me, the future of the Maya might be secured. Through me, our customs and beliefs would not be lost when the skull and the book were once again reunited at the end of the period known as the Cycle of Nine Hells.
‘For was I not Chilan and ak k’u hun – priest and chief guardian of the sacred books? Was I not the friend and devoted servant of the friars? Party to their confidence, and privileged witness to their outrages? Was I not destined to travel back to Spain with Friar de Landa and visit the monasteries and libraries of our order when the time for an accounting came? Had I not sacrificed myself sufficiently to placate the gods?
‘Friar de Landa turned to me. He pointed to the skeleton of the mighty bonfire. He made the sign of the cross over me and he smiled. “Here.” He handed me the burning branch. “You light it.”’
84
‘No more. It is enough. The road of words must end here.’
The Halach Uinic’s voice echoed out over the assembly. The light from the guttering candles reflected back off his face, which was drained of all colour, like a corpse’s.
The Chilan who had been reading the codex handed the book to the Halach Uinic. The Halach Uinic held it at a distance, as if he was scared that it would burst into flames and consume him. Freed from his burden, the Chilan stumbled and nearly fell to the ground. Some of the younger priests hurried forwards and helped him away.
The Halach Uinic closed his eyes. ‘Bring the thirteenth crystal skull.’
A sigh passed over the crowd.
Acan stepped forward. He unwrapped the crystal skull and offered it to the Halach Uinic.
‘Give it to the shaman.’
Acan hesitated. It was clear that he did not know to which shaman the Halach Uinic was referring.
Ixtab gently took the skull from her son’s hands. She passed it to Sabir. Her movements were so forceful that Sabir had no choice but to accept the skull.
‘Why are you giving it to me? I’m no shaman.’ Sabir tried to pass it back, but Ixtab shook her head.
Sabir looked wildly around him. ‘Look. We came here with no idea of finding anything like this. No idea at all.’ He looked entreatingly at Calque and Lamia, as though they might be persuaded to intercede for him in some way. ‘I don’t understand what is going on.’ His words trailed off irresolutely.
The Halach Uinic lowered his voice so that only those nearest him could hear it. ‘Of course you were sent here to find this. There is more written in this book than was read out by the Chilan. Much more. There are urgent questions I must ask you. Questions to which you may not consciously know the answer. A secret which is not a secret. But for this we need a touj.’
‘A what?’
‘Later. Later I will explain everything to you.’ The Halach Uinic turned back to his people. He stood waiting, the codex held high in his left hand.
Sabir’s eyes opened wide. It dawned on him that the entire assembly, including the Halach Uinic, was patiently waiting for him to act.
He looked around himself in ill-disguised panic. Here he was, after a week spent trying to outrun and outwit the eleven brothers and sisters of a man he had inadvertently – or as far as the Corpus Maleficus was concerned, very much advertently – killed. And all he could think of to do was to stand on top of a pyramid in the Yucatan, with a thousand strangers drinking in his every move, and wave a crystal skull over his head. Was that some kind of dumb, or was it not?
No sooner had this absurd thought flashed through Sabir’s mind than an extraordinary sense of well-being began to flow through his body, as if he briefly added up to more than the actual sum of his parts. He glanced at Ixtab, certain that the support he felt was coming from her.
She smiled at him and nodded.
All at once Sabir knew exactly what to do. He walked towards the Halach Uinic, holding up the crystal skull so that the crowd below could see it. He bowed before the Halach Uinic and then stretched the crystal skull out before him, as though he were about to throw it down the steps of the pyramid. Then he motioned to Lamia with his head.
She hesitated, and then stepped towards him.
‘I want you to translate for me. My Spanish is too rough. It will mean calling out to all these people in your loudest voice. Do you think you can do it?’
Lamia hesitated once again. Then she inclined her head
He mouthed the words ‘I love you’ to her.
She held his gaze with hers and mouthed the words back to him.
‘Tell them that a great man, who died almost four years to the day after the events they have been hearing about, showed us, more than four centuries later, and seemingly from beyond the grave, where to find the skull.’
Lamia frowned. But then her face cleared in sudden understanding, and she began to translate his words.
‘That this great man intended the skull as a gift to the Maya people. A gift of something they had once possessed and must now possess again.’ He paused, waiting for Lamia to translate his words. ‘That we from across the sea ask them to accept this gift in the same spirit as our friend from Veracruz has offered them the return of their sacred book.’ Sabir glanced around, searching for inspiration. The fresh words came to him in a sudden rush, as though they had been banked up behind the others, just waiting to pour out. ‘That we foreigners are proud to have been the unwitting guardians of the location of your treasures – the only two objects saved from Friar de Landa’s annihilation. That we offer them back to you with the greatest respect, and in only partial restitution for the evils done to your people in the name of our Christian Church.’
Sabir knew that these were not his own words he was speaking, but the words that Ixtab and the Halach Uinic desired him to speak, channelled through his lips. The hidden, super-rational part of him still resisted the possibility that one could be fed words via other people’s thoughts.
The Halach Uinic accepted Sabir’s offer of the skull. He held the skull and the book high above the assembly for a moment, before handing them to the attendant priests. ‘The book will be copied and translated. What it contains will be available to all as soon as the work has been completed.’ He waited for the murmuring of the crowd to die away. ‘The skull can only be reunited with the remaining twelve skulls on the final day of the Cycle of Nine Hells, which falls on 21 December 2012. Only then may we learn what the thirteen skulls have to say to us. Is this acceptable to you all? Will you permit me to represent you in this matter? If not, I will step down and make way for another.’
A great crashing and banging began from below. Sabir squinted into the gloom. He shook his head in wonder. The Maya women had brought their cooking implements with them in preparation for the forthcoming feast, and now they clashed their saucepans over their heads while their menfolk twirled their machetes, smashing them one into the other as in a sabre dance.
Sabir sat down on the top step of the pyramid and put his head in his hands. He felt drained. Unwitting. Incapable of action. Lamia crouched beside him and rested her head against his.
‘You did the right thing. What you said was beautiful. How did you grasp so perfectly what was needed?’
Sabir leaned across and kissed her tenderly on the mouth. Then he tilted back his head, looked at her speculatively, and kissed her again. ‘If I told you, you’d never believe me.’
85
Abi held the cell phone tightly to his ear. He protected his other ear from the racket with his free hand. With all the din going on around him, now seemed as good a time as any to get his telephoning done. ‘All well at the warehouse? No unwelcome visitors?’
‘It’s quiet as the grave here. I’ve told Berith to get some sleep while he can.’ Oni cocked his head. ‘What’s all
