Gods of Jade and Shadow(54)

“It’s the mortal element you provide me with. It has been turning me more and more human. And then the distance between us and Yucatán does not help; I grow weaker with each kilometer. My brother knows this, no doubt expecting such a change will help his plans come to fruition. I don’t know how much time we have left,” he said.

Time. Yes. She remembered the bone shard. She spread out her fingers and held her palms up, looking at her hands. She had forgotten she was dying, he was a disease, a parasite. How easy it was to forget! He made her forget not through arcane sorcery but with his mere presence.

“It’s making you human and it’s killing me,” she said.

“Yes, but it hadn’t been quite like this before. It’s getting worse.”

“Oh,” Casiopea whispered, placing her hands on her lap. Oh, for she couldn’t think of anything better to say. It wasn’t even that she was frightened, she was more…dismayed. It didn’t seem fair. No, it wasn’t fair at all. She’d glimpsed the world outside with no chance to sample it.

Well, I won’t die yet, she promised herself. I have plenty of things to do. Swim in the sea, dance at a nightclub, drive an automobile, to name a few. Casiopea was pragmatic, yes, but now that these things were possible, although not probable, she was not going to dismiss them and pretend she did not want them.

She clutched her hands together, and as the train stuttered, slowing down, she raised her head, looking at him, he who might condemn her to an early grave.

“Why did your brother do this to you anyway?” she asked.

Somehow, they had not discussed it. Hun-Kamé did not venture his thoughts often unless she asked, and she had not thought to go down this painful avenue, but at this point she thought it her right to inquire.

“Have you never heard of family quarrels? You don’t get along with your cousin, Martín. If you had the chance, wouldn’t you be rid of him?” Hun-Kamé asked with a shrug.

“If you mean I’d harm him greatly…I don’t know. I’ve never wanted to be rid of Martín…I wished to be away from him; that is different.”

“Come, girl, if you could have your revenge on him, you would,” he insisted. “You’d strike him and cut him with thorns.”

“I’m not a girl,” she countered, offended. “And no. I’m not…I don’t need to cause Martín pain to be happy.”

Casiopea considered her cousin. The cruelties he’d inflicted on her, the punishments she’d endured because of him. If the tables were turned, would she not seize the chance to torment him? Hadn’t she wished he would fall down a well? But those had been the half-formed ideas of a child. Her mother had been right: it was not as if her cousin’s misfortune could bring her joy.

“It did no good that time I hurt him,” she said, shaking her head. “I won’t be hitting him or cutting him, or anything of that sort. I’d be like him if I derived joy from the misery of others. I’m not like Martín”

Hun-Kamé was frankly confused by her words, as if it had never occurred to him one could be this magnanimous. Not that she hadn’t bickered with Martín, not that she hadn’t hit him hard that one time, but none of this had ever pleased her. She’d wanted Martín to let her be.

“My brother does derive pleasure from the misery of others, we all do. We are lords of Xibalba, kindness is not in our nature. But of course, that wasn’t all that drove him to cut my head off and toss me in that chest. My brother wants a new empire.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Hun-Kamé rested his back against the headboard and spread his hands, the gesture expansive.

“The chu’lel births gods, but the prayers of men are like a fan that makes the flames rise higher. It increases our power. Picture it, if you will, as a feast. Without the prayers and the beliefs of men, the food is bland and tasteless, but add a pinch of it and it is like the spices that flavor a delicious meal.

“Men ceased to worship Xibalba a long time ago, but Xibalba remains because the well of power from which we were born is deep. I believe the oceans may lick the land and devour it, and the Black Road of Xibalba would exist. Yet our sturdy kingdom of shadows was not enough for my brother.”

“What else could he want?”

“He wanted a return to the old ways. The prayers of men to flow anew. Salt in our dishes. He was not content with ancient glories. I kept away from Middleworld. It is not our kingdom, and although I was aware of some of the changes in our peninsula, it did not interest me to see what new palaces and trinkets mortals fashioned.”

The god had not been surprised by any of the things they’d witnessed in the city. Neither the trams nor the automobiles, nor the dresses women wore and the hats men sported, caught his eye. She had assumed he had experienced this before. Not the automobiles, but the trains certainly, and the buildings and some of the tastes of people. But perhaps he had not; it might have mostly been vicarious knowledge.

“But Vucub-Kamé, he became fascinated with the world of men and he became interested in a spot in Baja California, a place where the chu’lel also converged. This convergence was not quite as powerful as in Yucatán, but interesting nevertheless. He had been speaking to a mortal man, Aníbal Zavala, and Zavala had a theory both points could be stitched together.”