Joely Sue Burkhart

CHEERS!  The whole Maya short story, Well of Sky, is now up (for free) at Drollerie Press here.

Friday Snippet gang:  I’ll repost the link next week in case you’re not a regular reader here so you don’t miss out on the story. 

Look at that lovely lintel sculpture… That is *exactly* what inspired the sacrifice scene.

First off, a HUGE HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my dear friend, Wanda!  I can’t wait to see you in a few weeks! 

Last day to enter the Book Giveaway!

Continuing the Maya short story, Well of Sky:

Part One
Part Two

Shaded by a canopy of trees, Lady Jade Mirror sat atop a crumbling pyramid so old no one remembered when or who built it. Birds called and sang; insects hummed in accompaniment. The beasts of the jungle knew her better than the people of Itza’s Well.

The black jaguar lay beside her. Many times he’d followed her here. She’d always refused to acknowledge him. She refused to see him.

Heart heavy with shame even while fear shredded her belly with talons, she turned her gaze upon her jaguar companion. She looked into his golden eyes. She saw him, really saw him.

Stretching, growing, the jaguar became… a man.

Still dark skinned with hints of blacker spots down his arms, his shining black hair fell down his shoulders. Black spots tattooed his cheeks. His eyes glowed like lamps in the night, still jaguar eyes, and his teeth were sharp, white and gleaming against the shadows of his face.

“Lady,” he breathed, his voice low, growling with jaguar undertones. “I’m B’alam, your wayob and your guardian.”

She’d always known he wasn’t a real jaguar. That’s why she feared him so much. That’s why she’d refused to see him as anything more than a beast.

“Why me?” Her throat ached so badly she could barely speak. “Why do you follow me, stay with me even when I’m rude and blind?”

“All people have wayobs, but few see us. You, Lady, have seen the Otherworld, the home I sacrificed to guard our people.”

His rumbling voice was soothing and so familiar. How often he must have come in dreams, whispering to her, trying to lure her into seeing him and allowing him to speak. All these years, she’d worked so hard at forgetting. She’d blinded herself to magic, as if she could gouge out her own hated jade eyes and avoid the visions. She’d made myself mute and deaf and dumb. “Why did you make such a sacrifice?”

“Someone must guard the portals.” His lips curved and he lowered his head, staring up at her through a curtain of dusky hair. “Then I found you, and I knew.”

She couldn’t catch her breath. Such emotion gleamed in his eyes: admiration, longing, pain, fear, respect, chiding, and love. Open love, gleaming in those golden orbs. Her chest ached, and she could only muster a whisper. “Knew what?”

“You were too young to recognize me, but I knew. I guarded your dreams and trailed your steps in the hope that someday, you would see me and call me to you. I’m yours, Lady.”

She could drown in the molten gold of his eyes. “Portals? What portals?”

“You saw. You passed through.”

Heart hammering against her ribs, she jerked her gaze away and studied her hands clenched in her lap. White knuckled, fingers clamped into claws. “I don’t remember.”

“That’s why I’m here.” He leaned closer, enveloping her in his scent. Verdant jungles, fertile loam, and cacao. “You must remember, else our people will die.”

Shivering, she gripped her hands so hard they hurt. “I’ll explode into thousands of tiny pieces. I can’t, B’alam, I can’t bear it. So much pain and fear. Such–”

“Betrayal. You were a child, and you were betrayed.” He touched the back of her hand and a shudder ripped through her body. Muscles eased until her shoulders sagged and her chin rested on her chest. “Until you accept the pain of your abandonment and betrayal, you won’t remember the true message from the gods.”

“Help me,” she whispered, tears dripping onto her hands. “Help me remember.”

Gently, he pushed her back on the cool stone. He leaned over her, his shoulders blocking the sun trailing through the canopy of green. “Does this form frighten you? Would you rather receive my help as the jaguar?”

Staring up into his proud, chiseled face, she felt a lump in her throat. He was just as strong and handsome as Five Shield, but the tenderness and honesty in his eyes undid her. She swallowed that lump and a sweet warmth melted in her belly. “Like this. Please.”

Smiling, he stretched out beside her, his hair trailing over her face, her neck, her arm. Breathing in the scent of his hair, she smelled cacao, dark and bitter and rich, mixed with the deepest heart of the jungle. Her muscles unclenched. Her breathing steadied.

He touched her forehead lightly. “Close your eyes, Lady.”

She obeyed. Immediately, she stood at the edge of the Sacred Cenote with her parents. They bound her hands and feet, their gazes skittering away. They ignored her cries and flinched away from her clutching hands. One took her arms, the other her feet, and they tossed her in a wide flying arc, only to sink like a stone into the cold, dark water.

She shrieked, choked, flailed in the water. Alone. She was utterly alone.

:I’m here, Lady. I’m with you, always. Remember, and let the emotions roll through you, away, far away, never to hurt you again.:

She felt the child’s rage and fear. Her own parents had killed her. They had left her to drown, a horrible death. She’d loved them, trusted them, and they killed her!

Darkness claimed her, but she felt B’alam, the jaguar pacing, tail lashing her mind.

She sank deeper, and the blackness lightened until it was so bright she shielded her eyes with bound hands. A pyramid unlike any she’d ever seen before pierced the sky. The sun blazed at the peak, and the foundation blocks were as black as night, yet full of light, reflecting the sun in a multitude of rainbows.

A figure glided down from the sun, part serpent, part bird, brilliant quetzl plumage trailing against the black. Her heart stuttered with awe and terror and fearsome joy. Kukulcan, the Great Feathered Serpent, our god above all gods. Why would he come speak to her?

And then she realized something crucial. I must be dead.

This was nothing like she’d imagined Xibalba, the Place of Fear. No foul stenches and twisted demons. The jaguar stretched out on the ground, head on his paws, and she matched his posture, bowing before the god.

“The time will come when the Great Serpent will be cut. Raised-Up Sky will wither, its roots hacked and destroyed, its branches broken and abandoned. Our cities will lie as ruins, our people dispersed to the four corners, our civilization nothing but dust on the winds of time. I will be forgotten, and no blood will be offered. No blood, no vision. No vision, no future.”

She didn’t know she cried until the jaguar licked dampness from her cheeks.

“When the sun is eaten and the once-dead offers sacrifice, the Well of Sky will open. Send them home, child of Itza. Send them to me with the blood of your body. Else they will travail on the Road through Xibalba and the Great Serpent will never rise again.

“Open the Well of Sky.”

 

#She stared up at the broad leaves of the canopy. Cool stone, slightly damp, pressed against her back. B’alam’s solid warmth stretched out along her side, the weight of his thigh and arm across her. She turned her head and met his steady gaze locked on her face.  

“I know what I must do.”

He stroked his thumb down the curve of her jaw, smiling slightly. Yet his eyes were so solemn. It made her heart ache to look at him. She knew him beyond thought, as though the unseeing, unhearing part of her soul were made from the same breath of the gods. A great and fearsome magic tied them together.

“No magic, Lady.” He stroked her bottom lip with the pad of his thumb, and her belly tightened with heat. “Love.”

“But–”

Replacing his thumb with his lips, he rubbed his mouth against the curve of her jaw, lower, until he whispered against her lips. An obsidian curtain of hair slid over his shoulder to pool on her breasts. “I love you, Lady. I walk this life beside you.”

Her heart swelled with hope. I will never be alone again. “And the next life?”

Pain flinched across his face, his eyes hollowed with sorrow. “As guardian, I’m bound to this portal. As long as mankind walks this earth, until this age ends and a new creation begins, I will prowl the jungles and guard the Well of Sky from those who might misuse its magic.”

She cupped his face with both hands, memorizing the planes and chasms, the bridge of his nose, the curve of his lips. Glancing up at the sun and the dark maw slowly rising to swallow it, she made a decision. They had few precious moments left before this fragile world must end. “Then let us make the most of this life.”

And she drew him down to her.