THE ONE WHO SMOKES
Startled, all three of us looked towards a different archway leading to the rear of the building as an old Maya man, with wrinkles deep as canyons and a long, scraggly beard, walked into the courtyard. His clothes were clean but carried in places dark stains, his tunic and trousers faded to the yellowish color of old bones. On his gnarled feet were sandals made of a piece of leather and straps of frayed rope.
Jack stared at him with a puzzled expression on the half-blood’s face. “Reckon I ought to know you.”
“Reckon you should,” the old man replied, his accent changing to the same strange one Jack had. “But don’t get your chaps in a twist over it. Kinubal knows me and that’s enough.”
Glancing to my left, Kinubal had gone still as a field mouse under a hawk’s shadow and without thinking, I moved until I was standing between them. “Might I inquire as to your name, sir?”
“You might,” he replied, answering me in the Queen’s English. “However, I fear I am not inclined to give it. Discourteous, to be sure, as I know all of yours, but there you have it.”
“Jonathan, please call him sir,” Kinubal said with a note of pleading in her voice. “He’s extremely well respected here.”
I began to wonder just who this old man was. “I would have done so regardless. To answer your question, sir, I believe it was for the better. My studies improved as did my relations with the rest of my family, and when my grandfather asked me to master a dance that has been in our family for countless generations, I did so with a glad heart. I made fast friends among those helping me rid our shire of Kobols, which lasted even after I was sent away to preparatory school by my father.”
He gave me a sly smile. “What of little Dayo’s friend Carl? Better, or worse?”
I could not help but sigh. “The Kobols severed a number of ligaments in Carl’s legs, crippling him for the remainder of his life. I fear his experience was for the worse.” I did not go into details, how Carl lived vicariously through my telling of each of our attacks, becoming despondent when the Kobols permanently fled our shire and I went off to school, but instead decided to change the subject. “Are you familiar with Kobols, sir?”
“Indirectly. Thousands upon thousands of years ago, they were a far more advanced race than they are now. However, they ended up on the losing side of a great war, suffering a severe degradation of both mind and body. A tragedy, really, but nothing to be done for it.”
I had never heard of Kobols being anything more than the spindly creatures I despised, and was not sure whether or not the old man was having a jest at my expense as he said, “By the way, do you mind terribly if my dog, Ripper, joins us? Though I must warn you: he is a vicious killer.” Before I could answer, he turned around, put his little fingers to his lips, and gave a piercing whistle.
A solid black puppy came bounding in through the archway. I laughed and knelt down as Little Ripper, which I named him in my mind, raced over and jumped on me to begin licking my face. Jack and Kinubal were both smiling as I said, “Yes, you certainly are ferocious.”
He began playfully chewing on my hand, nipping one of my fingers hard enough to draw blood, and I drew my hand back as I stifled a yelp. He stopped and began to whine. “I am not angry with you,” I told him as I scratched his head, letting him lick the cut with his tongue. “Just do not live up to your name on me.”
“He likes you,” the old man said.
I looked over at his deeply wrinkled face, the old man’s expression impassive as Little Ripper continued licking the blood away. “Please forgive my forwardness, but I do love animals. Especially dogs.”
The old man made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “There is nothing to forgive. Ripper is a good judge of character, whose opinion I trust.” He spoke a word that flowed like quicksilver; at once, Ripper left off and bounded over to the old man, turning around and sitting on his haunches as I rose to my feet. Jack gave me a wary look as the old man pulled two cigars out of his pocket. “Eldarions never smoke except as part of their native rituals, such as the ones the Eldarion-Apache perform, but humans smoke for the pleasure of it, as I do. Will you join me?” He held out one of the cigars.
“I would like to, sir,” I said with honest regret. “However, my grandfather maintains that cigars are a privilege reserved for adult males, which he does not yet consider me to be. So I must respectfully decline.”
“Even if he never knew about it?”
I shook my head. “I would.”
“As you wish.” The old man returned one of the cigars to his pocket and pulled out a wooden match, which he lit by flicking the match head with his thumbnail. It flared, and he spent a few moments lighting the cigar, which gave off a sweet smelling smoke reminding me of the pipes my half-Orku friends often enjoyed in the evenings after dinner.
Once he had it going, the old man blew out a long stream of smoke before fixing me with his gaze. “So, tell me how much you understand about the gift… or curse, that your ancestors have bequeathed to you.”
I hesitated, not sure how much to say to a stranger, and Kinubal said, “Among my people, he is considered wiser than anyone. Including my grandmother.”
“Then I will trust your judgment.” Kinubal raised her eyebrows as if taken aback as I turned towards the old man and began telling him what Professor Alar had discovered about my star-cells and how they could supposedly create monsters.
I was still skeptical, though, and I mentioned that as well, even more so about being a supposed gateway to the old gods. I made no bones about not believing this claim at all. “The very idea is absurd. I mean no disrespect, yet how can a human wield Aethyr, especially in the amount that must be required to bring one of the old gods to earth?”
The old man puffed on his sweet smelling cigar a moment before answering. “Just because you do not believe in something does not make it any less true. If you do not accept what you are, and sooner rather than later, then the unseen forces swirling around you shall tear you apart for their own ends.” He stabbed the glowing end of the cigar at my face. “You have an enemy among these so called old gods, the one who seeks to bend you to his will. He knows you are essential to his plans and will stop at nothing to bring you over to his side.”
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The logical part of me insisted this was ridiculous, yet I still felt a sharp stab of fear in my heart. “Who is it?”
The old man shook his head. “I will give you a scrap of lore free of any debt you would otherwise owe to me. Naming one of these so called old gods, or any other unseen spirit, draws attention to yourself. Your enemy has never had a foothold in the lands of the Eldarion-Maya, and even though he knows you are in Campeche City because of his agents, he is both blind and deaf here. The only way he will learn of what you do, is by what they tell him… that is, if they survive.”
“You are telling me there are spies here?”
He gave me a sly smile of yellowed teeth. “There are always spies. He dearly wants to know what will happen, yet he dares not send a small part of himself to find out, lest he disturb the one he fears. Tell me, do you know what a cenote is?” I shook my head. “A cenote is a hole in the rock beneath your feet that is filled with water, extending downward for a great distance.”
He puffed on his cigar as his other hand made an encompassing gesture. “This Earth you live on is a tiny part of the surface of a vast cosmic cenote, with monsters swimming below you that are so enormous, and so powerful, that they could destroy all of you with the same amount of effort you would use to destroy a colony of ants. However, they normally cannot break through the surface of the cosmic water and thus ignore you, engaged instead in activities you would find incomprehensible.”
“Normally.”
His sly grin returned. “There are ways for those who live on the surface to open gates to those who live below. Unfortunately, those who open these gates rarely understand what kind of cosmic forces they are setting in motion.” He motioned towards me with the cigar. “When your ancestors allowed their Eldarion masters to make you, Black Lion, the instrument of their revenge, the Eldarions thought they understood what they were doing.
“Instead, they bound you to something so outside their ken that they would have killed every one of the Goldspears down to the tiniest infant if they had realized what they had done.”
“If your intention is to frighten me, sir, I have to admit you are doing a fine job of it.”
“Good. You need to be afraid. The last time we had this conversation, you were so sure I was having a jest with you that you treated the Lord of the Night as if he did not exist, and it cost the entire expedition their lives.”
I gave him a puzzled look as Jack said, “Now just hold up there. Ain’t no way in hell or Tucson that he’s ever laid eyes on you.”
“Might be this ain’t our first rodeo together,” the old man replied. “And before you ask the Black Bastard in your head what I mean, I’ve already told him we’ve got to let you two hombres figure things out on your own. So let it lay.”
Jack’s eyes went wide as he turned pale, but the old man seemed to dismiss him as his gaze returned to me. “You have changed. There is more gravitas, more weight to your soul, and I believe this time around you actually stand a chance. Therefore, I have decided to help, beginning with lending you the aid of my dog.”
By now I was truly afraid of him and chose my words with care. “Little Ripper is quite young.”
The sly grin came back. “My dogs grow fast. You will see. Also, the cost of a child in Kinubal’s belly has been lifted from your grandfather. The captain continues to pay the price, and will do so until the promised child is conceived, yet if she decides not to become her grandmother’s ‘brood mare’,” Kinubal wincing as he continued, “then the dead will not come for Shabaka.”
A weight lifted off my shoulders despite the fear. “Sir, that would be a marvelous gift.”
He pulled the unlit cigar from his pocket and held it out. “Your refusal to accept my offer to smoke is the reason. Unlike before, you showed your grandfather respect by honoring his command to you and I feel it should be rewarded. Kinubal may refuse, yet she needs to realize that her mother’s last thought was regretting she would never be able to see her granddaughter.”
Kinubal’s eyes widened as the old man put the unlit cigar back in his pocket. “One last thing. You have two lockets in your pocket, one of hair, one of gold. One to give away and one to give back. I am curious to see what you will do when the time comes.”
Without another word he turned around and walked through the archway, Little Ripper bounding after him. Darkness swallowed them both, with only the lit end of his cigar floating in the blackness. Then the glow disappeared as well.
The three of us exchanged glances as we exhaled the breaths we had been holding as my grandfather’s voice behind us said, “Dreadfully sorry we are so late, but Campeche City is a marvelous place.”
As we turned around, I realized the garden was shrouded in deep shadows that had not been there a moment before as the expedition, including Miss Ravenwood and Dame Kerry, walked in from the cantina. The Koncava was in the middle of berating Rune, who was yawning. “…sleeping when you’re supposed to be watching them.”
The big man motioned towards us. “He’s standing right there, Ja. I would’ve known if someone had tried to leave.”
Dame Kerry snorted. “Like you noticed us coming in? You were snoring so loud you were shaking the table. I-”
“Grandmother,” Kinubal called out, “I’ve changed my mind.” Dame Kerry and everyone else stopped talking as Kinubal’s expression became uncertain. “I just want a little time to convince myself I’m doing the right thing.”
My grandfather strode towards her and held out his hands. “My dear, take all the time you need. In fact, if you would like to ask me about your mother, or anything else, I am at your disposal.”
Kinubal let him clasp her hands as she gave him a hesitant smile. “I would like that.”
He gave her a gentle one in return. “Excellent. I hope that in return, you will share more about life here-” Grandfather stopped and sniffed the air. “I say, was someone smoking?”
“That’d be me,” Jack said quickly, hooking a thumb in my direction. “Old Hoss here was asking about Apache rituals, and I took out my pipe and showed him the one about cleansing the spirit.”
My grandfather gave him a puzzled look. “Old Hoss?”
Jack shrugged. “When I got kicked out of the tribe, they let me keep my hoss, who was all black and had a long, solemn-looking face.”
To my chagrin, most of the expedition laughed, until Jack fixed them with his icy blue glare. “Go ahead and have a hog-killing time at his expense, but if it weren’t for that hoss, I wouldn’t be here. Me and that hoss fought like Kilkenny cats to keep each other alive and for a time, he was the only friend I had in the world.”
“You have one more, now,” I said without thinking.
He looked at me and nodded as the ghost of a smile played at his lips. “Reckon we both do.”
I thought for a moment of what my father would say if I brought Jack home, and then something else. “All I ask is that you not call me that around my sisters, or I will never hear the end of it.”
Jack’s smile turned wicked. “Don’t think I can promise that.”
There was more laughter as Miss Ravenwood called out, “Dinner’s almost ready and the bar’s open for business. First drink is on me.”
There was enthusiastic acceptance among most of the group as they turned around and headed back the way they had come. Even my grandfather was smiling, and I realized his expression was one of relief as Jack’s hand on my shoulder stopped me from joining them. Glancing over, I saw he had the other on Kinubal’s as he said in a quiet voice, “Reckon we should keep talk about the old-timer to ourselves.”
Kinubal bobbed her head and I did the same, as the sweet scent of the Old Man’s smoke dissipated on the wind and was gone.
Regardless of how far scientific progress advances, there will always be mysteries that defy explanation…