12.21

PROLOGUE

HE STANDS SILENTLY IN THE MOONLIGHT AGAINST THE WALL OF the temple, the small bundle held tightly under his arm. The sisal wrapping chafes against his skin, but he welcomes the feeling. It reassures him. In this drought-stricken city, he would not trade this package, even for water. The ground beneath his sandals is cracked and dry. The green world of his childhood is gone, and he is beginning to wonder if soon he will be too.

Satisfied that the temple guards haven’t detected his presence, he hurries toward the central square, where artisans and tattoo-painters once thrived. Now it is populated only by beggars, and beggars, when hungry, can be dangerous. But tonight he is lucky. There are only two men standing by the east temple. They have seen him before, and they know he gives to them what he can. Still, he holds the bundle close as he goes.

At the boundary between the central square and the maize silos, there is a guard posted. No more than a boy. For a moment, he considers burying the bundle and returning for it later, but the earth is dust, and the winds drive through fields where trees once stood. Nothing in this parched city remains buried for long.

He takes a breath and continues walking forward.

“Royal and Holy One,” calls the boy. “Where are you going?” The boy’s eyes are tired, hungry, but spark when they take in the bundle under the man’s arm.

“To my fasting cave.”

“What are you carrying?”

“Incense for my dedications.”

The man tightens his arm around the parcel and prays silently to Itzamnaaj.

“But there has been no incense at the market for days, Royal and Holy One.” The guard’s voice is jaded. As if all men lie now to survive. As if all innocence has fled with the rains. “Give it to me.”

“Warrior, you are right. It is not incense but a gift for the king.” He has no choice but to invoke the king’s name, though the king would have his heart ripped out if he knew what he was carrying.

“Give it to me,” the boy says again.

The man reluctantly obeys.

The boy’s fingers unwrap the bundle roughly, but when the sisal falls away, he sees disappointment in the young guard’s eyes. What had he been hoping for? Maize? Cacao? He does not understand what he has seen. Like most boys in these times, he understands only hunger.

Rewrapping it quickly, the man hurries away from the guard, offering thanks to the gods for his good fortune. His small cave lies at the eastern edge of the city, and he slips through the opening undetected.

There are cloths spread across the floor, placed here in preparation for this moment. He lights his candle, sets the bundle at a careful distance from the wax, then carefully wipes his hands. He drops to his knees and reaches for the sisal. Inside is a folded stack of pages made from the bark of a fig tree, hardened with a glaze of limestone paste.

With the great but seemingly effortless care of a man who has trained for this act his entire life, he unfolds the paper. Twenty-five times it has been doubled back on itself, and when it is completely unfurled, the blank pages stretch across the width of the cave.

From behind his hearth, he gathers three small bowls of paint. He has scraped cooking pots to make black ink, shaved rust from the rocks to make red, and searched fields and riverbeds for anil and clay to make indigo. Finally, he makes a puncture in the skin of his arm. He watches the crimson rivulets run over his wrist and into the bowls of paint before him, sanctifying the ink with his blood.

Then he begins to write.