OLD LEGENDS

We were traveling down a dirt road leading through woods and underbrush when we came upon Cahal, waiting for us at the edge of the village. A group of around fifty Maya men waited with him. All of them were dressed in black, padded cloth, sandals, and many of them carried short bows. The half-dozen surrounding Cahal were armed with serrated clubs like the ones Cornflower had used, while everyone else carried steel machetes at their sides.

Cahal wore armor from a different time: molded leather chest and shoulder plates with snake designs carved into them, transmuted by Aethyr into shiny black Artifact armor, along with a battle skirt ending mid-thigh. He carried a small round shield with a snake’s head embossed on its surface, and not only had a pair of serrated clubs, but also a black Artifact spear strapped to his back.

The village, carved out of the wilderness, surrounded an enormous serpent’s head resembling a monstrous stone snake bursting out of the earth. Its jaws were shut tight while its blank eyes stared at nothing. Beside it, a stone slab over six feet tall had been erected to one side, the carved glyphs on its surface still clear despite the erosion of time. The village itself was small, perhaps a couple dozen buildings made of stone and set in an oval shape, with open doors and windows covered only by cloth, and roofs made of thatch.

Our group traveled past a large, hollowed out trunk of a dead tree as Cahal led his group over to meet us, along with an older Maya man wearing white clothing embroidered with red designs. “That’s the village shaman,” Kinubal whispered to me before taking the lead.

The road was becoming a wide area of packed earth at the village’s edge as she stopped and inclined her head, Cahal halting in front of her. His black hair was cut short and he stood a head taller than she did, though still shorter than I. Darker than any Eldarion I had ever seen who was not African, he had skin the color of tree bark, and as Kinubal explained to him in Maya what we were doing, his narrowed eyes became twin pits of inky suspicion. After several minutes she finished and her voice ended with a questioning sound. He folded his arms over his chest and spoke.

I did not have to speak Maya to understand no when I heard it. Kinubal’s expression became outraged, and she launched into a torrent of words like waves over rocks, with about as much effect, judging by his expression. I walked up beside her. “What is wrong?”

Kinubal made a slashing gesture with her hand. “He’s refusing to let us come along or even travel the Sac’be. Cahal claims he doesn’t need our help and will not allow any more Europeans to walk along the sacred way. He says one is too many, and all of them need to die.”

“What?” Cahal’s gaze focused on me as my finger stabbed at his face while I spoke to Kinubal. “Tell him my grandfather, Mr. Stephens, and Catherwood are prisoners. Professor Bella forced them to go with her.”

She translated my words and he replied with a longer response this time. Kinubal’s expression turned to shock. “He says Catherwood will be spared on account of his daughter, but as to the other two, he makes no promises. He’s also saying my grandmother has to die on account of her cooperating with Bella. He said if any of the Eldarion-Maya realized she’d go along with this mad plan to kill the Camazotz, they would’ve stopped her.”

Jack stopped next to me. “Why in tarnation is this Camazotz so important, anyhow?”

“Supposedly it guards the entrance that the supernatural creatures, who inhabit the lands here, originally came from.” Kinubal shrugged. “None of us have ever seen it, but before the Spanish came, the kings appeased it every so often with a ceremony and gifts of gold.” Glancing at the anger leaking through the stoic mask of my face, Kinubal placed her hand on my arm. “Let me tell him about our encounter with the elder and his little dog. Perhaps that will change his mind.” I nodded, taking several deep breaths to calm myself as she began her explanation, motioning both at Jack and I several times before she finished.

Cahal cracked her across the face with his hand. Kinubal staggered backwards, and as he raised his hand to strike her again, I jumped in front of him. “Do not dare,” I snarled, my own hands clenched into fists, “or by God and Saint Michael, I will lay you out.”

Cahal stared at me with teeth bared in anger as the men in a semi-circle behind him drew their machetes or serrated clubs, my own group cocking their rifles as Jack drew an enormous knife with one hand while placing his other on the smaller knife with its bone handle. He gave them the smile of a wolf facing down dogs.

Then the old shaman got between us. He barked commands at Cahal, who blinked as he looked at the human in surprise, before looking past the Eldarion and yelling at the rest of the war party. Je’kyll put a hand on my own and Jack’s shoulders. “Let us all stop and take a breath, shall we?”

“Listen to your friend,” Kinubal said, steady on her feet once more. A livid purple bruise was already rising on her cheek. “As clan leader, Cahal has the right to strike me, if he wants.”

“I do not care whether he has the right or not,” I snapped. “No one should strike a female for any reason whatsoever.” Her face took on its familiar stubborn expression and I threw up my hands. “And you call us uncivilized? Faugh!” I turned around and stalked off towards the hollowed out tree beside the road, giving it a good kick with my boot heel in frustration.

From inside it came the hiss of snakes. I froze as an insect head as large as my own popped out from the far end and began looking around. It was greenish-gray in color, possessing two bulbous eyes and black mandibles as its jaws, the head attached to a centipede-like body that began propelling it out of the dead tree as its gaze fixed on me. Worst of all, there were six appendages like eyeless snakes with long fangs, sticking out from the back of its head.

“Don’t move,” Kinubal screamed, fear turning her voice almost into a shriek. “It’s attracted to movement,” she added as more of the creature came out of the trunk, the vile creature only a few yards away now. “If you try to run, it’ll chase you down before you take more than a few steps.”

It stopped moving and began to rise up like a cobra as I heard brush snapping in the forest behind it. Its little legs began folding in against its body as it continued rising, until the creature’s head was level with my own. All of its appendages were pointing straight at my face as the mandibles opened.

A black creature the size of a lion bounded out of the forest. It raced right towards us as the vile thing leaned back to strike, but black creature got it first, an enormous paw slamming down on the chitinous body as its jaws closed on its neck and bit down hard.

The thing gave a shriek, cut off as the black creature ripped the head from its body, green blood spurting as the head and body both went into a frenzy. The head landed close to my feet and I leaped backwards away from it, tripped over a root and landed on the ground. Like a crab I scuttled away as the head seemed to focus on me.

Then its appendages dug into the ground and propelled it forward. The black creature, an enormous dog I realized in shock, got behind me and gripped the back of my shirt in its jaws, pulling me along as Cahal came running up with his spear in his hand, chanting in Maya.

The tip of the black spear began glowing blue and he threw it straight at the insect’s head. It hit the thing square in the face and split its skull with a loud crack, the appendages waving around in a frenzy before dropping limp to the ground, while the rest of the body continued its mindless thrashing.

My heart beat so fast I thought it would burst from my chest as the great dog let go of me and I turned around. Yellow eyes met mine and I stared in shock. “Ripper?”

Ripper licked my face with his black tongue and I put my arms around his neck a moment in gratitude as everyone from both groups came running up. “If that don’t beat all,” Jack said.

“But he’s huge,” Kinubal replied as I let go of the dog and climbed to my feet, Jack giving me a hand when my legs threatened to give way from the shaking, which passed a few moments later as I began to calm down. Cahal retrieved his spear as she asked, “How’s this even possible?”

“Because of the star-cells in my blood,” I answered, holding up my hand and showing all of them my healed cuts. “Ripper licked the blood off from my wounds, and it reacted to something inside of him.”

Kinubal began translating my words to Cahal and the others as Je’kyll said, “You met this dog before?”

“He was just a stray wandering into the courtyard,” Jack said as he held out his hand for Ripper to sniff. Ripper wagged a tail as thick as my wrist. “Durned if I know what set off the change, though, or why it happened so fast.”

“Could the dog belong to Bella?” Drog asked, his voice shadowed with suspicion.

“I do not believe so,” I replied, “and even if he once was, Ripper is with me, now.” Ripper wagged his tail as if agreeing.

“Black Lion,” Kinubal said, “Cahal wants to see the star birthmark on your back for himself.”

“Call me Jon,” I said as I began unbuttoning my shirt. “Black Lion still sounds strange to me.”

“Only if you’ll call me Rainbow.”

I smiled at her as I took off mt shirt. “As you wish, Miss Rainbow.” I turned around for Cahal and his men to see the red birthmark, the Eldarion striding up and touching it with his fingers, rubbing it to see if the mark would come off. After a few moments he stopped, and I turned back around to face him, holding up my shirt with a question on my face. He waved his hand with a snap of the wrist and I put my khaki shirt back on as he spoke to Rainbow.

I buttoned the last button as he finished. “Cahal has agreed to let us come along,” Rainbow said as Cahal spun on his heel and joined his men, the group of them striding together towards the massive stone snake head as she continued. “However, he insists that he’s the leader of the war party. He wants us to remain in two separate groups, and as long as the two groups are together, we will do exactly what he tells us to. He also reserves the right to leave us and continue on without notice.”

I stepped on my irritation before it got out of hand. “Will he at least listen to advice?”

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

Jack gave a derisive snort. “Ran-Li used to grouse about him, saying the only person Cahal took advice from was Cahal.”

“He’s not that bad,” Rainbow said, looking more relieved by the moment. “Though he can be a little stubborn, at times.”

Baroda gave me a light thump on the shoulder as he grinned. “Jon can give him a run for his money on that score.”

I knew, just knew, I was not as bad as all that as Drog said, “Boss, do we follow his lead?”

“For now,” I replied. “However,” catching everyone’s eye before continuing, “I do not want to follow him blindly into something that gets us all killed.” My friends all agreed and I looked at Jack. “I know you have the experience I lack, but-”

Jack put up a hand to stop me. “Old Hoss, are you willing to take advice if I give it?”

“Always.”

“Then I reckon you’re the trail boss. I gotta warn you, though: I ain’t following you any more blindly than you’re following Cahal.”

I held out my hand. “Deal.”

He shook it as Je’kyll walked up beside him. “I will not use a weapon in anger. However, I fully expect you will need my medical expertise at some point along this journey.”

“Even though I hope you are wrong, we need you with us, just in case.” We shook on it as well, then I motioned towards Cahal’s war party where Cahal was addressing his men. “Alright, let us get this started.” We began walking towards them, Rainbow falling in beside me as I muttered, “There are times I wish I had never left home.”

“Grandmother told me you might decide you want to stay here in the Yucatan. Maybe you are home.” I looked at her, Rainbow giving me back a look as if expecting I would challenge her. Instead, I held out my hand. She looked at it a moment, smiled, and then grasped it with her own as we walked on.

We joined the war party assembling around the entrance to the Sac’be, taking our place at the end of the semi-circle of warriors. Along with their weapons, they were laden down with cloth sacks filled with food and whatever else they needed, while my three friends, on their insistence, were carrying the field packs taken from the dead Frenchmen, full of our gear and foodstuffs. Jack carried a leather satchel he called his ‘war bag’, and Je’kyll his pack with whatever medical equipment and medicines he had been able to scrape together. I hoped it would all be enough to see us to the end.

The white stone serpent’s head was even more impressive up close, each scale individually carved and bearing a different glyph, while the closed mouth had fangs embedded in both jaws. Cahal was standing in front of the six foot tall stone slab, chanting as he made hand and arm gestures invoking whatever source they drew Aethyr energy from. I leaned down and whispered in Rainbow’s ear. “Do the Eldarion-Maya channel Aethyr energy from the planetoids circling the Earth like the rest of the Eldarion do?”

To my surprise, she shook her head. “We know about those planetoids, the ones named after gods in your mythology, but we don’t use them. Eldarion-Maya get their Aethyr magic from a different source.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and pointedly looked at Cahal rather than explain any further. The Eldarion had finished chanting and was now making small webs of glowing blue energy, which he directed at various carved glyphs on the stone in a specific order, causing them to begin glowing as the web seemed to be absorbed.

Finally, he finished with the last one, and stepped back with his breath coming quicker as blue lines of power began crisscrossing between the different glyphs. They stabilized and Cahal spoke a word.

The stone jaws began to open. They made the grinding sound of stone on stone, the upper jaw reaching the height of the slab and halting, while the other continued until it reached the ground, where it dug into the earth and went still. As I stared in awe, Drog’s voice behind me said, “It won’t just decide to close on its own, will it?”

Rainbow shook her head. “The entrances cannot move without a shaman who knows how it works. Once everyone’s through, either me or Cahal will close it back up again using a stelae like the one he just used.”

“Supposing you both get killed,” Goro said, his voice sharp. “What happens then?”

Jack chuckled. “Hope someone comes along looking for us. Course, if Rainbow takes an earth-bath, we’re all likely to be holding onto a wild bull by the horns anyway. So it won’t rightly matter.”

“We will keep that from happening,” I said with more assurance than I felt as Cahal strode into the opening and vanished, his inner circle following on his heels with the rest of them right behind. I motioned towards the end of their group. “Shall we join them?”

“Hold on a moment.” Rainbow walked over to where the shaman was approaching with a young Eldarion-Maya girl walking alongside him. She was short, with long black hair woven into a braid, and wearing a white dress with black embroidery along the sleeves and hem. Unlike the other Eldarions I had seen, she kept her eyes downcast as the other two spoke.

“Jon,” Rainbow said as the old man stopped talking, “the shaman would like for us to take Cocob, which is Acorn in our language, along with us until we reach the branch of the Sac’be leading to her village, and take her through the opening. People in the interior need to be warned about what’s happened, but she’s too young to have been initiated into the mysteries of the Sac’be yet.”

I glanced over to where the warriors were filing inside the structure. “Will Cahal stop long enough for us to do that?”

Uncertainty stole over her face. “I don’t know.”

“Reckon I do,” Jack said. “I’m thinking he’s gonna use any excuse he can to leave us eating trail dust behind him.”

I felt certain Jack was right. “Rainbow, is this important?”

She nodded. “More than you can imagine. Her village’s close to the shrine of Ix-Chel, which is a sacred place overseen by a different branch of the Eldarion-Maya, who are the power base in the countryside away from the cities. They’ve got a way to send messages to all the shaman associated with them. She’ll warn the shaman of her village, who will then warn the guardian of the shrine, and by sunset all of those associated with the Eagle polity will know what Bella’s done.”

Jack asked her, “Why can’t she just go to Edzna? It’s a lot closer and less dangerous.”

Rainbow sighed. “Because Edzna’s part of the Snake polity, and the two groups don’t get along so well. By the time Edzna gets the word out, Bella will have come and gone.”

Politics are the same everywhere. “Will it take us far out of our way?”

“Not far, but we’ll be hard pressed to catch up if Cahal doesn’t wait for us.” She motioned towards Drog. “I mean, you, me and Jack will be fine, but your poor servants won’t be able to keep to the pace.”

“They are my friends,” I said in a sharp voice, softening it as I added, “If I was laden with half of what he is carrying now, I would never be able to keep up with him, even if he had double the load.”

Baroda said, “We’re the reason the British army’s done so well over the years. The Orku auxiliary hauls their gear all day and fights at the end of the march. We’re tougher than any human alive.”

It was a boast, of course, yet not far off the mark. Jack reached down and scratched Ripper’s lion-sized head. “For that matter, Ripper’s large enough to carry someone if he had to.” The enormous dog woofed as if in agreement.

The last of the Maya warriors were entering the serpent head structure, and I had to make a choice. “Rainbow, please tell them she can come.” The shaman’s smile and the delighted look on Acorn’s face helped allay my misgivings, as I hefted my rifle and fell in behind the last of Cahal’s warriors, the rest of my group following as I entered the stone jaws. I smiled as Ripper bounded past me, the Maya men jumping back like startled horses as he ran past.

The dank smell of a cave assailed my nostrils as I moved through through the serpent’s mouth and reached the beginning of its gullet, where the floor leveled out into a landing that ended in a set of broad stairs leading down. A shimmering blue ball of energy hovered overhead, and as I watched, a second one flared into life from the floor fifty feet or so below, floating into the air before following Cahal like a balloon on an invisible string as he began assembling his warriors.

The floor beneath their feet was natural rock, but at the edge of the darkness, a road made of white paving stone began between the cavern walls. To the right, I could see where several stalagmites had formed, and as Rainbow stopped beside me, I asked, “Is the Sac’be part of a natural cave system?”

“Much of it is,” she replied as we started down the stairs, Ripper waiting for us at the bottom. “In some parts, the cave goes one way while the road goes another, and in those places the rock’s been bored through, like one of those Terramagica digging devices my mother told me about. But in all of those cases, they only dug through enough to connect with the cave system again. So the Sac’be does have a tendency to meander.”

“You said they.” She nodded, and I said, “So the Eldarion-Maya did not build this?”

Rainbow gave me a wry smile. “None of us would know where to begin. But our legends say the ancient races had magical Artifacts far beyond anything we can build and enchant now, so they’re likely the ones who did this. In truth, though, we just don’t know.”

“Ancient races… are you talking about the Fae?”

Her expression became guarded. “I’m not the one you should be asking. My grandmother knows more about the ancient past than any Eldarion-Maya alive, so when we find her, ask her about them and the Sac’be as well.” Before I could press her further, she pointed at a circular formation in the cavern floor, just at the edge of the blueish light. “That’s one of the sacred cenotes.”

“Am I permitted to see it?”

“Of course. Follow me.” I walked beside her as we reached the floor and started towards the formation, Ripper bounding ahead again as Jack came up on my other side. The smell of dankness increased as the air grew cool, a welcome reprieve from the warmth we had just left. We reached the large, flat rocks surrounding the cenote and climbed up, the stone slick with moisture. I took care planting my feet as I peered over the edge.

Dark water, only a few inches from the top of the rocks surrounding the cenote, looked so still and reflective it seemed to be a black mirror and not water at all. I glanced up at the stalactites overhead as Cahal leaped upon the rock we stood on and began speaking to Rainbow. He finished, and Rainbow said, “Jon, Cahal tells me that he and his warriors purified themselves in the village right before we arrived, but all of our group has to do the same by bathing in the sacred waters of the cenote.”

“Reckon a quick dip won’t kill me,” Jack said as he sat down on the rock and began removing his boots. “What about you, Old Hoss?”

I eyed the dark water askance. “Is it deep?”

“The bottom’s never been measured,” Rainbow replied as Ripper jumped up on the rock beside ours and began lapping at the water. Rainbow’s eyes narrowed. “Is this a problem?”

It embarrassed me to admit the truth as I shook my head. “I cannot swim.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Are you serious?”

“No one in my family can. In truth, there are not a lot of places in Londinium we could-”

Cahal grabbed me by the front of my clothes and threw me in.

The Eldarion-Maya keep much of their lands off limits to outsiders, in part to avoid contamination, but more importantly to protect those who have no understanding of the dangers or believe them to be a myth.

As I write this, there is a news item in the Times concerning a group of university students on a trip to the Yucatan, who on a lark, decided to spend several days hiking into the forbidden zone. On the fourth night of their adventure, one of the insect-like creatures attacked the students. However, instead of devouring them, it latched onto the stoutest of the lads and stabbed him with a previously hidden appendage, into his ample belly fat.

I now quote from the physician interviewed in the Times article: ‘The morning after the incident, the young human male had a slight fever but no other symptoms, and by the time they reached Campeche City, the fever had broken and he told the others he felt fine. So no mention of the incident was reported to the authorities, and the group returned to England.

But a week after their arrival, the student noticed the fat around abdomen had begun to shrink in direct proportion to a tumor that had begun to grow in the same area. Becoming quite disturbed, the young man came in, explained what had taken place, and begged that the tumor be removed. Physical examination showed the tumor to be a hard mass with little give, and X-ray studies revealed a curled up, insect-like creature inside it.

‘When I consulted with a physician in Campeche familiar with such cases, he advised removing the creature straightaway, but to seal the operating theater and be ready to subdue the parasite, as it was likely to become quite lively. Despite my skepticism, I followed his advice. Never have I been so glad to trust in another doctor’s wisdom. The moment I made the first incision with my scalpel, the creature burst out in a spray of viscera and blood, giving out the most horrendous of shrieks as it leapt off the table.

‘All of us leapt away ourselves in horror, except for one orderly, Joseph Smythe, who had brought a shock-sword he used as a piece in War Chess. He courageously swung at the creature as it looked for a way to escape, stunning it, then crushed its skull underneath the army boots he had decided to wear. Orderly Smythe deserves the Distinguished Conduct medal for what he did for us that day.

Sadly, the young man undergoing the procedure died on the operating table’.