Before, he had not been able to observe his triumph, even if he could see Hun-Kamé’s arrival in Tierra Blanca. But now even this arrival was missing. A hundred branching futures wove before him, and the more he pushed and tried to see through the chaos, the more they tangled, they knotted, they broke before his eyes. When he did glimpse something, it was the young woman’s face he’d seen before and then, for a second, his brother on the black throne. Hun-Kamé, crowned anew.
This image, brief as it was, shocked Vucub-Kamé so much it made the scars on the palms of his hands vibrate with pain, as if they were being burned a second time. The knife slipped from his hand, turning to smoke when it touched the floor.
It was not possible. He was the ruler of Xibalba now! Nothing could change this, nothing could ruin his plans.
And the branching paths, as if to soothe the daykeeper, offered him another brief glimpse, this time of Vucub-Kamé on the obsidian throne.
But the balm was not sweet. He was unsettled.
Vucub-Kamé knocked down the parrot’s cage and turned to Xtabay.
“Like a man,” Vucub-Kamé said. “He walked like a man and she in his gaze. I hope he enjoys this human state, since he will never be a god again.”
“Vucub-Kamé,” Xtabay began, perhaps wishing to inquire about his state of mind.
But he’d had enough of Middleworld and sank into a pool of shadows, descending the nine levels to his kingdom without another word. He walked to his throne room and sat on his massive obsidian throne.
Vucub-Kamé pressed his fingers against the cold rock. His hands were warm, the scars hot with the memory of his treachery.
He needed to feel the glasslike rock under his fingers, as if to assure himself it was there, it remained his, it would not vanish.
Ah, there is none more fearful of thieves than the one who has stolen something, and a kingdom is no small something.
Their route cut through many states, the train lurching across mountains and ravines, snaking around colonial mining centers and pine forests, before finally reaching the desert. For a while she had pressed her hands against the glass, trying to document the sights and commit them to memory—the types of trees, the colors of the houses, and the shapes of clouds—but in the end it was too much.
* * *
—
The passengers were as varied as the landscape. A man with chickens in a cage, a group of schoolgirls in identical dresses, three rakish looking young men in a state of inebriation, all headed to different sections of the train. At each stop vendors walked by the windows, hawking their wares, even though they had taken the evening train and Casiopea had not expected this much activity.
At least it would be a comfortable voyage. The ads for the train company promised the finest accommodations possible, and Casiopea realized they were not kidding. Their compartment was one of the largest, with enough space for a bed—not berths, a bona fide double bed—and two plush lounge chairs, a folding washstand, a drop table, a dresser with an oval mirror, and a window with dark orange curtains that matched the bed’s covers.
There was much to admire in the compartment, from the varnished wood paneling to the finely woven brown-and-tan rug, but Casiopea decided her focus would be the bed. She was tired and took off her shoes, falling back over the covers, not bothering to change.
Hun-Kamé also kicked his shoes off and lay next to her. Ordinarily this should have alarmed her modesty because, well, it was a bed. It was one thing to share a compartment, as they’d done, and another to be sleeping literally next to a man, no division between them.
“There’s a bit of the devil in every man, even if he may act the part of the saint,” her mother had warned her. And of course, the follow-up: don’t give a fellow any ideas.
Recalling her mother’s admonishments, Casiopea thought of constructing a border between their bodies, a wall of sheets and pillows to demarcate the territory. Then again, he wasn’t her fellow, and she was too exhausted by their encounter with Xtabay to care what ideas were circling his head. Instead of building a wall, she pressed her head against the pillow and promptly went to sleep.
When Casiopea woke up, a light rain was splattering the windows of the car. It was dark outside. She sat up and glanced at Hun-Kamé, who was asleep, his body turned in her direction.
He wasn’t merely lying there. He was sleeping, his chest calmly rising and falling. After he had said he didn’t sleep.
Alarmed, Casiopea tapped his shoulder, and he groaned and shifted and opened his eye, his face tangled with dreams. But only for a few seconds, because he sat up quickly enough, frowning, alert.
“Sorry,” Casiopea said. “You were…I thought you didn’t sleep.”
“I don’t,” Hun-Kamé replied in a clipped voice.
He frowned even more now and looked so upset Casiopea wished she hadn’t said a thing, hadn’t woken him. There was a certain darkness upon Hun-Kamé at all times and it was not the blackness of his hair, the ravenlike eye, it was all about him, as if aside of being clothed in a suit and tie he was also dressed in shadows. Now the darkness intensified, the night without stars settling on the covers, in the space between them, even if the light fixtures shone as brightly as when they’d walked into the compartment.
“It’s the mortal element you provide me with. It has been turning me more and more human. And then the distance between us and Yucatán does not help; I grow weaker with each kilometer. My brother knows this, no doubt expecting such a change will help his plans come to fruition. I don’t know how much time we have left,” he said.
Time. Yes. She remembered the bone shard. She spread out her fingers and held her palms up, looking at her hands. She had forgotten she was dying, he was a disease, a parasite. How easy it was to forget! He made her forget not through arcane sorcery but with his mere presence.
“It’s making you human and it’s killing me,” she said.
“Yes, but it hadn’t been quite like this before. It’s getting worse.”
“Oh,” Casiopea whispered, placing her hands on her lap. Oh, for she couldn’t think of anything better to say. It wasn’t even that she was frightened, she was more…dismayed. It didn’t seem fair. No, it wasn’t fair at all. She’d glimpsed the world outside with no chance to sample it.
Well, I won’t die yet, she promised herself. I have plenty of things to do. Swim in the sea, dance at a nightclub, drive an automobile, to name a few. Casiopea was pragmatic, yes, but now that these things were possible, although not probable, she was not going to dismiss them and pretend she did not want them.
She clutched her hands together, and as the train stuttered, slowing down, she raised her head, looking at him, he who might condemn her to an early grave.