SAC’BE’S END

“Kerry’s leg’s getting swollen, Ja,” Rune said as he knelt beside me.

I was sitting with the others of our group at the resting area right before the exit leading to Zotz-Na, the end of the line for the Sac’be, according to Ran-Li. Several of Professor Bella’s men watched us, their repeating rifles in their hands, while the rest finished eating. The fire inside the stone ring they sat around crackled and popped from the last of the firewood.

Firelight cast dancing shadows on the cavern walls, expanding outward into the darkness beyond the Terramagica lantern’s reach, as if ghostly spirits frolicked to a piper’s silent tune. Water rushed out of the rock to our far right, emptying into a chasm below and masking the muttered conversations in French I could barely hear. Rainbow raised her voice enough to be heard. “My offer to heal her leg still holds.”

“That’s kind of you,” Rune replied in a wary voice. “But why-”

“It’s not for her,” Rainbow said, “but for Jon. If her leg gets too bad, it’ll have to come off and he’ll have to be the one to do it.”

I grimaced. “I have put down sheep whose wounds got infected and helped with operations, but I have never had to amputate a limb.”

“Nor would I want you to,” my grandfather said. Since I had returned to him, he was acting more like the man I knew, though his face was drawn and haggard as if he was coming to the end of his strength. “I have watched battlefield surgeons cut off more limbs than I can remember, and it never becomes less gruesome.”

“I’m just grateful the piece of brass came out clean, don’t ya know.”

“So am I.” I replied. Professor Bella had directed the automaton to follow my instructions, two of its hands holding her down while the third had removed the shard. I got the bleeding stopped and cleaned the wound before dousing it with whiskey, Rainbow sewing it shut as that skill was beyond me. Both of us had feared infection despite our precautions and now the worst was coming true. “Rune, how hard is it going to be for Rainbow to overcome Dame Kerry’s resistance to Aethyr?”

He sighed. “Because of her human father, she’s got a lower affinity for Terramagica than other Koncava, but it’s still going to be hard, Ja. The only reason she survived the Ragnarok games is because they use human doctors along with Eldarions, or she’d be dead right now.” He regarded me for a moment. “This is late in coming, don’t ya know, but Kerry feels bad about keeping the truth from you. She wants to know if you’ll forgive-”

I held up my hand to stop him. “Both of you betrayed my trust. My grandfather,” glancing at him, then back at Rune, “taught me to hold myself to a higher standard than I would ever expect anyone else to meet. But some actions are unforgivable.”

My grandfather gave a firm nod of approval as Rune sighed again. “Ja, if I were you, I wouldn’t either. I told Kerry the scheme was mad when I was ordered to do it, and that it would likely kill both of us, but she only shrugged. ‘Death’s an old friend’, she said, and she’s got the right of it, don’t ya know. Death’s not what worries me.”

“So, what does?”

“It’s this Camazotz. What if it’s not natural but a demon from the old tales, who can rip your soul from your body as it kills you and take you along when it flies back to hell?”

“Then you better help me kill it first.” Professor Bella’s voice from the darkness made us jump. Ever since her revelation about being in a state between life and death, she had rarely spoken a word to anyone except Ran-Li, who treated Professor Bella no differently than she had before.

Now, everyone shrank back a bit as she strode up, her boot heels clicking on the stone floor. “Pack up your things and get ready to move. Ran-Li says ze stairs leading to Zotz-Na are very close, and that once we reach ze temple on ze edge of ze stone bowl where ze Camazotz lives, we need to be on our guard. She told me ze smaller Zotz creatures will not enter ze temple, but ze Camazotz might once it gets dark. So, we will set up a guard position as we make camp. If nothing happens, then we head down to ze place where it guards ze entrance to Xibalba, as Ran-Li believes.”

Disdain dripped from her voice as she spoke Ran-Li’s name, and did not leave it as she looked at Rainbow. “You will make yourself useful and heal ze Koncava whether she wants it or not. I am paying her to fight, not lounge around like ze lady of ze castle.”

“Kerry’s many things, but not a lady, don’t ya know.” Rune got to his feet and put his hand out to Rainbow. “We’re sword-bonded, which means if you’ll do this, I’ll owe you a debt, Ja.”

“You don’t owe me a thing,” Rainbow replied. She did accept the hand up, though, and walked with Rune towards the rear of the column as Professor Bella strode toward the front, shouting out orders in French to her men.

I watched her leave with a sour expression on my face, then let the anger go as best I could as I turned toward my grandfather. “Sir, are you ready to go?”

“Do we have a choice?” The weariness in his voice stung my heart, yet I kept it off my face as I helped him up, Catherwood rising up with us as well. Mr. Stephens scribbled furiously in his journal, and my grandfather said, “John, we need to leave.”

“Grant me a moment to finish this.” He continued writing for a few moments, finished, and closed the leather bound book. “There, the last encounter with her is documented.” He rose to his feet, placing the pencil and the journal in the lower side pocket of his trousers. “If I have to rely on memory, I find I begin to forget things.”

“John,” Catherwood said, his face taking on an expression of worry, “when the Zotz begin to show up, how is it going to affect you? I mean, remember after the attack, when you wanted to join them and-”

“That was years ago, when I was suffering the ill effects of their secretions,” Mr. Stephens said in a voice allowing no dissent. “I am healed, both in body and mind, and the Zotz shall have no more influence on me than they shall have on you or anyone else. You will see.”

Catherwood gave him a skeptical look but said nothing, helping me clean out the wooden bowls and cups we had been given to use, then packing them away into the canvas bag I slung over my shoulder as we joined the column beginning to march down the white road.

The sound of rushing water faded, replaced by the slap of leather boots on stone and the clop-clop-clop of the mechanical horse behind us, along with Dame Kerry’s feeble protests and Rainbow’s sharp responses, backed up by Rune’s calm voice. Part of me regretted not being able to forgive them, as they had not even known who I was before signing on with Professor Bella and had remained loyal. Yet I could not do so and remain true to my principles.

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Especially in front of my grandfather, who looked up at the stalactites hanging down from the cavern ceiling above us. “They remind me of the Sword of Damocles hanging over our heads. Jon, I fear I made a grave mistake, bringing us here.”

“Sir, you had no way of knowing that any of this would happen.”

He shook his head. “My instincts told me this was wrong, that I had dabbled in the affairs of forces far beyond my comprehension, and that someday, the price deferred would have to be paid. I should have remembered the legends about the Destroyer King, realized that unstable anarchists and evil cultists would see it as a way to achieve their long laid out schemes.” He sighed. “I should have listened to my instincts and not my intellect.”

I lowered my voice. “If I had remained in England, I would still be Professor Bella’s prisoner, if not now, then sometime in the future. Here, we have a chance of escape.”

“What chance?” His voice seemed shadowed with sadness. “We do not stand any hope of escape.”

“I believe we do,” I countered. “Jack does not strike me as someone who will give up easily, and you know the three Orkuteers will not as long as they draw breath.” That made him smile, comparing my friends to the characters in Alexander Dumas’ novel, and it encouraged me to add, “Besides, we have an ally Professor Bella knows nothing about.”

The laughter left his face as he frowned. “What do you mean, ally?”

With my hand, I motioned for my grandfather to lower his voice. “With all that has happened, I had no chance to speak of this, but while I was in the courtyard with Jack and Rainbow, I spoke with a strange older gentleman who may be related to the one you met in India-”

“No!” My grandfather’s voice echoed off the walls, causing everyone around us to turn and stare as he snapped, “This is foolishness. You must never allow-”

I put my hand over his mouth and shushed him as Professor Bella marched back towards us. “I heard shouting. Is aught amiss?”

“I am just trying to get my grandfather to ride with the automaton and save his strength.”

My grandfather seemed not to notice Professor Bella as he grabbed me by the shirt front. “I will not be quiet. You are not allowed to ever…” He clutched at his chest. “Ever… God no, not now.”

I caught him as he fell and eased him to the floor. “Sir, where are your ampules?” He attempted to slap his shirt pocket but fell short, and I reached into the opening to snatch them out, popping open the tin and scattering white webbed ampules everywhere as I grasped one and crushed it under his nose. The smell of dirty socks made me wrinkle my nose as his face relaxed, and the hands clutching at his chest flopped to his sides.

Catherwood and Mr. Stephens had already rushed over, Mr. Stephens kneeling down beside us. “Is he having another one?” I nodded, and he leaned over my grandfather. “Shabaka, stop being stubborn. You need to ride.”

Catherwood looked down with a sardonic smile. “Easier to order the sun to start rising in the west. Wait for the cart and then we will get him aboard.” Once the cart reached us we did so, the automaton ignoring us as we settled him in on the other side, across from Dame Kerry. He said nothing, his eyes reproachful as I got off the cart and joined the others behind it.

Professor Bella had remained aloof during the entire incident, and now looked past us at the automaton. “Unit.”

The automaton opened its mouth. “Unit recognizes primary user Commander Bella. What is the nature of your request?”

“Unit will describe directive if ze primary user is rendered unable to function, or has not been detected for over twenty-four hours.”

The flat metallic voice answered, “Unit is to hunt down and destroy all routine users. Once unit has fulfilled its directive, unit is to shut down and render itself permanently inactive.”

There was a mutual sharp intake of breath, my grandfather’s reproach forgotten as Professor Bella said, “Unit, return to scanning mode.” The automaton’s head went back to moving left to right and then back again, as Professor Bella smiled. “When ze Camazotz is dead and ze gold loaded aboard ze airship, there will be, shall we say, a temptation to see me out of your lives forever. Ze automaton is my golden… or, should I say brass, ticket to ride ze airship back to Copenhagen. Well, that and my Texans. And before you ask, they knew from ze beginning what ze automaton would do if I was double-crossed.”

“What about the shagtail airship captain?” Dame Kerry asked, her expression its familiar suspicious one as she waved in the general direction of Campeche. “She’ll double-cross you the moment she thinks she can get away with it.”

Professor Bella’s smile turned sly. “So long as Ivy remains captain, there is nothing to fear. Dear Ivy has a secret she has been keeping from ze crew, and were I to tell them, which she knows I would do if she betrayed me, they would turn on her at once. She has no illusions of their loyalty.”

“How did you find out?” I asked. Perhaps because I had already seen so much strangeness, knowing what she was no longer frightened me. “Did she inadvertently tell you?”

“No, it was ze professor whom you will meet once we are back in ze Olde Norse Empire.”

She would have gone on, except one of her men called out, “Commander Bella, the old witch says the exit is just ahead.”

“I will join you in a moment.” Professor Bella turned towards Rune. “It seems we have arrived at our destination. Since Kerry is down for ze moment, take a few men and scout out ze building, but do not go anywhere near ze great bowl. We will take it on at first light tomorrow.”

Rune hesitated until Dame Kerry gave him a feeble push. “Stop hovering over me and earn us some gold. Just don’t do anything stupid, because I shagging well don’t want to get up from this cart and save your sorry arse.”

The large Norseman gave her a derisive snort. “You’d fall off the cart and bruise yours on the stone floor, don’t ya know.” He bent down and gave her a fast kiss on the forehead, causing her to curse him out like Drog going after a wandering sheep. He only laughed and joined Professor Bella as the two of them headed towards the front of the column.

“The same goes for you,” Dame Kerry said to me as Bella spoke a word to the automaton horse before striding on, and the wagon started forward again. “No stupid heroics.”

“He won’t,” Rainbow said before I could, “because our daughter will grow up having a father.” She looked at me. “Even if he leaves and returns to England.”

My life, which my grandfather and I had planned out since I was a child, veered off course as I realized there might be another path. “Your mother told me if I came here, I might want to remain. Would you want me to?”

Dame Kerry barked out a laugh. “Stay here? Even if Bella died for real and the automaton as well, what would you do? Herd pigs?”

“If I had to,” I shot back.

“You won’t,” Rainbow said, glaring at Dame Kerry. “In our culture, the Eldarion have something called ‘First Union’, a ten year marriage of sorts with the member of another race, usually a human or a half-blood Eldarion, which gives us the chance to get our wilder impulses out of the way so we can settle down and bear full blood children for the good of our people. Cornflower…” Her voice broke. “Cornflower was mine. But I swear to you, Black Lion, that if you agree, I will ask the elders that my First Union be amended so I might finish it with you.”

“Jonathan,” my grandfather said in a weak voice, “what about your life? Your studies?”

“Sir, what if I return to England and find myself a prisoner again? Naamah said if I remained here I would be safe.”

My grandfather’s expression grew troubled as Dame Kerry said, “That’s nothing more than smoke blown up your arse. Bella’s got the whip hand, and I’ll bet you a gold piece she’s not going to lose it.”

“If I had a gold piece I would take that bet. I know I would lose, but if something happened to the automaton and her men that knocked the whip from her fingers, I swear I would find a way to get her out of all of our lives forever.”

Catherwood said, “Even if it meant killing her?”

I nodded. “Even that.” I thought Professor Bella was out of earshot, until she stopped in her tracks and turned around.

She only smiled.

One of the more positive rituals the half-blood ‘Shaman’ of the Eldarion-Maya do for tourists, is to perform ‘First-Union’ ceremonies. Not only for Eldarion females with human males, but for human couples as well, who commit to a ten year contract with another person (including same-sex and different races).

The First-Unions have an option to renew, if the couple returns to the Yucatan and undergoes the same process of reflection and counseling the shamans require of all candidates before the ritual is performed.

There is talk about expanding the practice to other parts of the world, and I for one hope this happens. The plan involves an Eldarion-Maya true shaman to train half-blood girls from other countries, and help them set up ‘Temples’ that would be not only for First-Unions, but also for the healing and other benign practices the shaman performs. First-Unions would remain the primary focus, however.

As I write this, the Union city of Las Vegas has expressed a keen interest in becoming host to the first one.