The Land of the Night Sun: Book One of The Jade Necklace

by Ian Gibson

  Itzel thinks it’s nice that the abandoned tower has found a new use, and she does find herself envying the iguanas a bit, though there might also be such a thing as lounging too much. “So that’s all you do?” she asks the iguana. “You just lounge all day long? Doesn’t that get boring?”

  “For us iguanas, lounging isn’t just an activity—it’s our philosophy,” the iguana replies. “It’s about accepting that the universe is beyond our control. The only ones in control are the gods. The difference between you humans and us iguanas is that you think you have control when you actually don’t. You either try to curry the favour of the gods to chase what you want, or you abandon them to chase what you want yourselves. Either way, chasing after your wants is a race that never ends. We iguanas simply choose not to enter the race at all, and are quite happy to lounge right where we are instead.”

  “Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Quashy says.

  The iguana’s eye falls upon Quashy. “You still have much to learn yourself, Banded Bandit. You allow your wants to drive you, too. But you won’t pass on to the heavens until you free yourself of all burdens.”

  “Why haven’t you iguanas gone to the heavens yet then?” Itzel asks.

  The iguana wears a cool, relaxed smile. “We’re far too lazy, but we’ll get around to it when we feel like it.”

  “See how cool they are?” Quashy says. “Why can’t we all be more like the iguanas?”

  “I thought you liked to be a coati anyway,” she tells Quashy.

  He turns his snout up. “Of course. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Iguanas simply earn my respect because I admire their philosophy. Also, their tails are striped. And as I’ve said, stripes are better than spots! It’s been confirmed!” He says this very loudly, just in case a certain jaguar is listening.

  Two enormous golden eyes appear next to the tall tower, peering at them. Kinich Ahau has sat upright so his head reaches the top of it. “Excuse me?” he asks.

  The iguana on the parapet sees him and gasps. “The great and fiery Kinich Ahau, god of the Sun, graces Iguana Lounge with his presence?” He bows his head reverentially, which is the most movement Itzel’s seen from it or any of the other iguanas so far. “We didn’t even hear you come, my lord!”

  “I’m a jaguar,” Kinich Ahau says in his deep, godly voice. “I’m only heard when I choose to be heard.”

  “And what brings my lord to this quiet corner of the forest?” the iguana asks. “If you’re interested in a steam bath, my lord might need to consider taking a more modest form. I’m afraid Iguana Lounge doesn’t normally accommodate jaguars as tall as trees.”

  “He’s with us,” Itzel tells the iguana.

  The hatch door opens, and several iguanas poke their heads outside.

  “Lord Kinich Ahau is here?” one of them asks.

  “It can’t be true!” another remarks in disbelief.

  “Has he come to lounge?” the third asks. “We’ll need a much bigger hammock!”

  “I’m fine with staying outside,” the jaguar says. “I’m keeping watch.”

  “We can keep watch too!” the iguanas say, and they shuffle up the parapet and stare downriver too.

  Itzel is rather amused that the iguanas are just blankly and dazedly staring into the distance without even asking what they’re supposed to be looking out for, but she concludes that they’re probably used to staring blankly and dazedly at things while they lounge all day.

  Quashy whispers to Kinich Ahau, “I see you have a fan club.”

  The jaguar turns away, as if trying to be modest about it, but whispers back, “Yes, iguanas seem to like me.”

  Itzel laughs. "Being the Sun god must be a big deal.”

  "I wasn't the original Sun-bearer,” he admits. “I believe you met Lord Itzamna?"

  Itzel nods. It’s not easy to forget the grouchy old man with a long beaked nose, especially after he seemed to have tipped off the Dead Queen that she had the jade stone.

  "He was one of the first sky gods,” the jaguar explains, “and he was entrusted as the custodian of the Sun that King Kukulkan made when he and Hurakan set about to create the world. His wife, Lady Chel, was the original custodian of the Moon. Kukulkan and Hurakan gave their Sun and Moon to them as their wedding gifts."

  Itzel thinks that if she were to ever marry someday, she wouldn't be getting anything like that, although maybe some flowers would be nice—she’s grown fond of red hibiscus, especially seeing as one saved her life in a storm just earlier this morning. Not that she’s given the prospect of marriage much thought anyway, as she isn't interested in boys all that much, though her mother keeps telling her that will change soon. But then again, her mother also keeps telling her that she'll learn to like dresses, yet after all this time running around the Underworld in one, she's resolved that she'll never wear one again, not even to her wedding if she has any choice in the matter—not unless she brings her dear grandmother back after all this, as of course she’d make an exception for her sake.

  "But the Death god set off his rise to power by destroying the weakened Sun as it passed through the Underworld,” says the jaguar. “Lord Itzamna, as the custodian of the Sun, was therefore supposed to escort it during its passage here once it dipped below the horizon in your world, but instead he shirked his duty to focus on his own research and left the Sun in the care of his hummingbird.”

  “The Sun was left in the care of a hummingbird?” she asks. She finds hummingbirds very pleasant birds, but hardly worthy of being someone’s bodyguard, much less the bodyguard of something as important as the Sun.

  “Looks can be deceiving,” Kinich Ahau responds. “From what I’ve heard, that hummingbird put up quite a fight—Yum Kimil’s forces were humiliated and it took the strength of the Death god himself to defeat it. It was still just a hummingbird, after all—not a sky god like Lord Itzamna—so there was only so much the little hummingbird could do.”

  Itzel blinks repeatedly as she tries to wrap her brain around how that little green hummingbird she met in the city could take on an army. She’s glad she wasn’t on this hummingbird’s bad side.

  “And when it succumbed to Yum Kimil,” the jaguar continues, “he was able to extinguish the weakened Sun and plunge the world into an icy darkness. Then he climbed the World Tree that once grew to the heavens and abducted the Moon from there to destroy it too, when Lady Chel was supposed to be watching over it—but she, like her husband, apparently had more important things to do with her time.”

  Itzel remembers her grandmother telling her that in her story. “The Death god did that just because they looked like big eyes watching him, right?” At least, that was her grandmother’s explanation. She steals a very quick, cautious glance across the river toward the black jungle that they call the Forest of a Thousand Eyes, and wonders if the Death god might have had dreams like hers—of eyes watching intensely from the blackness between the trees.

  “Yum Kimil was mad—of that there is no doubt,” Kinich Ahau replies, “but there was method to his madness. He destroyed the Sun and Moon because he knew an act so heinous, so intolerable, so treacherous to the will of the god-king would incur the full extent of Kukulkan’s wrath, and it did. Just as Yum Kimil intended, Kukulkan retaliated by summoning all the gods of the sky and earth to invade the Underworld. And when they came, Yum Kimil was prepared, having amassed an army of his own, and there was an all-out war between the gods and the dead. Of course, the dead, even in their vast numbers, could stand no chance against the might of the gods, but Yum Kimil knew this. The Battle of the Underworld was all but a mere distraction, as while it raged and shook the bowels of the earth, a contingent of Yum Kimil’s forces sneaked up into the land of the living and cut down the World Tree that linked the three worlds together, thus trapping the gods in his Underworld forever. Sealing off his fellow gods from the Upper and Middleworlds, Yum Kimil sent a false sun into Xibalba’s sky to cast a spell on them, deluding them into thinking that all was rig
ht, and order had been restored to the world. That’s when the tides turned, and it all started from the destruction of the old Sun and Moon.”

  "I can’t believe that old stork man and plant lady forgot about the Sun and Moon when they were supposed to be protecting them!" Itzel says. If she had something so important, she probably wouldn’t forget about it!

  “Lord Itzamna and Lady Chel were too distracted by their work,” he replies, “most of all their ongoing human project. Even after they made the humans, they couldn't stop tinkering around with them, like a pair of children with dolls. Lord Itzamna was supposed to escort his sun in its journey through the Underworld, and Lady Chel was supposed to keep an eye on her moon from a branch in the World Tree, but neither of them had the time for it anymore.”

  The more Itzel thinks about it, the less she’s surprised it happened, considering her own experience with them both, especially Lord Itzamna, who was so engrossed with his work that spiders had woven webs between his legs and his desk.

  "They were never the same since their failure, and they were even more ashamed when their own creations—the humans—were manipulated by the Death god into cutting down the sacred World Tree that directly connected the Underworld to the heavens. Without the interference of the heavens anymore, Xibalba seized the opportunity to expand its dominion. And when the dead built their city of stone in the World Tree’s place, Lord Itzamna and Lady Chel both built their own huts and became hermits. Lady Chel rarely leaves, and when she does it’s only to collect plants from these forests, whereas her husband doesn't leave his hut at all. They gave up their roles in the council of gods also."

  "That's very sad,” Itzel says. “They must feel very bad about it."

  Kinich Ahau’s golden eyes still stare intently down the Forked Tongue River, sometimes turning his attention to Rocky Creek. "It is often said that the gods never change—always stuck in a loop, like a snake biting its own tail—but those two were the only exceptions. Perhaps it's because they're more human than god now."

  "They're two gods who became human, and you and your sister were two humans that became gods to replace them?”

  Kinich Ahau purrs a chuckle. “That's one way of looking at it."

  "Do you think the Death god destroyed your sister's moon too?"

  The jaguar’s smile quickly evaporates. "I don’t believe so." He looks distracted when he answers. He lies down and starts looking closely at the river, and then he quickly snatches a large fish out of the water with his claw and eats it. The movement was so fast even despite his humongous size, and Itzel would have missed it had she blinked.

  Her stomach grumbles—it must be the early afternoon by now, and her breakfast from the street market in the City of the Dead wasn’t very filling, and she spent most of the morning either running or rowing.

  Quashy hears her stomach’s pleas. “I bet you’re regretting you didn’t have more of the finger soup.”

  Itzel frowns at him. “No.” Her eyes scan the forest around them, spotting all kinds of fruit hanging from its trees that dot the green jungle in their delicious colours of reds, yellows, and oranges—among them she spots mangos, cashews, bananas, and papayas. She’s never seen so much fruit growing from trees before! They’re brimming with them to the point that their branches are almost look like they’re buckling from the weight. She points to the nearest mango tree. “Quashy, could you get any of those with your tail?”

  He slings out his ringed tail to pick the mangos and hauls them one by one to the tower, casting and reeling them in like he’s fishing fruit instead of fish, and lining them on the parapet like a banquet. Itzel then points eagerly to the papayas, and Quashy plucks them from the branches also. Kinich Ahau notices this, and when Quashy has lined the parapet of the tower with a varied selection of fruit, the giant jaguar sits up and slices each one open with the very edge of his sharp claw.

  “Thank you so much, Mister Kinich Ahau!” Itzel says. She gestures to the fruit he’s sliced for them. “Would you like some too?”

  Kinich Ahau leans his head forward to the tower and sniffs the fruit, but his large golden eyes—glimmering in rays of sunlight peeking through the rain clouds—turn their gaze to the human girl, coati, and iguanas. “Thank you, but I prefer meat.”

  Quashy falls backward, dropping a slice of mango he was nibbling on, and scurries to the other side of the tower, and the iguanas lounging on the parapet flee down the hatch into the steam room, closing the door behind them. Itzel just stands there and laughs while wiping the mango juice trailing down her chin.

  “At least Itzel isn’t afraid of me,” the jaguar says.

  “This mango doesn’t taste as sweet as the ones in my world,” Itzel remarks. She finds it surprising, seeing as they look just as delicious, although she remembers even the bananas the howlers gave her weren’t quite as tasty either.

  “You’re in the Underworld,” Kinich Ahau reminds her. “In the land of the dead, things probably don’t taste as sweet as in the living world.”

  She abruptly stops eating her mango, as her nose crumples and her mouth hangs in a very displeased frown. “Kinich Ahau?”

  “Yes, Itzel?” asks the giant jaguar.

  “Am I eating a ghost mango?”

  He chuckles softly. “In a way, yes. It’s something Chaac moans about a lot here. He has a sweet tooth. And I’m willing to bet that’s the real reason why he’s always slipping into your world during Wayeb. As pleasing to the eye and nose as the Underworld has become compared to the horrid place it once was, life is—and always will be—sweeter than death.”

  Itzel stares undecidedly at her half-eaten mango. What kind of world is this where the rain can taste sweeter than a mango? She sits down and finishes it anyway—whether it’s a ghost mango or not, seeing as she’s so hungry—and its juices drip from her chin and fingers. Once she’s done, she plucks off a leaf from a nearby tree to wipe her mouth and rinses her hands by leaning over the parapet and holding them out in the rain. She then opens her canteen and fills it up with some of the rainwater, too. As she’s doing this, she hears a loud crash coming from the Howling Forest and glimpses a dark brown tapir careening through the jungle at top speed.

  “Is that Cabrakan?” she asks.

  Kinich Ahau doesn’t even need to look to respond. “Sounds like him.”

  “He’s smaller now,” she remarks, as he appeared to be a tapir of a size one would expect of a tapir, which she thinks is probably a good thing, as if he were storming through the jungle at the monstrous size he was when she first met him, he’d leave a wide path of destruction in his wake—she can’t imagine the howler monkeys would be pleased about that, just as the woodpecker wasn’t about his rampage through the pine forest.

  “That’s Cabrakan of the South,” Kinich Ahau says. “You must have seen Cabrakan of the West, and he’s strongest and largest in the mountains.”

  Itzel still finds it bizarre that the gods split themselves into four like this. It must involve a lot of multitasking to be in four places at once. She hears the piercing cry of what sounds like a hawk and looks to the overcast sky. Could that be the messenger falcon she’s waiting for? The bird swooshes overhead, but as it comes into view, she realises it’s a harpy eagle—the crest around its head is unmistakable.

  “And that sounds like Hurakan,” says the jaguar, still not even needing to look to know precisely who it is. “The gods of the South are coming out of hiding now that the rainforest has regrown.”

  “Who’s strongest here then?” she asks him, having noticed that Hurakan isn’t so monstrously large here in the South either.

  “Quite a few,” Kinich Ahau replies. “Hun Batz—he’s the Howler monkey god, but he spends all his time in his shrine practising how to whisper. The last time he spoke, he almost destroyed this corner of Xibalba, and he went mostly deaf from his own voice. Lord Itzamna had to teach him a monkey form of sign language.”

  Itzel cringes at the thought of a giant howler monkey screamin
g with a godly voice, as even the small ones she’s encountered are too much for her ears to handle.

  “There’s also Ek Chuaj, the Merchant god. He’s a peccary who—”

  “Sells perfumes,” she says, while rolling her eyes slightly.

  Kinich Ahau lets out a purring chuckle. “I was wondering why you smelled so nice. There’s also Camazotz, but without the nights he spends all his time hiding deep in the caves. Or, well, what’s left of him, anyway, after his soul was ripped apart and he fell into madness.”

  Itzel rests her chin on the parapet. “What about Kukulkan? Is he strongest here too or is he just a small snake?”

  “Kukulkan is the god-king, so he’s equally strong everywhere but the North. But during Wayeb his southern form spends most of his time in your world taking the form of a small snake. Chaac gives him a lot of grief because he’s always dipping into the pools in the cave and slipping into your world against Kukulkan’s wishes. He claims he does it just because he loves to swim.”

  “Frogs do love to swim. Wait, sorry—I forgot he’s a toad,” she says, remembering Chaac correcting her about that. “He got really annoyed when I called him a frog.”

  Kinich Ahau lets out another one of his purring laughs. “I had to learn the distinction myself. Frogs are slim and sleek, and toads are fat and warty. Chaac can be either, but he’s bigger and stronger as a toad, which is why you usually see him in that form in the Underworld. He’s a frog when he slips into your world, though—probably because they’re more slippery.” He gestures to the sky above them. “Even if he claims otherwise, everyone suspects the real reason why he heads up there every Wayeb is to go on an eating binge, as whenever Kukulkan drags him back kicking and croaking, he has a much fuller belly than when he left.”

  Itzel scrunches her face at the thought. She wouldn’t be surprised if that were true, but it angers her all the more that her family couldn’t take her grandmother to the hospital just because the Rain god has a serious binge-eating disorder. As she gazes at the rain, she can’t help but be reminded of the downpour that seemingly came from nowhere to flood the river near her grandmother’s village, cutting it off from the rest of the world. She loses herself in thought for quite a while, drifting from anger to confusion, from confusion to sadness, and finally from sadness to sleepiness. She yawns and stretches, then realises she hasn’t heard any movement from Kinich Ahau since their conversation ended abruptly, and wonders if he might have fallen asleep, but when she peeks over the parapet, she sees his golden-tinged eyes are still wide open. He’s resting his head on his paws, his eyes still fixed downriver, but he often glances up at the sky. At first Itzel thinks he might be checking if the messenger falcon from Sleeping Lake is anywhere to be seen, but there’s something deeply longing in his eyes when they look at the sky, like he’s missing something that was once there. She looks up also—there are gaps of blue sky in the rain clouds now, and the heavy downpour has lightened somewhat.