The Serpent Road

by Anthony James

  “I don’t know. I don’t know,” he said. “And I don’t really care,” he added.

  Tohil watched him as they walked, but there was nothing more he could say.

  Slowly, he drifted back up to the front of the group. The feeling of Acab’s eyes on his back had lessened, at least, though he was still not happy with the outcome. Just now and again, he started to wonder whether bringing Acab along had been the right choice, but then, as those thoughts appeared, he would inwardly berate himself. Acab was his friend. Oquis was his friend. Xquic was fast becoming one, and Tepeu, well, with Tepeu it was a little hard to tell. There was still the fact that Quapar had been his friend too. What had happened did nothing to change that fact. Tohil doubted very much that Quapar still lived, but alive or dead, it didn’t alter the fact of their friendship. And as he had that thought, there came doubt. Could they have done more? Perhaps Acab’s accusations were right. But then, deep inside himself Tohil knew that what he had said was right too. There was nothing easy about it, and for now, there was no way to solve it. The thoughts continued to nag at him as they walked further along the white road, but he did not discuss them, even though Xquic asked him more than once what was troubling him.

  Late that afternoon, they were still walking along the top of the road. There was no sign of more forest in front of them, just the landscape becoming more barren with every hour that they travelled. The grand mountain before them seemed to grow, but only in tiny increments, and the more they marched towards it, the more its apparent distance stayed the same. Finally, they agreed to stop for the night. Once more, they could see for miles in every direction. There was little fuel for a fire, other than low scrubby bushes that once they had gathered and prepared, burned with a weak and smoky flame. As the light faded, Tohil asked them all to draw closer, and he did his best to recount the details of his encounter with the temple priests and his resulting conclusions. Xquic was the most vocal during his telling, asking several questions along the way and more than once Tohil had to ask her to allow him to continue. When he was done, he looked to each of their faces, waiting.

  Tepeu surprised him by being the first to speak.

  “If the Seelee are not gods, then what are they?”

  Tohil shook his head. “I do not know. The priests spoke of them as if they might as well be gods.”

  “But then….” Tepeu frowned and poked at their small smoky fire with a stick. “Does that mean that the gods are not gods either?”

  Tohil blinked a couple of times as he tried to process that question. He hadn’t thought of it like that.

  “I cannot know the answer to that,” he said finally. He reached for the jaguar pendant, touching it with his fingers and thumb, turning it a little on its string. “I hope that the gods are…what we are told they are, what the stories tell us.”

  “And what if they are just stories?” That was Acab. “What if everything is just a story? We could be marching forever, just because of some story, some dreams a few old men have had. And you,” he motioned to Tepeu, “and your brother, doing this because some old men told you too. And look what happened.”

  Tohil stared across the fire at him. He didn’t have an answer. Tepeu was still poking at the fire with a hooded look upon his face, his jaw set.

  “It is all for nothing. It means nothing,” said Acab and looked over to Oquis, something unspoken passing between them. Had they been talking while Tohil had been occupied elsewhere.

  “I don’t know,” said Xquic. “We have seen the carvings. We have always heard the stories of how the gods created the world and we see those things every day. We have seen those carvings of the Seelee too. Just as those priests told Tohil. They can’t be just stories.”

  “Some carvings on a temple wall? Does that make them real?” Acab countered. “I have not seen anything that makes them real. Who believes in magic? Have we seen this Dark Serpent flying through the sky? All I have seen is birds. I shoot them with my blowgun.” He slapped the weapon beside him in emphasis. “That’s what I have seen.”

  He waved his hand and turned away, signalling the end of the discussion as far as he was concerned. Oquis was watching him, a thoughtful expression on his face. Tepeu still stared into the flames, looking at no one, and Xquic, quiet now, was watching them all.

  Tohil sighed quietly and turned to look at the glowing orange running in stripes at the mountain’s top, the smoke glowing pink as it trailed away into the distance. If he was honest with himself, he shared these doubts, perhaps not as strongly as Acab, but they were still there, all the same. Every step they took drew them further away from answers and simply piled on more questions.

  “So, then, I am the sun, I am the moon, for all mankind. So shall it be, because I can see very far.” So Vucub-Caquix spoke. But he was not really the sun; he was only vainglorious of his feathers and his riches. And he could see only as far as the horizon, and he could not see over all the world. The face of the sun had not yet appeared, nor that of the moon, nor the stars, and it had not dawned. Therefore, Vucub-Caquix became as vain as though he were the sun and the moon, because the light of the sun and the moon had not yet shown itself His only ambition was to exalt himself and to dominate. And all this happened when the flood came because of the woodenpeople.

  — Popol Vuh, Part I, Chapter 4

  SIXTEEN

  When they awoke next morning, of Acab and Oquis there was no sign. Tohil thought, at first, that they were merely off tending to their morning necessities, but as he scanned the landscape—there was no real cover—he could spot not a trace of them. Their gear was gone as well. A vast hollow feeling swept down upon him then, and his heart began to pound. Their gear was gone as well. The other two were waking as well and looking about blearily, noticing Tohil standing there, looking in every direction and Acab and Oquis’s absence.

  “What happened?” asked Xquic. “Where are they?”

  She turned, scanning the harsh landscape. “I cannot see them.”

  Tepeu had got to his feet as well. “Did they go to hunt?”

  Tohil lowered the hand that had been using to shield his eyes.

  “Where would they go to hunt? I don’t think so.”

  Some of the water gourds and other provisions had gone too.

  “I didn’t hear them leave,” said Xquic.

  Tohil’s shoulders slumped. “They must have left during the night while we slept. They had to have been planning this.”

  “But why would they leave?”

  “I don’t know,” said Tohil. “Acab wasn’t happy, I know that. Ever since Quapar….”

  He scanned their surroundings once more. There was no other conclusion he could reach. His two friends had deserted him, deserted their mission. Perhaps they had some idea to follow through on Acab’s fanciful idea of trying to find Quapar, although the chance for that would be long gone. He suddenly felt the deep despair swelling further within him. He looked at Tepeu, at Xquic. How could they continue now, just the three of them? He reached for the jaguar pendant and fingered it as he stood there assessing, then looked back out at the open plains stretching for as far as he could see and then back up at the forbidding mountain. They couldn’t turn back. They just couldn’t.

  “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps they left early to hunt.”

  Somehow, he knew that wasn’t the case. The missing provisions also told him otherwise. He might have expected this of Acab, but Oquis…?

  He took a couple of deep breaths and then came to a decision.

  “We need to get moving,” he said. “They can catch us up. The road still goes for a while yet. It will be obvious to them where we have gone.”

  Tepeu nodded and started getting his things together. Xquic just stood there looking at him.

  “But…,” she said.

  Tohil merely lifted a hand and shook his head, then stooped to gather his own belongings. There was one thought that kept running through his head; if they were to meet a raiding party now, they
would have no chance at all, or even less than they had before. He glanced at Xquic again, but she had accepted his direction and was also busying herself getting ready to depart. He was glad he didn’t have to face her look.

  Tohil tried analysing how he felt as they walked. He felt betrayed. That was part of it, but there was more. It was a sense of disappointment. He had trusted his friends, they had a bond that stretched back years, and yet they had walked away and left him. Their task was one of great importance, and the Elders had enforced that message, and then the priests. Had he not conveyed that sufficiently? Yes, Quapar had been their friend, had been Tohil’s friend as well, but that didn’t explain their actions. They had made a choice. He didn’t believe that the strength of their friendship with Quapar had been any stronger than that with himself, and yet still they had chosen to leave. Both were strong, and he had thought of them as dependable. Was it Tohil himself that had failed them, or had they simply lost faith? He just couldn’t explain it. They hadn’t even discussed it.

  So caught up in his thoughts was he that he barely noticed when Xquic moved up beside him and matched his pace.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked him quietly.

  “What can we do?” he said, keeping his gaze on the road ahead, not meeting her eyes.

  “Do you want to turn back?”

  He blew out a breath and shook his head. “We cannot turn back. We need to keep going. We have travelled more than half way. We need to keep going.”

  She was quiet for a few moments. “I think you’re right,” she said. “But what about Tepeu.”

  Tohil looked over at the boy. “I’m not worried about him,” he said. “He is still here. I think he will continue because his Elders chose him. If there was a time when he would have left, it would have been when we lost Tzité.” He turned to look at her then. “But what about you?”

  She gave him a little smile then, a smile that he thought was a little strange considering their circumstances.

  “I am with you,” she said. “I intend to stay with you. We will do this together.”

  He turned away again.

  “Good,” he said simply, deciding that he didn’t want to analyse it any further than it warranted. There was too much already that could serve to confuse him, and that smile was definitely confusing.

  Later that afternoon, they stopped for a break, to eat something and there was still no sign of Acab and Oquis. Thankfully, they had not taken more food with them; Tohil thought it was only enough to supplement further hunting activities. At least there was that. They hadn’t left the remaining companions to face hunger or starvation as they crossed the unforgiving wastelands ahead. It also showed that they expected Tohil to continue on, regardless.

  As they sat and ate sparingly, Tohil turned his attention to Tepeu.

  “Did Acab speak to you?” he asked. He had seen Acab spending time with both the boys before the attack on the road.

  Tepeu nodded. “Yes. He said many times that he thought the mission was a pointless one. That to keep going with no real purpose was stupid.”

  “But you stayed.”

  “This is my task,” he said. “The Elders chose us. For me to go back would dishonour them and it would bring me shame. It would bring shame to Tzité’s memory as well.”

  “So, you don’t want to leave, despite everything that has happened.”

  Tepeu gave a little frown. “I cannot.”

  His expression said that he had already said all that he needed to, and that Tohil’s added question was pointless. Tohil nodded his understanding. He was satisfied.

  Why had Acab not spoken to him more about this? Perhaps he had, and Tohil had simply not taken his message properly to heart. It was true though that Acab had become more withdrawn, more sceptical after Xquic’s appearance. He didn’t quite understand whether that had been jealousy or mere resentment, made even stronger by the fact that she was, in his eyes, a mere girl. Tohil made no such distinction, but then Acab was Acab, always conscious of his standing and how he was likely to be perceived. Oquis was the real surprise. But then Oquis generally kept himself to himself and his thoughts along with it. Still, that he would leave disappointed Tohil. Oquis was always there to pitch in. That he had chosen to leave with Acab told him something too, but again, Tohil was not sure what. Could it have been that their journey was too mystical, not bound enough in the real world? Oquis always preferred what he could see and touch, what he could influence himself. He was the listener, and it was true that Acab was the talker. Oquis could always be seen watching, listening, making up his own mind about things, but the problem with Oquis was that you couldn’t always tell what conclusions he had drawn. Still, Tohil couldn’t help but feel that it was somehow his fault.

  As they set off again, the thoughts, the analysis were still working inside him, even though he knew that they would not solve anything. What had happened had happened and there was no going back to change it, just in the same way as there was no retracing their path. He tried pushing the thoughts aside and simply concentrating on the road in front of them. Everything was quiet apart from the sounds of their feet upon the road. After a while, the land around them started to climb slowly. Off in the distance, Tohil thought he could see the end of the white road, and he drew them to a brief halt to consult the map. Where the white road ended was apparent, but after that, just the mountains, no path or guiding sign. They would simply have to find their own way. Folding the map away, he set his eyes upon the end of the road and started marching again. By the time the evening started to draw in, they were still walking and had not reached the road’s end. The distances had been deceiving.

  Early in the morning, on the next day, the white road simply stopped. There was a sharp lip edged with white stones, and a shallow embankment that led down to brown, hard earth. Here and there patches of stone and small scrubby bushes broke it. These too were mainly brown, blending into the rest of the landscape. Where there was stone, it was dark and hard, allowing nothing to grow. Tohil searched the land ahead, but there seemed to be no visible path. He drew out the map once more and tried to match the features drawn upon it with what they were seeing ahead, but there were no clues there either. Once more, he was forced to make a choice with very little to guide him.

  “Do you see anything that looks like a path?” he asked the other two. “Because I see nothing.”

  “We have to cross the mountains anyway,” said Xquic. “The white road led us here. Perhaps there is a reason.”

  Tepeu remained characteristically unforthcoming.

  “So, let’s just continue till we find something,” he said finally.

  They negotiated the short decline at the road’s end and started walking across the hard-baked ground. It didn’t take Tohil long to realise that they had another problem. He placed his foot down on a jagged rock, its sharp edges bruising the sole and nearly twisting his ankle in the process. He cursed and stopped, scanning the ground before them. Of course, they wore nothing on their feet. Until now, there had been no need. They carried nothing with them that might suffice to put together the types of sandals that the Elders wore from time to time. As he thought about it, he seemed to remember that the noble types back in the city had worn sandals, sometimes adorned with beads or jewellery, but there seemed nothing practical about that. He grimaced. They’d just have to watch their footing, slowing them further, or risk being injured. It seemed, for the moment, that rather than protecting them, the gods were throwing as many obstacles in their path as they could. He looked up at the pale blue sky, reached for the jaguar pendant and shook his head. They had no choice.

  The others had stopped when he had, and they were waiting for him.

  “Let’s get moving,” he said. “But watch where you put your feet. I nearly cut my foot open just then.”

  The next couple of hours saw the ground rising more, and they picked their way across dips and rises, before long, learning to seek out the exposed areas of hard ston
e where the going was easier. Gradually, and not fast enough for Tohil’s liking, the areas of broken ground became fewer, and those patches of smooth stone more frequent. And then Tepeu pointed ahead, a little to their right.

  “Look there,” he said.

  What he had spotted was the end of a long smooth stream of dark stone, almost like a river. It was wide and flat, curving up and around. The more he looked at it, the more Tohil was reminded precisely of that—a river, but one made of stone. It was exactly what they needed and he set off in that direction immediately.

  The ends of the stone when he reached it, looked just as the broken ends of a small stream, trailing off in different directions in little rivulets that eventually diminished into nothing. No one could have made this. They stood looking down at it, wondering. How could this be? Stone was not water. Stone did not flow like a river. But that was precisely what it looked like, a long motionless river flowing down the mountainside. Carefully, he stepped on to the surface, took a few experimental paces, but it was solid and smooth beneath his feet. He didn’t understand how it had come to be, but he was grateful all the same. They hadn’t been abandoned entirely, after all. He looked back up to the mountain’s peak. Now that they were here, he could see more of the orange and yellow fires at the top, and strangely, it too seemed to run in paths. If they followed this new stone road, they might end up right up there, at the very top of the mountain, but he couldn’t believe that was where they were meant to go. They needed to get over the mountain, not inside it and he could also see now that there appeared to be some sort of lip near the top, a curved edge that shielded something beyond. It was that place, behind the lip that the smoke issued from.

  “Do you know any more about this mountain?” he asked Tepeu.

  “Only what the Elders told us,” he said. “That sometimes the mountain speaks in fire.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Xquic.