Before Victor could respond, Rolando poked his head back into the lab. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but there’s something you both need to see.”
IN THE REAR OF THE LAB, they had four computers using state-of-the-art “vision” programs to decipher unknown glyphs and piece together gaps in the text. Due to the unique styles of scribes, even familiar words could be painted in a way that made them unrecognizable. Computer vision used sophisticated algorithms to calculate distances between brush-
strokes and then tried to match them to known glyphs with similar shapes, with much greater accuracy than the human eye.
Rolando pointed to a series of faint squiggly lines from the codex. “You see this glyph? The computer believes it’s similar enough to one of the representations of Scorpio seen at Copal to be a match. I think this is a zodiac reference.”
The sun and stars determined every event in ancient life: gods worshipped, names given to children, rituals performed, foods eaten, and sacrifices offered. The ancient people studied and worshipped many of the same constellations the ancient Greeks and Chinese did. No one knew whether the Maya zodiac came about independently or was brought across the Bering Land Bridge from Asia into the Americas, but, either way, the parallels were striking.
“So if we substitute that interpretation into the text,” Rolando continued, “this sentence would read:
Chel saw it instantly. “We could try to recreate Venus’s position in the sky at the time when Paktul was writing.”
“I have to assume there are more zodiac references in the text,” said Rolando. “I’ve got the computer searching for anything else resembling constellations.”
“We need an expert in archaeoastronomy,” Victor interjected.
“Doesn’t Patrick work with the zodiac sometimes?”
Chel’s stomach clenched.
“Do we even know if he’s around?” Rolando asked.
She knew, of course. Patrick had emailed when the quarantine began to see if she was okay. To let her know he was here if she needed anything. She hadn’t even responded.
SEVENTEEN
My scarlet feathers are striped blue and yellow. When I came here, I was starving and might have died if he had not saved me. I was on my migration and lost my flock when we passed through Kanuataba and only the scribe gave me life. I ate ground worms he pulled from the dirt. It has been so long since the rains, even the ground worms are shriveled and dry, but we give each other comfort.
I, Paktul, royal scribe of Kanuataba, am buoyed by the presence of a scarlet macaw, who has flown into my cave. My spirit form given to me at birth was a macaw, and the bird has always been a great omen when I have chanced upon one. The night of Auxila’s murder, it arrived wounded. I gave it worms because there are no fruit seeds to offer, then let drops of blood out of my tongue to welcome it. Through this, we became one. I embody the spirit of the bird in my dreams. Now I am as grateful for his presence as he is for mine. It is not often a spirit animal finds his man in the flesh, and it is the only happiness I know now.
For there has been no rain but in our dreams, and the people of Kanuataba grow hungrier by the day. Maize and beans and peppers are almost as rare as meat, and the people have taken to feeding on shrubs. I have given my rations to the children of my friends, for I am used to subsistence eating in my communes with the gods, and my appetite has grown small.
The death of Auxila, just twelve suns ago, still haunts me. Auxila was a good man, a holy man, whose father took me in when I was a boy and without parents. I knew only my father, my mother having died when she pushed me from the womb. My father could not handle a boy on his own, but he was not allowed by the king, Jaguar Imix’s father, to take another wife from Kanuataba. So he fled alone to the great lake beside the ocean, the land of our ancestors, to rejoin them, as soon the bird will rejoin its flock. He never returned, and Auxila’s father took me in as an orphan and made Auxila my brother. Now my brother has been killed by the king I serve.
I headed to the palace with my macaw, on a day when the moon was halved, and the evening star would pass directly through Xibalba. I swallowed my sadness at Auxila’s death, for to express discontent at a royal decree is unwise. I had been summoned to the king for reasons I did not know.
The macaw and I passed other nobles standing in the central patio on our way to the palace. Maruva, a member of the council who has never had an idea of his own, leaned against one of the great pillars encircling the patio, dwarfed by the stone that reached seven men high. He spoke to a king’s ambassador well known for supplying the black market in the Outskirts with hallucinogens. They both looked at me suspiciously and whispered as I passed.
I reached the palace and was led by one of the guards into the king’s quarters. The king and his minions had just finished eating, another secret ritual in which only he and his sycophants are allowed. These men were finishing a royal feast. The smell of incense filled my nostrils and overwhelmed the smell of animal flesh. The incense was distinctive. I have come upon the end of these royal feasts before, and always there is a bitter smell in the air from the fire they burn to sanctify their meal. The secret mix of plants burned is a source of power for kings, the aroma of the incense a great source of pride for Jaguar Imix. When I set the macaw down and kissed the wretched limestone, the aroma had changed, and I could no longer taste it on the back of my tongue as I once had.
Jaguar Imix called me into the recesses of the chamber, ordering me to sit on the floor beneath his royal throne, where the sun shines at solstice and the moon shines when harvest comes. Jaguar Imix’s face is sharp, and he has always garnered power from its distinction. His nose is pointed like a bird’s, and his flat forehead is offered as evidence of his divine power. He drapes himself in cotton, made on the royal looms and dyed royal green, and he is almost never seen without his jaguar head covering.
Jaguar Imix, the holy ruler, spoke. His voice bellowed for all to hear:
—We will honor the great god Akabalam and the many gifts he has provided my sovereign kingdom. Let us praise him! To you, Akabalam, we shall dedicate a holy feast we prepare, and to you we make this most insignificant offering, that you may bless us with your many gifts. We shall prepare for a feast of meat unlike any the city has ever seen before, for all the inhabitants of Kanuataba. It will be made in honor of Akabalam to sanctify the commencement of the new pyramid.—
I was confused. Of what feast did he speak? And from where would food for such a feast come when our city is starving?
I spoke:
—Pardon, Highness, but there is to be a holy feast?—
—Like none the city has seen in a hundred turns of the Calendar Round.—
—What kind of feast?—
—All will be told in time, scribe.—
Jaguar Imix pointed at a concubine who had come to join us, and she reached into a small bowl beside her and pulled out a length of tree skin. She placed it between her master’s teeth and he chewed as he spoke again:
—Paktul, servant, while in a trance I was told by the gods of your disapproval of the new temple. Your questioning of the feast ordained by Akabalam confirms what the gods have told me. You know that I see all, scribe. Is it true what the gods say? That you would dispute that I am their vessel?—
These words were as good as a sentence of death, and I feared as I have never feared before—the eyes of the court were on me, preparing for blood. Even the macaw who sat in his cage beside me could feel it. Auxila had
