Xibalba: The Room of Loneliness.

[This episode answers the question: Where was Chimalmat while her husband was being killed? Why did she leave his side when she knew he was in such terrible danger? When I thought about it, I realized there could be only one possible answer.]

When the ghost reached the hills, he wandered through them until he found a cave opening. Entering it, he passed through a dark tunnel with doors on each side. Each door contained the answer to a different question.

The ghost knew, of course, that like everything here in Xibalba, each room contained trials and traps. He knew that the answer would come with a price.

There were many questions that he could have asked, but one in particular was at the top of his mind now. He focused on the inquiry, framing it clearly in his thoughts, and spoke: "I want to know why I am alone."

One of the doors slowly swung ajar. The ghost stepped through it.

Inside the small, dark cave, there was total blackness. The ghost waited quietly. Then, a torch flared into luminosity from out of the darkness, casting its light on a painting on the opposite cave wall. As the ghost watched, the picture grew more and more lifelike until it became a moving vision.

The scene showed a sumptuous room, filled with objects of art and beauty. On the opposite wall was a great mural painting showing a resplendent landscape, a city of stone terraces and pyramids rising out of lush forest, over which shone a brilliant sun with multicolored rays. Standing in the room was a man who seemed as ornately wrought as all the other things. He wore rich jewelry and a majestic headdress embellished with feathers and flowers; and, most wondrous of all, wings hung on his back, so cunningly fashioned that one could not tell if they were real or a feathered cloak.

But his face was not attractive..Although it, too, was covered with fine ornaments, the decorations seemed only to cover over the evidence of a hideous disease. Blood and pus dripped from a gaping wound in his lower jaw. His skin was puffy and inflamed, bulging in purple welts around the shining silver that covered his nose and ringed his eyes. The eyes themselves were strange to see: made of pure molten metal that shone like the sun. But they, too, were marred: their golden light flickered erratically with a feverish gleam.

If he was once as beautiful as he is now hideous --- thought the ghost.

The man in the picture seemed so ill and exhausted that he could barely keep standing. Yet his damaged face held an expression of stubborn, defiant will. As the ghost watched, the man turned to gaze into an obsidian mirror hanging on the wall. He lifted his hand to wipe at his jaw with a piece of cloth, and gave a muffled sob of pain. His eyes moved to meet the burning orbs in the reflection, and, for a few moments, he stared at the ruin he had become.

And, as the ghost watched the man watching himself in the mirror, a sudden shock of recognition came to him: He was the man in the vision. He, himself, was the man with the beautiful clothes and ugly face.

Before the ghost could recover from his shock,  the door opened, and a woman entered. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. If the man's glory was like the Sun and Moon, hers was like all of the stars put together. She had the wild, rugged beauty of the Wooden People; her skin was like fine mahogany, chiseled and polished to perfection. Her long, black hair hung down her back like a river of shining obsidian. Like the man, she was winged, with the radiant plumage of a macaw; and she was clothed only in living feathers that grew from her naked flesh.

And, just as the ghost had recognized himself, he suddenly knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that this marvellous woman was his wife.

In the vision, the feathered woman spoke, and her voice was as pure and melodious as a songbird's. "The household business is taken care of, husband. What do you wish now?" She regarded the man with tender concern

The man sighed wearily as he seated himself on a floor mat. "I wish to be left alone today," he replied. Alhough the words were spoken calmly, without anger, they still sent a chill through the ghost's heart.

As he watched, the woman knelt down beside her stricken mate. Her brow was furrowed with anxiety, but she spoke calmly and softly.  "My husband, I do not think it good that you should be alone now. You are still very ill, and your enemies might come after you."

"Do not worry, my dear." The man turned to take her hand reassuringly. "I can take care of myself. And I need  time to focus, to concentrate fully on healing myself." He let out another sigh of pain.

The woman bent over to lean her head against the man's shoulder, nestling in his feathers, holding him tightly as if he were a precious object. The ghost caught his breath; he was mesmerized by the clear, noble lines of her face, her long, straight hair flowing down her shoulders like a black waterfall. "My love," she pleaded, "is it not time that we seek the aid of other healers? It has been three days now since you were shot. It grieves me to see you suffer so."

But the man in the picture was deaf to her plea. He turned aside, saying, "I will not let the Twins say I am a lesser god than they. They may have wounded me, but they will not humiliate me." His molten eyes flared with anger, directed not toward his wife but toward his absent foes.

"Then do you truly wish me to leave?" the woman asked, her face still buried in the feathers of his wing.

The  man squeezed his wife's hand gently. "Just one day, my dear. Surely you can do without me that long?" he jested, as if trying to make light of the situation.

The woman raised her head with calm, stoical dignity. "If you wish it, my lord, then I shall."

"Until tomorrow, then, my lady, when I shall be well again, and the sun will rise golden and bright," the man said. He lifted her slender brown hand, as if about to kiss it; but, considering the condition of his mouth, he decided against it and simply pressed her hand between both of his own.

"Until tomorrow," the woman replied. She got up, and turned to go, her tall form moving with the smooth, polished grace of a proud woman of Wood. She headed toward the door, turning to look back at him just once, with a sorrowful, lingering gaze in her dark eyes.

The sick man was oblivious to her now. He stared at the wall, huddled in his ruffled feathers, lost in his own misery.

The ghost watched the beautiful bird-woman turn back to the door. He saw her walk away with straight, proud steps. He saw the long line of her black hair hanging down her back. He saw her open the door. He saw her go through. He saw her straight back moving away. He saw the door close.

As he gazed at the closed door, the vision faded, along with the flame that cast it, leaving only empty blackness.

The ghost knelt in the cold darkness, covering his face. A wave of intense woe washed through him, too deep for words. For he knew that had been the last time he had ever seen his wife.

What have I done? he thought. I turned away from the one whom I should most have loved and trusted. I sent her away, when she wished only to care for me.

Would he ever find her again? the ghost wondered. And, more important, would she still want him?

The ghost got up shakily to his feet, and headed toward the door of the cave. He knew the answer to his question now: He was alone simply because he had chosen it, and the choice had led to his death.

The price of this knowledge was simply the knowledge itself.

And he knew one other thing: The punishments imposed by the gods are not always the worst ones.

Xibalba: The Room of Re-membering, Part 2.

As the ghost sorted through his bones, he began to find bird bones mixed together with his human bones. At first, he was puzzled; but all the bones seemed to belong there, to be part of him.

As he reassembled his human skeleton, he began to put together the bird skeleton, too. He found its skull and beak, its vertebrae, the fine, fragile bones of its wings, and its legs. As the bird took shape, he saw that it was a parrot, a macaw.

Memories came with the bird-bones, too: first, only vague impressions, animalistic feelings; the sensation of movement, of flight, of being guided by instinct. Then, as the parrot's form began to take shape, he got his first clear memory:

Long ago, when both he and the world were young, this bird had come to him, beneath the branches of a marvellous tree. The bird had diamond eyes and plumes as radiant as the rainbow. It had shone its eyes at him, fluttered its beautiful feathers, and it had spoken.

But now, the bird did not move or speak. It lay on the rock, lifeless and inert. The diamonds were gone from its eyes; there were just empty sockets in its skull.

The ghost searched for the diamonds, looking everywhere, in the dirt, under rocks. Finally, he found one tiny, broken piece of diamond. He held it in his skeletal hand, puzzled, wondering what it meant.

Then, he remembered something he had learned as a miner: Only diamond can cut diamond.

All at once, he knew what it signified: He, and only he, was responsible for the bird's destruction. Whatever other factors had been involved, his own choices had brought about its final demise.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to the bird-spirit. "I'm sorry that I failed you." But the bird did not answer. It was dead -- far more dead, perhaps, than the ghost himself.

Sitting on his rock, the ghost held the dead bird's remains to what was left of himself, and he cried for a long time.

Nonetheless, the bird's bones were still his; they belonged to him. And, although the little skeleton was now nothing more than a symbol of despair, he couldn't bear to leave it behind. So, when he had finished assembling the skeletal macaw, he hung it inside his rib cage, so he could carry it with him, inside him.

The ghost continued his work of rebuilding himself. As he put together his legs, he gained memories of walking and climbing, of wandering through the world. There was something strange about these memories: he seemed to have seen too many places, done too many things, for the life of just one person. He wondered, perhaps, if he was just recalling stories he had heard of other people' lives. But that could not be true, for the figure in the scenes who moved and acted was always himself.

And, lastly, he put together his feet, adding each tiny bone until all ten of his toes were complete. His feet gave him knowledge of dancing. He danced, sometimes alone, sometimes with a woman. He still didn't see her face; he was only aware of her body, her movements, her long black hair floating around her like wings.

When his skeleton was whole, his spirit-energy began to knit together around it. As the ectoplasm folded itself into place, closing over his frame, it began to take on a darker hue, an echo of the rich coppery brown of his living skin. A ghostly cascade of jet-black hair draped to his shoulders, wispy as spider-silk. He reached back and knotted it into a ponytail.

Well, he thought, I am now as close to being myself again as I can be for now.

He still did not know who he was, but he knew some things about himself: He was a miner; he had dug precious things out of the dark earth. He had created things of beauty. He was a man of knowledge, a scholar. He had travelled all over the world, in search of its wonders and marvels. He had danced, he had flown, and he had loved. He had raised children.

But he also knew two other things:

First, he had terrible enemies. The Twins, the one who had tortured him, had power over time. Somehow, they had actually changed the way time worked. He didn't understand it; he only felt horror that such merciless forces existed in the world. And he knew that those two were not his only enemies.

And, second, through some act of folly, he had let what was most precious to him die. Therefore, he was truly one of the accursed.

Nonetheless, he began to move his creaky bones, stretching himself, swinging his arms and legs. While he limbered himself, he thought: What's done is done. I have regained my ability to move, speak and act; I will never give that up again. Those are my treasures now.

And so he got up from the rock, and set off across the barren landscape of Xibalba.

Xibalba: The Room of Re-membering, Part 1.

He was only a pile of white bones, lying on the dry, dusty ground.

He could not move nor speak nor think. He simply lay there, a scattered heap of bones, motionless, except when the wind occasionally rattled and rolled them in the dust.

Time went on; perhaps days or months or years passed by in the world of the living, while the little ghost's spectral skeleton lay broken and inert on the desolate plain of Xibalba.

Finally -- after how long, he could not tell -- the ghost began to awaken to himself, becoming vaguely aware that he was lying there in the dust. He became aware that he was no longer in one piece. His skull lay alone, on top of a rock, with the rest of his bones strewn around it in the dirt.

He was nothing but a pile of dead bones, inert and motionless. But he began again to feel. He ached and yearned to move again. He yearned to move and speak. He ached so much he could not bear it.

So, he began to look for his pieces, to put them back together. First, he felt the round shape of his skull, enclosing what was left of his mind. His skull had no eyes, ears, or other sense organs, but he could see and hear with his spirit senses. He realized that his skull was not whole; the lower jaw was missing.

The ghost reached out with his spirit-senses to search the space around him. He found the jawbone lying on the ground a few feet away. He sent out a wispy, luminous filament of spirit-energy to draw it back to him -- but the moment his spirit touched the jawbone, he recoiled. The jaw was nothing but clean, dry bone, but its touch brought forth a hideous memory: something putrid, honeycombed with worms and pus, with the foul taste of rotting bone and pulp. Accompanying this loathesome image was a sensation of unbearable pain, throbbing, aching, burning; a sickening feeling of nausea and fever.

That jawbone was the very last thing that the ghost ever wanted to touch. But he knew that if he didn't put it back on, he'd never speak again. And he didn't want to go through all eternity without being able to talk.

So, he curled a luminous fiber of energy around the bone, and, slowly, bit by bit, began to tug it back towards him. With each inch that he moved it, more agonizing sensations filled his awareness. The ghost wanted to scream, but without a mouth, he couldn't make a sound.

Finally, he succeeded in moving the lower jaw into its proper position. Steeling himself, he popped the hinges of the jaw back into place.

Instantly, as the joint snapped back together, a terrifying memory erupted in his mind:

He was falling from an immense height, from a tree with green leaves. The blue sky was rushing away upward; the wind was roaring past him like a hurricane. Then, the ground struck him from beneath like an earthquake.  It seemed like the whole world around him was smashed, shattered, flattened by the terrible impact. He lay crushed, motionless, in agony beyond imagining.

It took the ghost a while to recover from the shock. He knew that what he had just seen and felt was impossible. Surely, nothing mortal could have survived such a fall to see or feel anything at all afterwards. And, if he was not mortal, what was he doing here in Xibalba?

But, his confusion had to remain unresolved for now. He tested his jaw, clacking it open and shut. He could make his mouth move as if he were talking, but he still had no words. He realized that he still had to find his teeth.

Again, he sent out his senses to search. His teeth were all scattered about, lying in the dust, or underneath rocks, or jumbled amidst his other bones. One by one, he picked them out from where they were hidden and drew them back to his mouth, setting each into its proper place. As each tooth went in, there was a stabbing jolt of pain, like a tooth being pulled, but in reverse. The teeth were just plain, white bone, but mixed together with the feelings came flashes of color, green, blue, aquamarine and turquoise, and strange hieroglyphic symbols. He saw the blue sky, the clouds.

As his teeth went back into place, his powers of language and reason also returned to him. His thoughts, which had previously been just swirling images, began to shape themselves into clear words. He was able to name and describe what he felt. He still hurt terribly, but his fear was eased, because the words gave him power and control over his experience.

Finally, his head was complete. He took a little time to savor his achievement: a polished, white skull perched on a rock like a throne, surrounded by the rest of himself. Then, he began to put together the remainder of his skeleton. With his wispy, coiling tendrils of ghost-mist, he found the bone pieces, one by one, and put them back where they belonged: the vertebrae of his neck, the sockets and blades of his shoulders, the long column of his back. As each piece was reattached, flashes of memory came with it, shards of visions and feelings.

As he put together the long bones of his arms, he saw himself standing in a cave, a mine, swinging a tool with powerful strokes, as he dug shining metals, crystals and gems out of the dark earth. From the bones of his hands, he received the feelings of touching a woman's flesh; the touch was tender and gentle, and the memory filled him with an inexpressible yearning and longing. With his fingers came the sensations of holding a stylus and quill pen, of writing and drawing, of skillfully making things. And his spine gave him the knowledge of carrying children on his back, lifting them on his shoulders, holding them up so they could see the moon and the sunrise.

[To be continued.]

Xibalba: The Room of Winding.

The ghost stepped toward the next door of black obsidian. There was an ominous sound coming from behind the door: a sound of creaking and grinding, the screeching of metal. The ghost knew that whatever was behind that door wouldn't be very pleasant. For a moment, he wondered: Why? What have I done to deserve this kind of afterlife? But he knew there was only one way to find out; and it lay through that door, and all the other doors that followed. So he gritted his teeth, opened the door, and quickly stepped in before he had time for second thoughts.

Immdiately, he was seized by two giant figures, twins, one dressed in gold and radiating golden light, the other dressed in silver and shining with pale light. He did not know who the twins were; he only knew that they were his enemies.

The Twins laughed and gloated over him. "You are ours!" they cried. "It is our time now; we own the days and years, and you shall be broken on our wheels."

"You are only demons," the ghost said angrily. "You are surely no more than the other fiends in the pits of Xibalba."

"We will show you what we are," the Twins replied. They took the ghost high up into the night sky, where he could see the universe.

All the cosmos had become one great clockwork. The ghost had never seen so many wheels in one place. Everywhere there were gears gripping other gears in their iron teeth, wheels spinning on axles, turning and turning. All around there was measure and motion: millions of legs marching in unison, clocks ticking and ringing, bells clanging and dinging, pendulums swinging, everything going round and round.

The ghost saw people's lives regulated by the clock and calendar, getting up and going to sleep at the appointed hour, going to work and punching time clocks, factory whistles shrilling, rows and rows of people standing at assembly lines which kept rolling and rolling.

It was a new world, a new universe, in which everything was timed and tuned and regulated, everything moving in order.

"The Fourth Age is on its way," said the gold twin, "and it shall be built by the breaking of your body."

"Never!" cried the ghost. He struggled to escape, but he was like no more than a tiny bird caught in the two giants' hands. They only laughed at his desperate attempts to get away, toying with him for a while before they got down to business.

Then, the Twins began the great ritual. They stretched the ghost out, one taking hold of his hand, the other his foot. Holding him suspended over the celestial mechanism, they chanted an incantation:

Your time is over,
Our time has come.
We are now the Moon and Sun;
The time of Measure has begun.

The age of rhythms and cycles;
The time of straight lines and circles.

The time of Euclid and Newton,
The age of wheels and axles,
The time of pistons and crankshafts,
The age of the turning engines.

We are the glory of monarchs,
The splendor of civilization;
The age of flags and armies,
The time of states and nations.

Hail the age unfolding,
Hail the turning spiral!

Now we are arising in brightness,
Now is our time of morning.

And so the Twins put the little spirit on their iron wheels; they wound and unwound him. They stretched him out and knotted him up. They spun him on a spindle, turned him on a lathe, roasted him on a spit, stretched him on a rack. They spun him out like thread, like wire; they wound him up like yarn, like a clock.

The ghost screamed and screamed. He could do little else. He was only a powerless shade, while the Twins were the harbingers of an inexorable power.

They pulled him tight and taut, stretching and tearing and twisting, until all his tendons and ligaments snapped, and he was broken apart. They ripped his ectoplasmic flesh from his spectral bones. They pulled him apart until he was nothing but a heap of disconnected pieces, a pile of scattered bones.

When they were finished, they left him lying, a pile of dry, bare bones, on the dusty ground.