by Paul Watkins
‘But why?’ I asked, my voice cracking with disbelief. ‘Why invent a lie when what held us together as friends was our searching for the truth?’
‘To make you believe,’ he shouted, ‘until we really found what we were looking for. So that you who were my friends would not lose faith in me.’ He paused. ‘And now it is the faith of these people that matters, not yours.’ Olaf pointed at the ship, riding at anchor in the jade green water. ‘Go, and if you find your home again, tell them that Olaf no longer exists. Now there is only Kukulkan.’
He tried to step past me, but I held out my hands to stop him. ‘Olaf, I am telling the truth.’
‘Whose truth?’ he demanded.
‘The only one that matters to me,’ I replied, still refusing to get out of his way, ‘is the one that will keep you alive.’
The next thing I remember, I was lying on the ground. The left side of my head was burning, and branches of pain spread like long fingers beneath my skin, reaching along the line of my jaw and down my neck. I tried to sit up but fell back again. When my head hit the dirt, chips of light flickered in front of my eyes. I could feel blood trickling down the back of my throat. Olaf’s face appeared over mine. He was talking to me, but his voice seemed to come from far away, and I could not hear the words.
Then I was hoisted to my feet by two of the guards, and my hands were tied behind my back with vines.
The Nacom and their guards set off down the white road. Olaf was carried in his chair, swaying gently with the motion of his bearers.
I stumbled along behind, pushed by the tip of a spear. The blood still dripped from my nose where Olaf had struck me. I felt the dryness in my lips and the greasiness in my joints which always came with fear. I thought about running, but knew it would be useless. Before the village was swallowed up by the jungle, I looked back and saw a small group of people watching. Choll was among them. From the expressions on his face, I realised he did not expect to see me again.
The route took us through the jungle along roads paved with the same crushed white stone. Vines and interlocking branches grew so densely on either side that I wondered how these paths could ever have been cleared, especially in this heat, which never seemed to fade from the moment the sun rose above the horizon until well after dark.
Now and then, the procession would pause to rest, and I would be given water to drink from one of the gourds, which all the Maya carried with them. The guards neither looked me in the eye nor spoke to me throughout the day, only pushing me impatiently onwards when I lagged behind.
Once, I saw that Olaf had turned in his chair to look back at me. I tried to read the expression on his face, but there was sweat in my eyes, and all I could make out was a blur.
We camped that night beside a sink-hole where the rocky ground had fallen in upon itself to make an underground pond. The roots of trees had wormed their way through the rock and dangled into the bright blue water. The guards climbed down these roots and went fishing with their spears, while the Nacom set up a triangle of stones around where Olaf sat, still in his chair. They brought out dried leaves, placed them upon each of the stones and set them alight. Then they sat around the triangle and began to chant in a low guttural murmur. I heard the word ‘Ekchua’ repeated over and over. The leaves burned peppery and sweet. When the Nacom had finished praying, they kicked over the stones and scattered the ashes.
I was brought to the edge of the clearing, made to sit at the base of a tree and tied to its trunk. After giving me a drink of water, they left me alone.
The guards caught some fish in the pond, which they cooked whole and offered to Olaf on a broad green leaf. When Olaf had finished eating, the rest of the fish were divided among the Nacom and their guards. Olaf left his chair and walked over to me.
‘Do you see what trouble you have got yourself into?’ he asked.
‘We are both in trouble,’ I said, refusing to look at him.
‘These people do not seem to think so,’ he said, and gestured towards the Maya sitting around their smouldering fires.
‘Not yet,’ I told him.
He laughed softly and shook his head. ‘Good night, my old friend,’ he said and went back to his chair, beside which a bed of fresh palm leaves had been made for him.
Colours bled together in the glow of twilight. Smoke hung in the still evening air. I was so exhausted that despite my fear, sleep overtook me.
Deep in the night, I woke to find strangers in our camp. The Nacom were speaking in hushed voices to a group passing by on the trail. Armed men stood about, but I could not tell if they were from our group or the other. Night birds sang in the depths of the jungle. It seemed to me I could also hear muffled weeping, but it was so faint that I felt sure I was imagining it or that it was the call of those human-voiced Chachalaka birds. The sky drifted back and forth above the trees, as if the black of night was a heavy liquid churned with the silver bubbles of the stars. Sleep shrouded me again and I dreamed of snow falling on the jungle, filling the air with the great silence of the northern winter night.
Butterflies. I opened my eyes and saw butterflies. Hundreds of them. Thousands. They were as large as my palm, black with pale greenish-blue patches and a single red spot on each wing. They fluttered from tree to tree, as if bounced at the end of invisible strings, and clustered on the ground around fallen leaves in which the dew had collected.
Three butterflies were standing on one guard’s head, slowly flexing their wings. One was balanced on the tip of his spear.
The guard saw my puzzled face. He looked up at the sky and shrugged, as if these butterflies were only a compression of light, and might disappear as suddenly and inexplicably as they had appeared.
Sun rose bloody from the black silhouettes of the jungle.
We began to move again and soon passed a few small villages, palm-frond roofs dusted white. The path became broader and more travelled. Our procession drew many stares. As the sun climbed higher, even the Maya began to feel the heat of the day. No one had given me any water for a long time and my head was spinning. I stumbled on roots which rose like veins out of the earth and criss-crossed the ground. The leaves of trees lining the pathway were thin and sharp-looking, like the blades of little spears. Everything looked as if it might crumble to dust at any moment. I wondered how these plants could survive. I imagined their roots tunnelling to underground rivers, which swirled in total darkness, down and down to quench the burning belly of the earth.
Through the sweat that stung my eyes, I saw the path converging in the middle distance, clenched in the tiny dagger teeth of these sharp-leaved trees, while all around the air was speckled with the drunken wanderings of butterflies.
We reached a stone archway and, beyond that, a large empty clearing. In the centre of this clearing stood a huge grey pyramid, the sight of which shocked me, as I had never guessed that such a thing existed here, so deep within the jungle. Hundreds of narrow steps led steeply to a small stone house, which was painted bright pinks and blues like the one in Yochac. A chest-high wall separated the pyramid from the jungle and the scattered buildings that lay beyond it.
Olaf was carried into the clearing, followed by the Nacom.
The guards brought me around the outside of the wall to the back of the pyramid. Here, I was put inside a small cage made of sturdy branches bound with vines and left alone. Although the cage was sheltered by the trees, I had no food or water, and the space was too small for me to do anything but sit or lie down.
Throughout the day, I heard the sounds of many people gathering, but I could not see them because my view was obstructed by the wall. Sometimes there was chanting, and I caught the word ‘Chulau’, which someone at the top of the pyramid would shout, to have it echoed by the people down below.
I never stopped being afraid, remembering what the Emperor had said to me on my last day among the Varangian, that I would find myself one day at the end of the world, far from my friends and those who understood me. I would wake from my honey-coloured d
ream and find it was too late. It seemed to me then that those words had come true after all.
Some time in the afternoon, one of the guards reappeared and pushed a piece of fruit into my cage. It was oval in shape, with a leathery yellow skin. Since my hands were still tied, I had to press the fruit to the ground and tear at it with my teeth until it opened. The insides were bright orange and sweet, with strands that stuck between my teeth. By the time I had finished, my face was smeared with sticky juice.
Now the chanting of the crowd became constant, and it seemed to me that there were hundreds of people on the other side of the pyramid.
A large, spotted cat appeared from the jungle, moving easily and without sound among the impossible tangle of vines. Its eyes were bright green and I recognised its skin as the same kind which padded Olaf’s chair. For a long time, the cat stared at me, not moving. Then suddenly it bolted back into the jungle.
A moment later, the guards arrived. They opened the door to my cage and motioned for me to come out, but my legs were so cramped that they had to drag me into the open. In the heat, their expressionless faces weaved in front of my eyes. The guards motioned for me to climb the pyramid steps.
I began to move hand over hand up the steep slope. Once, I turned around to see how far I had come and immediately felt sick from the angle at which I was climbing.
The guards moved behind me, jabbing the backs of my legs with the tips of their spears to hurry me along.
Beyond the clearing the jungle stretched as far as I could see, cleaved by white roads which shimmered in the haze. At the top of the stairs, I staggered to my feet and the guards took hold of my arms to steady me.
The Nacom priests gathered on the top of the pyramid, looking down at a huge sea of people below. There must have been thousands, many more than I had imagined. Bright flecks of coloured clothing showed amongst the reddish brown of their skin. The murmur of voices hummed like a giant beehive.
One figure stood at the edge of the platform, dressed in a cape of feathers so long it trailed onto the ground and a feathered hat shaped to look like a horn growing out of his head. He spread his arms, like a giant bird about to fly, and the crowd below sucked in its breath. Then the figure turned, and I saw that it was Olaf, his face painted with the same bright reds and greens as the feathers of his cape. He looked at me but did not speak, and no longer seemed to know who I was.
The rest of the Nacom had gathered around a narrow stone chair, which was shaped like a man lying on his back and resting on his elbows with his knees drawn up.
Butterflies perched on the chair. They crowded on the roof of the small house, tilting their wings, as if they meant to carry it up to the sky. They began to settle on me, too, drawn by the smell of the juice on my face. They rested on my head and shoulders and even on my fingertips.
I was pushed against the wall of the house, its red-painted stones hot against my back. One guard stood on either side of me, each carrying a spear.
At that moment, a man was led out of the stone house, guided by two Nacom who I realised were twins. With his back to me, I did not recognise the man, but when he turned, I saw it was Choll. He looked at me through eyes half closed with swollen bruises. The bridge of his nose was broken. His lips had been split by a punch to the face. I couldn’t understand how he had come to be here, but then I realised that the crying I had heard in the jungle the night before must have come from him. They had set out later but had overtaken us in the dark.
There were so many butterflies now that the air seemed to shudder with the movement of their trembling wings. The Nacom watched with growing amazement as butterflies flooded out of the jungle, floating up over the rough stone steps to the top of the pyramid.
The twins brought Choll to the chair and made him lie down on it with his legs straddling the drawn-up knees of the human shape. He looked dazed as his head tilted forward and his chin was pushed into his chest.
Olaf was motioned to stand at the head of the chair. He strode across the platform and took his place, then looked around in dignified confusion, waiting to see what happened next.
The heat was stronger than before. The colours of the feathered cloaks flashed in front of my eyes. I could barely stay on my feet. In this delirium I watched one of the Nacom throw back the folds of his cape, revealing his bare chest. Around his throat hung a necklace made of human jawbones, laced together end to end so that they ringed his body like the blunted outline of a star. From a leather pouch he pulled a knife made from the same black stone as the Thor’s hammer I had given Olaf. The man moved very quickly, and I shouted as he raised the knife and slammed it into Choll’s ribs. The force of the blow buried the Nacom’s hand in his victim’s flesh. Choll’s eyes were closed. His jaw locked open. He let out a scream, spraying droplets of blood into the face of the priest. The Nacom gritted his teeth and the muscles flexed in his arm as he twisted his hand inside Choll’s chest. Choll’s legs thrashed but his arms hung useless by his side, blood runnning down them, pooling in his palms and running out between his fingers. Now the chest was cut wide open. The clothes and chair and the men who stood nearby were all splashed with Choll’s blood. The Nacom hauled out his hand and in it, he held a knot of flesh and blood. He shouted at the sky, ‘Chulau! Chulau!’, then held his hand to Olaf. Choll’s heart was clenched in his fist.
The opened chest glistened in the blinding sun. The blood which had rained onto the feathered men was already drying on the dusty stone of the pyramid. The Nacom were all looking at Olaf, as if he would know what to do.
But the horror on Olaf’s face was clear to see. He stared like a man caught in a waking nightmare at the ragged clump of the dead man’s heart, which dripped its thickening paint down the Nacom’s arm and over the body of the corpse.
A bowl was brought from the stone house. The priest placed the heart in this bowl and handed it to Olaf, who took it in his hands and looked from face to wide-eyed face, as if to see the meaning in this butchery.
The smell of blood hung all around. I could feel my consciousness slipping in and out, as if pulled by powerful tides far beyond the jungle and the wave-crushing reefs.
The dead man was dragged from the seat. His head cracked on the stone floor and with this jolt his eyes, which had been shut, popped open. The body was carried to the edge of the pyramid and swung out into the air. Choll fell against the steps and tumbled to the bottom, patching the stones with his blood. ‘Chulau!’ the people shouted. ‘Chulau! Chulau!’
The butterflies seethed around me, clinging to my chest and my legs, colours pulsing as they moved and making the light flicker just as it had done in that moment before the lightning struck.
The guards had begun to step away from me, overwhelmed by the sight of what appeared to them no longer a person but a swarm of tiny creatures massing as a human shape.
Olaf still held out the bowl, paralysed with fear.
Now, the Nacom signalled to the men who had been guarding me. At first, they did not want to move but then the priest with the jawbone necklace shouted out one word, which shook them from their hesitation. When this man opened his mouth to speak, I saw that his teeth had been filed down to points, like the teeth of a cat. The guards cut the vines which bound my hands, but they kept my arms twisted behind me. The men shoved me forward and when I struggled, the butterflies rose in a single mass, as if my body was scattering into the air. The insects whirled around me in a blur of black and blue and red. I tried to back away from the chair. ‘No!’ I was shouting. ‘No! No!’ Then the Nacom with the knife stepped forward and, with one swipe, cut me across my chest. The blade was so sharp, I barely felt the wound. The guards pinned me down upon the stone chair, slippery with Choll’s blood against my back.
A rising scream climbed from my throat, scattering the birds from their leafy hiding places. The hot stale air of the jungle trailed out of me and when I gasped to fill my lungs again, it was like drinking smoke. I howled at the Nacom, asking them what kind of god co
uld be satisfied by such a slaughter, but even as the words formed in my mouth, I remembered the names of gods I called my own and the lives which had been ended to appease them. In the blink of an eye the world around was bathed in red. It was not only Choll’s blood but Cabal’s as well and the gore of every sacrifice that I had ever seen, pouring like a river down the steps of this stone pyramid.
I felt as if my bones and everything which fastened me to life were falling away into an emptiness inside. And with them fell the rulers of the sacred world, like the rotten shutters of a house collapsing in upon itself. What remained had seemed unthinkable to me until this moment – that the world of the gods, and even the gods themselves, held no more substance than the dreams and fears of men.
The Nacom priest moved closer.
At that moment, Olaf raised the stone bowl above his head and smashed it down onto the stones. With a deafening crash, shards clattered away over the precipice of steps, leaving Choll’s heart crusted with dirt at the feet of the Nacom. Olaf pressed his hands to the side of his head and turned away.
Everything stopped.
The Nacom stumbled backwards. Some of them dropped to their knees.
The two guards glanced at each other nervously but continued to pin me down.
The priest who had killed Choll stepped forward, offering the black knife to Olaf.
Olaf took the weapon from him.
‘Olaf, no!’ I shouted.
Then, with all his strength, Olaf hurled the knife out into the jungle. He tore off his feathered cap and flung the huge feathered cape out into the air, where it wafted down onto the steps of the pyramid.
The Nacom priest stared at Olaf, hands held out in a gesture of disbelief. Then he stepped back, and his arms dropped to his sides.
The guards released me, as if their strength had suddenly left them.
Olaf stood in a daze at the edge of the pyramid, the colours on his painted face streaked with sweat.
I rose to my feet and took Olaf by the arm. Then I began to lead him down the steps.
