CHAPTER 42
Drums and flutes and clapping kept a rhythm, rising and falling like the breath of the jungle. Everyone with a role in the game danced: the fire tenders who would keep the smoke of prayers rising from the walls, the players, the judges, the ball-retrievers who stood out of court, the high priest and the water boy. Even though he would only be a watcher, as a Lord of Itzá, Ah Bahlam had a role of his own. Not the one he’d wanted, but this wasn’t the time to think about that. Swirling forms filled the Ball Court, costumed and not. Ah Bahlam wore his jaguar cloak, but not the awkward mask. Jaguar teeth rattled against his chest as he twirled and stamped.
Periodically, laughter rose.
The captives watched, solemn faced and serious. They had all been brought together at the top of the parapet of the game wall, surrounded by the warriors who captured them. No others stood beside them. Did that mean Hun Kan would not give her life?
Was he selfish to want life? He smiled and chanted, and the blood throbbed in his arm where he had sliced in ceremony the night before. His blood wanted to be free again, to flow like a river from his heart onto the Ball Court. It wanted to fill the underground rivers.
Blood like rain.
Blood heartbeat, loud in his ears. His feet stumbled as the dance dizzied him, but his beating heart and his jaguar did not let him fall.
Other dancers grinned giddily or grimaced as he caught flashes of their faces shining with afternoon sun, sweat dripping from their foreheads.
Dancing the portal open, so the players could game with the gods.
CHAPTER 43
Alice grew uneasy as walked through the crowds, searching the faces around her for Nix or Oriana. A man with the tail of a snake dragging in the packed earth behind him and a huge parrot-like head draped in red and green Macaw feathers passed close. His heavy footsteps and the sounds of shells rattling against his ankles drew her attention. What if Nixie wasn’t here because she’d gone back?
Goneanywhen?
She glanced at her phone. Nix was here, somewhere; her signal blinked right above Alice’s.
She punched buttons quickly, demanding a close-in view. Dammit, if only she had the bandwidth to display a real-time aerial. Nix was close, but too far away to be in the Ball Court. Alice tried calling Nix’s phone, but it went straight to voicemail.
She headed toward the gate, but she hadn’t got five steps when she ran into Oriana coming toward her, dressed in jeans and a yellow T-shirt and an ear-to-ear grin.
“Did you see us? We hadn’t done that well in any rehearsals, and we never got to practice here. It’s like being in the Ball Court made us better.”
“You looked great. Nix went to find you. But she’s—I don’t know. Out there somewhere.” Alice pointed in the direction Nix’s light indicated. “Did you see her?”
Oriana shook her head. “Want me to help look for her?”
Marie. She was supposed to get Oriana to Marie. At the least, she had to tell Marie she was going off to find Nix. “Look, come with me. Marie Healey wants to talk to you. Then I’ll go look for Nixie.”
Oriana gaped. “To me?”
“She wants to ask you about your dance. Maybe you can talk to her about the reefs. Come on, hurry. I need to go find Nix.”
“I can help you.”
“I can’t just run off on the president’s science advisor without telling her anything.” She turned and started walking toward the VIP benches. Oriana came up beside her, whispering, “You really are worried, aren’t you? You can see her beacon, right?”
Alice nodded.
“That’s not so bad then,” Oriana said.
“Maybe.” Alice didn’t like not being able to see Nix at all. “Have you heard from Ian?”
“No.” Oriana sounded exasperated. “I told you he’s a flake, sometimes. He’s supposed to be here. He has security detail tonight. And I only have an hour’s break. I just wanted to catch the start of the ball game.”
The dance of the Wayob was still going on, but the dancers in the heaviest costumes already looked tired. “I don’t think it will be long,” Alice said.
They were almost at the VIP benches. Nix wasn’t there.
She’d been right about the timing. The announcer’s voice came over the air. “Please be seated. In ten minutes, the ball game will begin. Please be seated, the game is about to begin.” The voice switched to Spanish.
Alice took the steps two at a time. Marie was deep in conversation with Aditi Roy, who now sat next to her. Some high end musical chairs. Marie put a finger up, forestalling Alice’s planned interruption.
She had to go find Nix!
Aditi smiled at her. “Alice! It’s a pleasure to see you again. Who is your friend?”
Thank god for the prime minister’s perceptiveness. Alice performed the introductions as quickly as she could, and then before anyone could start a conversation, she said, “I have to go find Nixie. She didn’t come back, and her locator suggests she’s not even in the Ball Court. I’ll be right back.”
Marie put a hand on Alice’s forearm. “Let me send my folk. They’ll find her. You don’t want to miss the ball game.”
“But . . . ”
Marie shook her head. “I can send ten. After all, if anything bad is happening to her, armed soldiers with dogs will be able to stop it. We have her tracking ID and better bandwidth.”
Of course they did
. Marie didn’t sound like “no” would be acceptable. Diplomatic teeth. Alice wanted to snarl back that armed soldiers with dogs wouldn’t be able to stop Nix from going back in time. But neither would Alice.
The announcer had circled back around to English. “Please remain seated. Be prepared for a spectacle such as you’ve never seen before.”
“Please?” Marie said. “My security people can go anywhere.”
Alice bit back the reply she wanted to make and nodded. “But if they don’t find her in twenty minutes I’m going, game or not.”
Marie laughed. “They’ll find her.” She spoke a set of quick instructions into the air, ending with, “Use the turtle girl picture.”
A reason to be glad of the damned picture. At least Nix’s signal still burned bright blue. She wanted to look for Nix herself, but she finally turned toward Marie and said, “Thank you.”
Marie nodded to acknowledge the thanks, but her jaw was tight and she seemed to have already dismissed the issue, her eyes far away as she listened to something someone said into her ear.
Marie used to make her mad when they were in school, too. Problem was, Marie was almost always right.
CHAPTER 44
Nix felt Ian sit down beside her. He smelled like sweat and dried saltwater and old adrenaline, and his voice was very, very soft. “Don Thomas always took us back. I don’t know how to help you.”
Nixie swallowed. “I have to find Hun Kan.” She put her chin on her fists, wishing she could stare the ground back in time. Ian didn’t think he could do it, so he couldn’t do it. That was just how it worked. And Peter wouldn’t be any help. As soon he got bored of watching her, he’d plunked down in the grass and opened up his computer. He stared at the screen, his brows knit so tight his narrow face looked squished. She could have poked him with a stick and he wouldn’t notice.
Cauac had been watching her all along. He looked more like a raven than a turtle, full of curiosity. Nixie pointed at him and whispered, “Can he help? I’ve got to get back to mom, but I need to see Hun Kan.”
Ian raised an eyebrow. “I’ll ask.” He pushed himself up and went over to Cauac, talking and gesturing, pointing at Nixie. Cauac went silent. He glanced over at Nixie then back at Ian. Ian bit his lip. “I don’t know if he understands.”
“Tell him I have to see her,” she said. “Tell him she’s in trouble.”
Ian turned back to Cauac, looking far more serious than he should, almost as if he weren’t Ian. Cauac remained stoic. When Ian finished explaining, he stood quietly for a long time before nodding.
Nix wanted to hug the old man, but she settled for sending him her best smile.
Cauac reached into the pack around his middle and pulled out a shell and two folded leaves. He set the shell on the ground, and sat in front of it, cross-legged. He rocked.
Ian sat down across from him and gestured to Nixie to scoot over so they almost made a square. Ian hissed, “Peter.”
Peter didn’t look up.
“Peter,” Ian repeated, a little louder. “Join us.”
Peter glanced over at him, looking like he was struggling to wake from a deep afternoon nap. He blinked and licked his lips, took a sip of water, and then blinked again. “But something’s happening . . . there’s data—” He seemed to be struggling with words. “You’ve got to see.”
“Later.”
Peter bit his lip, clearly torn.
Nixie needed him. Knew in her bones that she needed him. She leaned forward and put a hand on his knee. “Please. Something’s happening here, too.”
He stared at her then looked at Ian, his eyes almost pleading. “Leave me alone.”
“Please!” Nixie repeated.
Peter sighed and closed his computer slowly, then slid it into his back pack. He still only seemed partially with them, like he was drifting into some other land in his head, his eyes not quite focused. There wasn’t any sign of the man with the jokes in this Peter.
They made a square of people on the otherwise empty lawn, all close enough to touch, but no one actually touching.
Cauac reached into his pouch and pulled out a wadded up piece of paper. Ian raised his eyebrows as Cauac smoothed the paper out, revealing a dollar bill.
Nixie whispered, “It might be one of the ones I gave Jaguar-man.”
Cauac laid the bill flat on the bottom of the shell, unfolded one of the leaves and poured a pinch of crackly-dry green herbs into his palm. He built a small mound on the bill in the center of the shell, then folded the pouch back up, carefully and deliberately.
He needed to hurry!
She looked around. At least it was empty here. The announcer’s voice had returned, distant and droning, too garbled by old stone and distance for words to be clear, but it had to mean the ball game was starting. Big screens littered the plaza for people who didn’t have tickets like she did. Maybe that explained why there was nobody immediately around them. They weren’t near any of the projection screens.
The old Mayan sat completely still.
She’d been gone more than half an hour. Her mom must be frantic. Her mom had been working toward tonight for years. Nixie should be with her, helping her. She chewed on her lip.
Hun Kan might be dying. Her mom wasn’t dying.
Cauac stared at the shell, brows knit almost like Peter’s had been over his computer (the dual image almost made Nixie burst out laughing). If this worked, they’d be in the other time.
Nixie pulled her cell phone from her pocket, turned it on and quickly texted
I’m OK Mom
, and then, as an afterthought, added
Ian’s here
. Maybe that would make her forget to be mad at Nix. She sent the message and turned the phone off again.
Cauac opened the second folded leaf and pulled out a lump of copal. He split the copal into a big and small lump, and lay the small one on top of the herbs, the dollar bill, and the shell. Even though it wasn’t burning yet, its scent tickled her nose.
Next, he reached into a different pocket and took out two stones, his movements fast but measured and flowing, his gaze gone inward a little bit. He rubbed the stones together, and then struck one on the other.
Ian got it before she did. He pulled out a lighter and showed it to Cauac, flicking the flame on and off a few times. Cauac grinned, his eyes wide. He held his hand out, palm up. Ian frowned but dropped the lighter into Cauac’s palm.
Cauac set the stones on his knee, lit the small pile, and held the lighter up, lighting it over and over. Ian stuck his hand out but Cauac slid the lighter into his pouch, along with the two stones.
If it had been her lighter, Nixie would have let him have it too. Then she remembered the watch and wanted Ian to take the lighter back.
Cauac pulled something dark and glittering from his pouch, and then held it and his other arm over the small fire. He whispered something in Mayan. Surely a prayer. His next movement was so quick his hand blurred.
A long thread of blood fell from his arm onto the edges of the bill, just a little way from the fire.
His prayer hadn’t stopped, hadn’t changed cadence or volume. The bleeding might have been as normal to him as breathing. She looked closer at the scars on his arms and understood.
She held her hand out.
Cauac stared at her, unblinking. She felt like she was failing a test.
He wasn’t going to do it.
She didn’t move. She sat there so long her arm began to tremble.
Finally, he smiled and dipped the edge of the knife into the fire. He took her finger and made a small cut, squeezing a tiny bit of her blood onto the flame.
The fire burned outward, touching the damp blood, releasing an iron scent.
Nixie closed her eyes, preparing to open them in the past.
CHAPTER 45
The gods of the directions had come to Cauac, even in this strange end-of-life dream. All around him, Chichén lay dead, shorn of most of her power. What were the gods telling him? Was this the result of turning his back on Chichén and choosing to live in Zama? Or was it a chance to rectify that, to use the strength of the turtle who changed worlds and birthed gods to help Chichén now?
The gods’ only answer was to fill him, like they always filled him, and as he opened himself and let blood, the grass beneath the burning copal twisted to dirt. The scent of home filled his nostrils. He breathed it in, breathing out the fear that accompanied these days, letting the deep sadness of Chichén’s death wash away from him in the smoke and smell of home. He breathed in again, filling himself and the gods with the sacred copal.
His vision no longer stuck to the grass or the dirt, but instead flitted both backward and forward before settling in the strange fog of the edges of Xibalba, the underworld, the otherworld, the place of the Hero Twins and the learning of the sky, the place the smokers of toad venom and the old dying dreamers went. He had not been here alone ever, and only twice before at all: his oldest teacher took him here to frighten him a long time past. He recognized it: the copal and too-sweet flowery smell of Xibalba had slept in his bones.
It took many beats of his heart to recall why he had ended up here.
He called the spirit of Hun Kan.
The fog had stubbornness.
He called again, louder, keening for her, demanding.
No change.
He fell deeper inside himself, remembering her scent (flowers and the sea) and the way her wide-set eyes often seemed contemplative, like the old turtles’ eyes, even though Hun Kan herself was young. She didn’t always obey—he remembered that, too. But she accepted what she must.
Fog parted.
She filled the place in between, her eyes wide, her mouth open as she recognized him riding the gods after her. He reached his bloody left arm toward her and with no hesitation, she took his hand, his blood smearing her smooth skin.
Now what?
He remained still, holding Hun Kan’s hand. He could return them both to his time, but there was Ni-ixie. Her self had not followed him to the underworld.
He jerked, and Hun Kan followed.
As his self locked back into his body, Cauac blinked, opening his eyes to find Hun Kan lying on the grass between him and the others, her head toward Ian and her feet toward Peter. She wore the red dress of sacrifice and her legs were bound. Blood covered one arm where someone had tried to cut Ni-ixie’s gift from her. His blood, fresher, stained her other arm. She was surely prepared to be blessed as a sacrifice, but the final commitment had not been made. Her skin was stained only with blood and limestone dust, and not with blue paint. Her eyes stared straight up at the sky, so far open that only the rise and fall of her chest said it was not a death stare.
The gods leaked away, their work completed, leaving him gasping at the memory of Xibalba.
Hun Kan’s hands closed on the grass and she clenched them deeply, as if trying to hang onto the green shoots for life. She had noticed that Chaac smiled on this time and brought these people rain. In spite of how they looked and smelled and felt, they must be aligned with the gods.
Hun Kan blinked up at him. A soft moan escaped her parted lips. She looked at Peter and pushed herself up, bringing her legs together and smoothing her skirt. She spotted Ni-ixie. A wide smile broke across her face and she reached a hand out. Ni-ixie took her small, cool hand and smiled at her, then spoke to her in the words of the far-time ones.
Hun Kan released Ni-ixie’s hand and turned to Cauac, her face bright and curious. “Did I die? What happened?”
“Tell me what you see,” he asked her.
She looked around, slowly, her gaze traveling across the gray buildings, the green grass, the strange small white paths, across Peter and Ian and Ni-ixie, and then back to the horizon. Her eyes were drawn upward by one of the strange birds Ian had called “planes,” and told him people flew in.
When she looked back at him her face had paled. She stumbled over her words. “It is Chichén and it is not. Is it Chichén in the underworld?” Her voice almost broke. “It frightens me.”
He nodded, unwilling to show her it frightened him as well. “It is a place that I dreamed and now we are come to. Tell me what you see,” he repeated.
She closed her eyes and opened them again. “Surely the gods did not kill Chichén just for my dream, my vision. If this is real, the years have worn on this place, like when we come across a village that has been abandoned to the jungle. But the jungle has not taken this. Did we protect it so well?”
“Wait,” he said. “The two men are Peter,” he nodded toward the tall thin one, “and Ian, behind you.”
She twisted her head to look at Ian, who had his ear to their talk. He smiled at her and said, “Ba’ax ka wa’alik,” the way an Aztec or Olmec traveler might. Emphasizing the wrong sounds.
She smiled at the greeting, and Cauac continued, feeling a need to hurry. “Ian told me the jungle did own this place, that jungle grew on the top of the temple of K’uk’ulkan, but that his people removed it all.” He licked his lips, wanting to tell her more, to tell her of all the things he had seen here. What joy to have a familiar companion to help him cope with such strangeness.
Ni-ixie bent toward Hun Kan’s bonds, but Hun Kan put a hand out, stopping her. Why didn’t she see that Hun Kan’s own hands were free, and she could free herself if she chose? Was she trying to help Hun Kan break her word to the high priest?
What did that mean?
“What was your Way?” he asked Hun Kan.
“People-of-unrest attacked us and Ah Bahlam’s jaguar helped us get away. All others except Ah K’in’ca were lost.”
He flinched, seeing the faces of the dead. They had all been so earnest in their studies and had been looking forward to bringing new skills home. Chichén needed them. He breathed in hard. Stay now. Mourn later.
Death at the hands of the enemy honored the enemy.
He gestured to her: continue.
She looked very pale. “We came upon the same warriors later, with many more tens of warriors, and watched Nimah sacrificed to bring the gods to them.” She blinked, a tear glistening in the corner of her eye before she blinked again and took it back. “Ah Bahlam tried to turn that to us, to beseech the gods to make her sacrifice benefit Chichén.” She drew her brows together, thinking very hard. “He did some good. His jaguar kept them from capturing us and we had the blessing to get away and go back . . . ” Her voice trailed off and she looked around again. “Go back here. He saved us.”
Good. Necessity had taught Ah Bahlam.
She told him about a meeting in the Temple of the Jaguar, and how she was taken from there by force and left by the High Priest’s Temple. After, she twisted the brightness on her arm and looked at him with confusion filling her features. “Why did Nixie come to me? Why did she give me the gift that the priests want so badly and why do they want it?”
If only he knew as much as people believed he did. “Perhaps all we can do is trust.” It was not his place to speak ill of the high priest. To do so could add to the bad luck Chichén already faced.
Ian cleared his throat, wanting attention. Once he saw he had it, he turned his focus to Hun Kan, speaking slowly and directly to her in his odd version of their language. “Nixie dreamed of you. She was frightened for you. She wanted to go to you to help you. How can she help you?”
Hun Kan looked solemn and still, and a bit unsure.
“Did you understand?” Cauac asked.
She nodded and glanced at Ni-ixie—or Nixie—he repeated it in his head.
Nixie
had scooted over by Peter and was staring at a soft paper with bright colors on it.
What language did both girls speak? Cauac glanced at her bound feet. “Will you walk with her?”
She blinked and stared at her hands. “It does not matter. I am not where the priest placed me now.” Hun Kan removed her own bonds, tying the rope around her waist as if it were a belt. She rubbed at the red spots on her legs where the rope had been, and then stood, looking around her, wide-eyed. Her whole body shook.
Nixie stood, too. She took Hun Kan’s wrist, the one with the watch on it. Cauac had become convinced she was a girl like Hun Kan, fearless, and very real.
After all, she bled.
Nixie’s eyes burned with purpose, and she slid her finger under the band, leaving her thumb on the other side. She snapped her fingers, the way you did it to make noise, and the band slid silently open.
Hun Kan gasped and tried to hold the watch together.
Nixie put it back, then showed her again. She did it over and over until Hun Kan could do it with one hand. Hun Kan chose to leave it on in the end, and by then the exercise had calmed her.
They’d gotten about twenty steps from the others, still on the grass but close to the white path, when Hun Kan tugged on Nixie’s hand. Nixie turned. Hun Kan held her free hand out: an invitation.
Nixie took it. The two girls stood looking at each other on the grass, sideways to the sun so neither of them had to squint at it.
Hun Kan’s hips swayed. She picked up her right foot and, as she brought it down, she picked up her left. The pose held a moment, and then she stepped down a little to the side and started again. Nixie followed.
A dance.
Nixie looked into Hun Kan’s eyes and smiled, and the girls’ smiles bounced off each other and grew.
Hun Kan danced harder, the ends of the rope around her waist swaying back and forth. She was stronger and faster than Nixie.
Hun Kan led Nixie in the portal dance.
Cauac reached into his pouch and withdrew a small, short piece of heartwood, polished round with a stretched-leather cap tied to one end with sinew. He found a small rock and struck it experimentally. A little hollow, but not too bad. He started the steady heartbeat Hun Kan’s dance demanded. She looked over at him, mouthed a “thank you,” and turned back to the dance.
Aligning with the heart drum, Hun Kan began to turn the girls in the circle of creation, holding both of Nixie’s hands and leaning back away from her, each dancer dependent on the other one, needing the other for balance.
They circled.
Hun Kan laughed when Nixie laughed, and yet her eyes remained serious, her steps fast but careful. Precise.
Sweat ran down Nixie’s face.
Ian started to drum, too, rock on rock. He and Cauac shared a bright grin, and Ian drummed harder.
Peter sat hunched and staring at his moving pictures, not even noticing the dance in front of him, showing no sign he felt the shifts in energy as the girls danced the gods near.
Ian smiled like he was sleeping with a woman.
Cauac shifted the rock-drum to a different cadence and started to chant. Hun Kan heard him and picked up the pace. Both girls breathed hard. The late afternoon light turned their sweat gold. The gods were in them, of them, shining from their eyes.
They were beautiful.
The veil between now and then seemed to thin as they danced, as if they danced time open the way the Lords of Itzá did before the ball game. A dance of women balancing the dance of the men. Nothing showed this to his eyes, but it came in the scent of dry air in the breeze, the smell of corn soup cooking and a slight background noise that sounded like the laughter of slaves preparing for festival.
Finally, Hun Kan and Nixie collapsed, gasping, on the grass. He and Ian stopped on the same beat. Ian’s hand was bright red from holding the rock, and looking into his eyes, it seemed the gods might have visited him during the girls’ dance as well.
Cauac turned to compliment Hun Kan.
Nixie stared down at a bare patch of grass, one hand over her mouth.