Somehow, they had not discussed it. Hun-Kamé did not venture his thoughts often unless she asked, and she had not thought to go down this painful avenue, but at this point she thought it her right to inquire.
“Have you never heard of family quarrels? You don’t get along with your cousin, Martín. If you had the chance, wouldn’t you be rid of him?” Hun-Kamé asked with a shrug.
“If you mean I’d harm him greatly…I don’t know. I’ve never wanted to be rid of Martín…I wished to be away from him; that is different.”
“Come, girl, if you could have your revenge on him, you would,” he insisted. “You’d strike him and cut him with thorns.”
“I’m not a girl,” she countered, offended. “And no. I’m not…I don’t need to cause Martín pain to be happy.”
Casiopea considered her cousin. The cruelties he’d inflicted on her, the punishments she’d endured because of him. If the tables were turned, would she not seize the chance to torment him? Hadn’t she wished he would fall down a well? But those had been the half-formed ideas of a child. Her mother had been right: it was not as if her cousin’s misfortune could bring her joy.
“It did no good that time I hurt him,” she said, shaking her head. “I won’t be hitting him or cutting him, or anything of that sort. I’d be like him if I derived joy from the misery of others. I’m not like Martín”
Hun-Kamé was frankly confused by her words, as if it had never occurred to him one could be this magnanimous. Not that she hadn’t bickered with Martín, not that she hadn’t hit him hard that one time, but none of this had ever pleased her. She’d wanted Martín to let her be.
“My brother does derive pleasure from the misery of others, we all do. We are lords of Xibalba, kindness is not in our nature. But of course, that wasn’t all that drove him to cut my head off and toss me in that chest. My brother wants a new empire.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
Hun-Kamé rested his back against the headboard and spread his hands, the gesture expansive.
“The chu’lel births gods, but the prayers of men are like a fan that makes the flames rise higher. It increases our power. Picture it, if you will, as a feast. Without the prayers and the beliefs of men, the food is bland and tasteless, but add a pinch of it and it is like the spices that flavor a delicious meal.
“Men ceased to worship Xibalba a long time ago, but Xibalba remains because the well of power from which we were born is deep. I believe the oceans may lick the land and devour it, and the Black Road of Xibalba would exist. Yet our sturdy kingdom of shadows was not enough for my brother.”
“What else could he want?”
“He wanted a return to the old ways. The prayers of men to flow anew. Salt in our dishes. He was not content with ancient glories. I kept away from Middleworld. It is not our kingdom, and although I was aware of some of the changes in our peninsula, it did not interest me to see what new palaces and trinkets mortals fashioned.”
The god had not been surprised by any of the things they’d witnessed in the city. Neither the trams nor the automobiles, nor the dresses women wore and the hats men sported, caught his eye. She had assumed he had experienced this before. Not the automobiles, but the trains certainly, and the buildings and some of the tastes of people. But perhaps he had not; it might have mostly been vicarious knowledge.
“But Vucub-Kamé, he became fascinated with the world of men and he became interested in a spot in Baja California, a place where the chu’lel also converged. This convergence was not quite as powerful as in Yucatán, but interesting nevertheless. He had been speaking to a mortal man, Aníbal Zavala, and Zavala had a theory both points could be stitched together.”
“Stitched?”
“Connected somehow. Xibalba could draw on the power in Baja California. That was the general idea. But I refused to listen,” Hun-Kamé said, shaking his head.
“Why?”
“Vucub-Kamé’s idea violated the natural order of things. It was fueled by greed and fear.”
“What would a god fear?”
“Irrelevance. Eventually, the eternal sleep our godhood grants us,” Hun-Kamé said. “Since I would not partake in his mad action, Vucub-Kamé decided to dispose of me, and he managed it, for a while. But after I regain my throne, he shall pay dearly for this affront. I spent a few decades in that box. He will spend centuries, no, millennia in the prison I will fashion for him after I hack off his head and limbs.”
The darkness Hun-Kamé carried grew in intensity and it brought with it a chill, like touching ice. It made Casiopea feel as if she were tasting frost, and from her half-parted lips there escaped a soft plume of her breath, dissolving almost instantly. She closed her mouth, frowning, and crossed her arms.
“You wouldn’t do such a thing, not truly, would you?” Casiopea asked.
“Do you think me kind?” Hun-Kamé replied. “He cast me into an unbearable torment. I wished to cry in the dark but had no voice. I wished to move but was a pile of timeworn bones. I was and was not, like an insect dashing against a glass dome. He will taste the same misery.”
“If you know such a thing is unbearable, then why would you subject anyone to it? Even him.”
Hun-Kamé gave her an amused look. “Virtuous child who has not known the true measure of unhappiness, how could you ever imagine the breadth of my enmity? What games do you think gods play?”
Casiopea thought Hun-Kamé was mocking her and yet, when she looked carefully at him, she realized there was a wild earnestness about him. “Did your brother obtain everything he wanted, then?” she asked. “The connection he dreamed of?”
“Had he done it I’d know and you’d know it too. The world would not be the same at all,” Hun-Kamé said. “But I suspect trickery awaits us in Baja California. I am not stupid. He has seeded the road and wants us to find him, and therefore I suspect his dream may not be forgotten.”
