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The Sleeping Lady and Smoking Mountain - Maya Khankhoje Maya Khankhoje is one of the talented new voices in the evolving literature of science fiction and fantasy. Long dominated by Western-centric technological positivists, speculative fiction has become more complex today --- it asks more difficult questions, takes less for granted and includes more diverse voices than ever before. However the so-called Third World is still under-represented in speculative fiction, not only in terms of setting and subject matter, but also in terms of writers and points of view that are unique to its many cultures. Maya Khankhoje's writings help fill a great void.

The original people of Mexico, before the Spaniards went there, were the Aztec and the Maya people. They loved to tell legends, which are stories mixed with fact and fancy, to explain the meaning of life or natural events, such as why one should obey one’s elders, or why the stars come out at night or why water flows down and never up. The following is the legend of Iztaccihuatl and Popocatepetl, two snow-covered volcanoes near Mexico City. Aztec names have been divided into syllables to make them easier to pronounce.]

To-na-tiuh, "the Sun King" and his family lived in Sky Thirteen, in a large palace surrounded by lovely gardens. Golden bright light always shone in his kingdom. Everything was transparent. Night and sorrow did not exist. They were happy.

Prince Iz-co-zauh-qui was To-na-tiuh’s son. He loved to walk about in gardens and to care for them. Iz-co-zauh-qui thought no other world outside his father’s kingdom could exist. But he was wrong. One day somebody told him that the To-na-ca-te-cu-tli princes had grander gardens so he left his sky and travelled to theirs to compare those gardens with his own.

When he reached the home of the To-na-ca-te-cu-tli princes, he realised that the light was different, that the grass was greener and that the plants and trees were fresher, as if they had just been covered in dew. Far away he saw a lake which was so clear and dazzling that looking at it almost blinded him. Iz-co-zauh-qui went closer to the edge of the lake and there he saw the reflection of something that caught his eye. Reflected on the surface of the water he saw a lovely young woman dressed in a silver dress. She was so beautiful that he fell in love with her on the spot.

She also fell in love with him and when they realised that they loved each other, they became very happy. They spent their days together, jumping from one sky to another until they got to know them all. But the Sun King warned them not to go beyond Sky Thirteen because otherwise they would be punished.

But the prince and his beloved had seen all the shades of blue of all the skies so they became curious to see what there was below them. So without thinking about it, they walked along a path that took them to earth. The earth and the sky were so different! The sun did not shine on earth the same as in the sky and it went to sleep at night. The earth also had all the colours of the rainbow, many living creatures, high and low sounds, rough and smooth textures and everything had its own fragrance. And when night fell the stars came out and covered everything.

"This is the most beautiful place in the whole universe", said the prince and the young woman, so they decided to live out the rest of their lives on earth. They set up home near a lake surrounded by valleys and high mountains.

One day they heard the Sun King’s loud voice talking to them: "You shall never come back to your home in the sky. You shall suffer because you were disobedient. So the young woman fell ill. Iz-co-zauh-qui could not cure her of this strange illness that no one had ever seen. But she understood that she was ill because she had disobeyed the Sun King.

Knowing she was going to die, she asked the prince to take her to the top of one of the mountains that she could see from her bed. She wanted to be closer to the sky, which had been her old home.

The prince walked for several days and several nights carrying her in his arms until he reached the top of the mountain. There he laid her down until she fell into eternal sleep. The prince knelt down and lit a torch to warm her up as if she were still alive. Iz-co-zauh-qui stayed by her side, quietly thinking about her, until he also fell into a deep and eternal sleep. That is how she became Iz-tac-ci-huatl, the sleeping lady, and he became Po-po-ca-te-petl, the smoking mountain.

If you go to Mexico City, you can still see them. You can see her knees, and chest and face covered in snow and you can see him bending over her with a torch in his hands. And when he gets very upset at having lost her, he starts belching smoke from the bottom of the earth.*

* The Popocatepetl is a dormant volcano that has thrown up volcanic ash several times in the last few years.

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