A long time ago the caiman had been dismembered, sacrificed. But it had risen again.
Destruction brings renewal.
Casiopea had flung herself into the water, and the sacrifice had been noted, echoing through Xibalba. She had woken the caiman, which seldom stirred from its dark abode, massive and roughly carved and so awe-inspiring that upon seeing the creature, Zavala fell to his knees. Martín followed suit. Vucub-Kamé did not move an inch.
“It cannot be,” whispered the god.
Vucub-Kamé had foreseen many futures, but he could never have foreseen this. He knew himself already defeated, but the extent of the defeat burned like the fury of the whip. It was as if the universe decided to humble him by conjuring this vision, this being. Vucub-Kamé looked at the palms of his hands, burned by the axe he’d wielded. Burned for no reason. Such a joke! He had achieved nothing.
Slowly the caiman reached the shore of the lake. Each of its mighty footsteps made the ground tremble. It opened its jaw, and in its mouth it carried a bundle of cloth. The caiman deposited the bundle on the ground, then lumbered back into the water.
In the silence of its departure stood the gods and the mortals, immobile, until Hun-Kamé stepped forward.
The bundle of cloth was crimson, the kind of mantle that might be used to wrap a corpse. Hun-Kamé knelt next to the bundle and tugged at one of the corners. There, like a broken flower, lay Casiopea. Her throat bore the cut of the knife, her clothes were caked with blood, her eyes were shut. Her black hair was plastered against her skull.
“It is trickery,” whispered Vucub-Kamé, and his palms itched as if he’d lacerated them anew. “You have cheated.”
“It is her victory,” replied Hun-Kamé, with such anger Vucub-Kamé lowered his proud head.
Hun-Kamé looked again at the girl. Gently he gazed at her and even more gently he touched her, a finger upon her brows, sliding down her cheek, touching her lips, until he pressed a hand against her neck. The gash on her throat became a line of red cinnabar, then he brushed away this line of red dust and the skin was healed.
Slowly Casiopea opened her eyes, as if she were stirring from a deep and long sleep. He stood up and helped lift her to her feet, and when she rose, her soiled clothing was replaced by a bright crimson dress with black fringes that reached her ankles, a black sash around her waist. In turn, his clothing changed, the jacket and trousers he’d used in Middleworld dissolving. A black loincloth replaced his old outfit, a cape made from the wings of black moths fell upon his shoulders, and on his chest rested his jade green necklace.
Casiopea blinked, swaying for an instant, and looked at Hun-Kamé attired in his magnificence. When she spoke her voice was low.
“What happened?” she asked.
“You won the race,” he told her. “You saved me.”
“I died,” she whispered, her hand splayed against her throat. She glanced at the ground and then back up at him. “I got here first?”
“It cannot be denied,” Hun-Kamé said, and he turned to his brother.
Vucub-Kamé stood with his head lowered, but now he extended a hand forward, and on the palm of this hand materialized a black box, decorated with skulls. He offered this box to Hun-Kamé. He did not do so with any joy, but even a god is bound by rules, and Vucub-Kamé could not hold the throne any longer.
“No, it cannot be denied. She reached the World Tree first, the Great Caiman served as witness to it. Your reign is secure. I offer you that which I took,” he said.
Hun-Kamé grabbed the box and slid it open. In it sat his missing eye, like a jewel against velvet. He must reintegrate it into his body, complete the process that had begun in Yucatán. Before this, though, he spoke to Casiopea.
“I owe my kingdom to you and my gratitude,” he told her. “I promised you your heart’s desire, and you may have anything you wish. If you ask for the jewels of the earth, I will grant them. Should you wish to avenge yourself against your treacherous cousin, his blood will be spilled.”
She glanced at Martín, who was on his knees, his forehead pressed against the dirt. Same as Zavala. She shook her head.
“I never wanted jewels,” she said. “And I’d like that Martín be allowed to return home.”
“Very well,” Hun-Kamé said. “As for you, my brother—”
“I submit to you,” Vucub-Kamé replied, scarred palms up, toward the sky. “Take your vengeance. You’ve earned it.”
Vucub-Kamé sank to his knees, his head bowed, like a war captive, under the shadow of the World Tree. He offered no resistance, the defiance had been drained from him, and the color had vanished from his eyes. They were as pale as pearls, and his clothes, mimicking his debased state, withered, becoming moth-eaten tatters fit for a beggar.
Hun-Kamé looked at Vucub-Kamé with a hard face, the face of the blade against the jugular, but when he leaned down it was to clasp his brother’s shoulder.
“I’ve desired nothing except your death,” he said, “and yet now I do not find the need for it. I was unkind to you and you returned the unkindness, but I cannot perpetuate a cycle of sorrows.”
At this, Vucub-Kamé did raise his head. He tried to read deceit in his brother’s voice, but could not find it.
“It is the remaining mortality in your veins that renders you like this,” he said, wary.
“Perhaps. Or the wisdom to understand the order of duality should not be challenged,” Hun-Kamé said, and then, quietly, “Or the fact that despite my bitterness you are my brother.”
Hun-Kamé looked down at his brother’s scarred hands, and Vucub-Kamé beheld Hun-Kamé’s face, the empty eye socket.
The nature of hate is mysterious. It can gnaw at the heart for an eon, then depart when one expected it to remain as immobile as a mountain. But even mountains erode. Hun-Kamé’s hate had been as high as ten mountains and Vucub-Kamé’s spite as deep as ten oceans. Confronted with each other, at this final moment when Hun-Kamé ought to have let hate swallow him, he had decided to thrust it away, and Vucub-Kamé slid off his mantle of spite in response.
Casiopea had given herself, after all, and Hun-Kamé ought to give too.
Hun-Kamé handed Vucub-Kamé back the box, and Vucub-Kamé hesitated for a moment before carefully grabbing the missing eye and placing it in his brother’s eye socket. Then Vucub-Kamé lifted his hands, and a crown knit itself between his hands, the royal diadem of onyx and jade, which he placed on Hun-Kamé’s head. Around Hun-Kamé’s waist there was now a leather belt decorated with large incrustations of matching onyx and jade.