Jasper Jaquin's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Jasper Jaquin had followed the trail for three days, and the trail did not exist. No paw prints pressed the moss. No scent clung to the bark. Only a shimmer in the high leaves marked where the sky serpent had passed. Jasper was a jaguar with gold fur and black spots, and folded on his back were two black feather wings he had never opened. He wanted to open them beside Quetzalcoatl. First he had to find where Quetzalcoatl landed. He pushed through the mangroves at dusk. His nose worked the air and found nothing useful. He knew how to track a tapir through mud. He did not know how to track a thing that flew without weight. High in the twisted roots above him, a lantern flickered on. A wooden house sat wedged in the branches, its shingles patched, its porch strung with rope. A red-feathered parrot in a green robe leaned over the railing. "You've circled this grove four times," the parrot said. "You're wearing a path where there wasn't one." Jasper sat back on his haunches. "I'm looking for the temple. The one Quetzalcoatl uses." He kept his wings folded tight. Saying it out loud felt like admitting he could not do it alone. "I can track anything on the ground. I can't track him." The parrot climbed down a rope ladder and dropped onto a root beside him. Up close Jasper saw a gold pendant at the bird's throat and a wooden charm at the belt. "I'm Swiftflight," the parrot said. "I've seen the temple. You won't find it by nose. You'll find it by light." Swiftflight pointed a wing at a clump of tall grass where fireflies pulsed in slow waves. "They drift toward it at full dark. Follow the drift, not the bugs. The drift." Jasper watched the fireflies. At first they scattered. Then, as the sun dropped, the glow leaned. The whole cluster tilted east, like grass under a slow current. Jasper rose and followed. Swiftflight walked at his shoulder. They passed an old stone shrine choked in vines, its doorway dark, its carvings worn smooth. "Not that one," Swiftflight said. "That one's empty. Keep going." They walked until the trees thinned. Beyond the last mangrove, a stepped pyramid rose out of the jungle floor. Painted bands ran along its terraces. A stairway climbed to a platform at the top, and on the platform a long shape coiled. Silver scales. Red crest. Wings half-open, catching the last light. Jasper's chest tightened. He had found the landing place. His wings were still folded on his back, and he had never used them, and the creature he wanted to fly beside was waiting three hundred steps above him.