Hearing a scream behind me, I glanced over my shoulder. The big animal had brought down Lord Janaab.
I will never know why I did it. After spinning around, I ran back without thinking, knowing that I was no match for the animal but not willing to let it murder the lord without a fight. The lord was on his back, pinned to the ground by the heavy beast. The man had tried to block the jaguar’s bite with his forearm, and the animal clamped on to it. Except for the heavy limb with which I cleared brush, I had nothing to kill or drive the beast away.
As I came up behind the struggle, I realized there was one thing I could do with my brush-clearing limb. I jumped on the animal’s back. As it reared up and let go of the man’s arm, I shoved my thick pole under its throat.
Eyo! His huge paw came around and swiped the side of my face. He nearly threw me off, but as I rolled to the side, I got my feet under me and pulled back on the piece of wood with all the strength I had developed from years of lifting heavy slabs of stone, with all the power the gods gave me as they fed my panic.
I heard a snap, and the beast collapsed beneath me.
Rolling off, I gasped for a breath. For the first time I thought about what I had done.
Jaguars were the greatest killers in the One-World—sacred beasts with whom kings claimed kinship.
By the gods, I had killed one.
I met the eye of Lord Janaab. Neither of us spoke, but I saw amazement in his face.
And relief.
Blood covered my chest—dripping from where the beast had clawed the side of my face.
2
“Paint them red,” Lord Janaab said.
Lord Janaab had ordered those guards—the ones who’d run from the jaguar—to be painted a garish crimson, and they cowered in fear. The scarlet stain was a death sentence, and the men would be turned over to the priests for sacrifice at the main temple of the gods when the High Lord returned to the city.
We stood in the village center. Respectfully silent, all the villagers had gathered and were there when the king’s builder gave commands.
Lord Janaab’s arm had been treated with healing salves and bandaged with medicinal leaves. The powerful jaws of the jaguar would have crushed the lord’s bones, had it not been for the large silver bracelet he wore.
My own face felt hot, and my wounds pulsated with pain. After I washed up in the cenote, I stared at my reflection. Eyo! My face would bear the claw marks of the jaguar for the rest of my life. I was not considered a great beauty among men, and the savage slashes would bring even less praise about my appearance.
After he had doomed the five guards Lord Janaab turned to me. “Come, here.”
I went, and when I kneeled, he told me to stand.
Eyeing my body, he nodded. “You are tall and muscular.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“I can see why you were able to break the beast’s neck. No ordinary man, not even with a piece of wood under the chin as you placed it, would have the power to break a jaguar’s neck. That you were able to stay on the animal’s back when it reared is a miracle. That took not only great strength but poise and balance as well.”
“I’m the strongest man in the village,” I said simply.
The hard work quarrying stone made men either exceptionally strong—or it broke them. I was also taller than any of the other men.
“You are wrong.”
“Wr-wr-wrong?” I stammered.
“You are no longer of this village. I am placing you in my guard.”
“I’m leaving the village?”
“I see more fright on your face now than when you wrestled with a jaguar. I am told you are not married, that your wife went to Xibalba during one of the great sicknesses the gods torment us with. If there’s a woman of the village you desire, you may bring her with you.”
“No, it’s just that, I—I have never . . .”
“Never been to the world out there—the Great Beyond. The Vast Unknown frightens you more than the most powerful beast in the One-World. Good. I will deal with the Unknown. It disturbs me not in the least. My most deadly enemies are known foes—those are the ones my guards must battle—and I need guards I can trust implicitly. I need men like you. When you leave this village, you will leave behind your life as a lowly stoneworker and wear the uniform of the guard of a great lord of Mayapan.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“From this day forth, your name will be Pakal B’alam.”
A gasp rose from those who had heard the statement, and one of the sharp intakes of breath was my own.
B’alam meant “jaguar,” and it was a name of great honor, one often borne by kings. My knees felt weak at the thought that I would bear the name.
“You need not be so surprised. None of the great lords of Mayapán—myself included—would take the jaguar name, for fear of provoking the king’s and other lords’ ire. You are not the first to single-handedly kill a jaguar but perhaps the first to kill one without driving a spear into its heart.
“But there is no record of a man killing a white jaguar. Only demons sent by the gods have killed them. The king himself does not have a white jaguar skin. There is a tradition that permits even a lowly stoneworker to assume the name. Do you know what it is, Storyteller?”
I nodded. I knew the legend. “B’alam was a warrior who took the shape of a jaguar to battle the bat-demons who were devouring people.”
“Very good. Your headman tells me you are the village storyteller. I can see you deserve the title of storyteller and jaguar. Anyone who single-handedly kills a jaguar has the right to bear the name. From this day forth you may call yourself Pakal B’alam,” he repeated.
My knees still trembled, remembering the honor.
“Your village headman also says you are something of a seer.”
“No, my lord, I do not foresee events.”
“He says you once awoke the village to danger in the middle of the night to ward off an attack by a band of robbers.”
“The crickets told me they were coming, not the gods.”
“You speak to crickets?”
“No, my lord, but I awoke in the middle of the night, and they were silent. They stop their chirping only when strangers are about.”
“I was also told about a snake you realized was in the bushes, and no one else saw it.”
I started to say I was merely more observant than others, but he held up his hand to stop me.
“It doesn’t matter.” He waved his hand. “Bring the skin.”
Two of his servants came forward with the skin of the jaguar. They had skinned the cat in one piece, its head, arms, legs, and claws still attached.
“Jaguars belong to the king; they are of his House. The hide will be presented to the king when we return to Mayapán. He will be greatly pleased that it is white. However, the hunter who slays a jaguar is entitled to keep a claw for his feat. This is your claw.”
A servant stepped forth, and around my neck he placed a narrow silver band with the claw attached.
“Wear it always.” He indicated the raw wound on the side of my face. “You carry the mark of the beast, and when people see the claw, they will know that you are the one who walked away from the battle. The story will be well known by the time we reach Mayapán, and your name will be sung in the streets as B’alam.”
I was overwhelmed. Tears of pride swelled in me, and I fought them back. A man does not shed tears, especially one who has slain a jaguar with his bare hands and a single tree limb.
“Now that we have honored your feat, we must get back to work.” He smiled at me, more a feral sneering grin, which reminded me of the jaguar. “There is one last task you must do as a stoneworker before you assume your new life as a guard in the house of a lord. The limestone outcrop that was being cleared is of exceptional quality. It will be the centerpiece for a monument at the great temple in Mayapán. It must be recovered in one piece. As the strongest man in the village, your strength will be needed to bring it out of t
he ground so it can be prepared for transport to the king’s city.”
3
The next morning when we gathered to cut out the stone Lord Janaab desired, I realized how much my world had changed. The villagers whom I had known since my birth treated me differently—not so much with respect but with caution. They seemed fearful of me even though I tried to act the same as before. But the world was different: I had killed a sacred beast that gods, priests, and kings invest with magical powers. And one of the great lords of the land—an architect of cities they had never seen, of roads they had never trod—had honored me.
I knew I would miss my village, my people, but more than any of the people I knew, I was drawn to the Great Beyond, and had always wondered about what Lord Janaab called simply “the Vast Unknown.”
I was not actually born in the village, though in a sense I had spent my entire life in it. After my people had quarried the best stone in our surrounding area, the lord who owned our village moved my family and everyone else to our present area, which was rich in the dark stone.
In a few years, when all that stone has been harvested, he would move my people to another location.
Our land was warm the year around—an eternal summer whose climate ran from tepid and moist to hot and wet during the year. Requiring little—often no—shelter, we constructed our huts from the tree limbs, leaves, fronds, and brush gathered in the surrounding jungle. We kept little inside the huts except for hammocks hanging from the pole rafters and the few clothes, tools, and other possessions each of us had.
Most of our time was spent outside. Eating around the cooking fires or working, sitting at night in a circle around a fire to talk about the day’s stonework or crop harvest, and listening to the tales I had memorized—that was the extent of our socializing.
The only other thing necessary to establish a village besides an abundance of high-quality stone was a water source. The gods had provided few rivers and lakes in all the land of the Maya, even though Chaac, the Rain God, sent down great deluges during some months of the year.
Rainwater did not stay on the ground, but ran off into holes, where it gathered in natural sinkholes and caverns underground, which we called cenotes. Water was drawn from the cenotes for drinking and cooking the year around.
Life was the same, day after day, waking and eating. We stoneworkers walked to the quarry, and those who worked maize, beans, and peppers for our meals went to the fields.
4
Lord Janaab had selected a section of limestone and ordered us to clear the top layer of ground over it. That work done, we were ready to carve out the slab of limestone that he desired. The corrosive air had not tarnished the stone and it was still damp, soft, and malleable. Only after it was exposed for months to the rays of the Sun God would the stone harden and become difficult even to scratch.
I made a remark to Cuat, whose name means “snake,” that I was sure we could carve out exactly that section of stone the great lord wanted, but my comment seemed only to frighten him. Eyo! Fool that I was, I forgot that Lord Janaab had had four men painted red yesterday and would have more condemned today if they displeased him.
“Are you sure you wish to help?” the headman asked. “You must be tired from your battle with the jaguar.”
“Lord Janaab told me to help,” I reminded him.
“Oh yes—yes, you’re right. Only you must make the cut across the grain of the stone.”
The cut against the pattern of the stone was the most difficult to make. If the stone were to be ruined by shattering, that was the most likely time it would happen. And Gray Dawn had cleverly tricked me into reminding him that I had been ordered by the Mayapán lord to procure the stone. The builder had not told me expressly to make the cut, but if the stone shattered, he would be displeased with me, which, to the headman, was better than the great lord taking his wrath out on him.
The tools used to cut out slabs of limestone are a flint chisel and a hammerstone. The flint chisel has a cutting edge and a blunt edge. We use the hammerstone, a hard rock attached to a club, to pound the blunt edge of the flint.
I discussed with the headman exactly how we would cut into the stone. Lord Janaab wanted a slab about the height and width of a man. Then we began the task, excising the shape and thickness of it from the surrounding stone. We first had to cut a trench around the stone, one wide enough for us to be able to kneel in while we worked.
Then we worked the hardest part, cutting under the stone until it was free and could be lifted off from where the gods had placed it. As we cleared under the piece, we used stone blocks to shore it up and keep it from cracking under its own weight.
We needed the entire day and part of the night—working by torchlight—to cut the stone free.
A crew of stone movers Lord Janaab had brought with him would haul it to Mayapán by laying it on hardwood logs. The workers would both push the stone from behind and pull it with ropes from the front.
As the slab rolled over the logs, the logs in the rear would be picked up and brought forward and reused until they were so worn, they had to be replaced.
If water needed to be crossed, the workers built a raft big enough to hold the stone without sinking, then floated it across.
Not just large stones were used. Some pieces were small enough for the workers to haul on wood sleds. Pieces even smaller would be packed to cities by carriers who worked for merchants. Artists inscribed sacred marks on the stones, and then the merchants sold them.
Even chips and scraps were used. These were burned in fires, and then the workers ground them into powders that, mixed with water and sand, were made into the mortar we used to cement the stone blocks with which we constructed our buildings and roads.
In the morning, the slab would begin its journey to Mayapán, the city of the king. There, workers would smooth its surface and cut it to the exact size Lord Janaab desired. Artists would then carve into it whatever inscription the lord had chosen before it was put into its resting place. All this work had to be done, of course, before the gods hardened the limestone.
My feet would follow the same road to the city that is the greatest of all in the land of my people. The stone would take five days to make the journey over logs, but our feet would carry us to the city by tomorrow.
The sickness that had killed my wife five years ago had also taken my parents. Why the demons, who spread these maladies, had spared me would forever in my mind remain a mystery. Whatever the cause of their demonic forbearance, I now had no reason to stay behind at the village—except my own fears of the unknown. Mayapán was not just a place to us villagers, but a fabled city where the king climbs to the top of a temple higher than the clouds and speaks to the gods.
A place where offending a great lord can get you painted red in the blink of an eye.
Eyo! The great lord was right: I felt more fearful contemplating what awaited me in the unknown than I had when wrestling the king of the One-World’s beasts.
5
The city of the king was most of a day’s walk. We set out at first light to cover as much ground as possible before the sun was high in the sky and the heat too oppressive.
Thirty of us were in Lord Janaab’s party, including twenty guards, four of whom were painted red and disarmed. Having priests rip out your heart and drain your blood to feed the gods was considered a great honor, but the ones getting butchered often disagreed.
In the case of the crimson-daubed guards, Lord Janaab bound them like slaves in the caravans we so often saw marching along the roads. A long pole ran atop the men’s right shoulders, their necks tightly tied to it. Men joined together with a stout pole lashed to their necks would not run fast or far.
I was uniformed in a cloak and carried a guard’s sword. The other guards quickly informed me of the dangers on the road, and the great lord had sent a messenger up the road to noblemen whose territories we passed, ordering them to provide extra guards.
Although I had never ventured far
from home, I knew something of the world beyond from the merchants and carriers who came to the village. Trouble was brewing throughout the king’s domain and in the territories ruled by other kings.
The villagers traditionally raised their own crops, but the dearth of rain had driven many of them into brigandage. Now murderers and highwaymen haunted the roads. Chaac, our Rain God, had blessed us with few of his tears, causing crops to fail and many of our people to go hungry.
“They say that Chaac is angry at the king,” a guard told me.
The king’s most sacred duty was to fulfill the gods’ wants, needs, and desires, the most critical of which would always be human blood. Blood gave the Sun God the necessary strength to quit his cave at dawn and cross the sky. Granting Chaac the moisture he required for his rain of tears, blood also fueled the Maize God’s struggle to shove the corn stalks up from the ground.
Our people called it the blood covenant—we gave blood to the gods, and they yielded life’s necessities.
“The king has not given the gods enough blood,” the guard said.
When criminals’, cowards’, and other miscreants’ blood failed to satisfy the gods, another source was available: the Flower Wars.
A Flower War was fought not for territory or riches, but for prisoners, each army fighting not to the death, but for hostages with whom the warriors could return to their land and sacrifice on their temple summits, their blood requiting the gods’ indispensable gifts. These tame wars did not tip a region’s balance of power or subject a king to mortal peril.
The blood pleased the gods, so it worked out well for all concerned.
Except for those who had their hearts ripped out on the sacrificial block.
6
En route to Mayapán, a messenger brought Lord Janaab a codex—a book of bound amyl paper.
The 2012 Codex Page 3