The Ku'u Up

“Curses!” I swore as I slapped another mosquito out of existence. “There will be none of me left!”

My porter, Calixo, said nothing. He didn’t want to be here.

“Come on, my man! It’s been days and you haven’t spoken a word! I know you can understand me.”

Calixo made the sign of the cross and spat on the ground. Not speaking, per se, but interaction at least.

“It’s just a legend, Calixo. There’s nothing to be scared of,” I said, as I navigated the tree roots and fallen branches of the jungle floor.

Calixo stopped walking, abruptly, and threw my pack down onto the ground. “You do not know that, Signor. You do not know what you ask.”

I managed to stop and not trip over him, not wanting my face anywhere near the duff and detritus. There were things that crawled, and spat, and bit.

Again, Calixo made the sign of the cross. “Ek’ Balam is The Black Jaguar. The mouth to the Underworld.”

Impatiently, I waved my hand. “Yes, yes, I know.”

Calixo fixed me with an intensive stare, his face serious. “We do not go to Ek’ Balam. You should not go there.”

Realization dawned. “Ah, this is about money! Then I will triple your fee, Calixo! And we shall be on our merry way.”

Calixo shook his head like he was talking to an imbecile. “This is not about money, Signor. We should not go there.”

I sat down on a fallen log, being mindful to take out my handkerchief and lay it down first. “Look, Calixo. I understand your hesitation, I do. Your tribe has not been anywhere close to Ek’ Balam in many, many centuries. But once you see it, you will realise that there is nothing to fear! You are a brave warrior, my friend! Searching the jungle on behalf of your ancestors!”

Again, Calixo stared at me as though I had three heads instead of one. “You approach a bridge. You know the bridge is not safe because your cousin died there last year. Do you walk the bridge again, knowing its past?”

I had to agree that the man had a point.

“Ek’ Balam is not safe, Signor.”

I threw my hands up in desperation. “Then why are you here?”

I got stared at. Again. “If I had not come, you may have tried to get there yourself, and you do not know the way. You do now know el carmino. You would be lost, and then dead."

I sighed. “I only need to be there for a short time. I will collect the Ku’u up and then we return home.”

“The Ku’u up is sacred. You can only remove a few.”

“Yes, yes.” We had been over this before. “I take the pods and then we are done. Fifteen minutes at the temple, I swear it.”

Calixo sighed, but picked up my pack once again. “You are a very stubborn man, Signor.”

I jumped up, ready to be underway once again. “Where do we camp this evening?”

“We are close, but I will not camp near the temple. We approach tomorrow, but for tonight, we camp as far away as we can.”

I had learned the legend of the Ku’u up some years ago. The story tells of a Mayan woman, Aapo, that on learning her lover had contracted a sickness and was dying, took herself deep into the jungle to pray to Ix Chel. Her anguish was heard by the Goddess and she gave Aapo a pink flower, the Ku’u up. As Aapo held the flower, it began to change into a pod, but the pod was hairy and spiny and Aapo dropped it, for she had been hurt by the spines. The pod dropped to the floor, and as it was watered by Aapo’s blood and tears, the plant began to grow. When the plant was ready, Aapo carefully took one of the pods and opened it up. Inside were bright, red seeds, the colour of her blood. Aapo took the seeds and burned them, making the Ku’u up into a medicine that cured her lover. The tribe were so grateful to Aapo for bringing this medicine to them, they made her the Temple Priestess and to this day, the Ku’u up bears seeds as bright as her blood.

I needed the seeds of the Ku’u up.

As we neared the temple of Ek’ Balam, the sun dipping low over the canopy, there was a strange stillness. The birds has stopped calling, the howler monkeys stopped their interminable cries. I looked over at Calixo who raised an eyebrow. I faced the hideous fact that the man may have been right.

“Is this where we stop?”

Calixo nodded once and began the organisation of our camp. Well practiced by now after two weeks of our jungle expedition, I went to gather twigs and sticks to lay our fire.

Before I knew it, our little tent was pitched and we were sat eating an agouti that Calixo had trapped and skinned whist I was gathering firewood.

As the sun disappeared and darkness descended, I went into the tent and to my bedroll. The silence, after many nights of an orchestra of animals and insects, was unnerving at best, and terrifying at worst. I tried not to consider what it might mean as I drifted into slumber.

I dreamed, that night. I dreamed of the legend of the Ku’u up and the beautiful, dark haired and golden-skinned Aapo, crying and pleading to the Goddess Ix Chel. I felt her pain and anguish, as well as her joy in saving her lover. I felt a loss, in my dream, that I had never had anyone that would cry into the night for me so passionately that she would spur a goddess into action, and when I awoke, I felt strangely bereft. Calixo looked at me, knowingly.

We packed the camp away silently and headed back into the jungle, leaving our little clearing as we found it. We walked for a while until, suddenly, out of the early morning mist, rose the temple of Ek’ Balam, and I absolutely knew in my heart, with full certainty, what Calixo had been worried about. This place wasn’t right.

“Signor. Quickly, please,” said Calixo in a hushed whisper.

I nodded. I would not be staying here a moment longer than was necessary.

I searched around the base of the temple to no avail. There were no Ku’u up plants to been seen. Needing a better vantage point I began to scale the grey walls of the stepped pyramid and sure enough, I saw what I was looking for, a little bit away from the temple on the edge of the jungle. I hurried down the steps and to the place the Ku’u up was growing, but as a bent to take my pods, I felt the touch of cold steel against my neck. I froze in place.

“You are taking my plant. Why?”

I held my hands up, away from the plant, in total surrender.

“I’m sorry…. I didn’t know!”

I felt the blade pull away from my throat.

“Turn.”

Without question, I did as I was told. In front of me was the Aapo I had dreamed of, breath-takingly beautiful, but she was not alone. I gasped. Behind her, stood Calixo, but not as I had known him moments before. He was garbed in a robe and head-dress and he came to stand beside Aapo.

“Calixo?” I breathed.

He nodded. “You did not learn the end of the story, Signor.”

I thought, quickly, but the terror of the knife was making my thoughts stumble. “Aapo… she…. you …. were made a priestess and your lover was saved!”

Aapo shook her head. “No, that was not the end of my story.” A strange look passed across her face. “You see, the Ku’u up plant was given to me, to save Calixo, and it did not work for the rest of the clan. When disease spread through Ek’ Balam, the elders turned on me, and I was sacrificed on the altar to appease the Gods.” Calixo took Aapo’s hand tenderly.

I paled. I had heard the tales of human sacrifice.

“But instead of bringing salvation, my people were destroyed by Ix Chel for killing her priestess. Ix Chel made my people walk through the door to the underworld, never to be seen again. She raised me from the dead and now I am destined to walk the ruins, and when someone approaches that isn’t of the Maya, I am to lead them into the mouth of the Witz and to the underworld.” She paused. “That would be you.”

I began to panic. “I don’t understand! Calixo, you wanted to stay away from this place, and yet you belong here!"

A look of sadness crossed Calixo’s features. “It is my job to keep people away from here, Signor. Aapo and I learned long ago what we would have to do if people stumbled across Ek’ Balam. Aapo is fated to walk the ruins, whereas I however, am not.”

“I keep him alive with the Ku’u up.” Aapo smiled at her lover.

I began to understand. “Ix Chel makes you send people through, so you don’t allow people near… you keep them away from the temple.”

They nodded. “But if you take the Ku’u up,” continued Aapo, “I will not be able to hold him here with me, and he will die. And people will wander through the jungle and to their doom. I will not have a choice.”

I stilled, my thought racing. “But I need it. I need the Ku’u up!”

“But why?” asked Calixo, gently. “You never said. It won’t work to help anyone, didn’t you listen to Aapo?”

I paused before replying. “Immortality.”

It was Aapo and Calixo’s turn to step back.

I laughed. “You have just told me everything I need to know!”

Aapo began to step forward with her knife raised, but I pulled out a revolver from my inside pocket and aimed it at Calixo.

“I cannot kill you, Aapo, but I can kill him. Give me your dagger.” Keeping my gun trained on Calixo, I motioned for the knife and Aapo passed it, reluctant, but frightened for her lover.

“You cannot use it! It will only work for Calixo!” Aapo’s voice trembled, uncertain.

I reached for Calixo and pulled him to my side. Quickly, I slashed across his palm and then my own as Aapo looked on in horror. I clasped our hands together.

“Now his blood runs in my veins.”

“But you’ve doomed everyone! We cannot stop them coming!”

I smiled and released Calixo back into Aapo’s waiting arms. “Why does that affect me?” I shrugged. “I will take the Ku’u up, all of it. And there is nothing you can do to stop me.”

An hour later, I left Ek’ Balam with every, single Ku’u up plant and an ocean of time that stretched out in front of me and as I made my way back through the jungle, I smiled.