She nods, mouth stuffed with cornmeal.
He turns to me. “And you’re a norteamericano?”
“English,” I tell him. “Not a gringo.”
Xocotli looks us both up and down, sizing us up. He inspects our crampons, ropes, and ice axes. Are we worthy of the mountain? I can’t imagine that we look as though we’d make the summit.
“Ever climbed on ice?”
We shake our heads.
“Then it’s just to the second hut, agreed? No summit! Well, let’s get going. The mountain … she can be a dangerous lady.”
His words hang in the dry morning air. We make a start on the scree path, carrying chocolate, water, and the painkillers for my leg in our climbers’ backpacks. I’ve safely stashed the Adapter in mine. I’m about to plug in the earphones of my dad’s iPod when Xocotli notices and wags his finger at me.
“No. You need to listen, yes?” He gestures at his ears, then points to his mouth. “Listen to every word.”
We walk in silence for long while, avoiding occasional patches of frozen snow as we follow Xocotli. He steps as lightly as the goats we pass on the way.
Ixchel asks, “Does the volcano ever rumble?”
“Hardly ever. But she’s no innocent,” Xocotli warns. “One of these days, she could awaken, just like Popocateptl. Then we’d see.”
He nods twice, slow and deliberate; gazes directly into the path that winds toward the distant peak. “Yup. Then we’d see how it is.”
The boulders of the “Labyrinth” loom on the path ahead, their long shadows trailing like black tongues over the scree. Xocotli glances at us and points at my dragging leg. “Something wrong?”
Flatly, Ixchel replies, “He was shot.”
If Xocotli’s surprised by this, he doesn’t show it. He just nods. “Then I’ll take you up the easiest way. No climbing.”
Xocotli leaps forward a few steps so that he’s ahead of us. Ixchel draws closer to me. “I know you won’t talk about what’s in the Ix Codex. So why don’t you let me guess?”
I give her a quick glance. She doesn’t seem to be joking. “I guess I can’t stop you.”
“True, you can’t. So … if Arcadio is someone from the future—and he’s been getting involved in the affairs of Ek Naab—and the Ix Codex is written in English … then my guess would be that someone from the future, someone who speaks English, wrote the Ix Codex. Am I right?”
I don’t answer, but trudge ahead.
“And that means there’s a time-travel device around somewhere. I think that’s what the ‘Revival Chamber’ is. I bet you get into one of those sarcophagus things and use the Adapter to start it up. Like a key in a car. Or maybe the Bracelet of Itzamna is the missing part of the puzzle. Maybe the Bracelet acts like the key, turns the Revival Chamber into a time-travel machine.”
“Hmm,” I say. “Interesting idea.”
“I’m close, though, aren’t I?”
Truthfully, I say, “I couldn’t really tell you.”
Ixchel stares directly ahead. In a grim voice she says, “I’m close. And you know it.”
Xocotli bears left, leading us across the slope. I stare ahead in trepidation.
No climbing? Yeah, right!
There’s no way to get up this mountain without scrambling over some of the huge rocks in our way. Just looking at the route makes my leg ache.
Breathless, I stop and lean against a boulder. “Guys. I need a break.”
For the first time, we face down the slope. Beneath us, the gentle incline of scrub and scree falls off toward a far-flung green canopy of pine trees. I turn around and crane my neck, trying to catch a glimpse of the summit. It’s there in the distance: a dazzling sunlit cone behind the alpine landscape of snow, ice, and rock. All framed in a sky of purest blue.
My ears tingle from the cold. I roll out my thermal hood and fasten it around my head. Soon we’ll reach the snow line. It’s hard to believe we’re still in sunny Mexico.
40
The snow falls all the way to the glacier and beyond. It last snowed two days ago, according to Xocotli. So, not as bad as it could be; fresh powder drains your strength faster. The snow is dry and firm, and icy where well-trodden. It takes another three hours of slow climbing to navigate the rock field. Every so often we catch a glimpse of what looks like a direct route straight to the glacier. With hope in our hearts, we point to it. Xocotli always replies with a sad shake of his head. “It looks all right now, but later, you’ll see that there’s a big drop.”
Without Xocotli we’d have had no chance, gotten hopelessly lost. I reach the point where all I can think about is the agony of my gunshot wound. I don’t even want to think about what I’m doing to the healing process, wrenching my muscles again and again. I’m the one slowing us down with frequent stops, turning away from the other two so they won’t see me wince in pain. Each time, I eat a square of chocolate and sip from one of my water bottles. I wish I could be distracted by some music, but Xocotli’s made it clear that we all need to focus.