‘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 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?’