself to the world. Or should I say, the afterworld?”

  “Excuse me, sir,” said Ixchel, “but you’re not authorized to be at this vision ceremony. You’ll have to leave.”

  Sylvanus Morley gave a low whistle. “Well, hell-o there.”

  “Control yourself. I am a goddess.”

  “Yes. You. Are.” He blew her a kiss.

  “We do not have time for this impertinence,” snapped Lord 6-Dog. “The lady has asked thee to leave.”

  Sensing a situation brewing, Max tried to get rid of the flirtatious archaeologist. “It was nice of you to drop in, Mr. Morley, but we don’t have time to chat. The Undead Army is chasing us and we need to plan our getaway.”

  “That’s why I came to help you. I’ve been in a few tight spots myself, so I know my onions. One time my team and I were stuck in quicksand, like ants in honey. It took some nifty thinking on my part, but I whipped off my pith helmet and …”

  He noticed the look of agony of Max’s face.

  “Sorry, sport, I can see you’re in a mad dash, so I’ll spill the beans. I came to tell you that my old jalopy is hidden in a cave behind the cenote. She’s yours for the taking!”

  “Jalopy? That’s a car, right?” asked Max. “Will it still work?”

  “Don’t see why not. She has solid rubber tires and a spare tank of gas. Had a feeling she’d be needed one of these days. Here—catch!” He threw Max a bunch of keys.

  At that moment, the snake worked itself free, spit out the blowpipe, and clamped its jaws shut. There was a muffled, echoing scream as the archaeologist was swallowed by the ancient Maya vision serpent—handsome smile, spectacles, pith helmet, and all.

  Ixchel shook her head despairingly. “Archaeologists! They’re like children sometimes.” Max nodded in agreement. “Well, I better go and check on him. It was nice meeting you—most of you anyway.” She directed a disapproving look at Chan Kan. “Good-bye!” She flashed a final smile at Lord 6-Dog. “Don’t be a stranger.”

  The snake lowered its head, and Ixchel climbed into its mouth. Then, like a cherry picker transporting a rock star above a stadium crowd, it raised her up high.

  “Farewell, dear lady,” called Lord 6-Dog.

  “May the moon light your way through the darkest night! Until we meet again, Lord 6-Dog!”

  And just like that she was gone.

  And the snake was gone.

  The morning air felt cold.

  Bahlam paced along the edge of the platform.

  Then he turned and roared a warning.

  Max and Lola came and stood behind him.

  When they looked down, what they saw, massed at the bottom of the White Pyramid, was the entire Undead Army.

  “For twelve hundred years, three hundred baktuns, have I longed to hear the voice of my father again. Little did I dream that this would be the day. Like balm on a wound, it has healed my pain and reinvigorated my being. In truth, I feel like a new monkey.”

  “Cool,” said Max dully. “But the zombies are here.”

  “Fear not, young lord. Didst thou not hear my father? He said this is not the battle.”

  “Just because you get to live another day, it doesn’t mean we’re safe. Besides, technically speaking, you’re dead already.”

  Lord 6-Dog considered the problem. “I believe,” he said, “that we are under the protection of Ixchel for as long as the White Jaguar works its magic.”

  “So we just stay on this pyramid for the rest of our lives?”

  “That is not an option, young lord. When the candles burn down and the incense runs out, the ritual will be over.”

  Max eyed the tiny mound of incense left on the altar and the ranks of sputtering candle stubs. “How long do we have?”

  “A warrior measures time not by the passage of the sun, but by his victories in battle.”

  Max looked down at the Undead Army. There was a echoing click of ancient vertebrae as five hundred zombies turned their heads to stare back up at him.

  “Either way, I think our time is up.”

  “We have the mighty Chee-Ken.”

  “Yeah, about that …,” began Max.

  Lola shushed him. “Thunderclaw will fight for us tooth and nail.”

  “Chickens don’t have teeth,” Max pointed out. “Or nails. This one doesn’t even have feathers.”

  “You know what I mean,” said Lola, “so why waste time trying to be clever? We need to band together … like them.” She pointed down to where the Undead Army was taking up battle positions. “I’ve been watching them. Ixchel’s protection is like a force field around the pyramid. They can’t get through it, but they keep on trying. Every time they get knocked back, they just regroup and attack again.”

  Lord 6-Dog stroked his hairy chin. “What they lack in intelligence, they make up in stamina. The question is, How can our militia out-think them and outflank them?”

  Max took stock of their so-called militia. Two kids. One talking monkey. One tame jaguar. One scabby chicken. And an old man sobbing in the corner.

  “We’re doomed,” he said.

  “Stop it, Hoop! You’re not helping.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Go talk to Chan Kan. He won’t talk to me. Whatever was between him and Ixchel, he’s really taken it to heart.”

  “He’s not talking to me either. He won’t talk to anyone but Thunderclaw.”

  At ground level, those zombies that still had vocal chords let out a bloodcurdling scream, and the army rushed forward.

  Ixchel’s protection stopped the
m in their tracks.

  Although they couldn’t step onto the pyramid, it didn’t prevent them from trying. They threw themselves at the steps, often dislocating their own bones in their efforts to climb up. Flights of arrows and spears hurtled through the air, but turned to vapor as soon as they came close.

  Max and Lola watched this performance with mixed feelings, glad to be safe for now but horribly aware that this magical shield would soon be gone, and then nothing would stand between them and these skeletal maniacs.

  Bahlam continued pacing up and down, snarling and growling at the zombies. He walked in circles around Lola, Max, and Lord 6-Dog, as if to tell them that he would protect them with his life. But he kept his distance from Chan Kan.

  The zombies began to shout angrily in Mayan, punctuating their words with wild chopping, stabbing, and slicing motions.

  “What are they saying?” asked Max.

  “You don’t want to know,” replied Lola. “But they have some very inventive ideas for what they are going to do to us.”

  Max flinched as one of the zombie warriors acted ripping out his eyeballs and stuffing them down his throat.

  “If only we had more boom sticks,” mused Lord 6-Dog.

  “If this was a movie,” said Max, “Uncle Ted would have fixed his plane and he’d arrive in the nick of time and airlift us out of here.”

  “The zombies are here.”

  They looked up and scanned the skies.

  All was blue and clear and entirely devoid of air traffic in any direction.

  “He better hurry up,” said Lola.

  “As I understand it,” Lord 6-Dog pointed out, “Lord Ted does not know we are here.”

  Max and Lola sat and watched the incense smolder into ashes and the last few candles burn down.

  “I’m sorry you didn’t meet your mother,” Max said, “but I’m sure you’re related to Princess Inez. You look just like her.”

  “Me? Related to royalty?” Lola snickered. “Hardly.”

  “Why not? It could be true.”

  “Princesses don’t get abandoned in the forest.”

  Max remembered Landa’s confession in the salon at the hotel. He’d said that Lola was descended from the Jaguar Kings. But was he a genealogist or a lunatic?

  Chan Kan let out a pain-racked groan. Ever since Ixchel had berated him, he’d sat slumped against a wall, hugging the bag with Thunderclaw and muttering to himself.

  Lola ran over and sat next to him. She tried to wrap his shawl around him, but he pushed her away.

  “Grandfather, I know you don’t want to talk to me, but maybe you will listen. Whatever you have done, Ixchel was too hard on you. Please don’t get so upset. I’m sure her rules don’t even apply anymore. I mean, she’s the ancient Maya moon goddess, and we’re in the twenty-first century.”

  “The moon still rules the tides,” said Chan Kan. “And when Ixchel is angry, she still sends storms, floods, and tidal waves.”

  “Actually,” Max called over, “I think you’ll find that’s global warming—”

  “Ixchel was right,” interrupted Chan Kan.

  “Right about what, Grandfather?”

  He flinched to hear her call him that. Suddenly he took her hands in his dry-as-dust hands and focused his blank eyes on her bright eyes. “My life flows by like a river rushing to the sea. I see the sun crossing the sky but I have no sense of time passing. I can remember a day many years ago, but I cannot remember yesterday.” A tear rolled down his cheek. “And you, I have forgotten your name.”

  “It’s Ix Sak Lol.”

  “No, that is not your name.”

  Lola stared at him. “What is my name?”

  He sighed. “What does it matter? What are names but words? I know who you are.”

  “Who am I?”

  “You are the girl who played with crystals by the river.”

  Lola shook her head sadly.

  “No? Then what do you remember?” asked Chan Kan.

  Lola sighed. “I remember the stories you told me. All the legends and myths of our people.”

  “One day, perhaps you will tell stories of your own.”

  Lola said nothing. Max guessed she was thinking that her chances of surviving long enough to tell anyone a story were extremely slim.

  Somehow Chan Kan guessed that, too. “Those ghouls down there, what do they want? Is it the Jaguar Stone?”

  “Yes,” said Lola, surprised at his perspicacity. “It’s the Jaguar Stone, it’s us, it’s everything. They want to uproot and trample every living thing on this planet.”

  Chan Kan’s mind seemed to wander off again. “When you tell the story of this day, make it about a fool who was blessed with great treasure. But he was so scared of losing it, he destroyed it in his greed. One day a goddess came down, and gave him one last chance to redeem himself. Maybe that is the name of the story. ‘One Last Chance.’ ”

  A jungle breeze blew across the top of the pyramid, scattering the last black ashes of the incense.

  The last candle, a white one, sputtered and went out.

  In the altar, the White Jaguar stopped glowing. In one smooth movement, it ejected itself and sat half in and half out of the niche.

  With the barrier gone, the Undead Army gave a mighty shout and surged up the steps of the pyramid.

  Bahlam ran down to meet them.

  “No!” cried Lola.

  Chan Kan climbed wearily to his feet. “I wish you happiness and long life.”

  Lola, Max, and Lord 6-Dog watched openmouthed, one eye on the advancing enemy, one eye on the old man, as Chan Kan shuffled over to the altar and took out the White Jaguar.

  As the stones of the pyramid juddered beneath him, Chan Kan seemed to shake off the long years of near blindness and the troubles of old age, and he stood there for a moment as a young shaman, like a tall, straight tree in the rainforest, his eyes clear, his long black hair flowing down his back, his bag looped across his body, cradling Thunderclaw like a baby in a sling.

  He held the White Jaguar above his head for all to see.

  The Undead Army froze in its tracks.

  “Is this what you want?” he asked the zombies. The old man’s raspy voice floated down, as the voice of the king had once floated down to the crowds below. “It is the Stone of Wisdom, a virtue I have lacked. But what I have lacked in life, I will embrace in death. This stone is my one last chance.”

  “Grandfather!” cried Lola.

  But it was too late. Chan Kan could no longer hear her voice. He heard only the voices in his head. His whole being was focused on his final sacrifice, the one that would atone for all the lies that had seeded and sprouted and grown wild and rampant, like a strangler fig, around his heart.

  Clutching the White Jaguar to him, he ran as nimbly as a young man to the edge of the platform and, like a pouncing cat, leapt off.

  Below him the green water of the cenote danced and bubbled and opened a gateway to Xibalba.

  Thunderclaw squawked all the way down.

  When they hit the surface, all three of them—Chan Kan, the chicken, and the Jaguar Stone—vanished in a flash of light.

  And that was it.

  In one dramatic and misguided gesture, Chan Kan had blown the last chance of everyone in Middleworld.

  Just like that, everything they’d been fighting for was lost.

  All five Jaguar Stones were now in Xibalba.

  Thanks to Chan Kan’s spectacular own goal, Ah Pukuh had everything he needed to begin his new age of chaos and destruction.

  It was over.

  Pure and simple.

  And there was nothing that Max Murphy or anyone else could do about it.

  Max watched as the waters of the cenote closed over Chan Kan’s head, just as they had closed over his parents all those weeks ago.

  Lola and Lord 6-Dog stood silent and openmouthed, unable to believe their eyes.

  The Undead Army remained motionless, while their rancid brains computed what to do next
.

  Mosquitoes stopped buzzing, parrots stopped flying, spider monkeys stopped chattering in the trees. Time seemed to be suspended, as if the world itself had stopped turning.

  Then, as if a hypnotist had suddenly clicked his fingers and told them to wake up, all hell broke loose.

  Lola screamed Chan Kan’s name.

  Lord 6-Dog took up a fighting stance to face the coming onslaught.

  Max grabbed Chan Kan’s discarded walking stick to use as a weapon, and said mental good-byes to his parents.

  The warriors of the Undead Army looked around as if seeking agreement with each other.

  Any moment now, thought Max, any moment now.

  He gripped the walking stick with two hands and held it in front of him like a kung fu master, at the same time being painfully aware of how pathetic it must look: a kid with a bamboo cane against an army of killer zombies.

  The Undead Army raised its weapons.

  Max tightened his grip on the cane.

  With another mighty cheer, the army rushed forward.

  But instead of racing up the pyramid, the zombies ran to the side and leapt into the cenote, one after another, like kids jumping off a dock.

  The cenote flashed and consumed them all.

  And everything was quiet again.

  “They’ve gone,” said Max. “They followed the Jaguar Stone.” He threw his head back in relief. “We’re safe.”

  “Chan Kan saved us,” said Lola. “He gave his life for us.”

  “Chan Kan has condemned every man, woman, and child in Middleworld to certain death,” Lord 6-Dog pointed out.

  “It’s not like you had a better plan,” Lola muttered.

  “My plan was not to serve Middleworld to Ah Pukuh on a platter.”

  “It wasn’t his fault. How could Chan Kan have known that Ah Pukuh had the other four stones?”

  “He was a shaman. He should have known.”

  “He was old and confused, but he meant well.”

  “That does not excuse him.”

  Lola changed the subject. “Has anyone seen Bahlam?”

  “Once again,” commented Lord 6-Dog, “thy lack of awareness astounds me.”

  Lola turned on him. “What have I done? Why are you being so mean to me?”