Gods of Jade and Shadow(93)

“You must be cheating in some way,” Vucub-Kamé said, offended. “She is a weak thing to manage on her own.”

“You are a poor judge of others,” Hun-Kamé replied and looked at his brother, his one eye inky black.

Bah! And yet, had they not all failed Vucub-Kamé? Old Cirilo, the cunning Xtabay, the Zavala twins with their midnight sorceries. It came down to Martín now. The young man was not the fine blade a god might have wanted to wield, but a coarser weapon, a heavy mace. Who cared?

“I’ll see her dead,” Vucub-Kamé told the ash, and his cold anger froze into an invisible arrow of ice, and when he breathed out, the arrow slid from his lips and into the mind of Martín, who sat on the stump of a tree, which had fallen by the road.

The man was wiping his forehead with a handkerchief, exhausted by the trip, feeling rather depressed by the landscape of Xibalba. He wet the piece of cloth and dabbed his cheek with it, feeling the sting of a bruise. Around him there were black trees without any leaves, their naked branches stretching up to the heavens, and logs ripe with rot, like the one that served as a seat for him.

Martín pressed his hand against his head, and the ring he wore stung, biting into his flesh.

Vucub-Kamé’s thought reached him as if it had been his own. It echoed in his skull.

Kill her, Vucub-Kamé said.

“Kill her,” Martín repeated. His voice had no color; it was bleak and brisk and old.

The echo died away, and Martín twisted the handkerchief between his hands.

“Lord, please,” he said, but the presence had abandoned him. He sat alone, with the dead trees as his only company. The instructions had been clear.

He could already feel his cousin approaching, even if he did not understand how he could sense her. Somehow Vucub-Kamé must have engineered her arrival, steered her from her course. Or it might not have been the Lord of Xibalba; the Black Road did have a mind of its own.

No matter. He felt her.

It was as if she were an insect, making the silk of a spider web vibrate.

This, in turn, made him the spider.

Martín clutched the handkerchief.





Trees, so close together at times they formed a lattice, bordered Casiopea’s path. Yet the trees were invariably shrunken, dead, and their branches stood ghostly white against the gray sky.

The road was steep; it led up a hill, and she had trouble managing it. At last she reached a clearing. A clump of trees lay to her right, but she could see below, far away, the Black City.

A monumental causeway cut through a ring of thorns that rose around the city, like a defensive stone wall might have shielded mortal towns, though this metropolis need not shield itself from any foes. All the buildings were made of black stone, honoring the city’s name, but of a glossy black that shifted and shimmered. Pillars and stelae rose in the plazas, long staircases decorated with pale glyphs led to multiple platforms. Serene, sober, monochromatic, that was the city. Except for the Jade Palace at its center, aflame with color and unlike any of the structures Casiopea knew back home.

The palace had four levels, each level receding slightly from the previous one, their fa?ades decorated with elaborate geometrical patterns that created a palpable rhythm, like the beating of a drum. These terraces were connected by an imposing central staircase. Impossibly, the whole structure was made of a pale green jade, like a giant jewel, as Hun-Kamé had said. It looked like the palace she had imagined when they stood by the sea.

She looked at this strange city, sculpted from the stray dreams of restless mortals, and took a deep breath.

A rustle came from the clump of dead trees, and Casiopea turned her head, expecting to find a snake or another animal, and instead stared at her cousin. Martín was grim and tired as he stopped and also looked in the direction of the city. He took a sip from the gourd dangling from his neck and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He offered her a sip. She took it, cautiously.

“God. I feel like I’ve been walking forever,” he said. “Do you feel the same way?”

“A little,” she replied, handing him the gourd back.

Martín drank more, but there was no more to be had. Irritated, he took off the gourd from around his neck and tossed it away. It rolled down the side of the hill.

“Casiopea, you shouldn’t go any farther,” he told her.

“It’s a competition. We are competing to see who gets there first. I can’t stay here,” she replied, guessing he meant to fill her with doubt.

“Yes, you can, if you know what’s good for you. Vucub-Kamé does not want you moving any closer to the city.”

“I don’t care what he wants. We have a deal, and I am not going to give up now.”

Martín had not looked at her this whole time. Now he turned his eyes toward her. His face was parched, not a physical thirst but a spiritual one. He looked haunted.

“Casiopea, I can’t let you go on. So…sit down here and wait,” he said, running a hand through his hair. It was slick with sweat. He had a scratch on his cheek, he was dirty, and his hair was a mess, as if he’d been walking for days on end. The journey must have taxed him. She was tired, too, and would have loved to sit down and rest.

“And what? Let you win?” she asked.

“Vucub-Kamé needs to retain the throne, the whole family depends…God, they depend on that. Your loss…it would be the best for everyone.”