The Land of the Night Sun: Book One of The Jade Necklace

by Ian Gibson

  Itzel scratches her head. “That was really weird.”

  “Weird but not unexpected,” Quashy says. “I’ve always known turtles to be very superstitious about numbers. I just wanted to mess with them, especially if they’re working for the thousand-eyed witch.” Then he whispers, “Now let's minus ourselves out of here too. Cross the river before they come back, quickly!"

  She paddles with her arm to cross the mouth of the Forked Tongue River. “Is that forest really so scary?”

  “I’ve even had nightmares of it, so yes, it’s scary,” Quashy says. He dips his tail into the water to help propel them again—he still knows it isn’t actually accomplishing much, but he’s desperate to get away from the cursed forest even when it’s aflame.

  “Really? Of you running around in a black forest with eyes watching you?”

  “Something like that,” he says. “It’s her spell to lure you in, like a fly into a spider’s web. But as I said, I’m not falling for it. And neither should you.”

  Once they reach the other side of the river mouth, Itzel hops out of the canoe and wades through the water, dragging it to the beach. Quashy stares ahead and gestures with his snout.

  “We have company,” he says.

  She turns to see a spotted cat walking along the shore towards them. She couldn’t see it at first as it was camouflaged so well against the multicoloured pebbles on the beach. “It’s an ocelot!” She’s relieved, as she was about to grab her snake-stick out of the boat, thinking that it wasn’t friendly company, but she guesses that the ocelot isn’t some kind of beach demon—or at least that’s her hope, as she’s had her fill of demons for the day.

  The ocelot stops at the water, sits down, and stares at them. “You’re late.”

  She thinks she recognises the ocelot now. “Are you the one I saved from that mean little man?”

  The ocelot nods. “You saved me from Tata Duende’s whip, which I am thankful for. And I repaid you by saving you in the wetlands when I was a jaguar.”

  “A jaguar?” Itzel asks in amazement. “Kinich Ahau? Is that you? You can be an ocelot too?”

  “It is I, the blazing hearted,” the ocelot says with serious eyes and a slow bow of its head, then gives a similar respectful nod to the Sun in the sky, “and I have dawned.”

  “Sounds like the pompous greeting of a Sun god to me,” Quashy mumbles quietly.

  Itzel stiffens her body and bows her head to the ocelot, all the while trying as much as she can to keep a face just as serious. “And it is I, Itzel”—she gives a brisk nod to the canoe beside her—“and I have paddled.”

  Quashy suppresses a laugh, but still lets out a snort through his nose.

  “But how are you an ocelot now, Mister Kinich Ahau?” she asks.

  The ocelot licks his paw. “This is a form I take when I’m weaker,” he explains. “And when I am at my weakest—at midnight—I take the form of a margay.”

  She remembers seeing a margay emerge from the pond that Kinich Ahau had fallen into, and it made her wonder if his jaguar form had shrunken into one. “You’re spotted cats of all sizes!” she says cheerily, rubbing her eyes because the smoke is hanging thickly over the shore.

  Kinich Ahau smiles. “You can say that.”

  Itzel starts to cough, and Quashy fans his face with the end of his tail.

  “It’s really smoky here!” she exclaims.

  “Yes, this fire has plagued us for too long,” says the ocelot, and his eyes furrow with worry as they regard the inferno savagely blazing before them—although he doesn’t appear to mind the heat so much, and in fact even strolls into the outlying flames without so much as a bother, much less any burns.

  “You can walk through fire?” Itzel asks, her mouth agape.

  “Of course,” says Kinich Ahau, as he casually emerges from the fire and returns to them on the beach, his spotted fur searing red-hot like an ember scooped out from a hearth. “I’d be a lousy Sun god if I couldn’t.”

  “That’s so cool!” she squeals.

  Quashy frowns enviously. “Not impressed.”

  “This wildfire is weakening all the gods who come near it,” says the Sun god. “We gods derive our power from whichever of Xibalba’s domains we are in, but there’s hardly anything left of the rainforest anymore save for ash and dust. None of us gets power from smouldering ruin like this—only the Death god cared for such things.”

  “We’re here to fix that,” Itzel says, walking across the beach, beckoning the rain cloud to follow her. “Come on.” She then sweeps her arm dramatically towards the fire. “I release you!”

  But the rain cloud still refuses to go, and even retreats back across the beach to float safely over the lake.

  “I can’t get any closer than this!” she shouts at the reluctant rain cloud, coughing and rubbing her eyes some more. She rushes back to the shoreline, her eyes irritated and teary.

  “It’s not about you getting close enough,” Kinich Ahau says. “The rain cloud has simply lost too much of its water.”

  "Is that true?" she asks Mister Rumbles. She knows the rain cloud had to use some of its water to help them escape from the Dead Queen and her soldiers, and then keep them cool during their journey across the lake, but there was no other choice—without its help they wouldn’t have even made it to the rainforest at all.

  The rain cloud rumbles sadly.

  “What are we going to do?” Itzel cries. “I can’t go all the way back to the wetlands to get more rain from Chaac again!” She feels hopeless. It was such an arduous journey getting here once that she can’t possibly bear to do it all over again.

  “Chaac could have just given you more rain to begin with.” Kinich Ahau sighs. "Trust that stubborn toad to be stingy with his help. But I have an idea."

  The ocelot leaps into the lake underneath the rain cloud, and his fur coat burns brightly, boiling the water around him. Wafts of steam rise from the bubbling lake, and the rain cloud soaks it all up like a dark grey sponge, quickly expanding in size. Kinich Ahau does this for a while until the little rain cloud has grown so large that it covers the beach with its great shadow.

  “Now that’s a rain cloud,” Quashy says, poking his snout off the bow of the canoe.

  Itzel sweeps her arm again toward the forest fire. “Off you go!”

  The big rain cloud drifts over them, swelling ever larger, and becoming ever darker. It flashes and cries mighty claps of thunder that rattle the pebbles on the beach. Itzel falls to her knees, and Quashy ducks inside the canoe in fright. The cloud sprouts arms and legs and bears the vague resemblance of a fat frog, opening its mouth and burping out yet more clouds. Its cloud offspring scatter in all directions, until the southern sky is overcast and a shadow looms over the entire rainforest. With another clap of thunder—which sounded this time quite a lot like a godly “ribbit”—it empties a very cool and very long overdue rain. It patters loudly on the pebbled beach along the lake, and the fires beyond it hiss in agony as their rampage across the forests is brought to a swift, wet end.

  Itzel rushes to the canoe to pick Quashy up, holds him high in her arms, and spins around in the rain. “We did it, Quashy!” she squeals.

  The coati smiles smugly. “Of course we did! You had me as your guide.”

  “You were a good guide. And I’m sorry I screamed at you on the lake,” she tells him.

  “We were just worn out,” he says. “That was more of an adventure than I was expecting. “But”—he grins wryly—“it was exciting, wasn’t it?”

  Itzel doesn’t respond, as she’s staring out into the water. She gasps at what she sees, quickly puts Quashy down, and runs into the water. “Kinich Ahau!” she screams.

  The spotted cat’s glow has faded and he’s floating motionlessly, headfirst in the lake water. The water around him is still very hot from when he was boiling it earlier, but Itzel quickly wades through it anyway, picks him up, and carries him to shore. She realises he’s much smaller now—he’s transformed into a mar
gay again, which means he’s no larger than a house cat.

  “What happened?” Quashy asks worriedly.

  "He said he turns into a margay at midnight, but it’s midday!” she says in a panic, glancing at the Sun’s position in the sky. “I don't know what's happened!" She kneels next to him, not knowing what to do, as she’s clueless as to how to go about resuscitating a drowned cat, much less a divine drowned cat.

  The margay coughs up water and half-opens his brown eyes, which glint in the bright noon sunlight. He sees Itzel crouching over him.

  “Are you all right?” she asks.

  “That took all the power I have left in me,” Kinich Ahau mutters weakly.

  Beyond them, columns of steam rise from the smouldering ash as the last of the stubborn flames are extinguished by the rain.

  “Is it working?” he asks.

  Itzel smiles at him. “It’s working.”

  Kinich Ahau gets to his feet with Itzel’s help and steps forward while gazing at the downpour he helped to bring. He sniffs the air. “I smell Lady Chel’s magic in the rain.”

  “She blew pollen into the rain cloud,” Itzel says. “She said it’s from the flowers of that big ceiba tree.” She points towards the Mother of Trees towering above the fire and smoke, piercing through even the rain clouds. “It made Mister Rumbles sneeze a lot.”

  “‘Mister Rumbles’?” Kinich Ahau tilts his head perplexedly.

  “She gave her rain cloud a name,” Quashy tells him. “I think she’s becoming too attached to something that’s only going to end up spilling all of itself over the forest, but that’s just me.”

  “It helped us. It was the sweetest, cutest, little rain cloud. I’m going to miss you, Mister Rumbles.” Itzel looks up at the overcast sky, and, although the rain hides it, and nobody else seems to notice, a tear trickles down her cheek. “I didn’t even get to say goodbye.” She yells at the sky, “Goodbye, Mister Rumbles!”

  The rainfall is so loud that it drowns out her farewell, and she doubts Mister Rumbles heard her over it.

  “There’s a sacredness to all things,” Kinich Ahau says, watching the rain fall. “And rain clouds especially.”

  “I’ve heard of that!” she says, remembering what Quashy had told her. “It’s called ‘ku’!”

  “You’re a good rain-bringer, Itzel,” the margay says with a smile, touched by her affection. “And a good human, too.” He sits down right in front of her, looking up at her with big golden-brown eyes, swaying his spotted tail. “Lady Chel’s help is very good news, and well worth the delay. It also means I have quite the surprise for you. Close your eyes and count to twenty.”

  “More counting?” Quashy asks. His eyes scour the lake behind them. “I don’t see any superstitious turtles around, so you should start with zero.”

  Itzel laughs, closes her eyes, then slowly counts to twenty, starting with zero. When she reopens her eyes, she can’t believe what she sees—where before there was nothing but grey ash and blackened tree stumps, a lush green rainforest has grown. The trees are tall and wide, the flowers of orchids sparkle with their vivid colours, and the ground has disappeared beneath a thick cover of palms, ferns, and figs. She rubs her eyes, as she can’t even recognise where she is anymore.

  But the most astounding sight of all is the one right before her—Kinich Ahau has transformed from a small margay into a giant jaguar, whose head, while he sits upright, is higher than many of the newly grown treetops around him. A beam of sunshine pierces through a gap in the rain clouds above him, shining upon his beautiful spotted coat that has a soft glow to it in the light. Itzel’s entranced by his fur coat, but when her gaze meets his eyes, she notices the dark circles under them have become far more conspicuous now given his size. And, just as he was in his smaller forms, there’s something about his face that looks very tired and worn, even if he's trying to hide it behind a warm smile and soft glow.

  "You're a jaguar again, Kinich Ahau!" She’s reminded of when she first saw him as a jaguar in the wetlands—she was impressed by the sight of him then, even as a jaguar of a normal size, rather than a giant as tall as the forest canopy.

  Kinich Ahau raises one of his giant paws over Itzel to shield her from the rain while she stands on the beach “And you’re now Itzel the rain-bringer. That’s quite a rare and special honour in these lands.”

  "It was either that or being frog food,” Itzel says. “Thanks again for saving me from being eaten by Chaac.” She finds it odd that she felt a lot more terrified in front of a big frog than the giant jaguar that sits before her, whose large paw looms just over her head, but there’s something warm and gentle about his golden eyes that make her feel comfortable, even safe, in his company.

  "I simply returned the favour. I was miserable under Tata Duende’s whip. He exploited my weakness from the forest fires to capture and enslave me."

  “I can’t believe he did that to you.” It makes her sad and angry just thinking about that little man’s cruelty.

  “He and I have a history. He once tried to attack my sister, so I hunted him down and bit off his thumbs. He’s been resentful of me ever since.”

  “And now he has a taste for thumbs,” Itzel says. “He even tried to eat mine!”

  Quashy slithers next to her. “Maybe he’d have liked that finger soup too.”

  Itzel had also been reminded of the Lady of the Lake’s finger soup, and how much more appetising it would have been to someone with a hunger for thumbs like Tata Duende. She looks at Quashy’s tail and notices that the vine around the base of it is slowly unwrapping itself. She looks at her left arm—the vine wrapped around it loosens its grip and falls to the ground, drying up and withering on the pebbles of the beach.

  Quashy marvels at this, then turns his head around to see the vine around his tail has done the same. “Our debts to the plants are repaid!” He beams proudly. “I get to keep my tail after all.” He strokes his furry tail lovingly with his long snout.

  Speaking of Lady Chel’s plants reminds Itzel of her basket, so she runs back to the canoe to retrieve it. She also takes her snake-stick. “Look, snake-stick!” She holds it up so it can look at the cloudy sky and the rain. “We’ve brought the rain, just like your papa wanted!”

  The snake-stick hisses in very excited approval, flicking its forked tongue and tickling Itzel’s ear with it. She squeals in laughter as she returns to the shelter of the jaguar's paw.

  Kinich Ahau looks at her snake-stick. “Before I met you, I hadn't seen one of those in ages, and I can't say I’ve ever seen one behave the way this one does. It seems to be very fond of you.”

  “It's my trusty snake-stick!” she says proudly. “Kukulkan gave it to me when he put me on this quest to bring rain from Chaac. Do you know it plays fetch with sticks?”

  The giant jaguar smiles. “Now that your rain quest is complete, I imagine Kukulkan's servants will be ensuring your safe return home. I have much to do now that my power has been restored.” He brings his paw back to the ground, stands up, and bows his head to her. “I wish you a safe journey home, Itzel the rain-bringer, and bid you farewell.” He turns to walk deeper into the forest along the riverbank, the sunbeam shining through the dark clouds following his movement like a spotlight.

  “I can’t go yet,” she says, standing firmly where she is, even though the rain is soaking her now.

  Kinich Ahau perks his ears and half-turns his head to stare at her with one of his golden eyes. “You should go as soon as you can, Itzel. The Underworld is no place for the living.”

  She thinks that he might very well be the only god she can talk to honestly. She doesn’t even know why, but there’s something that feels very familiar about him—or it could just be that he’s a jaguar, and she really loves jaguars. “Can I ask you something? Since you’re a god you might know.”

  “Of course,” the giant jaguar says, his large spotted tail brushing against the trees. “But don’t stay in the rain. You’ll get cold.” He tastes a few raindrop
s on his tongue and is reminded of just how sweet and sugary Chaac’s divine rain is. “Or a sugar rush.”

  Itzel runs under a sapodilla tree with branches that splay low and wide and provide plenty of shelter from the rain. “Is there a way to bring someone back from the dead?”

  Kinich Ahau turns completely around to her, both surprised and intrigued by her question. “Only the Death god could cheat death,” he answers bluntly.

  She lowers her head. “That’s what the old man in the city told me. The one with the very long nose.”

  “Lord Itzamna,” he says as he walks back to her. “I’m surprised you even got a single word out of him. His long nose is almost always stuck between pages."

  "He said he's the god of knowledge, but he was human. The medicine woman too. I thought the gods were all animals, like you?"

  Kinich Ahau sits upright again, his head rising above the sapodilla tree she’s standing under. "We gods all have the power to transform between our human form and our animal form—or plant form, in the case of Lady Chel and her daughter, Lady Ixim. But Itzamna and Lady Chel chose to remain human and live among the people in the City of the Dead. They've been this way for so long I doubt they could even change their form if they tried. They’re more human than god now." He seems annoyed when he says this. "They’re the gods who created the humans, though it took them many failed attempts to ‘get it right’, as they say, but personally I think even the final product was just as much a failure as the ones that came before it.” His eyes pass over the dense rainforest around them. “Just looking at how your kind has destroyed so many forests like this one is enough to see that. They have turned their backs on the very forests from where they came."

  Itzel is quiet—she can't argue with that. But she wonders why he said "your kind” seeing as he was one of the Hero Twins who became gods. "You were human too once, weren't you?"

  Kinich Ahau stares into the glassy calmness of the lake behind her. "That was a long, long time ago. So long ago that I can’t remember any of my mortal life before I came to Xibalba. All I know is that I had a sister, and that we were twins. She gave us the Moon, but she and her moon are no longer with us."