“The Jaguar Oracle,” I heard one whisper, awed.
I flinched at the name. I had already heard it twice before from people on the street, one from a woman speaking to her child, another from a man who spoke the name loudly.
Word of the incidents at my village, where I had warned of an attack and then of a snake, had also spread around the town, and I had gained a reputation as a seer that I did not deserve.
I wondered if the stories of my feats had grown so tall that I could have gone straight to the king’s chamber and cut off his head without being stopped.
Once inside the walls, I followed the crowded main corridor to a side hallway, which led to the king’s library.
From talking to Lord Janaab’s servant, who kept the accounting of the High Lord’s income, I knew that the library was divided into two parts: The larger part stored the books, which recorded the possessions of the king, the taxes collected and owed, and all the other writings necessary for keeping track of the many functions of government.
My conversation with the great lord’s accounts chief also solved part of the mystery of the cryptic message left on the wall: The Master of the Library was blind.
“In his youth, he was the best artist in Mayapán,” the accounts chief told me.
“When did he go blind?” I asked.
“He was blinded before you were born. A War Lord who disliked a battle scene that the Master painted ordered his eyes burned out. The scene showed the War Lord behind advancing warriors instead of at the head.”
“Was he behind his troops?” I asked.
The accounts chief’s features turned arrogant and haughty. “None of us questions what a great lord does, the Master included,” he said disdainfully.
The artist was blinded for offending a War Lord. Eyo! He was lucky he was not sacrificed. In fact, I was puzzled that he drew the scene in a way he had to know would offend the War Lord. I also felt that blinding the artist was crueler than putting him to death. To a painter, vision is everything, and the War Lord robbed the artist of what he most held dear.
“He was the king’s favorite painter, so he was made Master of the Library.”
The Master was in the smaller part of the library, which contained the codices that recorded the history of the king and royal ancestors, the history of the Maya people in general, and many tales of heroes and kings and gods such as those I once told at campfires and now entertained Lord Janaab’s festival guests with.
More than once I’d wanted to go to the library and research an inscription that I questioned, but I had instead found the answer in older inscriptions, which I believed the Jeweled Skull had authenticated.
My authority to enter the library to check inscriptions was the scroll bearing Lord Janaab’s mark. While Lord Janaab’s own authority did not extend into the palace itself, I didn’t think that the people running the library would counter a command from a High Lord, especially one who was second only to the War Lord in the king’s favor.
The scribbled message on the wall had not left my thoughts since I saw it yesterday. Rather than rushing to the library immediately, and arousing Six Sky’s suspicions by altering my routine, I kept on checking inscriptions for the rest of the day.
This morning I let Six Sky know I was returning to an inscription which I suspected had an error in it, but I wasn’t certain. I needed to reflect upon it, do research, perhaps at the Royal Library.
He had little interest in my work but watched intently whenever I spoke to someone. After a man suddenly begged me to divine the fate of his sick child—believing that since I bore the jaguar name, I possessed powers of divination—Six Sky followed the man and no doubt interrogated him about our conversation.
Six Sky would have discovered that I told the man I was not a seer and that he should consult the priests at the temple.
Eyo! One does not want to go into competition with the priests, who get paid not only for telling the future, but also for cutting out the hearts of those that fall into their bloodstained hands.
The servant opened the door to the library and stared directly into my eyes, his own eyes barely touching upon my scars. He never bothered looking at my claw.
He wasn’t blind—he obviously had been told to expect me. His nose and protruding teeth reminded me of a rat. He told me he was the assistant librarian.
“I wish to speak to the Master of the Library,” I said. “I am on the business of the great lord Janaab.”
I had Janaab’s scroll, but the librarian never asked to see it.
“I will advise the Master of your request.”
He left me wondering who had warned that I was coming. The woman who left the mysterious message? Or Six Sky because I mentioned the library to him?
No codices were in the entry room, but through an open doorway, I could see books laid out on tables.
Even though I had seen codices before, the sight of the books still stirred my emotions. Books were rare treasures, possessed only by royalty, nobles, and very rich merchants.
In a way, I lusted for the knowledge contained in the codices. It is true that I am a storyteller and that the gods have permitted me to accumulate in my head an incredible number of stories to be shared with others. But the library contained not just the tales of heroes and gods but the entire history of my people, perhaps even the history of the One-World, all the stories of the four previous times the world was destroyed by the whims of the gods, and the four times man and beast were re-created. The library represented illimitable learning, knowledge without end.
I was drooling over the prospect of someday reading all the books in the Royal Library when the assistant returned.
“The Master will see you.”
20
I was led into an artist’s studio. The seashells holding pigments were filled with dry paint; the brushes were stiff.
A blind man sat at a table with a book open in front of him. “Come to me,” he said.
I stepped up to the table.
He gestured with his hand. “Please, I am too old and stiff to stand for long. The book you see in front of you I read with my fingers. Bend down so I can read your face.”
I did as he requested, and his fingers felt my face.
“Ah, yes, the scars of the Jaguar Oracle.”
“I am not a seer.”
He shrugged and gave a chuckle. “You are what people believe you to be. Don’t be quick to deny something about yourself that may help you someday. If I had been an oracle rather than a painter, I would not be using my hands for eyes now.”
I offered him a short laugh. “I suspect that more oracles have found themselves in the sacrifice line for failing to please their lords than artists have.”
“You are right. But remember this: A good oracle offers advice that is ambiguous enough to justify any outcome.” He clapped his hands. “Chocolate for our guest!” he yelled.
He gestured at a chair. “Please, sit down. Tell me why you have honored this old man with your visit.”
I took a seat. I was surprised that he asked me why I had come. I had expected that he would know of the message, that in fact he was the one who had commissioned it, though I could think of no reason why he would use such an indirect way of having me come to the library.
As the keeper of the kingdom’s history, he could have found many reasons to summon me to the library—without having a woman risk the sacrifice line for defacing a sacred inscription.
“I have to research the Dark Rift Codex.”
The words flew out of my mouth. I had no control over them. The Master of the Library sat perfectly still, his mouth a little agape, as if I had slapped him across the face.
I froze in my own chair, tempted to get up and run, but with no place to hide. Or anything to say. I was out of words and out of my mind, I thought.
A servant—bringing in cups of chocolate—filled the void. Under less trying circumstances, I would have relished the drink. I had never had an actual full cu
p of it, just a taste once when the headman passed around a cup after a pleased stone merchant gave him some extra cacao beans for exceptional work.
The Master of the Library took a sip and licked his lips. He stared up at the ceiling, as if he were looking to the gods for guidance.
Finally, he asked, “What do you know about the Dark Rift Codex?”
I shook my head. “Nothing but the name. I have heard the name and am curious to read it.”
“Why do you want to read it?”
“Why? Because I am a storyteller and have been given the task of ensuring that all the sacred writings in the city are correct. I want to read the codex to see if it contains tales that I am not familiar with.”
He nodded. “Yes, I can see that you would. I was once a storyteller, besides being a painter who preserved them for all time. But it has been a long time since the king asked me to entertain him and his guests. Now I am merely the keeper of tales.” He took another sip of the chocolate drink and then asked, “Have you found many errors in the sacred writings?”
“Some . . . the more recent the writings, the greater the prevalence of errors.”
“Yes, yes, that makes sense.”
“Because—”
I stopped because of the way he was moving his left thumb. He jerked it as if he wanted me to see something to his left. A doorway was to his left, and I got up and stepped quickly to it.
The rat-faced assistant who had let me in—and who had shown no surprise at the fact that the famous Jaguar Oracle had come to the library—was crouched down on his knees, leaning against the door, listening to our conversation.
At the sight of me, he let out a startled cry and got up and turned to run. As he did, I gave him a kick in the rear that sent him stumbling.
I closed the door and sat back down.
The Master of the Library was shaking with laughter he wasn’t able to smother. “Very good,” he said, “very good. I hope the kick at Koj was well placed.”
“For a blind man, you see very well.”
“True, like my fingers, my ears have also become eyes. But kicking an eavesdropping servant does not take away the danger of speaking of the unmentionable.”
“Lord Janaab asked me about the Dark Rift. He wanted to know if Jeweled Skull told me about it.”
“You knew Jeweled Skull?”
I told the old man about Ajul. I left out the conversation I had with Ajul about the Dark Rift.
“Did you also know Jeweled Skull?” I asked.
The question hung in the air like a dark cloud. Finally, the Master said, “Yes. When Jeweled Skull was the king’s storyteller, not only did he approve all sacred writings on buildings, but he had many preserved in codices, as well. I was his chief artist. No books were approved until he had me review them to see that the scribes had done the finest job possible.”
“Did he record the story of the Dark Rift?”
The Master shook his head. “You do not understand. The Dark Rift is a codex written long ago, further back than any of us can imagine. At first it was a tale passed down by generation after generation of storytellers, but long ago, in Tula, the golden city of the Toltecs, an astronomer-oracle put the legend into a codex for the god-king Quetzalcoatl.”
“You have the codex in the library?”
“No. If it were here, those who fear its prophecy would have destroyed it long ago.”
“Where is it?”
The Master shrugged. “Somewhere in the One-World. That is all I know.”
“What does the codex say?”
He shook his forefinger at me. “That is a secret many want to know. There are those who believe they know, but have never actually seen the book. One man from Mayapán may actually know what it says, and he is said to be dead. The one you knew as Ajul and I as Jeweled Skull.”
“What did Jeweled Skull know about the codex?”
“I don’t know exactly what he knew, but whatever it was, he fled Mayapán rather than divulge the secret.” He held up a hand to stop my onslaught of questions. “I was an artist, not Jeweled Skull’s confidante. If he told anyone, it would have been her.”
“Her?”
“The High Priestess of the Temple of Love.”
His answer surprised me.
The Temple of Love was a pyramid about half the size of the main temple, dedicated to the Feathered Serpent. I had passed it many times but dared not go up the steps. The women in it were said to be the most beautiful women in all the land of my people. Selected while they were very young and still virgins, the women were not permitted to marry. Instead, they served as concubines for the rich and powerful.
The blind man chuckled again. “Who better to confide a secret to than the woman who soothes and pleasures you?”
21
Thoughts about the mysterious codex prepared for Quetzalcoatl stayed with me when I left the Royal Library. Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, was first linked with the great city Teotihuacán, which had fallen nine hundred years ago. No one knew why Teotihuacán—once the largest and most powerful city in the One-World—was now a spectral city of gloomy ghosts.
More than a dozen times larger than Mayapán, much of the city still stands, including two great pyramids that reach all the way to the gods and dwarf all others in the One-World.
But it is a haunted shadow of its former self.
No one knows why its people fled and never returned, and few have ventured in this eerie place for fear that the angry gods who drove out more than two hundred thousand people would destroy them.
Even the city’s name was lost in mists of time. Teotihuacán, the City of the Gods, was simply a name we bestowed on it centuries later.
Each year, the Aztec emperor, out of fear and respect, went to the city abandoned by all but ghosts and gods, accompanied by his great lords, to leave gifts for the gods and beg them not to destroy the cities of the Aztecs.
Even before Teotihuacán was shattered on the Wheel of Time, my people, the Maya, rose to turn the southern half of the One-World into a high culture with beautiful cities like Palenque, Uxmal, Tikal, and Copán. The cities had well-constructed temples and palaces, fine art, libraries of books, and powerful armies.
Eyo! But the gods tired of the petty squabbling of my ancestors and, about six hundred years ago, also broke the Land of the Maya on the Wheel of Time.
As with Teotihuacán in the north, the Maya cities were abandoned to the ravenous jungle surrounding them, the population decimated, arts and learning forgotten as the survivors fought the jungle to maintain enough room to grow food.
Yet each time the gods broke a civilization, they transferred their largesse to another, and after Teotihuacán, it was Tula.
Even the name of its god-king, Quetzalcoatl, was beautiful. Quetzals were the most stunning birds in the One-World, and their plumage was highly prized and reserved for royalty, nobles, and the wealthy merchants who could afford them. Coatl meant “snake.” Put together, Quetzalcoatl was what the Aztecs called the Feathered Serpent in their Nahuatl tongue.
As I said earlier, we called the great Feathered Serpent god Kukulkán in our Mayan language.
Quetzalcoatl became the most powerful in the pantheon of gods of most cultures of the One-World.
After the fall of the great Maya civilization about six hundred years ago, Tula began its rise to dominance. Always an important city, it would not become preeminent in the One-World until the rise of a young prince who—after his father, the king, was murdered—had been wounded and driven out.
The prince went into the wilderness and lived with a pack of jaguars until his wounds healed. Then he returned to Tula with an army, conquering the city, and avenging the violence visited on his family.
The prince assumed the throne as god-king and took the name of the powerful deity and thereafter was called only Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent.
King Quetzalcoatl was not just a great warrior, but an artistic thinker who loved knowledge and great
works of art.
His first task was as a conqueror, and he led Toltec armies against all, until every kingdom in the north either became his vassal or paid tribute to him.
The treasures he collected from the conquered went not into his private coffers, but was used to gather in Tula the finest artists and craftsmen of the One-World.
Thousands came and over the years turned the Toltec capital into the most beautiful city of the One-World, a city so wondrous that hundreds of years later, the legends about it and its god-king still made the kings of all the lands of the One-World drool with envy.
No city—not Tenochtitlán of the Aztecs, Teotihuacán of the Gods, or the great cities of my Maya—is thought of with the awe that golden Tula inspired now, five hundred years after it, too, was broken on the Wheel of Time by the gods.
Tula. The name rang in my head as I walked aimlessly, working off nervous energy.
To anyone in the One-World, the name was tantamount to a heavenly paradise. Learned men knew that there had actually been a Tula, and that it had been the capital of a great empire hundreds of years ago. But to most, the city was a fabled land of plenty, where ears of maize grew as big as men, and beans were the size of fists.
The Land of the Toltecs lay at the northern edge of the One-World, several days’ walk from Tenochtitlán, the city of the Aztecs.
Our civilizations in the One-World rose to greatness and faded at the whim of the gods. Tula and its mighty Toltec empire followed that pattern but first attained an almost godlike grandeur, becoming the greatest citadel of science, architecture, mathematics, and art in our history. Transforming the great Toltec empire into a kind of earthly paradise, the land itself seemed to sing Tula’s praises, producing beans, melons, and ears of maize of prodigious proportions. Its august emperor, the god-king Quetzalcoatl, ruled with bountiful beneficence, outlawing war, human sacrifice, and turning Tula into a peaceable kingdom and an earthly paradise.
But he had not anticipated the wrath of our priests.
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