Gods of Jade and Shadow(31)

It was not quite an insult. It sounded like an endearment, but she frowned all the same. Her annoyance, however, did not last. She could forgive quickly when it suited her. Besides, he’d gone back to his seat and was again resting there quietly, so there really wasn’t much to be angry about.

She’d almost forgotten he was with her when he finally spoke.

“What do you keep looking at?” he asked.

“The stars,” she replied. “There’s a thousand of them out tonight.”

“There are a thousand every night.”

“Maybe,” she whispered, leaning her head against her arm and naming them in her head, as she’d done since she was a child, one of the games she played before going to bed.

Eventually, Casiopea stretched on the upper berth and closed her eyes, falling into a deep sleep. The train kept moving slowly forward, its wheels clacking. On the lower berth a lord of Xibalba did not sleep, but instead listened to the rhythm of the train. The laughter that had escaped from his lips was unusual, and he allowed himself to consider what it meant for a couple of minutes. Since he was a proud god, this matter did not occupy more than those two minutes, and then he dismissed it.

But rest assured that in the underground kingdom of Xibalba, another lord had heard Hun-Kamé’s laughter and could discern its meaning.





The imagination of mortals shaped the gods, carving their faces and their myriad forms, just as the water molds the stones in its path, wearing them down through the centuries. Imagination had also fashioned the dwellings of the gods.

Xibalba, splendid and frightful, was a land of stifling gloom, lit by a cheerless night-sun and lacking a moon. The hour of twilight did not cease here. In Xibalba’s rivers there lurked jade caimans, alabaster fish swam in ink-black ponds, and glass insects buzzed about, creating a peculiar melody with the tinkling of their transparent wings. There were bizarre plants and lush trees, though no flowers bloomed in the soils of the Underworld—perhaps some had, at one point, but they’d long withered.

These were all bits of dreams that had taken physical shape, but the nightmares of mortals also abounded in the fabulous landscape of Xibalba.

There were vast tracts of land where the terrain was barren and gray, and men walked through this desert in despair, crying out for mercy. There were also swamps where a thin fog clung to the ground, noxious vapors rising from the waters, skeleton birds resting on dead trees shrieking loudly. There was a limestone outcropping, with many caves, like a honeycomb, and here lived the souls of confused mortals, who raised their hands in the air and tore their hair from their skulls, for they had lost the memory of themselves and did not remember the purpose of their journey. Beasts and fabulous creatures born of delirious ravings roamed the jungles, scaring the fools who ventured there. It was safest to stay close to the Black Road of Xibalba, that long ribbon that cut through the city where the gods resided. Stray from the path and it was easy to descend into chaos and terror.

In the beginning there had only been the city, Xibalba, but around it had sprung the swamps, the jungles, the caves, and the rest of the curious topography of the Underworld, so that now the borders of Xibalba were much vaster than at the time of its origin. People called all of this Xibalba, rather than refer only to the single city by that name. The city proper became the Black City and the lord’s palace in turn was called the Jade Palace.

Hun-Kamé had reigned over this kingdom, and spent many moments in the gardens of his palace, but Vucub-Kamé preferred to dwell in his vast, windowless chambers, the walls painted yellow and red, multicolored cushions strewn upon the floor. He was resting upon these cushions when one of the four owls from the Underworld swooped into his room. He had sent it off into the world, to spy on the roads and spy on his brother.

The owl had found Hun-Kamé. The bond of kinship, which renders the blood of one mortal man similar to that of another member of his family, held true between the great lords of Xibalba. It was truest for Hun-Kamé and Vucub-Kamé. They were twins, very much alike. Same of height and build, differentiated by the color of their hair and eyes. Hun-Kamé had come into the world first, his black eyes like the depths of the waterhole. Seven heartbeats later Vucub-Kamé had opened his pale eyes, the color of ash, though they sometimes turned silver when he was in deep thought, and sometimes they became almost translucent, like the sastun, the divining stone.

The owl, well acquainted with the psychic essence of Vucub-Kamé, flew through Middleworld, searching for a similar essence. It was inevitable he would find Hun-Kamé.

When the owl returned to Xibalba, it bore a gift in its beak.

The gift was Hun-Kamé’s laughter, which the owl had heard and captured in a white seashell it now dropped on its lord’s open palm. Vucub-Kamé pressed the seashell against his ear and listened to the laughter. It was unpleasant to be aware of his brother’s voice after such a long absence, and he crushed the shell between his fingers as soon as the echo of the laughter died off. Then he rose from the cushions, retrieved a ceremonial obsidian knife, and ventured outside the palace.

Ordinarily, when Vucub-Kamé left his palace, he was carried on a golden litter, hoisted upon the shoulders of his most exquisite courtiers. Singers walked ahead of him, proclaiming the beauty and wisdom of their lord, while behind followed his brothers and the rest of his retinue, burning incense or holding up cups filled with zaca. He was vain, Vucub-Kamé, as gods always are, and loved to be exalted.