“I can’t protect you in Xibalba,” he said, his voice anguished. “How can I let you go there?”
“Would I have a chance?” she asked. “A real chance?”
“I can’t assure victory. The Black Road is dangerous. You’ll be alone, you may feel lost, but the road follows the commands of the person who walks it, and it will listen to you since you are also part of me.”
“How can I speak to it?”
“Command it as you’d command a dog, and look carefully. The road may seem a single solid line, but there are shadows where it becomes dimmer and you can jump through the shadows. Do not fear it. Fear will make it more difficult. And never step off the road.”
She nodded, taking a quick breath. “I won’t,” she promised.
“The greatest peril is inside your heart. If you focus, if you are steady, you will find the way to the city. Picture my palace and you will arrive at its doors.”
“I’ve never seen your palace.”
“You have, you must have glimpsed it in my gaze.”
She recalled the times they’d spoken of Xibalba. He had said his palace was like a jewel, and he had mentioned the ponds surrounding it.
“There are silver trees near it,” she said tentatively. “And strange fish swim in the ponds.”
“They glow, like fireflies,” he said.
“Your palace has many rooms.”
“As many rooms as the year has days.”
“Painted yellow and blue,” she continued.
“And there is my throne room and my throne, of the blackest obsidian.”
“You sit on the throne, a diadem of onyx and jade upon your head.”
The phantom image they built of the palace was nothing but that, a fragile creation of the imagination, and yet it was solid. Casiopea saw the palace and she knew she pictured its true likeness even though she had never walked its hallways.
She took a long, deep breath.
“I can do it,” she said.
“Then there’s no more to it,” he concluded. His voice had recovered its customary coolness. “You’ve made your choice.”
“No, there is no more.”
He nodded and moved back toward the sand, trousers sodden. Casiopea’s lips tasted of salt; her throat was dry. She spoke before he set a foot on dry land.
“Wait a few minutes,” she said. “They won’t miss us for a few minutes, and this is the last time I will see you, isn’t it? Either way.”
“Yes,” he said. “I’ll be a god again, or dead.”
“Then wait a few minutes,” she said. It was stupid to try to extend the reach of time, it did them no good. She’d refused him, besides. And yet.
Casiopea looked up at the sky with its multitude of stars. Then she looked at him, standing in profile. Feeling her gaze on him, he turned to her and smiled a crooked smile. He drew her against him, and then he tipped his head up, to look at the stars that he’d never bothered to survey before.
They dallied like this by the sea, the waves splashing against their legs, attempting to make the minutes stretch, until all time had been spent. A hotel employee greeted them at the top of the stairs that led into the hotel. He informed them Zavala wished to speak to them.
Casiopea and Hun-Kamé were ushered into a windowless room decorated with intricate carvings. Bone-white were the walls of this chamber, though the floors were black, and polished with such intensity they reflected the columns and the frieze and the walls, as if one were walking upon an ocean of ink. Although it might be used for one casino function or another—a dance, a lavish party—the place had the quiet air of a temple.
As if to reinforce this impression, in the middle of the room there were two heavy wooden chairs with high backs, fit for priests or kings, or both. Between them a rough stone pedestal had been set, and on it rested a huge axe.
Vucub-Kamé sat on the chair at the right, but when they walked in, he rose and walked in their direction, his cape trailing down his back. The cape was a curious creation, made of bones and owl feathers, stitched with the silk of moths, standing stiff and strong despite its delicate components. When he moved, the bones rattled and laughed.
Behind Vucub-Kamé stood Zavala—looking more yellow than before, his white clothing contrasting badly with his jaundiced face—and Martín, who also wore white.
“Your time is up,” Vucub-Kamé told them. “Will you be wise and take my offer, or foolish and reject it?”
“I’ll walk the Black Road,” Casiopea said.
Vucub-Kamé did not appear surprised nor annoyed by the answer. He looked down at her with his pale eyes, impassive.
“You reject me at every turn,” he said. “Very well. I’ll teach you humility.”
She said nothing, chose to stare back at him rather than regaling him with her fear.
“You may have a blade and a gourd filled with water for your journey, but nothing more,” Vucub-Kamé declared.
She saw then that he’d set up two tables with these items, the obsidian knife and the gourd. She wore an evening gown not fit for traveling, but when she held the knife her clothes changed, the pale cream chiffon became plain cotton, transforming into a black blouse, a long black skirt, and a black shawl, like the ones she might have worn back home. At her waist was a belt, with a sheath for the knife. The gourd had a cord, which she might place around her neck or tie to the belt, but as she held it, her fingers twitched, and there came the pain brought by the bone shard, as if it had dug deeper into her flesh.
“Allow me to assist you,” Hun-Kamé said, looping the cord around her belt. When he was done, he held her hand between his. “We could—”
She felt she might faint, but she shook her head firmly. “It’ll pass, it always does,” she said, and tried to play the part of the fearless hero, even if she did not quite feel up to the role.
Her performance must have been acceptable, because he nodded.
“Let’s not waste any more time,” Vucub-Kamé said, though he sounded more bored than eager to begin the game. “Your champion looks ready.”
“A minute,” Hun-Kamé replied.
He grasped her hand, tighter, and she thought he might bid her goodbye, he might kiss her one last time. He leaned forward.
“Xibalba will attempt to confuse you,” Hun-Kamé told her in a low voice. “But you must not let it. The road listens to you, you don’t listen to it.”