She raised her arm. And she could see Hun-Kamé dead, the head separated from the body, the body falling. And she could see the future Vucub-Kamé envisioned: his expanded kingdom, the world tasting of smoke and blood, and darkness blotting the land.
Then she remembered the long road she’d traveled, the obstacles she’d overcome, and what Hun-Kamé had told her when they stood by the sea. It rang in her ears so clearly:And yet you are. She also recalled the ways his eyes had deepened, the velvet blackness, that third kiss he did not share. He didn’t need to. He loved her, she knew it. She loved him back.
She could not betray him. She could not betray herself. She could not betray the story.
Mythmaking. It’s greater than you or I, this tale.
Maybe she was not a hero with a shield and a divine provenance, but it’s the symbolism that matters. She gripped the knife tight.
“I pledge myself to the Supreme Lord of Xibalba, the Lord Hun-Kamé,” she said, this time with aplomb. Casiopea slid the knife against her throat.
K’up kaal. The cutting of the throat. The proper way to die. Vucub-Kamé’s suggestion of the slashing of the wrists would have been inadequate.
Proper or no, the pain was raw; it roared through her body and she opened her eyes wide. The blood welled. It soaked her shirt and she trembled. She let go of the knife, she did not attempt to press her hands against her throat, did not attempt to stop the flow of blood.
Instead, she remembered what she’d told Hun-Kamé at the hotel: that she wanted everything to live. And her lips, they repeated this request, not life for herself but for all others.
Casiopea sank to her knees, slid into the water, the lake swallowing her whole.
The lake was perfectly still. She might never have been there at all.
K’up kaal.
—
In the deserts of Xibalba men walked and cried for mercy. In the swamps skeleton birds shrieked. In caves like honeycombs mortals tore their hair out, having forgotten who they were. In the Black City the noble dead who had made proper preparations for the Underworld, decking themselves in serpentine and jade and placing the correct offerings, sat on their couches and drank a black liqueur.
Xibalba was as it always had been.
Then the snakes and the jaguar and the bats turned their heads, because the land held its breath. The men in the deserts paused in their cries, the skeleton birds ceased their shrieking, and the lost mortals stopped their gnashing and their tearing, the noble dead held on to their cups tightly.
Martín, approaching the main entrance to the Jade Palace, stumbled and stood motionless. He did not understand why, only that he must pause, that a force greater than himself demanded he be anchored and he dare not even turn his head.
In Middleworld, in the casino by the sea, the ground shook. The chandeliers clinked. Huge cracks spread across many mirrors and windows in the hotel. The guests who were watching the roll of the dice and the employees working their shifts let out a gasp, thinking an earthquake was assaulting the peninsula.
The two Lords of Death, who had been sitting in their wooden chairs, stood up and held their breath, just like the land did. Aníbal Zavala watched as the map of ash that showed the Land of the Dead trembled like a leaf, and though he ordinarily would have coaxed it to regain its shape with his sorcery, he could not.
Vucub-Kamé stumbled, as if he echoed Martín’s stumble, and Hun-Kamé pressed a hand against his throat.
On its pedestal, the iron axe that had lopped off Hun-Kamé’s head, and which hungered to cut it again, trembled too. It twisted, as if it were made of paper, and it was shredded into pieces, minuscule bits of iron dashing against the walls of the chamber.
At the same time the map of ash collapsed upon the floor.
It was as if the land opened its lips and breathed again, and was made anew.
They emerged under the shadow of the World Tree. Vucub-Kamé and Hun-Kamé, Zavala and Martín. Even if they had wanted to keep away, they could not have stayed behind. Xibalba drew them in and demanded their presence by the lake.
At first, there was nothing to see; it was like stepping into an austere, silent chamber. The World Tree rose, majestic, impossibly high, like no natural tree could rise. Without any warning a ripple cut across the water and from the lake emerged a monstrous being. It was very old, its body shone slick, like the starry night, a whirl of galaxies and the dust of dead suns coating its scales. It was the Great Caiman, blind creature of the depths.
A long time ago the caiman had been dismembered, sacrificed. But it had risen again.
Destruction brings renewal.
Casiopea had flung herself into the water, and the sacrifice had been noted, echoing through Xibalba. She had woken the caiman, which seldom stirred from its dark abode, massive and roughly carved and so awe-inspiring that upon seeing the creature, Zavala fell to his knees. Martín followed suit. Vucub-Kamé did not move an inch.
“It cannot be,” whispered the god.
Vucub-Kamé had foreseen many futures, but he could never have foreseen this. He knew himself already defeated, but the extent of the defeat burned like the fury of the whip. It was as if the universe decided to humble him by conjuring this vision, this being. Vucub-Kamé looked at the palms of his hands, burned by the axe he’d wielded. Burned for no reason. Such a joke! He had achieved nothing.
