Chapter 22 #2
These thoughts accompanied me in the dark waters.
Sometime into my journey, I had fallen into a rhythm.
Swim in the murky darkness until my breath ran shallow, come up for air, look around, listen, submerge, and start again.
It was almost soothing, so dark, so quiet, except for the occasional chirps of the birds and the bats, the swoosh of my powerful tail in the water.
The movement of my body through the water sounded different, too, depending on how deep the pools were beneath me.
I stayed near the surface as much as possible, but there were a few longer stretches that made me nervous.
Not that my new body couldn’t handle it, because clearly crocodiles were astonishing in their breath-holding abilities, but my human way of seeing the world didn’t like it.
I had no clue how I would ever get him back.
If he was even alive. How long had he been afraid of the water?
Oh, the messed-up idea of placing him down where his alter ego had once reigned. The most terrifying place he could be.
A ringing sound alerted me to something wrong before I entered the next cavern.
Light burst through my multiple eyelids, and I opened my eyes.
Cloudy water made it difficult to see, but instead of moving forward easily, I hit something hard, smashing my snout and stopping all my forward momentum.
It took a few more painful collisions before I realized there were giant boulders preventing me from moving forward.
Not used to having such short arms, I tried to feel the rocks in front of me for a channel large enough to let me through.
My nose kept banging into the rocks until I wizened up enough to use it instead.
When that proved unfruitful, I turned around and retreated to the last place I was able to come up for air to consider my options.
My guess was, I had found the cenote where they had thrown Camazotz and then blew the whole thing up.
While it was good to know I’d not been going the wrong way this whole time, I had no idea what to do now.
The pebble told me to move in a general direction, but it was more of an instinctual thing.
No instruction manual, no alternative suggestions.
No voice assistant to reconfigure my route.
I was in a smaller cave about thirty feet across, and while the water wasn’t as clear as it had been up until this point, I could still see pretty well.
There was enough light to penetrate the space but only just. I tilted my head to get a better look at the sky.
The shift in the shadows told me there was only another hour or two before full dark, and while I’d been keeping my panic in check up until now, the thought of spending the night here in total darkness didn’t appeal to me at all.
I’d come this far, now I needed to find another way.
The porous limestone made these underground freshwater rivers possible, and water was a tricky element, constantly finding a way to keep moving.
It obeyed its own rules, made its own path.
There had to be another way around the collapsed channel that didn’t lead down.
I searched the cavern I was in for another way out, but the fading light made it hard to locate.
Panic had been my constant companion for the past two days, but swimming had eased some of it.
To make it this far, to be so close and not be able to reach my Monster brought it once again to the forefront.
Did I need to change into my monster form to try to dislodge the rocks?
But wouldn’t he have done it already if it had been possible?
I couldn’t think of a single organic shape capable of digging its way through a collapsed pile of limestone.
Breath in through my nostrils, out the sides of my long mouth.
A few more times. If I couldn’t go through, then I’d have to go around.
I ignored the layers of waterlogged caverns below me.
Going down there was a last resort only.
And if the pebble couldn’t recalibrate its mystical directions, then I’d have to rely on my connection to him.
The same connection that held fast despite him being married and a liar, yet someone I was unwilling to leave behind.
Wouldn’t it be so much easier if relationships were truly black and white?
Because, looking back at everything that had gone down since he stupidly walked into that room with his enemies, there hadn’t been a moment when I lost my grip on wanting the life he offered me on his mountaintop.
Not that I’d let him know it right away.
The next cavern let in no light, but I had become better at listening to my other senses, only hitting my snout once when I didn’t dive soon enough.
I found another cavern, leading away from the cave-in, and then another one.
Slowly, I worked my way around the rubble until the water became clear again.
About that time, my pebble changed course, and the pull to turn back switched directions, sending me to my left.
Now that I was back on some sort of trail, I had fewer mishaps, but the smallest amount of light was welcome.
I was getting tired, both physically and of the darkness.
The thought of losing the rest of the light when the sun set scared me almost as much as the possibility that I might have to swim down a few levels.
He could be down there, I realized. That might be a fear I would need to conquer.
I came up for air in another open-air cave. Tilting my head, I examined the sky, which was darkening fast. Looking around, I spotted a nice dry ledge where I could camp out until sunrise, but before I could figure out a way to get up onto the bank, I heard a loud roar.
My Monster was nearby, and he was furious. I smiled, showing off all my new teeth, and then I dove back down into the water.
The corridor I took was long. I was almost out of breath when I broke the surface.
Confirming there was an angry bat god in the dark cavern, I switched forms, not bothering with clothes this time.
I pulled myself out of the water in time to see him grab one of the frightened divers and hold him up in the air.
Whatever language he was speaking, I could see from the look on the men’s faces, his threats were as cruel as they were pointless.
A discarded diver’s lamp provided the only light in the large space, casting us all in eerie shadows.
“Well, at least they left you company,” I said before he could do any permanent damage to the poor man, who was more a victim than my lover.
“Where did you come from?” he said, still yelling. “Jesus Christ, Corvus. Where are your clothes?” Then he yelled some more at the men, who looked away from me while still keeping an eye on his terrible form.
“Let them know we mean them no harm.”
He dropped the man, who probably thought he was about to be eaten by an ancient being, and stomped over to me.
Camazotz was taller than I was used to seeing him, dwarfing me more than usual.
Instead of the anger I had braced myself for, he leaned down and pulled my wings forward until they wrapped around me, covering me like a dress.
I watched in surprise, both at his gentle touch and the fact that I had wings, thinking I had only reached for my human form.
Then he reached up to the top of my head and tapped something a few inches above me.
“Cute horns. I’m a fan.”
I had to be blushing. The horns had definitely not been intentional, but my happiness to see him overwhelmed me, so I parted the front of my wing dress to free my arms, which I threw around his waist. My stomach growled, reminding me it had been a long, grueling day.
He pulled me to him, holding me close for several heartbeats. When he released me, he was visibly calmer.
“Tell them I’ll lead them out first thing tomorrow, but it’s too dark now to make the swim.”
“How about I kill them, and we have a nice hot supper?”
“Hard pass. Please, just tell them.”
“No.”
I put my hands on my hips, unconcerned about my nakedness. “Tell them. Otherwise, I won’t get you out of here.”
He cocked his head and studied me. “They will only give us up once they get back.”
“We’ll be long gone by then. I promise. The entrance where they brought you in has been destroyed, and I’ll be dropping them somewhere far from any roads. It will take them a lot longer to get back than it will for us to be gone.”
“How are you planning to get us out of here?” He used air quotes for the last five words, which would’ve been funny on any other day.
“I’ll tell you as soon as you reassure them we mean them no harm and will be rescuing them tomorrow.
And you better be telling the truth. They don’t deserve to die for doing something they’re getting paid barely anything for.
They are powerless,” I added, appealing to the side I thought my Monster might understand.
“They don’t deserve to die simply because Chaac is an asshole. ”
This seemed to resonate finally. He turned to the divers and explained something in words that did not sound like Spanish.
The men watched him closely, and by their obvious relief, I could see whatever he told them made them feel better.
They retreated to another part of the cave, taking their light with them and asking no questions.