Ice Shock (14 page)

He looks at me.

“We thought they'd been gone for centuries. They were expelled from Ek Naab in the seventh century …”

“Who were they?”

Montoyo answers reluctantly. “A death cult. The most dangerous death cult ever known.”

He stares at me, his eyes sunken with dread.

Nervously I say, “So … this is bad.”

“This is very, very bad. They're back—the Sect of Huracan. They engineered the collapse of Mayan civilization. If they're back … they're probably the only people on the planet who might really enjoy witnessing the collapse of
all
civilization.”

Montoyo and I talked. It was pretty heavy. Stuff I could never write down, just in case
.

Afterward he left me with Benicio while he went to meet with the Executive. I managed to soak my phone in the river, so Benicio lent me his phone to call Tyler. And when he went out for bread and milk, I borrowed his computer again to update my blog. I'm not going to try to explain or justify to them that I'm blogging for you, Mom. Whatever I say, I know Montoyo will order me to stop
.

Tyler persuaded his parents to let him go stay with some cousins in London. I asked him to send you a text so that you know I'm okay—hope you got it. Montoyo's going to get me another cell phone and have it programmed so that I can make ordinary calls too
.

I don't know what's going to happen. I think they might increase the pressure on me to move to Ek Naab. That would mean you also
.

To be honest, I can't see us fitting in here. It's odd. I'd miss Oxford too. A lot
.

This latest thing has Montoyo pretty anxious. The people we're up against could be much more dangerous than they'd thought
.

I didn't understand what Ollie said about wanting to let as many people as possible die after 2012. I couldn't see what's in it for anyone
.

Unless, of course, you've actually found a way to benefit from the collapse of civilization
.

What if they have? What if they've done it before?

A little while later there's a knock on the door. When I open it, Montoyo is standing there. For a few seconds, he actually looks quite awkward, like he can't quite get the words out.

“Blanco Vigores wants to meet with you,” he says. “He's waiting.”

“In the Garden?”

“No,” he replies curtly. “Not the Garden. In the church. In Our Lady of the Hibiscus.”

Montoyo escorts me there. Outside, bright sunlight streams through the mesh ceiling of Ek Naab. We meander through the narrow alleyways and across the water channels. I'd forgotten how claustrophobic the city feels. The streets I can handle—it's the mesh ceiling you see when you look up that freaks me out a bit.

When we reach the church, I see Vigores sitting on a bench in the tiny plaza outside. He's alone. The heavy wooden church door is shut.

Montoyo doesn't take me all the way to Vigores, but just nods at him.

“There he is. Just as you remember him, no doubt.”

I stare at Vigores. He's wearing a cream-colored linen suit again, not Ek Naab clothes. No hat this time. “Yeah,” I say. “Pretty much the same.”

“Benicio will pick you up in a little while,” Montoyo says. He seems reluctant to leave, throws a final suspicious glance at Vigores. Then he turns to me one last time. “I hope you remember our deal, Josh. If Vigores says one single word about the Bracelet of Itzamna that your father took, you tell me about it.”

I nod. “Sure thing,” and then add hesitantly, “but why would he? He didn't last time. Didn't mention it once.”

Montoyo sets his mouth, hard. “He's either forgotten, doesn't know, or else …”

But that sentence, he doesn't complete.

Then Montoyo leaves, and I join Vigores on the bench.

“Hello, sir,” I say quietly, touching his arm.

His face suddenly beams, and he looks up. “Young Josh! No need to call me ‘sir'!”

“It's good to see you, Mr. Vigores. You're looking well.”

“I'm looking decrepit, with few years left to me,” he says, brusquely. “A few critical years. Now, more importantly, how are you?”

I shrug, then remember that the old man can't see. “I'm okay, I guess.”

“Family?”

“Mom—she's gotten into religion, big time. But yeah, she's okay.”

“You? Girlfriends?”

I'm surprised to have Vigores spring that on me. I thought old geezers like him didn't even think of stuff like that anymore.

“Uh, not right now.”

“But you've been in love?”

“Not really. I'm only fourteen.”

Vigores smiles sadly. “My memory can be most unreliable. However, I seem to remember that fourteen is quite old enough.”

“Well, not me,” I say.
Lying
. “I can't be bothered much with girls.”

“That may be for the best,” Vigores says in a grave voice. “And yet, not always possible.”

“What do you mean?”

“Only that you can't always choose what happens, in matters of the heart.”

I look at him, trying to fathom the expression in his watery blue eyes. “Sorry, Mr. Vigores … I still don't get you.”

He seems to consider my answer, and then begins to talk. His storytelling voice—I recognize it right away.

“There was a young man named Kan'ek Balam. A boy, more or less, like you. Destined for life as a Bakab Muluc.
Kan'ek would refuse to study; instead he used to just watch the construction of the temples. Or he would disappear into the Depths, alone, and emerge many days later, half starved yet seemingly contented. And always clutching a handful of papers on which he'd written his poems. Meandering, lyrical poetry; words that touched the intellect as surely as the heart. Each poem was dedicated to the same person: Mariana K'awil, his betrothed. A young lady who, alas, was in love with another.”

“He was betrothed? How old was he?”

“He was betrothed almost from birth. As are all Bakabs, as are you. You know the trait that protects against the curse of the codex is too precious, too rare, to allow chance to intervene. The
atanzahab
makes the match and thus the continuation of the Bakab line is ensured.”

“Yeah,” I say, slowly. I think of Ixchel and how she was so horrified by the idea of being fixed up with me that she took off. “To be honest, that's a bit of a problem …”

“Kan'ek was her intended, it's true. But from early childhood he was a strange one, an outsider. Hard to love, especially for a girl like Mariana. She was from a very practical family. Everyone thought Kan'ek was an odd one. And Mariana … she fell in love with someone else.”

He stops and looks hard at me. Or more accurately, at a space about two inches to the left of my face. “She paid a high price for falling in love with the wrong boy, believe me.”

“People here aren't allowed to fall in love?”

Vigores answers drily, “Romantic love can be dangerous. It can drive people to do … questionable things. And a good match doesn't require it.”

“That is
harsh
, man!”

Vigores nods, sadly. There's a long pause. “It can be, yes.”

“So what happened to them?”

“It happened that one day Kan'ek descended into the Depths. This time, he didn't reappear, even weeks later. Eventually a search party went out for him. They found Kan'ek deep within the labyrinth, sitting beside a phosphorescent pool. The minerals in the water glowed a faint pink—the only light Kan'ek had seen for weeks.”

“I don't get it; how had he stayed alive?”

“No one ‘got it.' He wasn't starving, not even thirsty. Nor had he written a single poem. No one had the faintest idea how he'd stayed alive—or sane, for that matter. He returned to the city quite happily, seemed pleased to be reunited with his friends and sisters. Upon his return, the difference was there for everyone to see. Well, to be more accurate, for the women to see.”

“What happened to them?”

“Not to them. To Kan'ek. There was something about him that was instantly irresistible to women. The men noticed nothing. But the women—apart from his sisters—all swore he smelled different. Like gardenias on a hot summer's day. Young or old, they couldn't get enough of him. Mariana was
the most affected of all. She was like a woman possessed. They had to be married within the week, despite their youth. And that other young man—the one she thought she loved—she dropped him like a stone.”

I consider this. “So what became of Kan'ek and Mariana?”

“What else—they married, had children. Normality resumed. Not only did Kan'ek change his smell, but he forgot about poetry, started working hard, like everyone else. Under the pressure of all that rock in the tunnels, the poems had seeped out of him, he claimed. Like apple juice pressed from the fruit. All that remained was the scent of gardenias. It continued to seep out of him for a few more years, and then that was that. He was ordinary again. No different from the rest of us.”

Listening to Vigores, I recall the smell of gardenias—hot and sickly, how drowsy it makes you feel. His voice is almost hypnotic. It takes me back to the gardenia petals in the pool at the Hotel Delfin when I first met my sister, Camila. Tears well up in my eyes. I brush them away quickly, hoping that Vigores won't notice the change in my breathing.

So quietly that I can barely make it out, Vigores murmurs, “It gets easier, Josh.”

I'm still wondering that he means when I notice Benicio out of the corner of my eye, hovering.

“It's all right, Benicio,” Vigores murmurs. “You can take him back to Montoyo now. I just wanted to talk to the boy, before …”

And his voice trails off. We wait politely, but it doesn't look like he's going to say anything else.

Before what?

Benicio asks, “Do you need help getting back to your apartments, Blanco?”

“No thank you, Benicio,” Vigores says, clearing his throat. “I have other plans today.”

As we walk away, Benicio mutters to me, “He's the weirdest guy. But brilliant! I haven't seen him once since you were last here, you know that? He's sure taken a special interest in you. What did you talk about?”

“He told me some story about a guy named Kan'ek, who was lost in the Depths …”

Benicio frowns. “Oh yeah. Everyone knows that story. Those Depths are pretty strange. Some crazy stuff happens down there.”

“So that's not the only bizarre thing?”

He rolls his eyes. “No way! Believe me, man, there is a
lot
more.”

Did I mention yet how weird Ek Naab is? Well, it's the oddest. For a start, there's the way it looks
.

Imagine you're in a room furnished by IKEA. Plain, minimalist furniture. A simple, modern kitchen. Sure, there are Mexican touches—sisal-weave bags, hammocks, colorful paintings on the walls. These are bits of flavor, though—no more
.

You stick your head out of a window. You're still indoors. The apartment block across from yours is just several feet from your window. You look down the alleyway and it's like being in an old medieval city, if medieval cities were built from concrete, glass, and ceramic tiles. Buildings are packed tightly, teeming around narrow, winding lanes. Every now and then you come across a small plaza. There might be a little café, and at least a park bench or two. Flowers hang from baskets; trees sprout from pots that line the alleys and plazas. Then you might come to a little canal, or a fountain
.

Because there's lots of water. Someone once told me that Ek Naab is the “city of a thousand wells.” There's a great big cenote—like a wide, deep well—in the center. The famous “dark water” for which Ek Naab is named
.