12.21: A Novel

by Dustin Thomason

  Rolando ran a hand through his hair. “By the end, the glyph appears on almost every one of the fragments. I still don’t get what it could be.”

  They had never seen such a proliferation of glyphs referring to one god in any of the literature. Understanding its significance would be crucial to completing the translation.

  “It’s not a question of syntax, like the father–son combination,” Rolando said. “It’s more like Paktul is dedicating the final pages to him.”

  Chel nodded. “Like adonai in the Jewish Torah, used to mean both God and Praise God.”

  “But there are fragments where it seems like the scribe is negative about Akabalam,” Rolando said. “Wouldn’t it be heresy for a scribe to openly resent a god?”

  “The whole book is heresy. The first glyph block indicts his king. That alone would’ve been punishable by death.”

  “So we’ll keep searching. In the meantime, should we talk about page seven?”

  “What about it?”

  Rolando turned to the section in question and said sheepishly, “I guess I’m curious what you make of the thirteenth-cycle reference.”

  And the dying man’s words were heard by those of us above the fray, and they were an omen of things to come, as black as the end of the thirteenth cycle.

  Chel sat down. The five-thousand-plus-year Long Count was divided into major periods of about 395 years each, beginning on a mythical creation date of 0.0.0.0.0, the equivalent of August 11th, 3114 B.C. in the Gregorian calendar. In the Long Count, a day was expressed by 0.0.0.0.1, a year by 0.0.1.0.0, and the important 395-year periods by 1.0.0.0.0. 12/21/12—in the Maya calendar 13.0.0.0.0—would mark the end of the all-important “thirteenth cycle,” at which point the last Long Count had supposedly come to an end. Just one reference in the Popal Vuh and one short inscription at the ruins of Tortuguero, Mexico—IT WILL BE COMPLETED IN THE 13TH CYCLE—had spawned a cottage industry and cultish devotion to the calendar, and the 2012ers, already empowered by VFI, would go out of control if they knew there was now a second reference, from the classical era, let alone one whose appearance was inextricably tied to the epidemic.

  Chel glanced over at the door of the lab, next to which an intercom hung on the wall. It could be used to summon the security detail stationed at the bottom of the hill. She hoped never to have to use it.

  “He could be talking about a Tzolk’in cycle of thirteen days for all we know,” she told Rolando. “It might not have anything to do with the Long Count.” Chel wasn’t sure if she believed it herself, but she couldn’t let 2012 distract her now, nor would she give the Believers anything to hang on to.

  One of the Believers she had in mind walked into the lab and caught the tail end of their conversation. Victor’s short white hair was combed back and wet, as if he’d just showered, his perpetual polo shirt green this time.

  “Please continue,” he said.

  Even at Victor’s lowest points, Chel had always marveled at his seventy-something energy. When she was in graduate school, he’d do decipherment work for twelve-hour stretches without ever eating or going to the bathroom, and now he’d been instrumental in getting them this far.

  Still, as grateful as Chel was, she wasn’t eager to bring up 2012 when he was around.

  “The thirteenth-cycle reference is up for interpretation,” Victor said, jumping right in.

  “I guess it is,” she responded warily.

  “I’ll check the computers,” Rolando said, taking his cue to leave.

  Victor went on, “But there are many things that will be up for interpretation, depending on people’s particular biases. And I believe we have other more important things to focus on. Don’t you?”

  Chel was relieved. “I do, Victor. Thank you.”

  He held up his copy of the translation. “Good, then,” he said. “Let us do that.” He put a hand gently on Chel’s shoulder, and she reached up to meet it with her own for a moment. “I think the first things we must discuss are the implications for the collapse, right?”

  “What implications?”

  “The possibility this book could tell us something about the collapse we aren’t prepared for,” he said. “What do you see in Paktul’s discussion of the failing city?”

  “I see a community stricken by a mega-drought, trying to survive. Paktul says there are barren markets and starving children. The drought must have been going on for at least eighteen months, based on the likely water stores.”

  “We know there were droughts,” Victor said. “But what about the reference to the food-preservation techniques they’re using?”

  Our army has a new way to preserve food, salting its supplies more heavily than before, so that we may launch wars on lands even more distant.

  “What about it?” Chel asked.

  “Heavier salting is a major innovation in warfare,” Victor said. “You know war between the polities was often hampered by food supply. Figuring out better salting techniques would have let them fight more effectively.”

  “What are you implying?”

  “I’m just saying, the ability to wage more war ultimately made them more vulnerable.”

  “To what?”

  “To everything.”

  Now she understood. Victor had made this argument forever, even before his 2012 hysteria: He believed her ancestors were better suited to simpler, more rural lives, and that the cities—for all their glory—fostered the self-destructive excesses of despotic kings. “The ancients could have ruled for a millennium if it weren’t for the droughts,” she said. “They used their technology to great advantage.”

  Victor disagreed. “Let us not forget that the Maya have endured much longer droughts living in the forests than they ever did in the cities. Once they moved back into the jungle after the classic and stopped building temples and waging more wars and burning all their wood for plaster, they survived the dry periods just fine.”

  “So the noble savages could only survive in the jungles? They couldn’t handle the pressures of civilization?”

  Before Victor could respond, Rolando poked his head back into the lab. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but there’s something you both need to see.”

  IN THE REAR OF THE LAB, they had four computers using state-of-the-art “vision” programs to decipher unknown glyphs and piece together gaps in the text. Due to the unique styles of scribes, even familiar words could be painted in a way that made them unrecognizable. Computer vision used sophisticated algorithms to calculate distances between brushstrokes and then tried to match them to known glyphs with similar shapes, with much greater accuracy than the human eye.

  Rolando pointed to a series of faint squiggly lines from the codex. “You see this glyph? The computer believes it’s similar enough to one of the representations of Scorpio seen at Copal to be a match. I think this is a zodiac reference.”

  The sun and stars determined every event in ancient life: gods worshipped, names given to children, rituals performed, foods eaten, and sacrifices offered. The ancient people studied and worshipped many of the same constellations the ancient Greeks and Chinese did. No one knew whether the Maya zodiac came about independently or was brought across the Bering Land Bridge from Asia into the Americas, but, either way, the parallels were striking.

  “So if we substitute that interpretation into the text,” Rolando continued, “this fragment would read: When the morning star passed through the reddest part of the great scorpion in the sky once more …”

  Chel saw it instantly. “We could try to recreate Venus’s position in the sky at the time when Paktul was writing.”

  “I have to assume there are more zodiac references in the text,” said Rolando. “I’ve got the computer searching for anything else resembling constellations.”

  “We need an expert in archaeoastronomy,” Victor interjected. “Doesn’t Patrick work with the zodiac sometimes?” Chel’s stomach clenched.

  “Do we even know if he’s around?” Rolando asked.

>   She knew, of course. Patrick had emailed when the quarantine began to see if she was okay. To let her know he was here if she needed anything. She hadn’t even responded.

  SEVENTEEN

  My scarlet feathers are striped blue and yellow. When I came here, I was starving and might have died if he had not saved me. I was on my migration and lost my flock when we passed through Kanuataba and only the scribe gave me life. I ate ground worms he pulled from the dirt. It has been so long since the rains, even the ground worms are shriveled and dry, but we give each other comfort.

  I, Paktul, royal scribe of Kanuataba, am buoyed by the presence of a scarlet macaw, who has flown into my cave. My spirit form given to me at birth was a macaw, and the bird has always been a great omen when I have chanced upon one. The night of Auxila’s murder, it arrived wounded. I gave it worms because there are no fruit seeds to offer, then let drops of blood out of my tongue to welcome it. Through this, we became one. I embody the spirit of the bird in my dreams. Now I am as grateful for his presence as he is for mine. It is not often a spirit animal finds his man in the flesh, and it is the only happiness I know now.

  For there has been no rain but in our dreams, and the people of Kanuataba grow hungrier by the day. Maize and beans and peppers are almost as rare as meat, and the people have taken to feeding on shrubs. I have given my rations to the children of my friends, for I am used to subsistence eating in my communes with the gods, and my appetite has grown small.

  The death of Auxila, just twelve suns ago, still haunts me. Auxila was a good man, a holy man, whose father took me in when I was a boy and without parents. I knew only my father, my mother having died when she pushed me from the womb. My father could not handle a boy on his own, but he was not allowed by the king, Jaguar Imix’s father, to take another wife from Kanuataba. So he fled alone to the great lake beside the ocean, the land of our ancestors, to rejoin them, as soon the bird will rejoin its flock. He never returned, and Auxila’s father took me in as an orphan and made Auxila my brother. Now my brother has been killed by the king I serve.

  I headed to the palace with my macaw, on a day when the moon was halved, and the evening star would pass directly through Xibalba. I swallowed my sadness at Auxila’s death, for to express discontent at a royal decree is unwise. I had been summoned to the king for reasons I did not know.

  The macaw and I passed other nobles standing in the central patio on our way to the palace. Maruva, a member of the council who has never had an idea of his own, leaned against one of the great pillars encircling the patio, dwarfed by the stone that reached seven men high. He spoke to a king’s ambassador well known for supplying the black market in the Outskirts with hallucinogens. They both looked at me suspiciously and whispered as I passed.

  I reached the palace and was led by one of the guards into the king’s quarters. The king and his minions had just finished eating, another secret ritual in which only he and his sycophants are allowed. These men were finishing a royal feast. The smell of incense filled my nostrils and overwhelmed the smell of animal flesh. The incense was distinctive. I have come upon the end of these royal feasts before, and always there is a bitter smell in the air from the fire they burn to sanctify their meal. The secret mix of plants burned is a source of power for kings, the aroma of the incense a great source of pride for Jaguar Imix. When I set the macaw down and kissed the wretched limestone, the aroma had changed, and I could no longer taste it on the back of my tongue as I once had.

  Jaguar Imix called me into the recesses of the chamber, ordering me to sit on the floor beneath his royal throne, where the sun shines at solstice and the moon shines when harvest comes. Jaguar Imix’s face is sharp, and he has always garnered power from its distinction. His nose is pointed like a bird’s, and his flat forehead is offered as evidence of his divine power. He drapes himself in cotton, made on the royal looms and dyed royal green, and he is almost never seen without his jaguar head covering.

  Jaguar Imix, the holy ruler, spoke. His voice bellowed for all to hear:

  —We will honor the great god Akabalam and the many gifts he has provided my sovereign kingdom. Let us praise him! To you, Akabalam, we shall dedicate a holy feast we prepare, and to you we make this most insignificant offering, that you may bless us with your many gifts. We shall prepare for a feast of meat unlike any the city has ever seen before, for all the inhabitants of Kanuataba. It will be made in honor of Akabalam to sanctify the commencement of the new pyramid.—

  I was confused. Of what feast did he speak? And from where would food for such a feast come when our city is starving?

  I spoke:

  —Pardon, Highness, but there is to be a holy feast?—

  —Like none the city has seen in a hundred turns of the Calendar Round.—

  —What kind of feast?—

  —All will be told in time, scribe.—

  Jaguar Imix pointed at a concubine who had come to join us, and she reached into a small bowl beside her and pulled out a length of tree skin. She placed it between her master’s teeth and he chewed as he spoke again:

  —Paktul, servant, while in a trance I was told by the gods of your disapproval of the new temple. Your questioning of the feast ordained by Akabalam confirms what the gods have told me. You know that I see all, scribe. Is it true what the gods say? That you would dispute that I am their vessel?—

  These words were as good as a sentence of death, and I feared as I have never feared before—the eyes of the court were on me, preparing for blood. Even the macaw who sat in his cage beside me could feel it. Auxila had been sacrificed for less. My heart would be ripped out on the altar! I looked over at Jacomo the dwarf, slurping from a cup of chocolate with cinnamon and chili. I knew then there was no god behind this, just a malicious dwarf.

  With fear in my heart, I spoke:

  —Jaguar Imix, most holy ruler, exalted one, I spoke in the council meeting only to ask if the time to construct the new pyramid was ideal. I wish for the pyramid to stand for ten great cycles, so that your name may be remembered forever as the most holy. I hope to adorn the façade with a thousand glyphs to represent you, but I do not wish to paint on poor limestone because we do not have the men or materials to build it.—

  I bowed my head in penitence, and at this, Jaguar Imix spit the skin of the tree from his mouth onto the ground and flashed his teeth. He showed the most beautiful set of jade and pearl inlays ever created in Kanuataba. Jaguar Imix loves to smile and remind everyone below him of his prize. Loyalty is Jaguar Imix’s greatest demand of his people, and so many times I have seen him revel in the groveling of a man, only to have him executed before another turn of the great star above.

  I closed my eyes and waited for the executioners to come. They would take me to the top of the pyramid and sacrifice me as they did Auxila.

  But then the king spoke:

  —Paktul, low one, you are forgiven. I pardon your indiscretion and trust that you will redeem yourself in the preparation for the holy feast to honor Akabalam.—

  I opened my eyes and could not believe the words. And the king continued:

  —My son, the prince, favors you, and so you shall be forgiven this trespass once, so you may teach Smoke Song to follow in the bloodline of his destiny. You will teach him of the power of Akabalam, most revered god who has revealed himself to me. You will instruct Smoke Song in the virtues of the coming feast.—

  Trembling, I choked out words:

  –Highness, I have searched the great books, and I have not found this Akabalam. I have searched everywhere, and there are no descriptions of him in the great cycles of time. I wish to teach the prince, but from what shall I teach him?—

  – You shall continue in your lessons to the prince as planned, low scribe, from the great books you know so well. And when the feast in honor of Akabalam is prepared, I shall reveal all to you so that you may record it in new holy books, so Smoke Song and the divine kings that shall come after him will know forevermore.—

  I
departed the royal chambers, dizzy with the new life the king had breathed into me.

  The holy prince’s lessons are more important than any other charge and had saved my own life from sacrifice. I tried to bury my worries as I went to the palace library to meet the prince, with only the bird in its cage, embodiment of my spirit, to share in my fears.

  The royal library, where I teach the prince his lessons, is the most wondrous place in all of our great terraced city. There I have stood beneath the tree of knowledge that the wise men have gathered over ten great turns of the Calendar Round. There are books of every description, read for their holy wisdom. These books give the religious knowledge of the astronomers, who told of the celestial world as the two-headed serpent.

  I stepped into the library, a room of stone draped in fabrics dyed with the most royal of blues. The square window in the stone shines white light on the fabric; at dawn on the summer solstice, the sun shines directly in to signify dawn for the passions of learning, which our ancestors brought into the world. There are shelves on which sit the great books, stacks of them, some unfolded, from a time when fig-bark paper was plentiful and no scribe would ever have to steal to paint this book.

  Over a thousand suns past, the king entrusted me to teach the royal prince the wisdom of our ancestors, and to help him understand about time, the never-ending loop that bends back on itself. Only by looking to our pasts can we dream of our futures.

  Smoke Song, the prince, is a strong boy of twelve turns of the full Calendar Round, with the eyes and nose of the king, his father. But he is not vengeful, and when I came to the library carrying the bird, Smoke Song was concerned.

  He spoke:

  —I have seen the sacrifice of Auxila, teacher. And in the plaza I saw his daughter, Flamed Plume, whom I favor, mourning her father. Can you tell me where she is now?—

  I looked to Kawil, Prince Smoke Song’s servant, who always stood waiting for the prince during our lessons. Kawil is a good servant and very tall. He stayed silent and only stared ahead.