that banging I can hear?’
‘Sabir’s been playing the crowd. And our sister’s been translating for him. Went down a storm. Like something out of King Solomon’s Mines .’
‘What mines?’
Abi shrugged. Pointless explaining. You could take a horse to water, but you couldn’t make it drink. ‘Athame’s gone to see if she can find out where they are taking the skull and the book. In these happy egalitarian days, nobody dares object to a female even smaller than themselves, so if she’s unlucky enough to be seen there’s a fair chance that nobody will dare pay any attention to her. The rest of us are in hiding and have the camp encircled. When the main body of the Maya have fed themselves, and either gone to bed or drifted off home, we’ll pounce. We’ll fix it so they’ll think Sabir and Calque changed their minds and ran off with their holy relics. Greedy gringos, out for the main chance – that sort of thing. Playing to the archetype, Monsieur, our father, would have called it. Should create one hell of a stink, and keep us nicely in the clear. We don’t want trouble at Cancun airport when we leave the country. There’s no telling with these people.’
‘Wish I was with you.’
‘No you don’t. It’s boring as hell out here. This could take hours yet. I’m beginning to wish we’d thought to bring some sandwiches.’
‘I’ve got sandwiches here. Chorizo. Lomo. Cheese. Chicken. Aguacate…’
‘Fuck off, Oni.’
86
The Halach Uinic motioned to Calque, Sabir, and Lamia that they should enter the sweat lodge ahead of him. ‘This is the touj I was telling you about. What they call a temazcal in other parts of Mexico. Please wear no metal or other ornaments about your person. Any such possessions will be taken out and looked after for you while the ceremony is under way.’
Ixtab stood at his side, as did the Chilan who had read from the codex. The mestizo from Veracruz stood a little behind them, looking apprehensive. The evening’s events had clearly told on each of them, just as they also appeared to have done on Sabir, for he stood there, staring at the sweat lodge, shaking his head like a horse tormented by flies.
The Halach Uinic glanced at Ixtab, and then made a small inclination of the head towards Lamia.
Ixtab approached Lamia and lowered her voice. ‘Senorita, forgive me, please, but I have to ask you this. Are you menstruating? For it is not allowed to enter the touj when that is occurring. It is not good for the womb, you see.’
‘I am not.’
The Halach Uinic nodded and cleared his throat. ‘This place will allow us to talk freely amongst ourselves. No one can hear us in here. I have prepared four substances. Firstly, peyote, from the Huicholes, which we call aguacolla. Secondly k’aizalah okax, which is known to your people as psilocybe cubensis or the “magic” mushroom, and to our people as the “lost judgement” mushroom. Also seeds from the quiebracajete, which you would call “morning glory”, which we shall mix with balche, our sacred drink that the Spaniards forbade us to make. And finally venom from the cane toad, bufo marinus, which we shall mix with tobacco made from the water lily, nymphaea ampla. Some amongst us also use vuelveteloco, datura, for spiritual purposes, but Ixtab tells me that this is not suitable for use by Westerners. She has heard of gringos going mad under its influence. These substances will allow us to see clearly, and for our bodies and souls to unify, as they should, and allow the life force to come through. Ixtab will search inside each of you, and decide which of the preparations is in tune with your nature, for they may not be mixed. Are you willing to experience this?’
‘I’m not going in there.’ Sabir’s head was still now, but his face was deathly pale. ‘I’m claustrophobic, you see. Nothing you say or do is going to make me go in there.’
‘But…’
‘I don’t mean that I just don’t like small spaces. I mean that I’m seriously claustrophobic. Shrieking the house down claustrophobic. Drooling and gibbering and pleading to be let out claustrophobic. Grovelling and mewling and scratching my fingernails to the quick claustrophobic. Bashing my head against the wall claustrophobic. Do you get the picture? Have I made myself clear?’
There was a short, awed silence.
‘I’ve heard about these places before. They seal you inside with a bunch of red-hot volcanic stones. Then they ratchet up the temperature to 180 degrees. You can’t see anything. You’re in pitch darkness. Sort of like hell, but without the River of Fire.’ Sabir gave an involuntary spasm. ‘I can’t do it. Drugs or no drugs.’ He shook his head. ‘Can’t do it? What am I talking about? I won’t do it.’
The Halach Uinic placed his hand on Sabir’s arm. ‘Ixtab has warned me of your fears. She has prepared you a bowl of chocah, which is principally made of chocolate, which we call xocolatl, and peppers, and honey, and tobacco juice. This will calm you before you enter.’
‘How the hell did Ixtab know I was claustrophobic? Who told her?’ Sabir glared at Calque and Lamia.
Both of them shook their heads.
Sabir’s voice trailed off after his initial diatribe. He was getting used to Ixtab’s uncanny insights into his psyche. ‘You don’t understand the half of it. Six months ago I had a crazy experience. It was like being buried in one’s grave, but with all one’s everyday faculties still intact. I died, in a manner of speaking, and then came back to life again.’ He glanced at Lamia, hoping she’d forgive him for rekindling memories of her brother’s death, and also for his tacit accusation that she had betrayed the secrets of his claustrophobia to Ixtab. ‘It echoed a similar experience I’d had as a child, in the trunk of someone’s car. But not in a way I ever want to relive. I can’t go in there, I tell you. I don’t see why I should do it.’
The Halach Uinic held up both his hands. ‘We are not going to force you, Mr Sabir. Please stay outside the touj if you so wish. It will be a tragedy for us, however, as I believe you have a further gift to pass on to us. A secret gift which Akbal Coatl says in his writings that you received via the prophet Nostradamus.’
Sabir’s eyes opened wide. ‘I don’t fucking believe this.’ He took a step backwards. ‘Calque. Did you tell them about Nostradamus?’
Calque shook his head. He looked as mystified as Sabir. ‘I never mentioned Nostradamus to them. Nor your claustrophobia, come to that. What would have been the point? And I don’t know about any secret gifts, either. And particularly not in your case, Sabir.’
Sabir turned back to the Halach Uinic. ‘Are you seriously trying to tell me that Akbal whatever-his-name-is mentioned me in his writings? And linked me to Nostradamus? You’ve got to be kidding.’
‘Not by name, no. Of course he did not. Our brother wasn’t a prophet – he was a scribe. He merely said that a messenger, guided by the writings that he and Nostradamus had devised between them, would come, following the eruption of the great volcano of Orizaba, to restore the thirteenth crystal skull to its rightful owners. Just as he wrote that a guardian – an elected ak k’u hun – an elected keeper of the sacred books – would return the sacred codex to us at the appropriate time. Here is the guardian.’ He pointed to the mestizo. ‘And here are you. You are both clearly members of Los Aluxes. You remember what Akbal Coatl said about them? That the Aluxes are enlightened beings who have been left behind by the gods to guard the magnetic spiritual places and objects of the earth, and that it is only via the intercession of these spiritual guardians that the destiny of the world may be secured? Do you remember this?’ The Halach Uinic couldn’t disguise his satisfaction at the outcome of proceedings. He pointed first to Sabir, and then the mestizo. ‘You and he.’
‘You don’t even know this guy’s name, for Christ’s sake. And if you do know it, you never bother to use it.’ Sabir waved at the mestizo, forgetting, for a moment, that he had never got around to finding out the man’s name either. ‘And yet here you are, busy trying to convince me that his coming was in some sense preordained. What is it with you people? It doesn’t make any sense.’
The Halach Uinic looked first at the Chilan, and then at Ixtab, as though in search of some much needed moral support. He seemed unaware that not everybody was privy to the minutiae of Maya religious custom. ‘But we don’t need to know his name, you see. For us he will always be the “guardian”. Just as a shaman loses his name and inherits a different one when he is dreamed of by a third party – for it is only then that he can begin to heal.
