CHAPTER 58
Ah Bahlam felt glad to stand under his own stars again.
He recalled Cauac’s advice for confused moments—
concentrate on what you control
. Which was this moment, standing near the lip of the cenote with strangers and warriors and the forked choices of his possible futures. The jaguar curled inside him, at rest, a wild power insisting he could change Chichén’s future.
Look around
, the jaguar demanded.
Be now. Know your surroundings. Know yourself
.
The high priest looked dizzy, sweat dripping from his chin, his movements less fluid than normal. His gaze kept flicking back as forth as he watched the god-dressed newcomers through narrowed eyes. A few times, he looked away from his contemplation of the strangers to glare warning at Ah Bahlam, as if he could sense Ah Bahlam’s thoughts.
Ah Bahlam remained still and aware, ready. He extended his senses to feel and taste and hear the jungle all around them, but kept his focus most on the high priest and on Hun Kan.
From the chatter Ah Bahlam had managed to overhear on the walk to the cenote, the game had played—and played—until darkness forced a stop. A draw. Three players had withdrawn injured. One more captive had been sacrificed, and the high priest had not freed his heart on the first cut. The entire night had been a disaster of bad omens that the people of Chichén and her attackers could only see as a dangerous weakness.
This would be a good time to challenge the high priest’s power.
Except he was alone, and he wasn’t ready.
He reached for the jaguar, needing its counsel. It had gotten him safely back, after all. Kept him and Hun Kan safe. Driven them all back from the far away time to this place and this moment.
The jaguar was in him. But his Way stayed small enough that it was clear who thought. Who decided. Not the jaguar, but him. He felt its advice like a whisper.
Look around
.
The high priest’s lips tightened and his jaw jumped where it met his neck, a steady heartbeat of anger.
The strangers in their turn watched the high priest. They looked calm and sure of themselves. A few of them, even a few of the women, felt like warriors. They would be able to move quickly under threat. The two who had physical manifestations of their Ways were the most dangerous, unless perhaps the beasts they held were worse. The eyes of the chained beasts and their handlers spoke of the predators inside them. If Ah Bahlam had not been to end of the world, he would have thought these were gods.
The high priest gestured for Don Thomas to come and stand beside him. “You will help us all speak,” he said. “You will tell me the names of everyone.”
Don Thomas spoke to the tallest woman in the group—the one who seemed to lead them all—in the god tongue. Why did he think of it like that when he knew they weren’t gods? The future tongue. Don Thomas spoke the woman’s words back in Mayan. “As long as you will also tell us who you are.” His Mayan was good, smoother than Ian’s, but he stumbled over sounds often enough to force Ah Bahlam to listen very carefully.
When he got to the three new people who had come just before they all crossed over—Marie, Aditi, and Huo Jiang—Don Thomas said, “These are equal to the lords of a larger Itzá.”
The high priest did not look like he believed the words. But then, two of the high-ranking visitors were women and the other was too plain. Cauac saw the same thing because he broke in. “In the Itzá of the future, people do not hunt, they do not wear the skins of animals. Women lead beside men. Don Thomas speaks the truth. They are like you.”
The high priest glared at Cauac, his jaw tight and his eyes narrowed in fury. He felt like a snake poised to strike.
Neither the men with the beasts nor the red warriors were introduced, but Ah Bahlam let his gaze wander across them. He recognized the man who had approached him on the way to the Wall of Skulls. Did he have their support? Or was he about to die?
The high priest said, “Welcome to the cenote of sacrifice. Let us feed the gods.” He gestured to Hun Kan.
Don Thomas began repeating the words.
Hun Kan walked toward the lip of the cenote. Her face looked as it had when she watched the game. Lovely. Beautiful with purpose. She had once more become hungry to meet the gods.
Nixie took Hun Kan’s hand and stood beside her.
The high priest smiled.
Don Thomas finished repeating the high priest’s words.
Nixie’s mother screeched and raced the few man-heights between her and Nixie and jerked Nixie back.
Nixie snarled at her mother, and tried to hang onto Hun Kan’s hand, but Hun Kan freed her fingers from Nixie’s. She offered Nixie a sad smile, then turned her back on the golden girl, staring out over the black mouth of the cenote. The water was two-man-heights below and hard to see, but it lapped softly at the rocks below and smelled of rotting leaves and fish.
Nixie’s mother spoke into her ear and she stopped struggling. She stood in front of her mother, both of her mother’s arms around her center, her eyes damp.
Bless her for wanting to save Hun Kan, but she was only a girl. When she fell in the cenote the day he met her, she was probably as scared as he was. Maybe more. The thought made him feel stronger. He had, in fact, learned much since then.
He called on his jaguar, breathed it into him, and moved between the high priest and Hun Kan, keeping his eyes on the avatar of K’uk’ulkan. Some of his own choices clarified.
I gave my blood to this pool last night. My sacrifice is done.
He felt stronger, as if K’uk’ulkan himself shielded him. His jaguar did not fight K’uk’ulkan. It fought the high priest.
They were and were not the same.
He opened his mouth and let the jaguar roar.
Cauac stared at him, took a step forward, his face full of rebuke, a demand for control.
That time was past.
Cauac must have seen it in his eyes. He stared at his student and then took a step back.
Ah Bahlam spoke to the high priest. “Sacrificing her gains you nothing. The gods you wanted are here.” He gestured toward Nixie and her mother. “Chichén is damaged enough.”
Hun Kan raked her fingers across his cheek from behind, repudiating his choice for her. “I go. It is my time.”
Anger flared in him. “You choose.”
She moaned. He desperately wanted a moment to tell her he loved her, but the high priest had called upon Feathered Serpent, and stood, full height, clearly still able to invoke the god.
Everyone near the high priest stepped back. With the others out of the way, Feathered Serpent and Jaguar faced each other, clothed in strength alone, holding no weapons.
A small scuffle among the red warriors drew Ah Bahlam’s attention for a moment. One of them glared death at him, but three others surrounded that one. The red warrior he had spoken to flashed him a smile and a good luck gesture.
He gave a small nod, acknowledging that he might live.
K’uk’ulkan leaped at him, an extended foot catching him in the hip and almost felling him, driving the breath from his chest in a startled exclamation.
His focus narrowed. He backed up a few steps, getting some room. He watched closely as the high priest stood sweating in front of him, poised.
Ah Bahlam circled, slowly, testing.
The high priest moved with him, circling inside Ah Bahlam’s larger circle, fluid and ready to strike at any weakness.
Ah Bahlam rushed him, head down, his movements strong, full of grace and cat.
He passed the high priest, who had glided three steps away. A slight quirky smile broke his lips.
Ah Bahlam dropped his head and rolled, staying in a crouch. He leapt upon the high priest.
Who was again not there.
He stopped, waiting and watching. A slight wind blew. Julu flew a circle overhead. A cat did not fight straight out. It hovered and pounced; it surprised.
Not possible now; surprise was gone. He had to be man and cat together.
He rushed toward the priest and turned sideways at the last moment. It turned out the priest had again moved, in the other direction. Ah Bahlam laughed and then growled low in his throat. He kept his eyes on the priest, his cat’s vision sharper, clearer. The individual hairs on the man’s head could be separated with this vision.
Feathered Serpent looked back, its eyes dark above the priest’s mask.
Ah Bahlam circled, holding its gaze. Was it a balance game of who could mix the right amount of man with god?
His opponent had years of experience. The raw will in its gaze was a physical force, like a wind in his face, pushing against his chest. He leaned into it, growling.
The high priest hissed and leaned forward.
Ah Bahlam stepped back.
Nixie screamed, “Hun Kan!”
The splash of a body hitting water, crystal clear to the jaguar’s ears. Drops falling back into the water and the splash of a hand.
Ah Bahlam took the split second the sound stole from the high priest’s gaze and leapt. He raked the man’s neck with his hands as he passed, knocking him off balance.
Ah Bahlam landed easily, driven by the splash, the need to know if Hun Kan lived.
The only way to see was to kill the high priest.
As soon as his feet touched the ground, he bent his knees into a crouch and exploded out, sheer force bringing the high priest to the ground.
A figure streaked by in the torchlight: Nixie rushing to the edge of the cenote, her golden hair a fire in the flickering torchlight.
Her mother screamed.
Hands closed around his throat, pushing him away. He leapt up, forcing the high priest to first rise with him to keep his hold on Ah Bahlam’s neck and then to let go. Ah Bahlam fell again, getting his own powerful paws around the head of the man below him. He pushed his face near the high priest’s mask, snarling.
He took a deep breath and twisted his hands.
The high priest’s neck cracked and his eyes flew open wide before his head fell back—broken.
A shriek of pain sounded behind him, followed by more of triumph. The red warriors. Mostly pleased.
His heightened hearing picked up a small clear sound in the water that gave him hope: Hun Kan moving.
In death, the spirit of K’uk’ulkan had fled, and the high priest’s body looked shriveled and small, hardly like a worthy opponent. Ah Bahlam stood looking down on his enemy’s face, recalling that he had once looked up to the man.
The tall fighter who had supported him brought out a black obsidian blade and set it on Ah Bahlam’s outstretched palm. “We honor you.”
He closed his fist around the hilt, felt its heft, and glanced at Cauac. His teacher’s eyes were wide and full of surprise. And pleasure. Cauac nodded.
Ah Bahlam closed his eyes.
Jaguar, help me! I have never taken a heart. I never want to take another one. But I must take this one!
He lifted his arm above his head, hesitating at the top, gathering strength. He plunged the blade into the still-warm chest in front of him and extracted the high priest’s heart, the thrust and movement clearly guided by his Way. His arm and hand knew how hard to fall, how to twist, how to shatter bone. His fingers released the blade once it had cut the heart free. He clasped his hands, bloody and slick with life, around the warm heart.
The jaguar shrank back inside him, falling away into infinity, into a small tiny place deep inside. It felt satisfied.
Perhaps this was a moment to be a man.
He held the heart up to the blazing night sky. He spoke aloud for the first time since the fight began. “K’uk’ulkan! Honor your high priest’s sacrifice and bring us water and plenty. Honor our sacrifices of the past few years and give our warriors the strength to make peace.”
He wanted to race to the edge of the water, but there was something more to say. He made himself stay, blood dripping down his wrists, staring at the sky until the gods gave him the answer. “Give the strangers what they need. The leaders and Ni-ixie. Bless their time. Bless us all and let me walk my Way to the glory and health of all the Itzá in all of our lands.”
Finally, enough words. As he raced to the edge of the pool, he heard Don Thomas beginning to translate for the strangers.
Ah Bahlam flung the heart into the pool, aiming far from where he felt Hun Kan.
Warriors began to approach him.
Later. He could accept them later. He nodded at them as he backed to the edge of the cenote. “Thank you. I will speak with you in a moment.”
The tall one nodded, and stopped.
Ah Bahlam caught his weight on a branch and leaned over the edge of cenote. Hun Kan splashed in the water, clearly alive. It was too dark to see her face, but the whites of her eyes and her teeth shone in the starlight. Thank all the gods.
Thank you K’uk’ulkan!
He dove for the center of the pool, head first, not caring that the living should not leap into this cenote. Hun Kan was there, alive.
Warm water greeted his pointed fingers and then they struck cold and he felt almost reborn, digging down an extra stroke, honoring the water he swam through and the way it had accepted the high priest’s blood, and left the woman in the center of his heart alive.
He came up next to Hun Kan.
Her face was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Everything was clear and bright, defined; as if he still saw through the jaguar’s eyes even though he was entirely himself in this moment.
He held his hand out.
She stayed where she was, treading water. “You killed the high priest,” she said. “Because of me?”
“No. Because we need a new leader and we were saved for that. Both of us.” He knew that now, that he would take the high priest’s place with her at his side. They had seen the future together, and they understood death. Perhaps Hun Kan understood it even more than he did. “Your leap into the water gave me the moment I needed.”
She blinked at him, absorbing his words.
He wiped the last of the blue paint from her cheeks and forehead before he guided her to the edge of the cenote near where he had spilled his blood and prayed the night before. He reached for a root with his free hand, helping her balance on his shoulders and start climbing up.