by Ian Gibson
Chaac grimaces at her. “This isn’t just a cloud—it’s my divine cloud. It’s enough,” he says with a dismissive, condescending tone. He proceeds to instruct the little rain cloud, “You’ll accompany this little human girl to the rainforest, where you’re needed.”
The little rain cloud flashes with lightning and claps with thunder, as if to acknowledge its master’s order, and drifts towards Itzel.
Itzel looks confusedly at the rain cloud as it comes to her side. “Why am I the one taking it?” she asks Chaac. “I don’t understand why you can’t just bring it yourself. You’re the Rain god.” She thought she’d be able to go back to the island in the lake to find her grandmother in the City of the Dead, and not have to go straight to the rainforest just to escort a small rain cloud. She’s also still seriously doubting that such a small rain cloud would be enough to handle a savage forest fire at all.
Chaac licks his lips. “Do you have more food?”
Itzel sighs. “No, Chaac. For the last time, I gave you all the food I have.”
The Rain god frowns disappointedly again. “Then we’re done here.” And with a series of awkward little hops, the huge toad slowly turns his rotund body around and leaps off the lily pad, bellyflopping into the lagoon with just as enormous a splash as he made with his grand entrance—and wetting everyone again just as much.
Itzel tries to squeeze the water out of her dress, but it doesn’t make any difference. She can’t even imagine what being dry is like anymore! She looks at her hibiscus flower pinned on her dress, and it’s dark, limp, and dripping with water. Quashy shakes and twists his precious tail to try to wring it out, but he doesn’t have much luck either and looks just as miserable as she is about it.
“He couldn’t go with you anyway,” Kinich Ahau says, before giving his fur coat a good shake and walking to them. “It was just a trick to get more food out of you.”
“I thought so,” says the coati. “I know a trick when I see one.”
“Why can’t he go there?” Itzel asks the jaguar, although she wouldn’t be surprised if it was just out of sheer laziness—from the looks of Chaac, eating might be the only exercise he cares to do, and he probably only ever hops out of the lagoon when there’s the promise of food.
“Chaac is a fourfold god, as are most of the gods,” Kinich Aha explains. “They can split themselves into four—one for each of the four corners of Xibalba. That’s how they can be in several places at once, but they can’t cross the boundaries between the four corners without severe consequences unless they’re whole again.”
Itzel remembers Kukulkan explaining some of this to her. She thinks two Chaacs are already more than enough to have to deal with, so she cringes at the thought that there are still two more.
“You’re in the Wetlands of the East,” the jaguar goes on, “but Chaac’s rain cloud must be taken to the Rainforest of the South, and even the Rain god’s power cannot be taken across the borders unless he entrusts someone as his rain-bringer to do it for him. That just so happens to be you.”
“Great,” she says, giving the little grey rain cloud another very doubtful look. She’s had to babysit her baby sister a few times, but she’s never needed to babysit a rain cloud before. She really hopes it doesn’t cry as much as a baby does. Or even worse—as much as the Rain god does.
The Heart of the Storm
Itzel gives the small rain cloud floating next to her a rather doubtful look. It sounds like a lot of responsibility to be a rain-bringer. She hopes she doesn’t need to do a rain dance too, because she doesn’t know any—it’s not really something she thought she’d ever need to know. “So now what?” she asks. “Will it just follow me if I go to the forest fire?”
“Yes,” says the jaguar, trotting right in front of her and peering at her with his golden eyes.
Itzel doesn’t know whether to be scared or excited, as she’s never seen a jaguar this close up before. But his fur coat is still soaked—despite his best efforts to shake himself dry—so he looks rather bedraggled, and now that he’s so close to her, she notices dark circles under his eyes, like he hasn’t slept in a long time.
“But I will take you there,” he tells her, and he crouches to indicate that she and Quashy can ride him.
Her mouth hangs open. She was amazed enough to be this close to a jaguar, and now he’s asking her to hop on his back to ride him? She can’t wait to tell everyone back home that she’s ridden a jaguar—if she’s ever able to make it home at all.
Quashy, however, seems a little less enthusiastic about the idea.
“Come on, Quashy,” she tells him, patting the jaguar on the back. “How many times do you get to ride a jaguar?”
“I don’t share your love of jaguars, all right?” he says.
“You’re going to crawl your way out of the swamp then?” Itzel asks him. “You can’t paddle or swim.”
The coati lets out a resigned groan. “Promise you’re not going to eat me?” he asks the jaguar. “A god has already tried eating me once, and I think that’s enough.”
Kinich Ahau bows his head. “As a trusted companion of the rain-bringer, you will have my protection also.”
Itzel’s not very sure about the “trusted” part yet, but she keeps silent about it.
“I can’t believe I’m in a situation where I’m trusting a jaguar more than a toad to not eat me,” Quashy says. “But I do.”
She grins giddily, picks up the coati, and mounts the jaguar. The jaguar stands up—being large enough to lift Itzel’s feet far off the ground when he does so—then trots across the lily pads to the shore of the lagoon, the small rain cloud drifting in the air beside them.
“I guess you’ll just drop us off at the border between here and the rainforest?” Itzel asks the jaguar. “If you gods can’t cross over?”
“I’ll take you across,” Kinich Ahau says. “As I said, most of the gods are fourfold, but the Moon goddess and I have always been the only exceptions. I gave up my heart to become the Sun, and she gave up hers to become the Moon, so our light would shine upon all of Xibalba from corner to corner. Without our hearts, we cannot split ourselves apart in any other way, but at least we can cross freely between its domains.”
They reach the reeds along the shore, and the jaguar’s trot quickly launches into a sprint, bounding through and brushing the reeds aside, his big paws splashing in the puddles. The rain cloud drifts just over the reeds to follow them, but cautiously lies low.
“Thanks for saving us back there,” Itzel tells the jaguar. “He was huge enough that you could have been gobbled up too!”
“Chaac might be larger than I am now, but he knows his place, and I outrank him,” says Kinich Ahau. “Besides, once my sun dawns, he’d have regretted gobbling me up, as I’d have burnt my way out of his stomach.”
“That does sound painful,” Quashy admits.
“I’m Itzel, by the way,” she says to introduce herself. “And this is Quashy.”
“Good night-day,” says the coati.
“Good night-day to you both,” says the jaguar.
“Good night-day to you too, Kinich Ahau!” She smiles, thinking it’s an amusing way to greet someone here, but she might have to get used to it. “My grandma taught me your name. I didn’t know the Sun had a name.”
“Your grandmother sounds like a wise woman,” Kinich Ahau says.
“She was! I mean, she is! I’m here to find her.”
“Unless your grandmother is a bird, a bug, or a frog, you’re not going to have much luck finding her in the wetlands,” says the jaguar.
Itzel laughs. “I don’t mean the wetlands. I mean Xibalba! I’m here to look for her.”
Kinich Ahau halts abruptly, turns his head, and sniffs the air over his shoulder. “You’re not… dead?”
“That’s what every god is telling me after they sniff me!”
“How did you get here then?”
“I fell through a cenote,” she says.
Kinich Ahau
seems unconvinced by this answer. “How? That shouldn’t be possible anymore. The borders between the Underworld and your world have been closed ever since my sun and my sister’s moon first rose in the sky. They are the locks to the door between our worlds.”
Quashy whispers, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there isn’t a moon anymore.”
Kinich Ahau continues walking through the reeds. “I’m aware of that, furry snake.”
Quashy’s fur bristles with annoyance. “I’m not a snake! I’m a coati!”
Kinich Ahau ignores him and says, “It’s true that without the Moon the borders between our worlds would weaken, but ever since the day the Moon disappeared, I’ve been burning my Sun even hotter to maintain the balance and keep the borders tightly sealed.”
“So that’s why the days are so hot here!” Itzel realises—it was a mystery to her as to why the yellow-white sun of the day was so much hotter than the one in her world.
“It has made life difficult for Xibalbans,” says the jaguar, “but it is necessary to preserve the balance. The Moon and I swore an oath to Kukulkan that we would keep Xibalba’s power in check at all costs, and so long as our light shines, its borders remain closed to anyone who shouldn’t be crossing them, which includes living folk like you. That’s why my sister and I gave up our hearts.”
“But what happens if you never find the Moon goddess again?” she asks. She thinks of how exhausted the jaguar looked when they saw each other face-to-face, with dark circles under his golden eyes. “Aren’t you tiring yourself out?”
The jaguar looks to the red sky now that they’ve passed beyond the thick cloud cover that hangs over the Rain god’s lagoon. “I don’t believe she’s gone forever. I have faith she’ll be back. Someday.”
Itzel looks up at the sky too, and its red Night Sun. It’s passing over the lake and approaching the massive ceiba tree in the distance—zigzagging across the sky just as One Reed and Seven Deer told her it would—so she guesses it’s nearing midnight, or “midnight-day”. She can’t keep up with all these new terms! “Is that what this other sun is for?” She doesn’t really understand the point of having two suns, so it seemed another good question to ask while the Sun god was around.
“It rose in the sky a long time ago,” Kinich Ahau says. “And even the gods don’t question it anymore.”
Itzel is confused. “Wait, so it isn’t you?”
Kinich Ahau shakes his head. “If I had to be not one, but two suns, I wouldn’t be giving you a ride right now. I wouldn’t even be able to keep this jaguar form. I’d be much too small, and much too tired to do anything else. Moreover, I only have one heart, not two.”
Quashy glances at the Night Sun also. “I had a theory that it was your spleen.”
“Gods do not make suns and moons from their spleens,” the jaguar says.
“I don’t know what else they’re for,” the coati mumbles to himself.
“Then where did this one come from?” Itzel asks. She then remembers what her grandmother told her in her story about the Death god’s evil reign over Xibalba—that in the days before the Sun and Moon, there was a false sun that glowed red. She thought she saw a bird in the Night Sun when its light flickered, too—Quashy said it was probably the wind goddess in the form of an eagle, but she’s starting to second-guess that. “Do you think it might be a mac—”
But Itzel is interrupted by a loud clap of thunder, which, to their shock, is immediately followed by the piercing cry of an eagle.
“Uh-oh,” Quashy says, his body trembling. “I’ve heard that cry before.”
“Hurakan,” Kinich Ahau says. He again leaps into a full sprint, tearing through the reeds, as a strong and ominous wind blows behind them.
“Another storm’s coming?” Itzel asks.
“And we might be at the very heart of it,” Quashy says.
They hear another shrill cry of an eagle, and Itzel looks behind her—stormy clouds are brewing in the East and spilling across the sky at such a pace that they almost look like they’re in hot pursuit of them. Flashes of yellows and purples inflame the dark clouds, as streams of lightning dance across them, casting the shadow of a monstrous silhouette lurking within—it looked to her like a giant eagle with its wings spread wide. The small rain cloud in their company skims through the air as fast as it can to keep up with them, clearly just as unsettled by the approaching storm as they are. Itzel realises she’s trembling too. Another gust swooshes through the reeds and rocks them, and the jaguar has to catch himself from being lifted off his paws and stumbling over.
A crack of thunder pounds the sky with sudden violence, and Itzel and Quashy almost fall off the jaguar from fright—it was so loud and sudden, and felt extremely close. Yet the sound that comes right after it is all the more frightening—an even louder shriek of an eagle, carrying across the whole sky much like the thunderclap that preceded it.
“Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh!” the coati squeals. “She’s coming for us! Time to run! Run, jaguar, run!”
“I am running!” growls the sprinting jaguar. “And don’t boss around a god!”
The enormous bird-of-prey emerges from the tumultuous sea of clouds, diving down straight towards them, crying furiously, with its sharp talon poised forward to grab them.
“Duck!” Itzel screams.
“No, an eagle!” Quashy shouts to correct her.
She leans forward to shout in the jaguar’s ear. “Duck down!”
Kinich Ahau crouches just as the eagle’s large talon grazes through Itzel’s hair. As it swoops overhead, the pressure underneath its wings crushes them down even more, and Itzel almost slips off the jaguar, clasping his fur tightly to keep straight. She raises her head once it passes over, and notices that the eagle has just one leg. It flies away, but swerves back towards them, letting out another cry, the reeds around them billowing like waves in a stormy sea. Kinich Ahau leaps over a narrow creek and sprints to the nearest grove of trees for shelter, but the eagle flies swiftly in pursuit, and Itzel doubts they’ll be able to make it before it swoops down for them again. As it approaches, she sees its head more clearly—a semi-circular crest of dark grey feathers frames a sharp, hooked beak and fierce eyes. She recognises it as a harpy eagle, except this particular harpy eagle has wings so long it might as well be a small plane, armed with a monstrous talon as its landing gear.
“I’ve had enough of you!” the eagle shrieks at them. “You little fiends dare to come to my turf and hunt my friends!” It swoops down at them, but Kinich Ahau slips in the mud and slides into the reeds, managing just barely to dodge the sharp talon. “I’ll break your nasty little arrows, and then your nasty little heads! You’ll get to see what it’s like to be hunted!”
As it passes them again, Itzel notices an awkwardness to how the eagle flies, like it’s unable to steer properly in the fierce winds it brings with its wings.
“I’m not hunting anything!” Itzel shouts to the sky, but the wind and rain are so loud that her voice is easily drowned out, and there’s no chance the eagle can hear her—nor does it seem all that interested in what she has to say on the matter anyway.
With a great crash, the eagle lands on the ground in front of them—though it manages this very clumsily, like a plane with only wheel as its landing gear—and swivels towards them. It then lunges forward with a mighty flap of its wings. "You little devils think you can just run away from me?” It spreads its wings wide, its feathers flowing majestically in the winds, though it stands lopsided on its one leg and lurches back and forth like its own winds will knock it off balance. “ I am the great and graceful Hurakan, goddess of the four winds, Forger of the Stars, Destroyer of Worlds, and Queen of the Birds!”
Itzel is left speechless, feeling decidedly overwhelmed—not just by the strong wind pounding her face, but by the sheer number of titles this eagle seems to have.
“This is my turf!" shrieks Hurakan.
Kinich Ahau gets back to his feet and growls at her, “We’re leavin
g your turf, Hurakan! Now leave us be!”
“They come here to hunt my friends and now you’re protecting them?” Hurakan flaps her wings and lunges at them before they even have a chance to respond.
Kinich Ahau pushes himself up on his hind legs to claw at the talon and deflect the attack, and Itzel and Quashy tumble backward off the jaguar’s back into a puddle. With another whoosh of her wings and a burst of wind, the giant eagle soars straight upward with the jaguar wrestling with her one leg, and she kicks her leg to fling him into a pond.
“Leave him alone!” Itzel shouts at the eagle, running towards her. She has to do something to intervene—Kinich Ahau’s just a jaguar of normal size, and clearly no match for an eagle the size of a small plane! “He’s just helping me!”
“Helping you to hunt my friends!” screams Hurakan.
“We aren’t hunting your friends!” she shouts, but the winds are wailing around her. “I just came to see Chaac so he would give me some of his rain, that’s all!”
“What rain?” the eagle asks, cocking her head to one side.
Itzel realises that’s a good question, because she doesn’t know where the rain cloud is anymore. Her eyes scan the sky around her—dark clouds swirl around them like they’re in the eye of a hurricane. She spots the little rain cloud, caught in an eddy of wind, reeling around and flashing its lightning as if desperately signalling for help. She points to it. “That’s the—” Her hair blows into her face from the frenzied winds, so she has to brush it aside. “—rain!”
Kinich Ahau stalks the eagle while she’s distracted and pounces on her. With another shriek and tussle, Hurakan flings him off of her wing. She turns to the jaguar, spreading her wings wide, poised on her one leg to attack him.
“Stop fighting!” Itzel shouts.
But Hurakan’s round, intense yellow eyes remain fixated on the jaguar, and she raises her wings to flap them. Kinich Ahau snarls and crouches low, ready to pounce in retaliation.
