Could he be a brother of that boy? Could he be one of the Snake People?
Before she could think any more about what this strange boy’s presence might mean, a strangely eerie whistling completely surrounded her. It drowned out her call to the boy. She looked about herself in alarm.
Degrat appeared to be even more alarmed than she was. He had heard it too. She wasn’t imagining it, no matter how otherwordly it seemed to her.
He grabbed her hand.
‘Run!’ he commanded, trying to drag her off farther into the jungle.
‘Run? Why? What is it, Degrat?’
He glanced back at her with a look of complete disbelief on his face.
‘Don’t you know?’ he asked in surprise. ‘It’s the Snake Song, Tesetra! It’s the end of the world!’
*
Chapter 10
‘Shouldn’t we be running towards the city?’ Tesetra protested. ‘Wouldn’t it be safer? Don’t we need to warn everyone?’
‘They’ll know!’ Degrat announced emphatically, grabbing her hand all the tighter and trying to pull her along with him. ‘They’ll hear it too! And the buildings will soon be collapsing; no one there will be safe!’
As if the Earth herself wanted to back up his outlandish claims, the rock beneath them began to tremble, as if her anger was growing.
Did she demand even more blood, even more of their dead to be buried within her hungry flesh? Tesetra wondered fearfully.
‘The stone’s coming back to life!’ Degrat yelled, pointing out the statues around them.
The gods and animals of stone were beginning to move, to open their jaws wider. They were also beginning to lean a little, to topple when they realised they couldn’t move too easily without legs.
The cliff-like walls of the quarry began to crumble, great boulders plummeting and striking the ground, exploding like huge seed pods.
The ground now rumbled, shook violently, as if the Earth was at last trying to shrug herself free of this unwanted invasion of these bothersome, ant-like creatures who had populated her surface.
The earth rose and sprouted around them as if, just like Degrat had bizarrely claimed, the stone was now alive, growing and moving.
If the city were suffering anything like this, then as Degrat had also claimed, it would now be an amazingly dangerous place to be. Its high buildings would be shattering, falling, burying its own people under the very stones that had previously given them shelter and secure.
No longer resisting Degrat’s insistence that they run, she broke into a sprint. Yet she felt as if she were trying to run on water rather than land, for it moved beneath her feet as if fluid, not firm and solid.
Around them, cracks were appearing in the rock, the nearest sculptures briefly leaning then toppling down into the increasingly widening crevasses.
Far ahead of them, the looming trees of the jungle shook and bowed as if caught in an unforgiving storm. Birds screeched in fear as they rose up from the dark green foliage, like flashes of a shattered rainbow. Animals everywhere could be heard wailing in terror.
And still the Snake Song continued, its eerie calling like the pained mourning of a thousand mothers.
The jungle hardly looked safer than the quarry. Some of the great trees could already be heard wrenching their roots free of the earth, crashing against each other like battling giants.
Yet these toppling trees weren’t falling completely to the ground, for they were too tightly packed to have the space to tumble to the earth. The maze-like strands of vines running between them were holding them all reasonably securely in place.
The beasts of the jungle, failing to realise this, seeing only that the world they knew was collapsing about them, were everywhere rushing out of the trembling undergrowth, running past Tesetra and Degrat. Creatures who would have at one time attacked them, seeing them as an opportune feast, ignored them and rushed by, their fear far greater than their hunger.
Directly ahead, in the dark shadows of the jungle, there were flashes of silver, moving unhurriedly. It moved smoothly, as if unaffected by the chaos and trembling around it, as if the Moon herself had descended to briefly grace the Earth with her presence.
It wasn’t until Tesetra and Degrat had drawn a little closer to the jungle, until the flashes of silver had drawn closer towards them, that they at last began to realise who was heading towards them.
It was a mounted Iron Man.
*
Tesetra and Degrat stopped running, glanced anxiously about themselves, wondering which way they should now run.
Tesetra had seen how remarkably fast the Iron Men’s horses could run. Degrat hadn’t seen this, of course, yet he’d heard from the few warriors who had survived their disastrous battles that these wondrous beasts possessed amazing levels of power.
The Iron Man was in no rush whatsoever as he unhurriedly rode out of the jungle, quietly heading towards them with little more than the echoing clip-clop of the horse’s hooves.
He was completely armoured, such that he seemed to be made entirely of iron. Even his face was covered with a grilled visor, effectively veiling from view the man inside. His mount, too, was clad in thick armour.
He seemed in to hurry to chase them. No hurry to raise and point his magical bow at them.
Degrat made as if to run off – but Tesetra, still holding his hand, held him back.
‘If we run, he’ll catch us anyway!’ she hissed, remembering how she had seen the magical bows kill people from a great distance.
Then she noticed that the Iron Man didn’t seem to be holding a magical bow. His hands were simply grasping instead the reins that controlled his remarkable beast.
The strange beast languidly drew up in front of them: then stopped with a quiet snort.
Now neither the horse nor the Iron Man moved, apart from the trembling imposed on them by the quaking ground. The Iron Man remained perfectly silent.
Panicking, Degrat used the only weapon he had to hand: the iron chisel he’d been using to carve his stone.
Before Tesetra could stop him, Degrat threw the chisel as hard as he could at the looming knight, hoping its remarkable properties would cause more damage than anything made of their own softer metals.
The chisel struck the Iron Man with the clang of a booming bell. It rebounded, having caused no damage to the man’s armour that either he or Tesetra could see.
The Iron Man moved ever so slightly in his saddle. His clasping hands came free of the reins.
He toppled back out of his saddle, slowly slipping from his mount. He crashed noisily to the still violently quivering earth.
Tesetra and Degrat exchanged puzzled yet relieved glances.
They rushed to the side of the fallen Iron Man, cautiously bending down by him. He lay on the ground, perfectly motionless and silent bar the rattling caused by the rumbling earth.
He had fallen partially on his side, his body unable to lie flat on its back due to the thick shaft of the spear deeply embedded in his spine.
Tesetra looked back towards the patiently waiting horse.
‘He – or she – must be well trained: she just kept on walking until she came across someone else.’
As she spoke, she rose to her feet once more, approaching the horse as quietly as she was able, to avoid startling it.
She had watched how the Iron Men mounted these wonderful beasts. They bent a leg, slipped a foot into a hanging strap, hoisted themselves up into the seat on the creature’s back.
‘Let’s go!’ Degrat demanded nervously, reaching out with a hand to take Tesetra’s once more.
Tesetra shrugged him off, ignored him, her eyes only on the waiting horse.
She slipped a foot into the metallic semi-circular ring. Grasping the saddle with a hand, she pulled herself up, swinging a leg over the creature’s back.
She edgily eased into the seat, expecting the horse to protest at any moment.
The horse, however, remained perfectly calm.
<
br /> She reached out, offering a hand to the awed Degrat.
‘I think this will be quicker, don’t you?’ she said with an exuberant grin.
*
Chapter 11
The horse moved even faster than Tesetra had expected. Even with the two of them on its back.
Then again, the two of them probably weighed far less than the heavily armoured Iron Man.
They had to duck every now and again to avoid low hanging branches, the looping vines. The horse crashed through the undergrowth as if impervious to its barbs, its entangling stems.
Tesetra couldn’t understand how this was possible until she noticed the red glow of the horse’s iron legs and front. They were incredibly hot, instantly incinerating anything they touched without, thankfully, setting it aflame.
‘Where do we need to head?’ she yelled back to Degrat over her shoulder.
‘The hills,’ he also cried out, the only way to be overheard over the cacophony of quivering trees, rumbling earth, wailing snakes. ‘We need to get as high as we can.’
‘Why? Won’t the mountains be affected by the Snake Song?’
‘Of course, yes: but the Snake Song doesn’t just mean the earth’s going to shake – it means that everything has to destroyed. Just so everything can be reborn and start again!’
*
Even at the remarkable speed they were travelling, it still took them a while to clear the jungle and find themselves on the lower slopes of the mountains.
Here the trembling of the ground wasn’t as pronounced. They slowed down, allowing the horse to carefully pick its way up the rocky incline, avoiding any dangerously loose stones.
Now that they had slowed, now that they also seemed at last to have escaped the worst of the quaking earth, they could talk more easily.
‘Why is everything being destroyed?’ Tesetra asked.
As a mason, Degrat would have to be more fully aware than possibly anyone else of their people’s many religious beliefs and ancient legends. His carvings had to reflect these beliefs, their symbolism being pointers to how the people should regard these gods, how also they should behave and approach life.
‘You were right,’ Degrat admitted, with an edge of perhaps sullenness or fear. ‘The Serpent god is real: he’s causing all this!’
Tesetra was amazed by this claim.
‘But I thought the legends told us the Serpent god was a more generous god than the Jaguar god? That he was involved in creation?’
‘And before you can create anew?’ Degrat said wryly. ‘You have to destroy what’s already there, of course! The time of our people is over, Tesetra! Just as the people of the earlier suns were destroyed, now it’s our turn too!’
‘There were people before us?’
‘There have been many different types of people the gods have created. Many, too, that they have destroyed when they have become angry or dissatisfied with them! Our time – if the ancient legends are correct, as I now believe they might be! – is that of the Fourth Sun!’
‘There have been three suns before this one? Each destroyed?’
Out of the corner of her eye, Tesetra saw Degrat nod in agreement.
‘Then if the Serpent god is trying to destroy us all once more, why isn’t our Jaguar god trying to stop him?’ she asked.
‘Because, Tesetra, our Jaguar god is also taking part in this destruction: because he, too, was originally a serpent!’
*
Chapter 12
The Quartering of The Earth.
There was a time when there was an endless sea, a sea that had always been, that no one, not even the gods, knew how or when it had been created.
Above this sea, a goddess moved back and forth, a goddess of the Earth, even though no such place yet existed. But two other gods decided amongst themselves that such a place, this Earth, should indeed exist.
Transforming themselves into great serpents, they took hold of the goddess. One grasped her by her right hand and right foot, the other by her left hand and left foot.
Dragging her down from on high, they tightened their grip as she protested, pulling on her all the harder, all the more forcibly.
She was torn asunder, wrenched painfully into another shape; quartered into the shape of a cross.
Her hair became the trees, flowers and grasses.
Her skin became the tiny flowers, the very fine grasses.
Her eyes were the wells, fountains, small caves.
Her mouth the rivers and large caves.
Her nose valleys, hills.
Her shoulders mountains.
The two gods left their serpent forms supporting her from below. And so, when these two are tired or angry, they cause the Earth to quake.
The first god ruled this new earth, this time of the First Sun.
But when the second god struck him down, he became a jaguar, the people fleeing into the jungle. Fighting amongst themselves, these first people also turned into ferocious animals like the jaguar.
The second serpent now ruled as the Wind, in the time of the Second Sun.
Yet the untameable winds of the hurricane of the Rain god carried him away in his turn, the people once more having to flee into the jungle. This time, the people became creatures like monkeys, or the herding animals.
The time of the Third Sun was overseen by the Rain god.
He ruled the Earth until uncontrollably heavier rains were unleashed on him by the Water goddess. The people transformed into birds, so they could flee.
And so the Fourth Sun is the time of the Water goddess.
Yet this Fourth Sun, too, will reach the end of its time; heralding in the time of the Fifth Sun.
*
Chapter 13
‘So the Serpent god was more powerful than the Jaguar god? So why do we sacrifice to the Jaguar god rather than the Serpent god?’
‘It’s just a legend, that’s all; a legend which says they were both serpents – and the Serpent god himself was also disposed. I never really believed it until – and even now, I’m not sure it’s entirely accurate – until the Earth started quaking like this.’
‘But what of the Water goddess? The Rain god? Why are we sacrificing to this Jaguar god who, according to this legend, is no longer all-powerful?’
‘That’s all it is probably – a legend!’ Degrat vehemently insisted once again. ‘All the gods, and the goddesses, seems to have abandoned us! Think about it: the Water goddess has allowed her waters to bring the Iron Men here from the east. And if the Serpent god exists, if he’s still our friend, why did he allow them to come into being, to come here?’
‘What do you mean, why did he allow this to happen? They’ve all allowed it to happen, haven’t they?’
‘When the Earth was quartered, the Serpent god was said to be given control of the east: and that, of course, is where the Iron Men arrived from!’
‘He lives in the east? Then that’s where we should head; that’s where the Snake People must live!’
‘Then if they do, perhaps the Iron Men have already overrun their lands!
‘There’s only one way to find out!’ Tesetra said, bringing the horse to a halt, turning it around. ‘We have to head back down into the valley; to head east rather than west!’
*
‘Tesetra! Are you crazy! We’ve just come from there, remember?’ Degrat protested as Tesetra urged their horse down the slope, heading back into the still violently shaking jungle.
As if to back up the wisdom of his protests, the jungle abruptly began to thrash more wildly than ever. A hurricane-like squall descended across it, darkening the whole world in what seemed to be the blink of an eye.
And, like a blazing eye, a full moon shone through it all, casting its eerie, silvery light over everything, transforming it all into a ghostly semblance of what had originally existed there.
‘The Moon!’ Degrat wailed in terror. ‘Where did she come from? She wasn’t there just a moment ago! She should still be asleep!
Where’s the Sun?’
The wind blowing across the jungle was now so strong even their remarkable Iron Horse was struggling to make headway against it.
‘Turn back, Tesetra! Turn back!’ Degrat yelled out above the increasingly ear-splitting cracking of the wildly cavorting bushes, the shrieking wind.
The sky was now so dark, the moon glistened like a silvery mirror amid the almost solid blackness. The light quivered, apparently dissolved, became as watery, as fluid, as the moon’s reflection in a lake.
The silvery water began to fall to Earth.
The Tears of the Moon.
*
Chapter 14
When the rain struck them, each heavy, silvery drop stung.
It was icy cold, almost as hard as hailstones. And the drops came in ever greater numbers, ever faster.
When the lightning came, the silver drops sparkled as if aflame, as if it were a rain of fire.
The leaves of the jungle rattled under the onslaught.
Realising she would have to turn around, Tesetra spun their mount once more, urging him into a fresh burst of speed up the mountainside.
Behind them now, there were the loud cracks of splitting rock, the thunder of massive pieces of tumbling stone. Glancing back over their shoulders, they both gasped in fear as whole parts of the jungle now dropped away, vanishing in an instant into the huge crevasses snaking at incredible speed across the Earth’s surface.
With the shattering of the rock, there came the release of waters, of rivers, of lakes.
The water poured into the valley, carrying before it even the gigantic trees of the jungle, a dark green landscape transforming into the white of an angry spume, the blue-grey of the relatively calmer waters following on behind.
It engulfed the works of the Iron Men, dousing their roaring fires, bringing their creation of the black clouds to a sudden halt. It rushed across the quarry of mainly half completed statues, throwing aside gods, toppling ancient kings.