Despite a ground mist that obscured the illumination from the moon and stars, Balam-Acab had little difficulty moving through the rain forest at night. Part of his skill was due to his having been born in this region. After thirty years, he was thoroughly at home in the jungle. Nonetheless, the jungle was a living thing, ever shifting, and another reason that Balam-Acab knew his way so well through the crowding trees and drooping vines was the feel of stones beneath his thin sandals. After all, he had made this particular journey many times. Habit was in his favor.
In the dark, he let the flat, worn stones guide his footsteps. During the day, the pattern of the stones would not be evident to an inexperienced observer. Trees thrust up among them. Bushes concealed them. But Balam-Acab knew that a thousand years ago, the stones would have formed an uninterrupted path that the ancients had called a sacbe: “white road.” The name was not strictly accurate, inasmuch as the large flat stones were more gray than white, but even in its dilapidated condition, the walkway was impressive.
How much more so would it have been during the time of the ancients, before the Spanish conquerers, when Balam-Acab’s ancestors had ruled this land? There had been a time when Mayan roads had crisscrossed the Yucatan. Trees had been cut, swaths hacked through the jungle. In the cleared section, stones had been placed, forming a level that was two to four feet above the ground. Then rubble had been spread over the stones, to fill the gaps between them, and finally the stones and rubble had been covered with a concrete made from burned, powdered limestone mixed with gravel and water.
Indeed, the path that Balam-Acab followed had once been a smooth road almost sixteen feet wide and sixty miles long. But since the extermination of so many of his ancestors, there had been no one to attend to the road, to care for and repair it. Centuries of rain had dissolved the concrete and washed away the rubble, exposing the stones, causing them to shift, as did the area’s numerous earthquakes and the sprouting vegetation. Now only someone as aware of the old ways and as attuned to the spirit of the forest as Balam-Acab was could follow the path so skillfully in the misty darkness.
Stepping from stone to stone, veering around unseen trees, sensing and stooping to avoid vines, alert for the slightest unsteadiness underfoot, Balam-Acab maintained perfect balance. He had to, for if he fell, he couldn’t use his arms to grab for support. His arms were already occupied, carrying a precious bowl wrapped in a soft, protective blanket. He hugged it to his chest. Given the circumstances, he didn’t dare take the risk of packing the bowl in his knapsack along with his other important objects. Too often, the knapsack was squeezed against a branch or a tree. The objects within the knapsack were unbreakable. Not so the bowl.
The humidity in the underbrush added to the sweat that slicked Balam-Acab’s face and stuck his cotton shirt and pants to his body. He wasn’t tall-only five foot three, typical for the males of his tribe. Although sinewy, he was thin, partly from the exertion of living in the jungle, partly from the meager diet provided by his village’s farms. His hair was straight and black, cut short to keep it free from insects and prevent it from becoming entangled in the jungle. Because of the isolation of this region and because the Spanish conquerers had disdained to have children with the Maya, Balam-Acab’s facial features bore the same genetic traits as his ancestors when Mayan culture was at its zenith centuries before. His head was round, his face broad, his cheekbones pronounced. His thick lower lip had a dramatic downward curve. His eyes were dark, with the shape of an almond. His eyelids had a Mongolian fold.
Balam-Acab knew that he resembled his ancestors because he had seen engravings of them. He knew how his ancestors had lived because his father had told him what his father had told him what his father had told him, as far back as the tribe had been in existence. He knew how to perform the ritual he intended because as the ruler and shaman of the village he had been taught by his predecessor, who revealed to him the sacred mysteries that had been passed on to him just as they’d been passed on to his predecessor and that dated back to 13.0.0.0.0. 4 Ahau 8 Cumku, the beginning of time.
The direction of the stones changed, curving toward the left. With perfect balance, Balam-Acab squeezed between more trees, stooped beneath more vines, and felt the pressure of the stones beneath his thin sandals, following the curve. He had nearly reached his destination. Although his progress had been almost silent, he now had to be even more silent. He had to creep with the soundless grace of a stalking jaguar, for he would soon reach the edge of the jungle, and beyond, in the newly created clearing, there would be guards.
Abruptly Balam-Acab smelled them, their tobacco smoke, their gun oil. Nostrils widening, he paused to study the darkness and judge distance as well as direction. In a moment, he proceeded, forced to leave the ancient hidden pathway and veer farther left. Since the new conquerers had arrived to chop down the trees and dynamite the rocky surface, to smooth the land and build an airstrip, Balam-Acab had known that the disaster predicted by the ancients was about to occur. Just as the first conquerers had been predicted, these had as well, for time was circular, Balam-Acab knew. It turned and went around, and each period of time had a god in charge of it.
In this case, the thunder of the dynamite reminded him of the thunder of the fanged rain god, Chac. But it also reminded him of the rumble of the area’s numerous earthquakes that always signified when the god of the Underworld, who was also the god of darkness, was angry. And when that god was angry, he caused pain. What Balam-Acab had not yet been able to decide was whether the new conquerers would make the god of the Underworld and of darkness furious or whether the new conquerers were the result of that god’s already excessive fury, a punishment for Balam-Acab and his people.
All he could be certain of was that placating rituals were demanded, prayers and sacrifices, lest the prediction in the ancient Chronicles of Chilam Balam again come true. One of the signs, the sickness that was killing the palm trees, had already come true.
On that day, dust claims the earth.
On that day, a blight covers the earth.
On that day, a cloud hangs low.
On that day, a mountain soars.
On that day, a strong man clutches the land.
On that day, things collapse into ruin.
Balam-Acab was fearful of the sentries, but he was also hopeful of succeeding in his mission. After all, if the gods did not want to be placated, if they were truly furious, they would have punished him before now. They would never have allowed him to get this far. Only someone favored by the gods could have walked through the darkness and not been bitten by any of the area’s numerous swarming serpents. In the daylight, he could see and avoid the snakes or else make noises and scare them away. But walking silently and blindly at night? No. Impossible. Without the protection of the gods, he should have stepped not on stones but on death.
At once the density of the darkness changed. The mist seemed less thick. Balam-Acab had reached the edge of the jungle. Hunkering, inhaling the fecund odors of the forest in contrast to the rancid sweat smell of the sentries, he focused on the night, and suddenly, as if an unfelt breeze had swept across the clearing, the fog dissipated. Unexpectedly able now to see the illumination from the moon and stars, he felt as if night had turned into day. At the same time, he had the eerie certainty that when he crept from the jungle into the clearing, the sentries would not be able to see him. From their point of view, the fog would still exist. It would envelop him. It would make him invisible.
But he wasn’t a fool. When he stepped from the jungle, he stayed low, close to the ground, trying not to reveal his silhouette as he hurried forward. In the now-evident light from the moon and stars, he could see and was disturbed by the extent of the work that the invaders had accomplished in the mere two days since he had last been here. A vast new section of forest had been leveled, exposing more brush-covered mounds and hillocks. Without the trees to obscure the skyline, the murky contours of considerably higher breaks in the terrain were also evident. Balam-Acab thought of them as mountains, but none of them was the mountain predicted as one of the signs of the end of the world in the ancient Chronicles of Chilam Balam.
No, these mountains were part of the spirit of the universe. Granted, they weren’t natural. After all, this part of the Yucatan was called the flatlands. Mounds, hillocks, and certainly mountains did not exist. They had all been built here by human beings, by Balam-Acab’s Mayan ancestors, more than a thousand years ago. Although the brush that covered them camouflaged their steps, portals, statuary, and engravings, Balam-Acab knew that the elevations were palaces, pyramids, and temples. The reason they were part of the spirit of the universe was that the ancients who had built them knew how the Underworld, the Middleworld, and the glorious arch of the heavens were linked. The ancients had used their knowledge of the secrets of the passing sun to determine the exact places where monuments in honor of the gods needed to be situated, and in so doing, they focused the energy of both the Underworld and heavenly gods toward the Middleworld and this sacred precinct.
Wary of the armed intruders, Balam-Acab came to the tallest mountain. The excavators had been quick to clear the vegetation from the level ground, but whenever they came to an elevated area, they had left it undisturbed, presumably intending to return and violate it later. He studied the shadowy bushes and saplings that had somehow found places to root between the huge square stone blocks that formed this consecrated edifice. If the bushes and saplings weren’t present, Balam-Acab knew that what looked like a mountain would actually reveal itself to be an enormous terraced pyramid, and that at the top there would be a temple dedicated to the god Kukulcan, the meaning of whose name was “plumed serpent.”
Indeed, the weathered stone image of a serpent’s gigantic head-mouth open, teeth about to strike-projected from the bushes at the bottom of the pyramid. Even in the dark, the serpent’s head was manifest. It was one of several that flanked the stairs that ascended through the terraces on each side of the pyramid. Heart swelling, reassured that he had managed to get this far unmolested, becoming more convinced that the gods favored his mission, Balam-Acab held the blanket-covered bowl protectively to his chest and began the slow, painstaking ascent to the top.
Each step was as high as his knee, and the stairway was angled steeply. During daylight, the arduous climb could be dizzying, not to mention precarious, because the bushes, saplings, and centuries of rain had broken the steps and shifted the stones. He needed all his strength and concentration not to lose his balance in the dark, step on a loose rock, and fall. He didn’t care about his own safety. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have risked being bitten by snakes or shot by sentries in order to come here. What he did care about were the precious objects in his knapsack and in particular the blanket-wrapped sacred bowl he clutched to his chest. He didn’t dare fall and break the bowl. That would be inexcusable. That for certain would prompt the fury of the gods.
As he climbed, his knees aching, his body drenched with sweat, Balam-Acab mentally counted. It was the only way he could measure his progress, for the bushes and saplings above him prevented him from distinguishing the outline of the square temple at the otherwise-pointed top of the pyramid. Ten, eleven, twelve. . One hundred and four, one hundred and. . He strained to breathe. Two hundred and eighty-nine. Two hundred and. . Soon, he thought. By now he could see the top against the stars. Three hundred and. . At last, his heart pounding, he reached the flat surface in front of the temple.
Three hundred and sixty-five. That sacred number represented the number of days in the solar year and had been calculated by Balam-Acab’s ancestors long before the Spanish conquerers first came to the Yucatan in the 1500s. Other sacred numbers had been incorporated into the pyramid-the twenty terraces, for example, which signified the units of twenty days into which the ancients had divided their shorter 260-day ceremonial year. Similarly, there originally had been fifty-two stone images of serpents along the top of the temple, for time revolved in a fifty-two-year circle.
Circles were very much in Balam-Acab’s thoughts as he gently set down the blanket, unwrapped it, and exposed the precious bowl. It didn’t look remarkable. As wide as the distance from his thumb to his elbow, as thick as his thumb, it was old, yes, obviously very old, but it had no brilliant colors, just a dull, dark interior coating, and an outsider might have called it ugly.
Circles, Balam-Acab kept thinking. No longer impeded by his need to protect the bowl, he moved swiftly, taking off his knapsack, removing an obsidian knife, a long cord stitched with thorns, and strips of paper made from the bark of a fig tree. Quickly he removed his sweat-soaked shirt, exposing his gaunt chest to the god of the night.
Circles, cycles, revolutions. Balam-Acab positioned himself so that he stood at the entrance to the temple, facing east, toward where the sun each day began its cycle, toward the direction of the symbol of rebirth. From this high vantage point, he could see far around the pyramid. Even in the dark, he detected the obvious large area that the invaders had denuded of trees. More, he could distinguish the gray area that marked the airstrip a quarter mile to his right. He could see the numerous large tents that the invaders had erected and the log buildings that they were constructing from the fallen trees. He saw several camp fires that he hadn’t been able to notice from the jungle, armed guards casting shadows. Soon more airplanes would arrive with more conquerers and more machinery. More gigantic helicopters would bring more heavy vehicles. The area would become more desecrated. Already a road was being bulldozed through the jungle. Something had to be done to stop them.
Cycles. Revolutions. Balam-Acab’s father had told him that his name had a special history in the village. Centuries before, when the conquerers had first arrived, Balam-Acab’s namesake had led a band of warriors that attempted to repulse the Spanish from the Yucatan. The struggle had persisted for several years until Balam-Acab’s namesake was captured and hacked into pieces, then burned. But the glory of the rebel persisted beyond his death, indeed until the present generation, and Balam-Acab was proud to bear the name.
But burdened, as well. It wasn’t a coincidence that he’d been given this name instead of another. History moved in circles, just as periodically the Maya had again revolted against their oppressors. Stripped of their culture, yoked into slavery, the Maya had rebelled during the 1600s, again in the 1800s, and most recently in the early part of this century. Each time, they had been fiercely defeated. Many were forced to retreat to the remotest parts of the jungle in order to avoid retribution and the terrible sicknesses brought by the outsiders.
And now the outsiders had come again. Balam-Acab knew that if they weren’t stopped, his village would be destroyed. Circles, cycles, revolutions. He was here to make a sacrifice to the gods, to ask for their wisdom, to pray for their counsel. He needed to be guided. His namesake had no doubt conducted this same ritual during the 1500s. Uncontaminated, it would be repeated.
He raised his obsidian knife. Its black volcanic glass-“the fingernail of the lightning bolt”-was sharpened to a stilettolike point. He raised it to the underside of his outstretched tongue, struggling to ignore the pain as he thrust upward, piercing. The only way he could manage the task was by clamping his teeth against his tongue to hold it in place so that the exposed slippery flesh could not resist the blade. Blood gushed from his tongue, drenching his hand. He trembled from shock.
Nonetheless, he continued thrusting upward. Only when the obsidian point came completely through his tongue and scraped along his upper teeth did he remove it. Tears welled from his eyes. He stifled the urge to moan. Continuing to clamp his tongue with his teeth, he lowered the knife and raised the cord stitched with thorns. As his ancestors had done, he shoved the cord through the hole in his tongue and began to pull upward. Sweat burst from his face, no longer from humidity and exertion but from agony. The first thorn in the cord reached the hole in his tongue. Although it snagged, he pulled it through. Blood ran down the cord. He persisted in pulling, forcing another thorn through his tongue. And another. Blood cascaded down the cord and soaked the strips of paper where the bottom of the cord rested in the precious bowl.
Inside the temple behind him, there were images of Balam-Acab’s ancestors performing this ritual. In some cases, the king had impaled his penis, then thrust the cord of thorns through that organ instead of his tongue. But whatever part of the body was used, the objective was the same-through pain and blood, to achieve a vision state, to communicate with the Otherworld, to understand what the gods advised and indeed demanded.
Weakened, Balam-Acab sank to his knees, as if he worshiped the blood-soaked strips of paper in the bowl. As soon as the cord of thorns had been pulled completely through his tongue, he would place it in the bowl with the strips of paper. He would add more paper and a ball of copal incense. Then he would use matches-the only adulteration of the rite that he permitted-and set fire to his offering, adding more paper as necessary, the flames boiling and eventually burning his blood.
His mind swirled. He wavered, struggling to maintain a delirious balance between consciousness and collapse, for his ancestors would not have performed this rite without assistance, whereas he would have to rouse himself and proceed alone through the jungle back to the village.
He thought that the gods began to speak to him. He heard them, at the edge of hearing. He felt them, felt their presence, felt-
The tremor spread through him. But it wasn’t a tremor caused by shock or pain. The tremor came from outside him, through the stones upon which he knelt, through the pyramid upon which he conducted his ritual, through the earth beneath which lay the god of darkness, to whom he appealed.
The tremor was caused by the shock wave from dynamite as a crew continued their devastation despite the night. The rumble sounded like a moan from a restive god.
He raised a book of matches, struck one, and dropped it onto the strips of paper that lay above his blood in the sacred bowl.
Circles.
Again time had turned.
This holy place was being defiled.
The conquerers had to be conquered.