Penetrating his shadowed mind was the impression that he was no longer alone on the temple. He opened his eyes, not realizing that he had closed them. For just a moment the temple as it had once stood glowed in the moonlight. The bright reds were muted by the dim light. His wife knelt before him with a rope oЂ thorns drawn through her tongue. Attendants surrounded them. His heavy ornamental headdress covered his eyes. He blinked.
The temple was a pile of stone covered by the jungle. There was no wife wearing jade, no attendants. He was wearing dirty jeans again. He shook his head sharply to clear away the last of the vision. That hurt, aiee, did it hurt. It must have been the gin and listening to those women. According to what they had said, he'd messed up the old rites anyway. The power was supposed to be in the burning blood.
The shirt had fallen from his shoulder. It was bright red and sodden with his blood. He thought about it a moment, then pulled out a cigarette lighter he had stolen from one of the professors and tried to burn the shirt. It was too wet; the flames kept going out. Instead he made a fire with some sticks he picked up off the ground. When he finally had a small fire going, he threw on the shirt. The burning blood gave off smoke and a stench that nearly made him sick. Mostly in jest he sat in front of the blaze and aped the cross-legged position he had seen on so many pots, one hand extended toward the flames. He was starting to get very tired and staring at the fire mesmerized him.
What little he knew of Xibalba led him to believe that it was a place of darkness and flames, like the hell the fathers warned him about as a child. It wasn't. It most resembled a remote village where they still lived by the old ways. No television antennas, no radios blaring the latest in rock and roll from Guatemala. All was silent. He saw no one as he walked about the small group of huts. The only movement he saw was a bat flying out of the low doorway of one of the thatch-roofed houses. The roofs were pitched like the ceilings of the temple rooms, high and narrow, rising almost to a point. He felt as if he were walking through a mural on a temple wall. It was all so familiar. He remembered that none of his usual drunken dreams had this clarity.
A rhythmic ga-pow, ga-pow brought him through the quiet to a ball court. Three human figures sat on the platform on top of the walls. He recognized them as Ah Puch, Itzamna, and Ix Chel-the Death God, the Old Man, and the Old Woman, supreme in the Mayan pantheon, or as supreme as any of the many deities were. The three were surrounded by animals who assisted them as scribes and servants. Drawing his gaze back down the stone walls to the packed-dirt court itself, he saw the source of the noise. Not deigning to notice him, a creature that was half-human, half-jaguar repeatedly attempted to knock a ball through one of the intricately carved stone hoops high on the walls of the court. The creature never used its paws. Instead it used head, hips, elbows, and knees to send the ball bouncing up the wall toward the ring. The jaguar-man and its fangs frightened him. Since the dream had begun, it was the first thing he had felt besides curiosity and wondering how he could steal those stone rings. He watched the muscles beneath the black spots bunch and release as he considered why none of this seemed strange in the least. He lifted his head and stared up at the watchers.
From one corner of his eye he saw the ball coming toward him. Moving in patterns that seemed as familiar as the village, he swung away from it before bringing his elbow up and under the ball and launching it toward the nearest ring. It arched through the goal without touching the stone. The watchers gasped and murmured to each other. He was just as surprised, but he decided that discretion was the best course here.
"Ai! Not bad!" He yelled up at them in Spanish. Lord Death shook his head and glared at the old couple. Itzamna spoke to him in pure Maya. Although he had never spoken the language before in his life, he recognized it and understood it.
"Welcome, Xbalanque, to Xibalba. You are as fine a ballplayer as your namesake."
"My name's not Xbalanque."
"From this time, it is." The black death-mask of Ah Puch glared down at him and he swallowed his next comment. "Si, this is a dream and I am Xbalanque." He spread his hands and nodded. "Whatever you say."
Ah Puch looked away.
"You are different; you have always known this." Ix Chel smiled down at him. It was the smile of a crocodile, not a grandmother. He grinned up at her, wishing he'd wake up. Now.
"You are a thief."
He began thinking about how he was going to get out of this dream. He had remembered the more troublesome parts of the ancient myths-the decapitations, the houses of multiple horrors…
"You should use your abilities to gain power. "
"Hey, I'll do that. You're right. No problem. Just as soon as I get back." One of the rabbits who was attending the three gods watched him intently with head canted to one side and nostrils twitching. Occasionally it wrote frantically on an odd, folded piece of paper with a brushlike pen. He was reminded of a comic book he had once read, Alice in Wonderland. There had been rabbits in her dream too. And he was getting hungry.
"Go to the city, Xbalanque." Itzamna's voice was squeaky, pitched even higher than his wife's.
"Hey, isn't there a brother in this somewhere?" He was remembering even more of the myth.
"You'll find him. Go." The ball court began to quiver in front of his eyes, and the jaguar's paw struck him in the back of the head.
Xbalanque grunted in pain as his head slid off the rock he had apparently been using as a pillow. He pulled himself upright, shoving his bare back against the rough limestone.
The dream was still with him, and he couldn't seem to focus on anything. The moon had gone down while he'd been passed out. It was very dark. The uncovered stones of the ruin glowed with their own light, like bones disturbed in a grave. The bones of his people's past glory.
He bent over to pick up his stolen treasures and fell to one knee. Unable to stop himself, he vomited the gin and tortillas he had eaten. Madre de Dios, he felt bad. Body empty and shaking, he staggered up again to begin the descent from the pyramid. Maybe that dream was right. He should leave, go to Guatemala City now. Take what he had. It was enough to let him live comfortably for a while.
Christ, his head hurt. Hungover and still drunk. It wasn't fair. The last thing he picked up was the stingray spine. Its barbs were still coated with his blood. Xbalanque reached up to touch his ear gingerly. He fingered the hole in the lobe with pain and disgust. His hand came away bloody. That was definitely not part of the dream. Swaying, he searched through his pockets until he found the earplug. He tried to insert it into his earlobe, but it hurt too much and the torn flesh would not support it. He was almost sick again.
Xbalanque tried to remember the strange dream. It was fading. For the moment all he recalled was that the dream recommended a retreat to the city. It still sounded like a good idea. As he alternately tripped and slid down the side of the hill, he decided to steal a jeep and go in style. Maybe they wouldn't miss it. He couldn't walk all the way with this headache anyway.
Inside the dark, smoke-filled thatch house Jose listened gravely to Hunapu's tale of his vision. The shaman nodded when Hunapu spoke of his audience with the gods. When he finished, he looked to the old man for interpretation and guidance.
"Your vision is a true one, Hunapu." He straightened up and slid from his hammock to the dirt floor. Standing before the crouching Hunapu, he threw copal incense on his fire. "You must do as the gods tell you or bring us all misfortune."
"But where am I to go? What is Kaminaljuyu?" Hunapu shrugged in his confusion. "I do not understand. I have no brother, only sisters. I do not play this ball game. Why me?"