Then I listened to them speaking admiringly of the bird, who silently climbed atop Flamed Plume’s shoulder, preening. The bird was recovering most rapidly and would be ready to journey in search of his flock in a matter of weeks. Looking at the macaw, the prince postured by pushing his immature braid to the front, still adorned with the white bead indicating servitude to his father.
Then he spoke:
—But this bird is nothing compared to my spirit animal, the mighty jaguar. Have you ever seen one with your own eyes? He is swifter than any animal in the jungle and more capable of attacking his prey than the most skilled archer could ever be. He moves faster than the arrow, and quieter too. I can show you where lie the graves of jaguar bones, which will give you a chill you will not soon forget. Indeed, you might faint upon seeing this, but I will be there to catch you, for my heart and mind are stronger than yours, little girl.—
What happened next between these children surprised me and reminded me in what strange and beautiful ways the gods have fashioned us, the fourth race.
The girl Flamed Plume did not look away from the prince then when he looked into her eyes, as custom dictated. In the royal palace she could be sacrificed for such an indiscretion. But there was no fear on her face, or in her heart. She smiled enough to reveal that she had two front teeth emblazoned with jade but then hid those jade pieces so he could not see more. Since the day I came to her in her parents’ home to explain that her mother was dead, there had been no smiles.
Then she spoke as I have never heard a girl speak to a prince:
—But, holy prince, Smoke Song, most revered one, how can the mighty jaguar be faster than a quiver of arrows when I have seen jaguars killed by those very same arrows by our marksmen? Can you explain this contradiction to an intelligence as meek as mine?—
It was not until that moment that I came to understand how strong-willed and noble Flamed Plume is. But how the boy would react to this affront I could not predict. His face indicated puzzlement at her refusal to defer. Yet then Smoke Song smiled and showed Flamed Plume his jade, and I was reminded how little he resembled his father. One day he will make a great leader of Kanuataba, if we can emerge from the calamities that threaten to consume our mighty lands. I was filled with pride for him.
Still, nothing can ever come of the prince and Flamed Plume; her father has been sacrificed to the gods, and she is stuck between worlds, unfit for the company of a king, no better than a bastard. Watching them, and knowing this, took me closer to tears than I have been in many suns.
The prince reached into his satchel. I thought he was pulling from it one of the great books I had instructed him to bring from the royal library, and I swelled with pride, believing he might show his reading skill, which I had taught for so long.
Yet instead he held an ornate ceramic bowl, more than two hands in its depth, as if built for water. The bowl was decorated with colors of death and rebirth, and he held it out toward Flamed Plume at arm’s length. Then the prince spoke to her:
—Behold Akabalam, who graces my father with his power and in whose honor we build the new temple. Have you seen Akabalam with your own eyes, girl?—
Flamed Plume went silent, bowed by the invocation of the god who had claimed her father’s life. But I was anxious with desire to know: Could the king have shown his son what the mysterious god presided over, that I might understand?
Then the prince spoke to the girl again:
—Do not be afraid. I have power over these creatures, this embodiment of Akabalam. Do not be afraid. I will protect you.—
Smoke Song opened the bowl, and I could see inside there stood a count of six insects, long as a finger, color of the leaves of the most vibrant trees that once ruled our forest. The insects climbed atop one another, attempting to scale the walls of the ceramic bowl but without success. Their long, bent legs were entwined beneath their bodies. Their eyes, color of night, protruded from their heads.
The prince spoke:
—I have seen him worshipping these creatures, and I took them from his throne room, where they have their royal feasts, and now I, too, feel their power.—
I studied the insects, those that blend with the forest itself. For what purpose we would worship this creature, I could not imagine! They made no honey. They could not be roasted for food. Why would the king dedicate a temple and sacrifice his overseer of the stores in the name of a useless insect? Why would a king denigrate us, the gods’ holy maize creation, in its name?
I spoke:
—This is what your father calls Akabalam? Only this?—
—Yes.—
—And has he told you the meaning of why we must exalt them?—
—Of course he has. But you, scribe, could never feel what a king would feel in the presence of such power.—
But as I studied the insects more closely and watched them slowly rubbing their tiny front legs together in the air, I believed I understood. Their legs gave them the appearance of a man communing with the gods. No other creature I have seen in the kingdom appears more pious. No other creature is such a model for the way all men must pray to the gods.
Is this why the king so reveres them? Because he believes we have lost our piety in the drought and that they stand as a symbol of commitment to the gods?
The prince turned to the girl and spoke again:
—Only a man ordained by the ancestors can understand Akabalam—
Beyond his father’s influences, Smoke Song is a good child, pure of heart. His is a soul the ancestors of the forest would have loved and respected, as it is written in the great books. While his father might simply have ordered me beheaded if he thought I had defiled a girl he wanted, Smoke Song only intended to impress the girl and win her heart. He stole the insects from the palace, and with them he was showing Flamed Plume how much more powerful he was than I. So I would allow him this pleasure.
The girl watched as I bowed to the boy and kissed his feet.
TWENTY-FOUR
“TWO THOUSAND SUNS,” ROLANDO SAID. “ALMOST SIX YEARS. It’s a mega- drought.”
He, Chel, and Victor stood over five newly reconstructed and deciphered pages of the codex. Chel gazed down again at Paktul’s statement on the twenty-eighth page:
“Don’t you agree?” Rolando asked Victor, who sat across the Getty lab, studying his copy of the translation and sipping on his tea.
Last night, when Chel returned from seeing her mother at the church, it was Victor she’d wanted to share her frustrations with, certain that he was the only person who’d truly understand. But Victor hadn’t come back from his fruitless trip into his obscure stash of academic journals until well after midnight. By then Chel had stolen a quick shower in the Getty Conservation Institute building, washed off the residue of her conversation with Ha’ana completely, and thrown herself back into the work. She hadn’t spoken of it since.
“The king wasn’t helping matters,” Victor said. “But, yes, it does seem like there was a major drought and that it must have been the underlying cause.”
In a normal world, it might have been the most important discovery of all of their careers. In landlocked classic cities, the Maya could store water for no longer than eighteen months. Evidence of a six-year drought would convince even Chel’s most resistant colleagues that the cause of the collapse was what she had been arguing for years.
But of course the world was no longer normal. What mattered now was the connection between the codex
