But nothing but my death came to pass. At the end of my days, I was a pauper but for one Treasure, and alone. I dwelled in no rich Gardens, where the soft girls once sang to me. I walked through no fields like a Fearsome Lord, nor smiled upon my slaves trembling with dread.
It was a Witch who destroyed my life. The most beautiful woman I ever saw.
My last Wife, whom I conquered as the most terrible of all foes, brought me fame and a dowry of land. And yet it was none of these virtues that I most cherished. I had made her mine so that I might own her one Fortune, but when it was in my possession the perfection and splendid horror of the Gem drove me mad.
This Treasure consumed my days. My heart cracked with love for it. Hour upon hour I gazed and mused upon it, and soon my fine gardens withered. The fields grew fallow. The slaves began to look me in the eye. And I cared for none of this. For I had discovered all happiness in that rare Prize.
So my languor persisted until the day my Dwarf whispered rumors of lust and betrayal in my ear, and I woke from my sleep. I stole from the chamber of my long rest and began to creep about my Palace, searching and listening. And upon reaching my own bed, I surprised her in her lover’s arms.
The Priest.
I knew one more moment as a King when I killed them both, but with her curse I understood all was lost. I flew from that place. I gathered my Treasure and prepared for my death. With one last look at my home, I escaped the City, and entered a second Covert of which I will not tell here.
Where is that fine Kingdom of old now? The blue city I once ruled? You, the Knight, the Traveler, the Quester, the Reader, seek my shining palace and my Jewel.
Yet the way will remain hidden from you if your heart does not dwell on the faith of our fathers. Consider the sun, and the Smoking Mirror beyond that sky. Remember the holy morning of Heaven, which all Kings enter when they die.
And so, if you seek my Treasure you must, too, begin with the path that tracks the day’s first rays.
Three of the paths you may choose from will contain no Jewel, but danger: At one way lies a maelstrom in the hour of winter; at another lies the fierce jaguar protecting their young in the spring; at a third lies the drowning marshes during all seasons; and at the fourth, should you choose correctly, you shall find what you seek.
Trust me.
I, the King, am no liar.
Should you seek the Queen, you must start toward the East, where the Gods and the penitent reside.
The Story of the Witch
They call me Sorceress, but I was once a simple person. If I were extraordinary, this was only because I harbored a passion for my small and poor country. Toward the West, where the sun sinks into the ocean, our soil grew few crops, and we lived off the fast and creeping things that roamed the great Deep. And yet, for a while, we did have the Treasure. We harbored in the protection of this tremendous Jewel.
Once, we were our own People.
And then we were no more.
After long years of peace and solitude, the day came when we saw our enemy on top of our cliffs, horrible with their armor and swords. Down these dire knights flew and crushed our life in their strong hands. And it was only when I was brought before my new King, and told to bow like a wife to my own killer, that I felt the monstrous change work within me. For he had stolen our Gift. He had taken our Gem.
Yes, it was then, only then, that I became this Witch.
Through evil glamour I made myself lovely. And with my body’s charms, my tongue’s magick, I converted a Holy Man into a monster and a traitor. I poured honey into a Priest’s mouth and dreams of royal murder into his ear. I rubbed him with a balm that poisoned his mind with jealousy.
He agreed to help me kill my husband.
But it was not to be.
Before our plot was sealed in blood, my husband and his Dwarf discovered us, and though I flew to my soldiers the king trapped and killed me. And when I knew my death was near, I did not use my last breath to bless the fast and creeping things of the Great Deep that had once sustained us, nor did I look with pity at the men mired in their evil, nor the women trapped in their lusts.
Instead, I cursed my enemies, and became as hard and as wicked as my husband.
I killed them all with my last words. The gods’ Storm took both the pure and the impure, and the old and the young.
And now I, too, have disappeared.
Yet it is only I, from the grave, who will tell where hides the Treasure.
Do not trust the words of men, kind traveler. For they seek to keep to themselves all power unto death. I do not hunger after such glories. I am an evil woman, the most terrible of all, and I seek my penance.
Three of the paths you may choose from will contain no Jewel, but danger: At one way lies a maelstrom in the hour of winter; at another lies the fierce jaguar protecting their young in the spring; at a third lies the drowning marshes during all seasons; and at the fourth, should you choose correctly, you shall find what you seek.
Trust me.
I, the Witch, am no liar.
Should you seek the Queen, you must start toward the West, from where I came.
The Story of the Dwarf
As all stretched men are born idiots, and all lofty women born fools, I am happy to have been made in neither of these forms. Instead, I remain myself, a Dwarf, born from the Great Northern Tribes, whose peoples may see into the futures with the aids of dice, dreams, and the craft of the stars.
These arts have been mine. Of prophets, our City has seen none finer. And through my skills, I had my first vision that we would all come to blood and death that first day I laid my eyes upon the Witch. Yet my good stupid King was so set upon his hunger for her Treasure that I did not warn him of the future I feared.
He conquered her seaside kingdom. They were married, against her word. And then he was happy. He could now take his Prize, the Great Jewel.
Heaven, my mother always said, is ruled by Dwarves, and Hell is governed by Hunchbacks, for both these holy tribes descend from the spirit of the blessed Northern Star. And it is thus that these races reign over the spirit world with perfect wisdom and peace. Only the poor Earth suffers its governance from that blundering clumsy race of Giants, who are born without the aid of the constellations. So perhaps it is no great surprise that my King’s base greed, and the Witch’s worldly wiles, and the Priest’s silly cod, combined each of them to create disaster and thus kill us all.
During the first years of my King’s triumph, when he grew ever more sick with his hunger for his Treasure, I counseled him to dash it against the rocks. Thus temptation would be gone. And we would remain safe.
But he did not listen to me.
More, he sickened. More, he hungered. He grew wan and pale with his passion for the Jewel’s beauty and power. And so fiendish was this desire that it made him blind and deaf as the dead he would one day soon join. He did not hear the shouts and howls of his cat-wife, the Witch, as she drugged the Priest in his bed with her body. And he did not see the Priest suffered too from the pangs of love, despite the fool’s white face and crossed eyes.
But I did. For I am a Dwarf, and sacred, and brave.
Into the forest I crept, to spy upon the lovers. The moon rose, the moon fell. After their ruttings, the Witch and the Priest crawled back to the City, and then straight I traveled after them, toward the North Star, which is the Sign of the Feathered Serpent and the guide of all good things.
I brought the King to his puddled bed. And what magnificent wrath did we see then. Half-jaguar, half-man he seemed, and bearing his blue blade. But the Witch proved too fast.
Though he did kill her, not even her death could quiet her curse.
When the trees began singing, and the sky swept down upon us, my Lord escaped from the city and into a second secret Covert that he hoped would keep him safe. But no more of that will I tell.
As I am a Dwarf, you will hear as much truth in what I speak as in all of my silence, for I do not possess the fork-
tongued talents of the Giants. Believe my tale, then, as it contains no crime. Should you, too, Dear Traveler and Knight, have a hunger for the Treasure, I may call you Fool, and I will be right.
Three of the paths you may choose from will contain no Jewel, but danger: At one way lies a maelstrom in the hour of winter; at another lies the fierce jaguar protecting their young in the spring; at a third lies the drowning marshes during all seasons; and at the fourth, should you choose correctly, you shall find what you seek.
Trust me.
I, the Dwarf, am no liar.
Should you seek the Queen, you must start toward the North, under whose sign I was born.
The Story of the Priest
I, a Priest, was lifted to the sky like a God by my Lady’s love. And yet I, the Priest, discovered that I was no God. When my Lady abandoned me, I came crashing to the ground.
An ugly man I was, fumbling and meek. I prayed to the Gods in terror, and my tongue stumbled in my mouth when I spoke before the King. He, seeing my weakness, raised me to the highest station, where he might use me as a doll.
When he offered me my price of girls and wine, I became his sword and his shield. I stood before crowds of men, and told them all that he had been chosen as their ruler by the Gods, though I knew it was not so. When he glutted himself while thousands starved, I explained to the people that such sacrifices were required by the spirits of Earth and of Heaven. When he stole the wives of men for his own. I soothed these husbands with the hope that they might be made holy by their suffering.
And all the time, I grew more weak and more foul, as the bane of power worked itself through my heart.
I only became strong and pure again when I saw Her.
The King sought the Treasure. But Priests have had enough of precious things. I cared not for any fine Jewel, but for my earthly Lady, who trod on the ground with no angel’s feet, whose breath was no perfume, whose hand was rough, whose smile was bitter.
I loved her. I felt myself enter the sky when I gazed upon her. I floated above the mountains. The day she took my hand for the first time, my spirit leapt through the clouds.
I loved her to my death.
But when the King and his stunted Seer discovered us in our hot bed, my beloved knew me no longer. She turned from my side, and with what strange words did she curse us each. Knaves. Caitiffs. Devils. Men. All of us were to be consumed by fire. All of us would die in dread and torture.
This is when I knew her falsehood, and her longing. And I felt myself tumble from the sky to where she had lifted me. Down, down, down, did I fall to the lowest realm in the Earth.
And here, I reside now, below. It is where all lovers go.
To Hell.
In my grave, the Jewel seems to me now not precious, but a cheap thing. For what reason might I hide it? Down here, where the sad and vile things writhe, we are all of us honest. For there is no art in Hades. And so it is with good reason that you should believe what I tell you: The Treasure is down here, where I live.
Take my counsel, then. Do not believe the others.
Three of the paths you may choose from will contain no Jewel, but danger: At one way lies a maelstrom in the hour of winter; at another lies the fierce jaguar protecting their young in the spring; at a third lies the drowning marshes during all seasons; and at the fourth, should you choose correctly, you shall find what you seek.
Trust me.
I, the Priest, am no liar.
Should you seek the Queen, you must start toward the South.
CHAPTER 51
North, south, east, or west?” I said. “That’s what we’re supposed to choose once we hit the mouth of the Sacluc. Where the Stelae were found.”
“Right,”Erik said.
“How do we know which way to go?”
“Perhaps the better question is, whom do you trust the most?” Manuel replied. “The Witch or the Dwarf? The King or the Priest?”
“East,” Yolanda said. “That’s where we’re going. That’s—whom?”
“The King.”
“Then I pick the King.”
“I’m more partial to the Priest,” Manuel said. “Poor fool.”
“I don’t trust any of them,” I said. “But the Witch is my favorite. She’s so strong. She would have been my mother’s, too—I’ll bet she chose that way. None of the others are sympathetic.”
“Not sympathetic?” Erik asked. “How is the Dwarf not sympathetic?”
“He’s too tricky,” I said.
“He’s responsible for the whole mess in the first place,” Manuel added.
“The Witch isn’t strong enough to trust,” Yolanda said to me. “She surrendered to the Elder Brother.”
“She didn’t surrender—”
“Didn’t we read something about this in Von Humboldt’s journals?” Erik asked.
“What?”
He shook his head. “I can’t remember.”
“And the Witch tells us to go west,” Yolanda continued, “but I already explained, my father’s been all over that territory, and he never found anything.”
“But maybe he was right, anyway.”
“He wasn’t,” she said. “And he would never listen to me about that.”
Manuel’s eyes were dropping closed. “The Priest’s only crime is falling in love, whereas the rest of them are liars, killers, or thieves.”
We lowered our heads at this, thinking, and rubbing our sore necks.
“I’m too tired for this right now,” Yolanda said. “That hammock is looking good.”
“Just a minute,” I said. “Aren’t we going to decide?”
“We’ve decided east,” she said. “The King.”
“No, the Witch.”
“The Priest.”
“And I’m inclined toward the Dwarf,” Erik said, “if only because I know that east’s already been combed by archaeologists—because that’s where Tikal is.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Though there is something else, but I’ve forgotten. I need to read through the papers.”
Manuel yawned. “That’s it, I can’t stay up any longer.”
“You’re right,” Yolanda said. “We’ll need our rest for our eastward journey tomorrow.”
“Westward,” I said.
“Good night.”
“Good night.”
“Fine. Good night.”
When the rest had ceased rustling about and begun their soft snoring, I crawled into Erik’s hammock and pressed my ear to his chest. His heart was louder than the voices of the sleeping birds. Curling himself like a terrier against me, he slept too.
The forest was round and inky above us. The moving purple branches of the dozing trees and the drowsy lizards whispered among one another; the dark was perfect and endless, though it was fringed with rose light from the fire and also busy with invisible eyes.
I swung in that hammock with Erik, and in my optimism I gripped his hand and tried to send myself out through the woods, into the blackness, and travel like the psychics and mediums to the region where my mother hid, to let her know I was coming.
I tried to feel her.
And then—I thought I did feel my mother somewhere, hidden from me in the huge wood.
With a leap in my chest, I was almost sure that I could feel her, because I loved her so much. My heart began to ring soft and clear, like a bell.
The night thickened and shifted; the wood extended its shadows to cover even the small roses of the fire.
North, south, east, west.
Which way?
I lay there, waiting for a sign. I couldn’t sleep.
The next morning, at five A.M., we ate a breakfast of dried shrimp and bottled water, then set out for the mouth of the Sacluc. Heading north through the forest, we descended ever lower into the Peten, which sits on a declining stone peninsula where water from the earlier storm had pooled. For hours we pushed through the path that first Yolanda, then Erik, and later I cut through the woods. At every step, there was the constant pulling an
d sucking of the mud, which became deeper and higher, and more saturated with water as we made our way forward. The DEET covered our faces and hands, as did dirt and the unstoppable bugs; the lianas and orchids dangled in front of our eyes; the monkeys complained. Cacti scratched us as we moved past, and soon all of us had rents in our clothing, and notches in our arms, our faces, and our hands.
Soon, it was my turn to try the machete. And this was not one of those old-fashioned sorts of knives that I’ve seen in museums and antique stores, but rather an instrument that probably came out of a factory that year. It had an eighteen-inch-long blade of stainless steel, with a wood handle with a knuckle grip attached to the metal with three large rivets. The brand name Ontario had been stamped into the handle. With this frightening-looking gadget, I tried to copy Yolanda’s style in cutting the brush, which was to grip the knife loosely between her thumb and index finger, and then swing the blade up in an arc. But I couldn’t do that. I just hacked away at the bushes and the vines in a sort of random motion, using loops and crosswise cuts and vertical whacks.
“No, no, no, move it up,” Yolanda said. “Oh, I can’t watch.”
“Or maybe more to the side, less spastically?” Erik said. “You look like you’re trying to kill a kangaroo.”
I looked at them and kept whacking.
“Just trying to help.”
Yet I will say that even if I didn’t have access to anything in the way of real skill, I still owned my indigenous reserves of Mexican stubbornness. And my flailing did do the trick. Eventually I cleared out a long path, before my arm felt as if it had been set on fire.
At one o’clock in the afternoon, we began to notice a greater degree of flooding on the ground; insects with velvety feelers and lobsterlike claws skimmed past us on rafts made of large leaves; the hanks of bush carved out by Yolanda’s machete swam into the overflow, causing us to tread through standing water filled with scarlet and purple floating flowers in a hallucinatory version of Monet’s Water Lilies. After half a mile, though, she had to strap the blade to the back of her pack, as we’d reached an opening in the wood that was hedged all around with mahoganies and filled with a high breach of water running off from a pond sitting to the east. The freshet exhaled a chill air, which converted into thin fogs; these vapors drifted to the towering mahoganies or traveled close to the surface of the stream, like a reflection of the intricate pattern the water made as it leapt over fallen trees and plunged into the dark part of the wood.
The Queen Jade Page 25
