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

by Ian Gibson

  “I… see…”

  She feels the pressure of the stare as it travels from her shoulders, down her neck, to the middle of her chest.

  “… a… secret.”

  She opens her eyes ever so slightly to glimpse the green glow of her amulet. “Why do I have this around my neck?”

  “Even my thousand eyes are not enough to see through a secret so well hidden, but perhaps a thousand and two will do. Come, Itzel the snake-follower, jaguar-rider, rain-bringer, tree-climber, soul-searcher. My forest of secrets awaits you.”

  She feels the weight on her chest has lifted, so she raises her head, opens her eyes slowly, and sees nothing but the blackness.

  Eventually the rain dies down to a drizzle, and Itzel wakes up to the calls of the howler monkeys. She’s not sure how much time she’s slept, but she reckons it’s been an hour or two. She looks at Quashy, who’s curled up and asleep in the other corner, checks that her necklace is on her, then stands up to look at the Forest of a Thousand Eyes that lies to the right of Rocky Creek. It’s completely still and quiet, and she stares at the blackness between its trees, trying to look for any sign of movement in there. She thinks she glimpsed something in the blackness that looked like a pair of eyes, but she might have just been imagining things. The longer she stares, the harder she finds it to look away, as if her neck has stiffened and her eyes have frozen. She slowly leans forward over the parapet, fixated on the blackness between the trees, until she almost falls forward off the edge completely, but she’s stirred out of her trance by the loud howl of a nearby howler monkey. She falls back, shakes her head, and holds herself against the parapet, suddenly feeling very dizzy and disorientated.

  “That was close,” she mutters to herself. She hears another howl and looks towards the Howling Forest, to the left of Rocky Creek. Unlike the black forest, she sees a lot of life and movement there—parrots squawk and flap their wings as the trees rustle from the force of the distinct, low-pitched howls. She’s not sure if the howler monkeys are passing on a message or simply shouting in rejoice that their forest and shrine are no longer under constant threat from the wildfires. The calls immediately remind her of when she first came to this world. It looked very different then, even if it was just two Xibalban days ago. The sky was a haunting red, dark clouds of smoke loomed in the distance, and a furious blaze engulfed the land—more like what she was expecting the Underworld to look like. But now she sees only a beautiful, dense rainforest brimming with the colours of flowers and fruit, and the Sun peeking through the dispersing rain clouds, casting its light upon the treetops with leaves that glitter a bright green, and she begins to wonder if the Underworld is really such a bad place after all—aside from the unrelenting heat, of course. She then wonders what it would be like to see the Moon in the sky, so Kinich Ahau wouldn’t burn his Sun so hot, and he would finally be able to have a good rest. Maybe he’d no longer have those dark circles under his eyes, and he could even be able to lounge like the iguanas do—although maybe not quite as excessively.

  She sees a rustle in the trees close to her—there are two large sycamores on opposite ends of the river whose branches reach out far over the water, as if the two trees were lovers torn apart, stretching as much as they can to touch one another. Spider monkeys have crowded on the branches on each side and are shouting to one another from across the river. One of them is tossing a rope over the river to the others, but the monkeys on the other side keep failing to catch it. The one throwing it is getting very annoyed, judging from its high-pitched chitters while flailing its arms in the air and stomping on the branch. She reckons they’re trying to tie the rope to the two sycamores to bridge the Forked Tongue River, as she assumes spider monkeys don't like to swim, especially now that the green river has swelled, and its current has grown dangerously strong from all the rain.

  Something in the distance catches her eye—a small canoe is coming downriver, rounding one of the curves in the river to come into view. Several dwarfs wearing wide-brimmed hats are standing on it and rowing with small paddles, and she guesses right away that they must be the aluxes, the other little people like Tata Duende—hopefully with less interest in eating thumbs, though. Among them is an old man of regular human size sitting in the middle of the boat. The canoe is wobbling from side to side as the man is clearly too big for it, and the seat is too low for him, so his legs are bent with his knees pulled in towards him. He’s wearing jean trousers and a buttoned shirt—clothes that would be quite normal for her world yet look quite out of place in Xibalba. When the canoe comes to the river fork, a few of the aluxes at the front of it use their oars to nudge against the rocks in the river to navigate around them. They're clumsy as they do this, especially as the current is so strong, and the canoe bumps into a few of the rocks. At one point the boat tips so much that the old man almost falls out of it, but the dwarfs help him back to his seat.

  The boat passes between the spider monkeys, who continue to gripe at each other while trying to throw the rope across. When it's in front of the watchtower, the old man raises his head and sees Itzel, and he waves to her, bearing a big grin. He looks relieved to see another human here. She stands on her tiptoes and waves back. The boat continues down the winding river until it disappears from view behind the trees. She doesn’t know whether to feel happy or sad about what she’s just seen—she feels a bit of both. She assumes he recently died, after all, since he looks like a newcomer, but at least he seems to be at peace, and a beautiful rainforest is here to greet him instead of a scary wildfire. It's just a pity his escort is a bunch of clumsy dwarfs that might tip over the little boat long before they reach the City of the Dead.

  She rests her head on the parapet and looks up at the sky as the clouds gradually part. She hears the cry of a falcon in the distance, jolts upright, and looks westward up Rocky Creek. A falcon soars through the clouds towards her.

  “It’s here!” she screams. She was beginning to worry that it wasn’t going to come at all.

  Kinich Ahau’s and Quashy’s heads perk up, and several iguanas poke their heads out of the hatch door as the falcon lands on the parapet, crying loudly as if to announce its arrival. It has very serious eyes and a bright patch of orange on its breast.

  “Hello, falcon! I’m Itzel,” she says excitedly. “What’s your name?”

  The falcon just stares quietly at her, cocking its head to one side.

  “Does it not talk?” she asks the others.

  “It does, but not any language you’ll be able to understand,” Kinich Ahau tells her.

  “Can you talk to it?”

  “No, not even I can,” he says. “I believe it only speaks a very ancient, very rare dialect of falcon. The chief of Sleeping Lake did this on purpose so secret messages she sends with it can’t be deciphered by anyone who intercepts it, human or god.”

  The falcon flaps its wings and retches up a small wooden tube from its beak, like a mother bird retching up food to feed its young.

  Itzel looks disgustedly at it, then at Kinich Ahau.

  “The chief of Sleeping Lake is very secretive,” the jaguar says. “She’s not at all trusting of anyone beyond her village.”

  She unscrews the top of the tube to find a very small note inside written on amate paper. She unrolls it, but the message is written in glyphs so small, loosely scribbled, and tightly crammed together. Even if she could read the glyphs, she wouldn’t know where one ends and the other begins, like they’re written in cursive that’s meant to be confusingly sloppy. Is there such a thing as cursive for glyphs? If there is, it would probably look like this handwriting. “I have no idea what this says.”

  Quashy peeks over her shoulder. “Don’t ask me.”

  “Yes, I know you can’t read.” She turns to Kinich Ahau. “Can you read?”

  “Of course. Lord Itzamna taught me,” Kinich Ahau says. He squints his eyes and very slowly reads the message:

  To Itzel,

  It grieves me to say that your grand
mother is not among us. Nobody has come to our quiet village in well over a baktun. I wish you luck in finding her, and you are both welcome at any time in Sleeping Lake, our dearest home and sanctuary from the gods.

  May you find the right path.

  —Chief Chop, the One-Eyed

  Kinich Ahau looks offended. “‘Sanctuary from the gods’?” he mutters. “I prefer to be here, in my sanctuary from the humans.”

  The falcon immediately starts ripping the message apart with its beak and talons, like it’s been trained to destroy them once they’re read. It dutifully waits there for a moment in case they intend to send a response back with it.

  “That can’t be true!” Itzel says, her wits boggled and her heart sunken. “She must be there if she’s not in the city!”

  “Chief Chop is an honest woman,” says the giant jaguar. “A little too honest, in fact, as it was that very same honesty that got her into trouble with Kukulkan long ago, and why she fled with her loyal followers deep into the mountains. I have no reason to doubt that her words are true.” He glances at the falcon still waiting there, then back at Itzel. “I assume you don’t need to send a response?”

  She doesn’t answer him, but instead just slumps her back against the parapet, slides down to the floor, and buries her head in her knees.

  Kinich Ahau guesses that’s a no, so he waves his paw to indicate to the falcon that a response won’t be forthcoming, and it flies off in the direction it came.

  “She’s not there either?” Itzel despairs. “Then, where is she?”

  The jaguar lowers his head. “I’m very sorry, little Itzel.”

  Quashy rests his snout on her feet. “What now?”

  She pulls herself back up over the parapet and looks directly at the cursed forest across the river.

  “I told you not to look at it!” Quashy scolds her, before wrapping his tail around her leg and tugging her back down under the parapet.

  “I keep seeing it in my dreams,” she says. “Couldn't she be there?”

  “The Forest of a Thousand Eyes was burnt to the ground until now,” the coati says. “Didn't you say your grandmother fell into the cenote right before you did?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then she isn't there,” he says glibly. “The forest had already been up in flame long before you got here. Unless she's the kind of person who'd walk straight into a forest fire, I think it’s safe to assume she wouldn’t have gone there.”

  “But the voice in my dreams said the forest had the answers,” Itzel says.

  “The witch will say a lot of things,” Quashy tells her. “But nobody who goes into that forest comes back out—that’s a fact.” He looks expectantly at the jaguar for corroboration.

  Kinich Ahau nods to concur. “What the furry snake says is true.”

  He groans at him. “I’m a coati.”

  “Entering the Forest of a Thousand Eyes is a one-way trip,” the jaguar continues, “as is coming to the Underworld at all—for most people. Count yourself lucky that you have life in you and a way back home because of it, and don't lose that life on this foolish chase.”

  An iguana pokes its head out of the hatch. “And as we iguanas always say—better to lounge than chase.”

  But Itzel doesn't respond. She's already thinking long and hard about where else her grandmother could possibly be. She raises her head again, and her voice wobbles as she asks, “Are you sure she wasn’t taken to that bad place? Where people suffer?”

  Kinich Ahau is quick to respond, “Nobody is taken directly to the North anymore. The aluxes would not simply hand a soul over to the Nine Death Lords without reporting it to Lord Itzamna first. Their chief has an arrangement with him—and the Death Lords themselves, for that matter—and they're all required to report to the god of knowledge.”

  “Is there a way to speak with these Death Lords?” she asks him. “In person?”

  “No,” he replies. “They’re very secretive and never leave the North.”

  “Can I go to them?”

  The jaguar blinks at her. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s the North,” he stresses, surprised he’s in a situation where he actually has to explain this. “You can’t get in there, and that’s not even talking about getting out. The entire domain is guarded like a fortress. And if you want to keep that precious life of yours, the North is one of the last places you should be going!”

  “And if you go by day, you’ll fry,” Quashy adds. “Like I said, the whole desert is a cooking pit of black sand. They say the sand even glows red hot like embers! Remember how bad it was out on the lake earlier? The Desert of the North would be a hundred times worse.”

  Itzel winces at the thought. “What about the night-day?” she asks.

  “It might be cooler then, but that’s still ignoring the fact that the borders are guarded,” Kinich Ahau says. “You can’t speak with them, because you can’t go there, and that’s that.”

  Itzel turns to Quashy. “Is there really no way?”

  He props up his snout with his tail to ponder this. “The only possible way to sneak in would be under the cover of darkness.”

  “And without nights, no darkness,” says the Sun god. “It’s not worth losing your life for this.”

  “I have to do something,” she says, her tears streaming down her cheeks. “She’s family.”

  Quashy lowers his ears pityingly and looks at Kinich Ahau. He turns to Itzel and says, “You could try speaking with the aluxes at least? Maybe they know something?”

  “I can’t imagine what help they’d be,” the jaguar says. “They were once enslaved by the Death god, but with him gone they have their freedom, and they're not stupid enough to take any risks to jeopardise that. They follow everything by the book, even if they're a bit… well, clumsy about it, as you can see. I know them well, as they live in Gibnut Forest, where I usually hunt.” He tilts his head indicating to the forest behind them. “They're not all bad like Tata Duende. He's an outcast for a reason.”

  Itzel wipes her tears as she turns her gaze to Gibnut Forest. She picks up her snake-stick. “I’ll just have to ask them myself, then.” She pets Quashy’s head. “Thanks, Quashy.”

  Kinich Ahau draws a deep, frustrated breath. “Little Itzel, you can’t stay here any longer—not when the Dead Queen and her soldiers are looking for you.”

  She starts descending the steps of the tower. “She thinks I’m going to Sleeping Lake, so you said they’ll be going there, right?”

  The giant jaguar narrows his eyes as they follow her down the steps, as if already knowing where this is going. “Yes.”

  “And Sleeping Lake is a very long way to go, right?”

  “Yes, it lies in the westernmost corner of our land, and it’s a steep climb up the highlands to get there.”

  “Then I have some time still, don’t I?”

  “Not as much as you think,” he says. “You shouldn't underestimate the Dead Queen. It's true that she’ll need most of her troops to go to Sleeping Lake, but she also knows the Cave of Echoes is your—and, more importantly, the jade stone's—only way out of here. There's no doubt she'll have tasked soldiers with spying on the cave, too. The only reason we haven't already seen them yet is thanks to Chaac’s rain—the river has swollen, and its currents work against them, so they will have resorted to go on foot the rest of the way. Besides, Gibnut Forest can be dangerous, even if her army weren't looking for you.”

  “I'm in the Underworld,” Itzel says with a shrug. “Everywhere's dangerous.”

  “Yes, exactly my point,” the jaguar responds. “Which is why you should be leaving it while you still can.”

  Once she reaches the bottom of the steps, Quashy quickly descends the tower, hanging upside-down from his tail the same way he climbed it, his beaded necklace falling off in the process.

  “What’s the quickest way to the little people's village?” she asks the coati while picking up his necklace f
rom the ground for him.

  Kinich Ahau growls softly, clearly getting impatient with her. “You're not listening. You can't stay here.”

  “I can be quick about it!” Itzel assures him. “And these aluxes might be able to help me sneak past the soldiers into the cave.” She turns to Quashy again. “You said they're good at sneaking, right?”

  “They're little and can turn invisible, so yes, they're some of the best at that,” Quashy says, with a detectable hint of envy in his words. “Gibnut Forest is normally full of all kinds of traps and nasty surprises that the aluxes like to lay, but the fires will have destroyed them all. You’d have to go now before they start laying new traps. And let me tell you, those dwarfs work quickly, so you don't have much time.”

  “They can’t work that quickly,” she says. “The forest has only been back for what? A couple hours?”

  Quashy blinks. “What’s an hour?”

  “You don’t know what an hour is either?” she asks, somewhat surprised that she has to explain something so basic in her life—although it’s not the first time she’s had to do that for him. “It’s an amount of time smaller than a day.”

  “You use parts of time even smaller than a day? What’s the point of that? A day is no time at all here in Xibalba.”

  “It’s useful for us, I guess.”

  “The land of the living sounds silly,” Quashy concludes. “Anyway, I’d still be very careful in there. Don’t be surprised if you end up ensnared and hanging upside-down from a branch.” He coughs deliberately and whispers, “Like what you did to me.”

  “Sorry,” she says, “but you did steal from me, so you were asking for it.”

  The coati huffs. “That being said, even a forest riddled with traps is far safer than that witch’s cursed forest—that place is one big trap that you won’t be able to just cut your way out of.”

  “It’s strictly forbidden to lay traps in any of our forests,” Kinich Ahau says with a low, vexed growl, “but I’ve largely given up enforcing it. The aluxes are just too sneaky for me to be able to catch them doing it. At the very least, their traps have helped to deter the humans from cutting down more trees to build yet more of their city. For every city that grows, a forest dies. I hate to say it, but it is the traps that have kept Gibnut Forest standing.”