The Serpent Road by Anthony James

Author:Anthony James [James, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: J.C. Productions
Published: 2017-10-06T06:00:00+00:00

For seven days, he mounted to the skies, and for seven days he went down into Xibalba; seven days he changed himself into a snake and really became a serpent; for seven days he changed himself into an eagle; for seven days he became a jaguar; and his appearance was really that of an eagle and a jaguar. Another seven days he changed himself into clotted blood and was only motionless blood.

— Popol Vuh, Part IV, Chapter 9

SEVENTEEN

Despite the ground’s warmth, they found themselves huddling together in the night, one next to the other as the breeze chilled them, coming and going, making them shiver. Tohil had never felt so cold. Once or twice, he woke during the night the trembling shaking his body. The moon was high, painting the vast expanse of water below them with silver. He could see there, in the darkness, marks of civilisation, slight glows where there were fires burning. One such deep smudge looked to be almost in a straight line from their position, directly down the mountainside and towards the water’s edge. He sat up at that point, fumbling out the map and trying to match their position, peering down at it in the moonlight, but it was too hard, and he tucked it away again, and lay back down, seeking the warmth of his companions. Xquic stirred and mumbled something in her sleep and then subsided again. He thought for a while, considering how strange it was that they lay there in the open, fires above them and fires below them on the coast, and if he considered it, probably fires directly beneath them as well. Eventually, he drifted back to sleep, dreaming of travelling a long road with fires burning across the entire land on either side, a great winged serpent soaring and diving against a black and red sky.

They woke together as the sun rose, touching the water with orange and yellow, making the water below look like beaten gold. Tohil had memorised the position of the fires he had seen in the night, and he pointed it out now.

“If we head almost straight down here, we can reach the water. I saw a fire down there last night. Maybe a village. We can ask for directions to the Great City.”

“But isn’t it on the map?” said Xquic.

“Yes, of course it is. But I don’t see this ocean, the shore, the islands. We should be able to see it from here, but I can’t see anything that looks like a city.”

“If there’s a city, there should be a road,” said Tepeu.

What he said made sense, but perhaps that was only presumption on their part. If not one road, then possibly many roads. That too could be, but still there was no indication. They had been able to see the white road from afar, like a pale scar across the landscape. Here there was just green lapped by water stretching as far as they could see.

They took turns attending to their

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