Gods of Jade and Shadow

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

  “You can speak with ghosts?” she asked, breaking the silence in their compartment.

  “And other things that roam the night, as you may have noticed,” Hun-Kamé replied.

  “Would you be able to speak with my father? He passed away when I was small.”

  He turned his head, looked at her with disinterest. “Ghosts generally attach themselves to the stones, to a single place; rarely they may be shackled to a single person. I could not, from here, summon your father. Besides, he may not be a ghost. Not everyone who dies binds himself to the land. If your father perished quietly, then quietly he will have left this mortal realm.”

  “Would he be in Xibalba?” she asked.

  “Most mortals stopped worshipping the gods of Xibalba long ago, and since their belief calcified, they do not venture down our roads anymore. Your father is not my subject.”

  For a moment she had thought she might be able to see her dear old father’s face, to listen to his voice. Disappointed, she turned toward the window.

  “I suppose it’s for the best,” she said with a sigh.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Xibalba is a terrible place. There is a river of blood, and the House of Bats and the House of Gloom. I would not want my father to be in such a frightful land.” But here she paused and tapped a finger against the glass, frowning. “But then, the Hero Twins kill you in the story I heard, yet here you are. I wonder if all of it is true. Perhaps it is not as bad as that.”

  “Mortals like to speak their stories and do not always tell the true tale,” Hun-Kamé said disdainfully. He had taken his straw hat off and was inspecting it, his fingers carefully touching the fibers.

  “What is Xibalba like? What is the true tale?”

  The straw hat interested him more than her question, and since he did not always provide an answer, she had almost given up on an explanation when he spoke with that cool, collected voice, which was drained of emotion.

  “The Black Road leads to Xibalba, and at its heart there sits my palace, like a jewel upon the crown of your kings. It is very large, and decorated with colorful murals. It has almost as many rooms as the year has days. It is surrounded by other fine buildings, so elegant no human construction may approximate them. Picture a jewel, yes, but one without a single imperfection, balanced upon your palm.”

  He leaned forward, the hat dangling from his fingers. His face had become more animated. “My palace can be found by a series of ponds of blue-green waters, and in the ponds swim the strangest, most curious fish from the coldest depths, blind, but beautiful. They all glow with an interior light, like the firefly glows. There are trees around these ponds. Trees like the ceiba tree, but their bark is silver and their fruits are silvery, and they shine in the dark.”

  “Do you miss it?” she asked, because there was longing in his words, and his kingdom sounded quite astonishing, not like the shadowy place of sorrow she’d been told about.

  “I belong there,” he said.

  She thought it might be a good thing to possess such certainty. She had never known quite where she belonged, a Leyva but not really a member of the family. And Uukumil had been stifling. It worried her; he knew exactly where he’d be headed, and she realized she could not return to her hometown.

  What would she do when Hun-Kamé regained his missing organs? This line of thought in turn made her consider his health.

  “How does it feel?” she asked. “The ear.”

  Casiopea touched her own ear as she spoke. The process of reintegrating it had appeared effortless, but it might not truly be so.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Does it pain you?” she said.

  “No.”

  “My hand hurts sometimes,” she admitted.

  “Let me see.”

  “It doesn’t hurt now,” she clarified. “But yesterday, it did. Like grit in your eye, you know? But not in my eye, of course.”

  Hun-Kamé stood up and went to her side, lifting her hand and holding it up, as if to get a better look at it, even though there was nothing to look at. Maybe he could see the bone shard, hidden inside her skin.

  “If it hurts again, let me know,” he told her.

  She raised her head and stared up at him. He was still wearing the black eye patch.

  “Is the opposite true? Does it hurt where your eye is missing?”

  “The absence disturbs me,” he said, and the words were heavy, stones sinking into a river.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Since he was still holding her hand she gave it a light squeeze. She did not expect him to say thank you, since such trivialities were not very godly, but she did not think he’d frown like he did, staring down at her fingers.

  “Why are you touching me?” he asked.

  “Oh. Well…you were the one who touched me,” she said.

  “No. Just now.”

  “Sorry.”

  He’d set his hand on her shoulder before. It had not seemed an issue. She had not considered that reaching out for him might be offensive, a mortal coming in contact with the divine rather than the divine coming in contact with the mortal.

  She attempted to draw her hand back, but he did not let go of her, and Casiopea wondered if they were going to play tug-of-war.

  “You can let go,” she said. “I didn’t realize—”

  “Such insolence.”

  “Keep squeezing my hand then and complaining at the same time, you’ll see some real insolence,” she sputtered. It didn’t seem fair for him to start acting like she’d insulted him when all she’d attempted was to be kind.

  Hun-Kamé laughed and released his grip on her. It was a full laugh: it bounced around the compartment like a startled bird. She smiled, responding to the display of mirth.

  “Why do you laugh?” she asked. He had not done this before.

  “You are a funny thing,” he told her. “It’s like having a playful monkey.”

  It was not quite an insult. It sounded like an endearment, but she frowned all the same. Her annoyance, however, did not last. She could forgive quickly when it suited her. Besides, he’d gone back to his seat and was again resting there quietly, so there really wasn’t much to be angry about.

  She’d almost forgotten he was with her when he finally spoke.

  “What do you keep looking at?” he asked.

  “The stars,” she replied. “There’s a thousand of them out tonight.”

  “There are a thousand every night.”

  “Maybe,” she whispered, leaning her head against her arm and naming them in her head, as she’d done since she was a child, one of the games she played before going to bed.

  Eventually, Casiopea stretched on the upper berth and closed her eyes, falling into a deep sleep. The train kept moving slowly forward, its wheels clacking. On the lower berth a lord of Xibalba did not sleep, but instead listened to the rhythm of the train. The laughter that had escaped from his lips was unusual, and he allowed himself to consider what it meant for a couple of minutes. Since he was a proud god, this matter did not occupy more than those two minutes, and then he dismissed it.

  But rest assured that in the underground kingdom of Xibalba, another lord had heard Hun-Kamé’s laughter and could discern its meaning.

  The imagination of mortals shaped the gods, carving their faces and their myriad forms, just as the water molds the stones in its path, wearing them down through the centuries. Imagination had also fashioned the dwellings of the gods.

  Xibalba, splendid and frightful, was a land of stifling gloom, lit by a cheerless night-sun and lacking a moon. The hour of twilight did not cease here. In Xibalba’s rivers there lurked jade caimans, alabaster fish swam in ink-black ponds, and glass insects buzzed about, creating a peculiar melody with the tinkling of their transparent wings. There were bizarre pl
ants and lush trees, though no flowers bloomed in the soils of the Underworld—perhaps some had, at one point, but they’d long withered.

  These were all bits of dreams that had taken physical shape, but the nightmares of mortals also abounded in the fabulous landscape of Xibalba.

  There were vast tracts of land where the terrain was barren and gray, and men walked through this desert in despair, crying out for mercy. There were also swamps where a thin fog clung to the ground, noxious vapors rising from the waters, skeleton birds resting on dead trees shrieking loudly. There was a limestone outcropping, with many caves, like a honeycomb, and here lived the souls of confused mortals, who raised their hands in the air and tore their hair from their skulls, for they had lost the memory of themselves and did not remember the purpose of their journey. Beasts and fabulous creatures born of delirious ravings roamed the jungles, scaring the fools who ventured there. It was safest to stay close to the Black Road of Xibalba, that long ribbon that cut through the city where the gods resided. Stray from the path and it was easy to descend into chaos and terror.

  In the beginning there had only been the city, Xibalba, but around it had sprung the swamps, the jungles, the caves, and the rest of the curious topography of the Underworld, so that now the borders of Xibalba were much vaster than at the time of its origin. People called all of this Xibalba, rather than refer only to the single city by that name. The city proper became the Black City and the lord’s palace in turn was called the Jade Palace.

  Hun-Kamé had reigned over this kingdom, and spent many moments in the gardens of his palace, but Vucub-Kamé preferred to dwell in his vast, windowless chambers, the walls painted yellow and red, multicolored cushions strewn upon the floor. He was resting upon these cushions when one of the four owls from the Underworld swooped into his room. He had sent it off into the world, to spy on the roads and spy on his brother.

  The owl had found Hun-Kamé. The bond of kinship, which renders the blood of one mortal man similar to that of another member of his family, held true between the great lords of Xibalba. It was truest for Hun-Kamé and Vucub-Kamé. They were twins, very much alike. Same of height and build, differentiated by the color of their hair and eyes. Hun-Kamé had come into the world first, his black eyes like the depths of the waterhole. Seven heartbeats later Vucub-Kamé had opened his pale eyes, the color of ash, though they sometimes turned silver when he was in deep thought, and sometimes they became almost translucent, like the sastun, the divining stone.

  The owl, well acquainted with the psychic essence of Vucub-Kamé, flew through Middleworld, searching for a similar essence. It was inevitable he would find Hun-Kamé.

  When the owl returned to Xibalba, it bore a gift in its beak.

  The gift was Hun-Kamé’s laughter, which the owl had heard and captured in a white seashell it now dropped on its lord’s open palm. Vucub-Kamé pressed the seashell against his ear and listened to the laughter. It was unpleasant to be aware of his brother’s voice after such a long absence, and he crushed the shell between his fingers as soon as the echo of the laughter died off. Then he rose from the cushions, retrieved a ceremonial obsidian knife, and ventured outside the palace.

  Ordinarily, when Vucub-Kamé left his palace, he was carried on a golden litter, hoisted upon the shoulders of his most exquisite courtiers. Singers walked ahead of him, proclaiming the beauty and wisdom of their lord, while behind followed his brothers and the rest of his retinue, burning incense or holding up cups filled with zaca. He was vain, Vucub-Kamé, as gods always are, and loved to be exalted.

  That day, however, he exited the palace in silence, without alerting any of his servants. He did not wear a headdress, nor fine robes, but was attired in a simple white cloak. Alone he walked the streets of his city until its buildings were behind him, until the black ribbon of a road was nowhere in sight, and he reached a swamp.

  Caimans, like the ones found in generous numbers in the swamps of Yucatán, swam there, snapping their jaws in the air. But these caimans were like the ghosts of caimans: their scales were alabaster and gold. He called forth one of these, which was greater in size than all the caimans who float in Middleworld, like a man might call to his dog, and sat on the creature’s back. He rode in this manner across the swamp.

  The mangrove trees knitted their roots tightly below the water, glistening eerily. Skeletal birds perched on meager branches and stared at the death lord with their empty eye sockets, while he reached the edge of the swamp and ascended the steps to the House of Jaguars. Sometimes Vucub-Kamé sent men to the house to be torn to shreds by the fierce animals, a punishment and an amusement, since, being dead already, they could not truly die and would be reconstituted in time.

  The jaguars were far from tame. But when Vucub-Kamé walked in, the cruel beasts bent their heads and licked his hands as tenderly as kittens.

  Vucub-Kamé petted one of the jaguars, his fingers running upon its fur. He admired its yellow eyes. Then, having made his choice, he cut off the great cat’s head. He opened its chest and retrieved its heart. It fell to the ground, the heart, and the jaguar’s blood traced an odd pattern, which the god read, like men may read letters upon paper.

  This was Vucub-Kamé’s gift: prophecy. With the bright red seeds of the Coral Tree he could keep track of days and divine what might be, or scry into an obsidian mirror for answers. With such sorcery Vucub-Kamé had foreseen his brother’s escape from his prison, though he had not known when or who would save him. He had known, too, that when he escaped, Hun-Kamé would have necessity of a mortal’s assistance. Like a parasite, he would feed on the life of the mortal until he could recoup his absolute essence, and, since he would be tied to the mortal, he would be able to walk Middleworld with the freedom the Lords of Death were not ordinarily granted. Yet a toll must be paid. The mortal vitality that gave him strength, that allowed him to roam the lands of men, would slowly pollute him. It would turn Hun-Kamé more and more mortal each day, until, if he could not restore his powers, Hun-Kamé would snatch the last heartbeat from the human heart and, with it, the whole of the mortal’s essence. And he would become almost completely a man, no longer a god.

  Vucub-Kamé counted on this process to take place. He had built the hotel in Tierra Blanca knowing it would happen, assuring himself victory.

  Hun-Kamé’s laughter proved that he was indeed turning human.

  It is not as if the gods do not express anger, envy, and desire. But these are like compartments that may be opened and closed with iron keys, and often the gods exist in a state of placid indifference. Their laughter, when it surfaces, is not born in the heart, but the head. Hun-Kamé’s laughter, however, had been cooked in the furnace of his heart. It was bright and vigorous.

  This puzzled Vucub-Kamé. He did not expect his brother to become human quite so quickly. Indeed, he was not prepared for this to happen yet. Hun-Kamé needed to reach Tierra Blanca when he was close to his final descent into mortality, at which point he would be weak, a shell of his former self. Yet this laughter did not hint at weakness, its joy indicated unknown strength. What was happening? What had changed?

  Vucub-Kamé, concerned, had therefore decided he needed to read the blood of the jaguar—for all the sacred truths are rendered in blood—in order to discern the future, to ensure his plan was secure.

  But what Vucub-Kamé read in the blood did not reassure. It made him frown. The jaguars, sensing his irritation, twitched their tails.

  Vucub-Kamé pressed his nail against the blood and drew a symbol there, then another. Three times his nail scratched the blood until he straightened up. His gray eyes caught a flicker of light in the jaguars’ chamber, and for a moment they were burnished.

  He walked out of the House of Jaguars, climbed down its white steps, and reaching the caiman that had borne him there, he cut off its head with his wicked knife. The caiman’s blood colored the water, and Vucub-Kamé read the crimson sign
s.

  Again he was disappointed.

  Finally, the god took the knife and sliced his palm with icy determination, letting his blood fall upon the water. The blood was black as ink, and when it fell, it caused the water to bubble and swirl for a few seconds. Vucub-Kamé peered down at its surface.

  “What is this trickery?” he whispered, his voice a hiss.

  He could not read the signs properly. Before, he had foreseen Hun-Kamé’s escape, and prepared to meet him in Tierra Blanca. Now he could see this future, but other paths branched off and were hidden to him. When he tried to peer into these rivulets he was confronted by the face of a woman he’d never met, but whom he assumed was Casiopea Tun. Her human essence tainted Hun-Kamé’s own immortal substance, making it difficult to differentiate the future, to extricate her from him.

  It was as if Vucub-Kamé had been blinded. No longer could he observe his moment of triumph. This troubled him because, if Hun-Kamé’s escape was ordained by fate, Vucub-Kamé’s dominion of Xibalba had never been sealed in such a way.

  The death god stood by the shore of the swamp, his mind festering with the darkest of thoughts, and in the trees the skeletal birds, sensing his anger, hid their heads under their wings.

  The god closed his palm into a fist, and when he opened it his hand was healed, as if no knife had cut it. He could not be harmed this way. The burn marks he carried were unusual, just as the beheading of his brother had been an outrageous anomaly born of iron and spiteful magic.

  Vucub-Kamé called for two of his owl messengers. He had four and they were all terrifying creatures, feasting on the troubled dreams of men when they were free to roam Middleworld. Chabi-Tucur was the fastest and smallest of the four, and the one who had followed the trail of Hun-Kamé. Huracán-Tucur was the largest, so massive a man might ride atop its back, but too great to hide its magic from Hun-Kamé. Even though his brother was missing an eye and could not see the winged creatures, he might sense Huracán-Tucur’s flapping wings. Vucub-Kamé could not risk this. Therefore, he gave instructions to the small owl that he should return to Middleworld and spy on Hun-Kamé.