Chapter 23 #2
More people emerged from the water, standing back initially while the demigods conversed.
But not for long. The group fanned out during this exchange, quietly surrounding my Monster.
His fury had him fixated on two people, Ixtab and Chaac.
The low light made slipping into the shadows easier for the others.
I watched them, my alarm growing as they slowly set their trap.
“Where are you, you miserable slut?” Ixtab walked away, headed in my direction. “We know you are here. Come to save your lover.”
The men around Camazotz stopped, no one eager to get any closer.
I did my best to watch Ixtab and the group behind her, hoping she couldn’t see a small bird in the shadows.
A couple of other lanterns turned on, light bouncing in all directions.
Whenever it came near me, I shut my eyes.
It would be worse to have the small reflections from my eyes give me up than to be blind momentarily.
“He’s not worth it, you know. Never going to change his ways. If you think living up on the mountaintop, reading all day, barely talking, a little fucking now and then is fun, well, believe me, it gets old. Give it a year or ten, now imagine a hundred, two hundred. Five hundred.”
I held my breath. She can’t see me, I repeated my mantra, be brave.
“Do you think you could keep his interest for that long? That he would want you around? How long do you think it would take for him to get bored? I don’t care how good you are in bed.
You’re not very attractive. Besides, all men grow bored eventually.
And how much will he really want you there once you’ve survived this event?
Did he even want you for yourself, or was he just using you? ”
She kept walking straight toward me. Ten feet away, and suddenly, I was no longer in a cave but in a jungle.
Still a sparrow, I was dwarfed by immense trees.
Giant leaves in all shades of green fluttered in my new reality while parrots and insects shrieked at a deafening level.
I froze, shrinking down on the branch where I perched, toes gripping the bark with all my strength.
What just happened? Had she transported me? Whisked me away to some altered reality where she could easily kill me? Not like she needed to go through all that trouble. I was so discombobulated I almost missed the rustling sound beneath me, something large gaining on me.
I spread my wings, eager to flee, but couldn’t move.
Trapped, I pushed, trying to increase my size, but the harder I pushed, the less I could move.
Something held me. Only this time it wasn’t a net.
I couldn’t turn my head, locked down by pressure on all sides by an invisible force, holding my small bird body, twisting and compressing until I could hardly breathe.
Panic gripped me. I had to do something, but my brain lost its normal capacity to function. I opened my beak, gulping down air, desperate to escape but unable to move. I had never frozen before, not like this, and had no idea what had happened until a car-sized snake head rose in front of me.
No response then, no big comeback? That’s hardly a surprise. I was planning on making him take care of his own creation, but then I lost my patience.
The snake opened its mouth, larger than my tiny body, fangs dropping down in front of the tunnel of its throat. The inside of the mouth was puffy and milky white, a row of teeth framing the sides of its open lips, smaller than the fangs but still larger than my face.
Before the certainty of my coming death had time to sink in, reality shifted again.
I was still locked down tightly, she still held me in her clutches, but now the earth shook.
Lightning and thunder flashed and banged around us.
A strong voice rang out. “Enough!” It shouted.
“Let’s discuss this like civilized people. ”
And as suddenly as it had happened in the first place, I was back in the cave.
No longer on my perch, Ixtab held my sparrow body in her hand.
I changed my shape from sparrow to eagle, and she couldn’t hold onto me.
Unable to control my fear, I flew to my Monster.
I landed behind him, resuming my humanoid form, complete with wings and horns.
Your goddess form, he corrected in my head. Never forget that. Too shaken up to do more than push my face into his back and grip his sides under his wings, I didn’t refute him, as much as I wanted to. Instead, I gulped down air and tried to still my frantic heart.
“Well, well, well. Maybe I was too feminine for you, dear husband. Too refined.”
But she was the one who left him. At least, that was what they had both told me. I wanted to throw it in her face but hesitated. I couldn’t trust either one of them.
My Monster spoke instead. “You came to me, brought us down off the mountain, even though I was up there minding my own business. Not interfering in anything you were up to, no matter how much it disgusted me. I lost interest in power centuries ago, lost the taste for corruption. You know this. We just want to be left alone. I want to be left alone. Why does this irk you, old friend?”
Chaac stepped forward. “Old friend? You’ve never been my friend. And your baby monster just tried to kill one of us. She almost succeeded by dumb luck. Let me talk to her.”
Camazotz hesitated but then stepped aside, holding me by my arm until the last moment. I stood my ground, but just barely, raising my head to face the threat.
Chaac continued, “You think you are powerful, but you’re just an infant. One day, you will wake up and decide you have had enough of sitting quietly on your mountain. And why not? You can change form. You can transform reality. You can bend humans to your will. And you will see the power in that.”
“And that threatens you? Don’t you have centuries of experience over me? Wouldn’t you know how to handle me? Wouldn’t he?” I took a step back toward Camazotz.
“But what if you created an army, secretly, mind you, without any of us knowing? So that when we tried to put you in check, you would rise up and overpower us. Without our experience, without our checks and balances, you could upset the delicate balance that keeps the world spinning.”
“I have absolutely no desire to do any of that. But you don’t know me. You could put restrictions on us…”
“Restrictions like the one Camazotz broke when he made you.”
“Yes, like those. Check in on us like you have done. We will live peacefully on the mountain, and you can go on with your plans of world domination.”
“That, my dear, is no longer an option.”
A low growl came from Camazotz, who had stayed quiet this long.
He moved beside me, his foot in front of mine, ready to push me behind him.
I had to try one last argument. “I didn’t ask for this, and other than protecting myself from someone who tried to kill me, I’ve done nothing wrong.
You justify killing us over made-up ‘what if’ scenarios? What does that make you?”
“A custodian of the earth. But I can be merciful. To both of you. Camazotz, I am giving you two options. You can either kill her or return her to her former state.”
My ears filled with a loud buzzing, and I stepped away from my Monster. Would he do that? Kill me for his freedom?
Don’t worry, little crow, we just need to pretend long enough for them to leave. Can you do that?
I turned to him, still riding the adrenaline from earlier. But the thought of losing the ability to alter my form, of having this freedom ripped from me, gutted me. “Please, don’t! You can’t. We can swim out of here. There are options.”
“Would you rather die?” he asked, incredulous. Turn yourself back, Corvus. They won’t know who did it.
It took too long for my brain to catch on, but the moment it did, I dismissed my horns and wings, shrinking back to my original shape without further hesitation.
Naked and terrified, I ducked behind him again, although it was good I hadn’t had my wits about me to create clothing, since that would have given me away.