Gods of Jade and Shadow - Silvia Moreno-Garcia Page 0,99
of the Death Lord and a change came upon him. He dropped the cigarette.
He felt a voice course through his body without warning. He did not hear it, it was merely there, inside him, as though he were an instrument and someone else was playing him. Ice rushed through his veins, made his eyes shine as bright as polished stones.
“When he no longer needs you, Hun-Kamé will abandon you on the side of the road,” Martín said, and this voice was not his own. It was much too intense, much too bitter. It was not Martín at all, even if it sounded like him. Somehow, it was Vucub-Kamé. “He will give you ashes and vinegar, for he is not generous. You’ll have faced foes and trials, and be left with nothing.”
“I’m not helping him in order to obtain a reward,” she replied.
“But it isn’t fair, is it? Your family will lose everything they have, and you will return home empty-handed. If you can even find the way back. If you even live through it. All he does is take. Take and take some more, doesn’t he?”
He raised a finger, pressed it against his lips, and smirked. “Don’t deny it. He takes your life, your blood. Why can’t you take something for a change?”
She must have noticed the change in him, the glimmer in his eyes.
“Vucub-Kamé…he’s here, isn’t he?” she whispered.
“Yes, he’s here,” Martín muttered.
Casiopea spun around, as if trying to find the Death Lord, but of course Vucub-Kamé wasn’t standing anywhere in sight. Martín bowed his head and placed his hands on Casiopea’s temples.
A fog enveloped him. It blotted his eyesight, it filled his brain. He was there and he wasn’t. When he touched Casiopea the fog lifted for a moment and a thousand colors danced in his eyes. Blue and crimson and yellow and white. In that moment, in that swirl of colors, he saw her dead by a lake. Then a different sight, but no less gruesome: a monster with bat wings ripping off her head. Other grisly deaths followed. The final sight was of Martín plunging a knife into her side. Through all these visions Vucub-Kamé sat on his obsidian throne, unblinking, superimposed, a shadow at the edge of his vision. There. Triumphant. Always.
She gasped. He knew she saw it too. And he knew they were being shown things that might be.
“Name your price, it will be granted. Should you want glory or gold, the Lord of Xibalba can give it to you. But do not consider only the benefits of your abeyance, but pause to think about the dangers of your defiance.”
He released Casiopea and she stumbled back. Her eyes were watery and dark.
“Kiss the lord’s ring and you shall be his favorite courtier,” Martín said with that voice that was not his own. He raised his hand, offering the ring for her to see.
Casiopea looked at him in fright, like when they’d been small and he was cruel to her, and Martín did not know why he felt ashamed then. Of who he had been, who he was. But there was no time to think about this, because she was shaking her head.
“No,” she said, also with that childhood stubbornness.
A terrible pain seized him; it went from the bottom of his spine to his skull, and he grimaced, gnashing his teeth. Vucub-Kamé could not speak more than a few words through this intermediary, and poor Martín shivered as the overwhelming presence that had invaded him departed.
“Martín?” she said.
“It has passed,” he mumbled.
“Do you want to sit down?”
There was a stone bench nearby. She tried to get him to go to it, but he could not. His legs felt weak, and a sob lodged in his throat. “No, no…Casiopea, can we simply get out of here? Can we simply leave?” he begged her. “Can you take me home?”
That is what he desired more than anything. Home, without monsters or gods or journeys.
“Oh, Martín,” she said.
Casiopea set a hand on his shoulder. For a moment he thought she was going to accept he was in the right, that she’d do the bidding of Vucub-Kamé, but then he noticed that her sympathy was not a sign of soft weakness.
“No,” she said, but kindly this time.
“God. Stop being pigheaded!” he yelled, shoving her arm away, more furious at her warmth than her refusal. “It’s exactly like I said, you do something stupid! You never do as I say!”