by M. G. Harris
Obviously they’ve mistaken me for Secret Agent Ethan Hunt.
“And if I’m caught? Then what?”
The chief’s eyes hold mine in a rock-steady glare. From a small case he picks out what looks like a small ballpoint pen. “Then you use this. It’s a spring-loaded hypodermic syringe,” he says. “One dose will knock you out within seconds.”
“Suicide. . .?”
“Relax!” Lorena says, with a rare smile. “It’s a drug I’ve developed. From information we found in the Muluc Codex. It has an amnesiac effect. All your memories from the past six to ten days will be erased.”
I look around at the gathered group. What they’re suggesting – it’s unbelievable. “I’d forget all this?”
Lorena nods.
My thoughts race ahead, then backwards, recalling the past few days. “And Camila, and even arriving in Mexico?”
“Yes,” says Lorena. “It’s a blanket effect. There can be damage to some older memories too, but we’re less certain how that works.”
I’m shocked into silence, weighing up the risks. Losing the memory of Camila’s death – that’s something I could handle, even welcome, but to lose even the brief memory of knowing her? Of the incredible sights of Ek Naab, and the knowledge about my dad’s fate? It’s just unacceptable.
The chief pushes the briefcase towards me. “It contains everything you need to bring back the codex. And a cell phone we’ve adapted to call into our network. When you’ve completed the mission, you simply call us and we’ll send a Muwan.”
I reach for the case, hesitate. They notice. I remember what Vigores said about hesitation.
Is this it? Or is that still to come?
“The boy is anxious,” remarks Blanco Vigores. “He must have time to think.”
One by one, the members of the Executive say goodbye, leaving me staring, dazed, practically punch-drunk. They leave via the elevator, the two Bakabs holding their helmets in the crook of their arms.
Bad enough for me if I don’t find the codex – but where would it leave the Mayans of Ek Naab? Are they really the last hope of all the technologically advanced civilizations of the planet? Can it really be that without the knowledge in the Ix Codex, the world will be helpless, facing a global computer wipe-out?
They say that any civilized society is no more than three days away from total breakdown. I’d never really worried about it before; never believed it was possible. Until now.
And me – can I really be part of this? I can’t decide what’s more mind-boggling – the idea that there’s a secret group of Mayans guarding ancient knowledge of advanced technology, or that I’m one of them.
This is light-years from what I set out to find. And I’m still not much closer to knowing what really happened to Dad. Montoyo told me that Dad took their “Bracelet of Itzamna”. Why? What does the Bracelet of Itzamna do? Why hadn’t any of the Executive mentioned it tonight?
The sheer amount I still don’t understand about Ek Naab and my father’s trip here, threatens to swamp me. I feel as though they’re feeding me just enough to get me to find the Ix Codex. When I think about it, I actually start to tremble. It doesn’t help that my father and my grandfather both died trying to complete the same mission.
How can I succeed where they failed? I’m only thirteen! I’ve got nothing special going for me.
Blanco Vigores said, What is required is an act of faith.
But in what? God? Destiny? Myself?
Only Vigores is still at the table. He doesn’t move. Montoyo hovers. He asks Vigores whether he “might have the honour of escorting you to your city apartments”. Vigores nods, humming slightly under his breath, seemingly lost in his thoughts. Then, “I’d like the boy to return me to the Garden,” he says. “Alone.”
I glance at Montoyo for guidance. With the tiniest nod, he indicates that I should stay by Vigores. I do. Montoyo leaves. Vigores doesn’t move. And then he stands, and so do I.
I have no idea where we are going. Almost literally, the blind leading the blind.
“My home, the Garden, exists as an eternal foundation,” Vigores tells me as we begin to walk. “The very basis of Ek Naab. Volcanic activity produced lava tubes, then came the perpetual drip-drip-drip of water.”
We take the elevator not up but down. The descent takes us deeper than the pyramid. I remember the dizzying journey I made through the tunnels with Carlos Montoyo. I’m returning to those tunnels, I’m sure of it.
“There is the Garden, with its forking paths and delicately aromatic blooms. And then there are the Depths. Did Carlos Montoyo tell you of the Depths?”
“He told me about the booby-traps. To guard against invaders.”
Vigores nods, smiles. “No sane person would enter the Depths without an excellent guide. And of these, there are few. In fact,” he smiles, “I’m the only one you should trust. And as you see, I’m blind.”
The elevator opens in front of a long tunnel, lined with a flower bed in which only one plant grows: hibiscus. The passageway is illuminated at intervals by the same fiveglobed lamps I’ve seen in the main cavern of the city. Aside from this, no effort has been made to tame the tunnels. They look rough, natural, made of a black, porous rock.
“The flowers really do grow without natural light. . .” I say in wonder.
“You didn’t believe in our miracle of the hibiscus?”
I blush. “Not really. I assumed there was some trick with artifical light.”
“No trick,” Vigores says. “Everything you see here is quite real. Although sometimes, it may seem otherwise. Don’t assume that our ancestors would have been convinced by a lesser miracle. And it’s not the only miracle of Ek Naab.”
“There are others? Like what?”
“Miracles, mysteries. One transforms into the other. But who’s to see them? Travellers to these parts are rare. I myself travelled, once. Travelling, one becomes aware that differences are lost. One city comes to resemble all others. Places exchange their form, order, distances. One way or another, we’re all destined for the dust cloud – the Great Dark Rift.”
Sounds to me like he’s rambling, but his way of talking draws me in, like quicksand. I try to struggle but it’s useless; I’m sucked under.
Faced by a sudden crossroads, we take another left.
“When navigating a labyrinth, one should turn always left,” mutters Vigores to himself, nodding all the while.
We walk for several moments in silence. That’s when I realize that there are sounds down here if you listen carefully enough. Not the crickle-crackle insect sounds of above but a hollow yawning, like a whispered sigh. Air circulates down here. Where does it go?
“Back there,” I begin nervously, “you said that what you need from me is an act of faith.”
Vigores just nods.
“Well, see, I’m a bit worried about that.”
“You lack faith?”
“I kind of like proof.”
Vigores shakes his head. “Not always possible.”
“It usually is.”
“Do you love your mother?”
I’m taken aback. “Well, yeah.”
“Prove it.”
“I’m here . . . I’m here for her, so that she stops worrying about my dad and why he died.”
Vigores stops, and turns to look at me. I could swear, for a minute, that he sees me staring back at him in astonishment.
“That’s not proof of love,” he says. “Scientifically, there’s no such thing. You’re here for reasons you can’t possibly begin to comprehend. But you do love your mother, and your father too. You know that to be true. And I accept your love for them. On faith, because of what I know of you.”
“But you don’t know me,” I point out.
He smiles. “I have faith in you, Josh. We all do. Now you must have faith in yourself, too.”
“This codex curse, though . . . it’s not real, is it?”
Vigores detects the scepticism in my voice, answers it w
ith a wry, flat statement. “Oh, it’s real enough. There are still stories of the day the Ix Codex was stolen from Ek Naab. In the middle of what you know as the seventh century, the Snake Kingdom – Calakmul – was on the rise. It seemed as though none could resist their power. In those days, the ‘Sect of Bakabs’ was a tiny group, the secret well-protected. Or so we thought. But the Bakab Ix betrayed us. His name was K’inich K’ane Ajk, but we know him as the Traitor Bakab. He left Ek Naab, took the codex to the Ruler of Calakmul, Yuknoom Ch’een.”
“I’ve heard of those two,” I say. “They’re mentioned in the Calakmul letter.”
“Yuknoom, like many Mayans, believed that any of the four books of Itzamna would make him all-powerful. He conquered Cancuen and invited the Traitor Bakab to join him in his court at Calakmul. At first, Yuknoom simply asked for the Ix Codex. And the Bakab refused. It is said that twenty of Yuknoom’s guards died trying to take the codex. Twenty! The ‘curse’, it was said. Each death as bloody and painful as the next. And when the Traitor Bakab failed to help him find the other three books, or to decipher the Ix Codex, that’s how Yuknoom decided that he would die; a bloody, painful death. A death that lasted days.”
“Jeez. Why’d this guy betray Ek Naab in the first place?”
“Love. Power. Jealousy. Maybe none, maybe all three.”
It sounds as if the Calakmul letter conceals a pretty grisly tale!
Unprompted, he starts up again, his voice lilting.
“There was a storm, once, that destroyed an unfortunate city by the sea. Perhaps you know it? Tulum, they call it. A Caribbean nightmare: the devastation of the hurricane. Nothing survived. Trees were torn out by their roots, thatched temple roofs flew into the air, houses were stripped of walls. Crops even: blasted by the force of the storm. The sky filled with leaves, crops, palm fronds: the night of the leaf storm. The citizens of Tulum never did recover. Some events can shake a person so badly that it’s as though a tornado ripped them apart from inside.”
I stop walking, turn towards Vigores.
Why is he telling me this?
Without warning, something’s changed. I’ve lost all sense of guiding a harmless old man to his mysterious home. Now it’s me who feels lost. Vigores looks directly into my eyes. And once again, I have the weirdest sensation that he sees me as clearly as I see him.
“The world around us, it changes so fast. Ripples in the air become violent currents; before you know it, there’s a storm. You feel it, I know – you’ve carried a storm in your heart for some time now.”
I almost stop breathing.
Is he talking about my dream?
Vigores only nods, shushing me as if to soothe my nerves. “This storm . . . will carry more of us with it than just you, mark my words.”
I want to ask Vigores to be clearer, more specific. There’s something about his eyes, though: they’ve glazed over. He seems lost in some interior world. With every passing second, I have a growing impression that he’s forgotten I’m here. Finally, he stops taking those slow, measured steps along the tunnel.
“This is far enough.”
He extracts a folding white stick from his sleeve.
“The universal tool of the blind,” he says with a sad smile. “Goodbye, Josh. We’ll meet again, no doubt. Remember what the poet said: Any life is made up of a single moment: the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is. It is your great fortune to have discovered this so early in life.”
“You think?”
For some reason, my doubtful answer makes him laugh, showing all the teeth of his upper jaw. “Share our faith in you, Josh. Embrace your adventure. Because it will, above all, be that.”
With that he turns away from me and continues down the dimly lit floral path.
I’m confused. After a second or two I call out after him, “How do I get back?”
“By turning right, naturally! Always right!”
Another left turn, tap-tapping along. Then he’s gone, leaving me wondering what’s just happened.
How could Vigores know about the leaf storm of my dream? It’s as though, for just a moment, he stared deep into my soul and reflected it back to me. I feel a sudden chill; the hairs on the back of my neck bristle.
The dream is my connection with Aureliano and my father. The dream is the key.
In the Hall of Bakabs, Carlos Montoyo is alone, waiting for me. The table has been cleared, the lights dimmed. I almost miss him in the gloom.
“You’ve been honoured, Josh.”
I don’t know what to say. He stands, walks towards the elevator to meet me.
“In the past five years, I’ve seen Blanco Vigores, oh, maybe five times. Three of them in the past six months. Those last three meetings have concerned your father, or you.”
I’m mystified. Doesn’t the Executive meet regularly?
“Yes. But Vigores doesn’t attend all meetings. We send a message, telling him what we will discuss. And his messenger returns with news of whether or not he will join us.
Concerning the succession of the Bakab Ix, he hasn’t missed a meeting.”
“Why?”
Montoyo shrugs. “Who knows? Time must become very precious when one is so old. All in all, sightings of him are exceedingly rare.”
“What does he do down there, all alone?”
“The only one who knows – his servant and messenger – is sworn to secrecy. And that guy – he’s pretty old too. There are rumours, naturally. That he has a great library of books, a collection from the entire world. That he studies at length, and is more knowledgeable than any living being. And then there’s the story that he lives in what used to be Itzamna’s chambers.”
“Itzamna really lived here? And he really brought the four codices?”
Montoyo nods. “He inscribed them. Himself!”
“Thousands of years ago?”
“Approximately two thousand years ago.”
“Wouldn’t that have to make him, you know, a visiting extraterrestrial from an advanced civilization?”
I’m only half-joking, but Montoyo doesn’t laugh or even smile.
“Well, there’s always speculation. Itzamna was a technological prophet of some kind. Where he gained his knowledge – that’s unknown.”
“The answer’s down there, though, isn’t it? In the Garden? In the Depths? Why don’t you send out search parties, find where Vigores lives, see what’s going on?”
Montoyo seems irritated. “There are great dangers in the Depths, as I’ve already told you. As for Vigores, we respect his privacy. He’s only brought good things to Ek Naab.”
I don’t ask again. But I have the strong feeling that Montoyo is holding back. Big time.
Montoyo says, “We need your decision, Josh. Take the night, sleep on it. And let us know tomorrow. OK?”
Walking back to Benicio’s apartment, I glimpse what passes for nightlife in Ek Naab. The plaza has been cleared of the market stalls. Round tables and chairs have taken their place. Couples and groups huddle around them, faces intimately lit with blue and red flickers from candles set in thick slabs of coloured glass.
Montoyo insists that I wear the Bakab helmet all the way back. It’s for my own good, he says: “You need to learn to separate yourself from the role.” I try to imagine myself as a kind of superhero paraded through the streets. It works – I feel better. I even manage to work up a little strut.
There’s no sign of Benicio at the apartment. “He flies patrol most weeknights,” says Montoyo. Patrolling what, I wonder? And why? These are just two of the ten million questions I want to ask about Ek Naab and all its workings. I’m on the verge of information overload, but my mind won’t stop buzzing.
“You’re not tired?” Montoyo asks. I shake my head. Jet-lagged is what I am, after staying up most of last night.
Montoyo searches through Benicio’s kitchen cupboards. With a murmur of satisfaction, he finds a canister and gets busy making a cafetière of coffee. A few minutes later w
e’re sitting on the couch slurping sweet milky coffee.
“OK, Josh,” he says with a smack of his lips. “Now’s your time. I promised you I would answer your questions. Yes? So, go ahead.”
Answer my questions? Wow. If only this happened every day. Or if he could deal with the questions I really needed to have answered. Why did my father have to die? How do I get rid of the image of my sister’s head sinking underwater? Why can’t my mum be one of those totally together, I’ve-got-it-all-covered-no-problem mothers? Please, can I have my ordinary life back?
Maybe he senses my line of thinking, because watching me search silently for something to ask, he says, “Things are confusing for you right now, yes?”
“Yes. Very.”
“What’s your biggest problem?”
“I suppose . . . thinking that you really can’t get anyone else to do this. That it’s all down to me. And the feeling that this is really not my job. If anyone’s, it should be my dad’s.”
“He’s let you down, yes? By not staying alive? By making this ‘cup pass to you’?”
I nod slowly. He’s right. At the heart of everything, that’s my problem.
“I would have to say, I agree with you. Andres let us down. Not only in allowing himself to be shot down or captured. But in taking the Bracelet of Itzamna.”
I stare blankly into my coffee. “Why didn’t the Executive mention that?”
Montoyo doesn’t miss a beat. “They don’t know, except for Vigores. And you’d better not tell anyone else.”
“What. . .?”
“I’m serious. It would severely complicate matters.”
I gaze at Montoyo, amazed. He’s a dark horse, that guy!
“Please tell me what it is. I won’t tell anyone that Dad took it, I promise.”
Montoyo nods, rocking slightly, his tone grave. “There is a collection of artefacts said to have been owned originally by Itzamna himself.”
“Extraterrestrial artefacts?”
