Words of Love

chapter FIVE



“I’ll turn on the generator,” Brett said, his blue eyes sparkling.

Suddenly, Jesse flashed on an image from last night of his face hovering over hers. As he jumped over the medical box and headed for the cave entrance, she stared at his broad back and shoulders and remembered his naked body–his perfect body. She watched as he stopped and took a cloth from a bulky shape next to the wall. She put on her glasses to see at a distance. He was backlit at the mouth of the cave with the dim light that shone through the rain but she could see that he had turned around. He stood with his feet apart, the triangle of his upper body matching the one formed by his legs. Even from here she could see the outline of his thighs. He raised his hand, pointing.

“Look the other way,” he yelled.

She turned around and peered into the impenetrable gloom.

The generator begrudgingly sputtered and then chugged, and suddenly flood lamps on high metal stands in front of her blazed to life.

The metal cup slipped from her hand and she heard it hit the floor but she couldn’t take her eyes away from the incredible sight in front of her–a Mayan city. The floodlights didn’t light it all but what she could see was breathtaking. The cavern arched impossibly high above. In fact, she couldn’t even see the roof. It had to be enormous because the buildings themselves were huge.

Though she’d never been on a site in her life, she knew what she was seeing. Their camp was located just outside the main plaza, where four buildings faced one another. She stood at one corner of it looking up at the sides of two of the stone buildings.

Suddenly, Brett was at her side.

“It’s…it’s…” she tried.

“I know,” said Brett, his voice brimming with excitement. “Sometimes I forget what it was like the first time I saw it.”

“But… but…”

She shook her head.

A Mayan city built inside a cave–inside a mountain.

“Unbelievable,” she said, and yet she was seeing it, a central complex of massive stone architecture.

Other finds in caves were not unknown but they were rare. The Maya had a profound connection to the underground and places of deep water. But she was fairly sure there had never been anything of this magnitude.

No wonder he had been so secretive.

She realized his hand was around her waist just as he was removing it. She’d been about to try and stop him but he was already handing her a lantern.

“Here, I’ve got to show you,” he said.

She took it but her eyes never left his face. He was elated. She stared at his smiling lips.

“This way,” he said, taking her hand.

He led her into the plaza, surrounded on all sides by different buildings. Although the three nearest them were massive and ornate, in the Classic Maya style, it was the round temple at the far end that dominated. It was barely visible in the dimness but clearly it was the focus of the cluster of ruins. Though ruins was hardly the right word to describe what she was seeing. The stonework, the stairs on the buildings closest to them, the carvings–it looked pristine. And there were glyphs everywhere. She tried to take it in all at once, her eyes darting all over, her head swiveling from side to side. But she could see where they were headed. At the base of the building to the right, centered at the bottom of its wide staircase, was a group of three stelae.

“Oh my god,” she muttered, as she dropped his hand and ran to them.

They were still painted.

Three vertical slabs of stone, each about six feet high and three feet wide, were set into the ground in a line. The lord of this city would have used these to proclaim his authority and dominion. She took off her glasses and began reading before she had even reached it.

“In the seventh katun,” she said, reading the bars and dots of the number system. “The Lord of,” she stared at the glyph, not quite believing what she was reading. “The Lord of Xibalba rules this city.”

Xibalba?

Xibalba was the dark underworld.

“The lord of the people of the south is the first of men. Ix-Kan-tacay is the name of the first of the men of the Puch family,” she continued.

Her hands danced over the colored glyphs–so much like the Spanish manuscripts and yet not quite. Their deep burnt umber colors and bright yellows were amazing. She quickly circled to the other side and had to step back.

Ix-Kan-tacay, depicted life-size, seemed almost alive. His head was turned in profile and his plumed feather headdress flowed over his shoulders and back. She lightly touched them as though they might be real. He wore jade bracelets, anklets, and ear flares. Her mind registered the details, cataloguing and comparing them to other images she’d seen. He was unique, she was sure of it. But there were no more glyphs on this side and she raced to the next stela.

Although the K’iche language sounded in her head, what came out of her mouth was English.

“Here on earth I am beloved and have all that belongs to me. The maiden of Xibalba rules this city.”

She quickly circled around to the back of this one as well.

It was a woman. And as Jesse neared, she knew who it had to be.

“Ixquic,” she whispered. “Blood Moon.”

The daughter of the Lord of Xibalba.

But that would mean–

She raced to the final stela.

Jesse quickly circled to the front of the first stela in the line.

“I am Cuchumaquic,” she read. “I am the Blood Gatherer on my throne. I am…”

She held the lantern next to the last row of glyphs and froze.

“I am the Lord of Tulan Zuyua,” she breathed.

The birthplace of the Maya.

She quickly circled to the back and nearly had to turn away. There he stood in all his grisly glory.

Like his grandson on the third stela and his daughter on the second, the founder of the city stood in profile. His intricate headdress rose impossibly high, decorated with skulls, feathers, and symbols meant to be smoke. In his hand, was the severed head of an enemy, held by the hair, someone who’d been used as a sacrificial offering.

Was it the vivid painting or was there something particularly macabre about this portrait?

Though Jesse wanted to avert her eyes, she found she couldn’t and slowly sank to her knees.

Blood dripped from the severed head and the Great Lord stood on the man’s prostrate body.

Slowly, she reached out her hand and touched the poor victim’s delicately carved fingers. Then she looked up at his slayer.

“Cuchumaquic,” she whispered. “Blood Gatherer.”



• • • • •



Brett couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It was as though Jessica had entered a different reality. To say that she was in her own world when she quoted Mayan texts was one thing but this was something else entirely. It was almost like a trance.

She ran her fingers over the glyphs and the words just poured out of her. It had taken him weeks to puzzle this out. He’d nearly built a library back at the camp to help decipher it. He was pretty sure some of these glyphs were completely unknown. He’d had to mix and match parts of other glyphs to create something that seemed reasonable.

But she was doing it all in her head.

Even knowing what it read, he could barely keep up with her.

Her pronunciation of the K’iche was mesmerizing. It was soft and nuanced, as though she was a native speaker–a strange mix of soft sounds like French and quiet clicks.

“Shee-bal-bah,” she muttered, giving the X its soft “sh” sound.

Suddenly, she was on to the next stela.

It was as though she were consuming it, going fast, like speed-reading. She was already on to the third.

Incredible.

He stayed right behind her, though she was oblivious to him. This was the important one. He didn’t want to miss it. He tensed as her hands ran over the glyphs, top to bottom. And then her breath caught.

Slowly, she uttered the words that he’d been waiting to hear. The words that he dared hope he’d gotten right.

“Tulan Zuyua,” she whispered.

He could have screamed, shouted it to the world, but he didn’t.

“Yes,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “I knew it.”

Legendary, mythic, and impossible. He’d found the birthplace of the Maya, the realm of Blood Gatherer, the Red King, and the first Maya lord.

Now she went to the back of the stela, as though drawn there by the Great Lord himself. As she stared at it, she went to her knees.

“Cuchumaquic,” she whispered. “Blood Gatherer.”

He knelt next to her.

She was breathing hard through parted lips, with one hand resting on the stela.

“Can you believe it?” he said, hardly able to contain himself.

Until this moment, he hadn’t realized how badly he’d wanted to share this with somebody.

“The Red King,” he said. “Here.”

She didn’t move.

“Jessica?”

Though her eyes were open, there was a glazed look to them. Her pupils were huge and she was still breathing hard.

“Jessica?” he tried again and touched her outstretched arm.

She slowly blinked and then swallowed.

“Jessica?”

Then she looked at his hand on her arm and finally to his face. She was smiling.

“The Red King,” she said quietly.

He knew he must be grinning like a kid.

“I know,” he gushed. “You see why I couldn’t tell anybody.”

As far as the rest of the world knew, the Red King was a myth. His city, Tulan Zuyua, was a part of a migration fable, a story the Maya told in order to legitimize their rule by divine right.

But some fables had a basis in fact and the Red King was one.

Jessica nodded and looked back up at the stela.

“The paint,” she said quietly.

“Perfectly preserved in the cavern,” he said, nodding. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I have,” she said, still looking at it.

“What?” he said.

Nearly every free moment that he wasn’t here, he was researching similar sites, similar glyphs, and the other sites in the area. There was nothing with this kind of preservation of color.

“Where?” he asked.

“In my head,” she said. She slowly turned to him. “Would you think I’m crazy if I told you I’ve always seen the glyphs like this?”

“I don’t understand,” he said. “You see them colored? I thought you’d never been to the field?”

“I haven’t,” she said, finally taking her hand off the stela. “It’s just that…even in black and white photos, this is how I see them.”

He stared at her and then at the stela.

“Not like these colors,” she said. “But ever since I can remember, from the very first time I saw an image of a Maya panel, I saw colors.”

He looked back to her.

“That’s how I remember the glyphs or the texts that I read,” she said, quietly. “Everything has a color and some things...” She looked up at the stela. “Some images and words have a feeling.”

He looked up at the image of the Red King holding the severed head of an enemy, a standard Maya portrait of power. She had actually recoiled from that image.

“The Blood Gatherer deserves his name,” she said. “I don’t know why but…it’s not a good thing.”

He scowled at the image. It seemed like the usual.

“Where are the other six caves?” she said.

His head whipped around and he knew his mouth must be open.

“Popol Vuh,” she said, smiling. “It says there are seven in all.”

“You’re amazing,” he said. “You know that?”

A shy little smile appeared on her lips and she looked down at the lantern.

She was amazing, in more ways than one. Her hair had dried now, in long red waves that framed her face. The light hazel of her eyes stood out when they weren’t behind the glasses, which were hooked at the front of her tank top.

He slowly reached a hand down to her chin and tilted it up as he leaned in. But just before their lips touched, he paused. He didn’t want it to be like last night, the frenzied aftermath of a brush with death.

But then, she slowly closed the small distance.

Her lips barely moved, as though she was unsure. For his part, he was very sure but he kissed her lightly in return. He didn’t move his fingers from her chin, but he fought the urge to hold her face or draw her forward. Her lips were tender and soft and she seemed content to simply linger in that moment. And suddenly, she wasn’t the quiet and bookish girl who kept to herself but a strangely gifted young woman. With a small final pressure on his lips, he realized she was drawing back and he reluctantly let her go.

She slowly opened her eyes with that dreamy smile of hers. Then she focused on his face.

“Are there more glyphs?” she asked.