You have heard of la Llorona no doubt, but have you heard of The Sigua?
Similar to la Llorona, The Sigua is a similar tale told in Central America, within the Salvadoran, Honduran, and Guatemalan countries. Instead of this being a tale told to kids to behave, the Sigua is told to young men to behave and to respect women.
The Sigua is said to have alluring beauty, effervescent skin, long flowing black hair, complimenting curves, and worst of all, a horse face!
She’s the Medusa of Central America. Her looks can drive men mad, the legally insane type of mad.
We will be releasing the full short story in three parts. If you enjoy it and want to support the author, check it out here.
Our Gothic Summer Giveaway Sale includes this dark fiction short. Simply enter coupon code BNPLEGENDS at the checkout until September 20, 2023.
The Sigua by Willy Martinez Part 2
Alvarado’s account of 1524:
While recovering in the infirmary from my battle wound against these savage people, the Pipil natives, I met a fellow alumbrado (enlightened one.) Juan De La Cruz and I passed the time talking about gold hunts and medicinal journeys into the psyche brought on by local medicine men. We were both aware of the extensive gold mines in the area, but we are not men motivated by money. As Masons, we are captivated by the local lore and tales of Atlantean tablets, and underground tunnels leading into what the savages referred to as “Xibalba,“ or, their version of the underworld.
My infirmary mate swore on God that he had seen this entrance for himself and had learned magic from a medicine man. I, of course, did not believe such lies at first, but then, what he had to show me next made me question even the existence of our God. You see, padre, this man could start fires from nothing. It was not uncommon for him to light a tobacco pipe with the snap of his fingers as he told me about Xibalba and the journey of a set of twin boys traveling into the underworld.
As we both recovered from our injuries, Juan De La Cruz would tell me all about the Popol Vuh, the famous Mayan myth. And I in return would share my tobacco with him as I related my own experiences on the conquest of the Aztecs to the North. Until one day, he was gone. I simply assumed that he had recovered enough to be sent out back to his unit.
Upon my recovery, I immediately set out to find a medicine man that could furnish the way into the jungles, and into these underground caves. At first, many did not want to admit to being practitioners of local medicine due to fear of being burnt on the cross, but eventually one of them found me.
He materialized outside my hut standing up straight with his eyes focused on nothing, in what seemed to be a type of meditation. Before I could even ask him anything, he turned to me and said in the local tongue, Nahuatl, the word, “Xibalba.”
I nodded to him, “Si, take me to Xibalba.”
He was a dark-complexioned man with dark brown eyes, almost black even, with strong straight features, unlike the rest of the locals with their curved foreheads and toucan bird noses. He spoke broken Spanish. He had no name, he had no family, and he did not even want payment for this trip, other than he wanted us to set him free into the jungle. A fair trade I thought, one man’s freedom for eternal knowledge.
Soon, I recruited a team of five of the best conquistadors I had served with in battle, some of the most blood-hungry warriors I could find. The biggest one was Ernesto. I once saw Ernesto tussle with two natives at once, ending the fight by bashing both of their heads in with a small rock. He didn’t even wince as he crushed their skulls open like soft watermelons, splattering brain matter across his face, drenching his hands and the stone with warm native blood.
It took some persuading at first. These men had grown accustomed to having as many women as they pleased from the local villages, but luckily, these were poor men and had joined the conquest to earn money for their families back in Espana. I convinced them of the reality and elegance of these cave systems and told them they could split the riches five ways, just amongst themselves. I told them that the riches would rival that of the Aztec King.
The morning of our journey, the medicine man waited for us outside our huts, he dressed in his native attire; a cloth woven garb painted indigo with a cleanly shaven head. His face was decorated in small galaxies of war paint, and he carried with him a satchel and long carved out stick. On his shoulder sat a colorful macaw clicking its beak. I thought we would never get past the guards to exit the camp but in his poor Spanish tongue, he assured me of his previous passages without a problem. The men and I suited up for battle, armed with swords, helmets and chain armor. We were to tell the guards we were going out on a patrol of the Western Cuscatlan area.
If you enjoy “The Sigua,” visit our blog at The Ritual for related flash fiction.
What started off as a sunny morning soon became ominous as we walked through the marketplace. The regular chatter was at a standstill, as that morning, the prisoners were allowed to host their pre-hunting ceremony. The aroma of copal and dried blood flooded our noses as the ceremonial priest held up the heart of a deer, chanting mierdas (bullshit). As the priest lowered the heart onto the rubber fire, his eyes locked onto mine and he grinned. Tossing the heart into the flames irritated the fire to shoot embers towards the crowd, quickly igniting a few of their clothes. Being in shackles though, they could not stamp out the fires with their hands as they yelled “Sihuehuet’ in agony. They were being burned alive as the priest kept his lock on me. ‘Sihuehuet’ he repeated as he stared through me.
In the chaos of the guards running in to stampede the fire and roaring crowd, we made a break for the gate. The seven of us were able to walk through the gates without question as the guards were preoccupied with the situation inside the camp.
With the skies now grey with smoke and suddenly cloudy, our journey to Xibalba began. Pushing up towards the sky shot out the largest Volcano of the land, Llamatepec. With the macaw still on his shoulder, the medicine man pointed towards the volcano with his stick and began to lead the way through the thick jungle.
Passing through ponds, small pyramid structures, whitetail deer, rabbits, and large bugs, I couldn’t help but feel we were going in circles. We passed stones that I could have sworn that we had already passed. I directed these thoughts to the medicine man, but he ignored me and kept on.
“Let me kill him,” retorted Ernesto. “I don’t trust this one.”
“You don’t trust any of them,” said another conquistador and they all laughed as they cut through the thick brush with their machetes.
Blinded by my search for geophysical evidence of the underworld, I neglected to notice one of the men had gone missing. It’s true that we stopped along one of the small villages along the way to pilfer some food from the locals. All the men from the village had already been taken as prisoners, and what remained were women and children. The women of this land were extremely beautiful and were accustomed to roaming around topless, no doubt, exciting the men as we walked through.
At the center of this small village rested a large ceiba tree. Around the base of the tree was decorated with a beautiful flower arrangement and collection of Xtabentun and tzacam flowers. A pair of twins stood there topless with dark hair and dark jet-black eyes. They brushed their hair with a brush made of tzacam as they smiled at us as we walked past. No doubt it was an invite, but why?
If you enjoy “The Sigua,” visit our blog at The Ritual for related flash fiction.
It was difficult to keep the men focused and the missing man himself was determined to conquer one of the women. Perhaps he stayed in the village, subduing as many women as he could corner.
There was no time to lose, and I wasn’t about to alert the men, they would tear the medicine man to shreds if they knew we had lost the man behind me. Time immemorial awaited us.
At dusk the sky was cleared and orange. We had now ventured off the deep cartwheel tracks that the natives used for trade and ventured into the thick forests towards the volcano once more. We had made it to the base of the volcano when we stopped. As the men drank water, they asked about the missing man I had left behind. This caused a ruckus among us which had the men split into two sides; those that wanted to go back, and those that wanted to continue the search.
We were at each other’s throats over the loss of one of our men when the medicine man presented a heart from out of his satchel. We froze as it dripped with what appeared to be fresh blood. He squeezed it tight as the ventricles wrapped around his hand, up through his wrist.
“We must make an offering prior to entry,” he said in broken Spanish.
“Wasn’t our compadre enough of an offering,” shouts Ernesto as he burrowed towards the medicine man.
I unsheathed my sword and placed it between Ernesto and the medicine man. “Didn’t you hear him? He said prior to entry, we must be near.”
The heart was placed on the nearest flat rock as the seer raised his hands and began chanting in the native tongue, Nahuatl.
Tolteca icuilihuia ahaa ya ha on tlantoc amoxtli ya moyollo ya on aya mochonaciticac o o Toltecayootl aic aya ninemiz ye nican ay yo.
The Toltecs have been taken, alas, the book of their souls has come to an end, alas, everything of the Toltecs has reached its conclusion, no longer do I care to live here.
Ac ya nechcuiliz, ac ye nohuan oyaz o, nicaz a anni icuihuan aya y yancuicanitl y yehetl y noxochiuh non cuica ihuitequi onteixpan ayyo.
Who will take me? Who will go with me? I am ready to be taken, alas. All that was fresh, the perfume, my flowers, my songs, have gone along with them.
(From A Song Lamenting the Toltecs)
At the conclusion of his offering, I swear to you, and your beloved God, Jesus Christ, this heart came alive before our very own eyes. It was now animated as it began to palpitate. We all took a step back in fear of the moment. It palpitated once more. Ernesto swiftly pulled out his sword and chopped it at the heart, cutting it into two.
“Enough of this possession, take us now,” demanded Ernesto.
Both the macaw and the medicine man laughed hysterically as he mumbled something in the native tongue. Although I did not understand his banter, I did however recall one of the words from earlier in the day, ‘Sihuehuet.’
“Now, take us to the underground,” I urged.
As a dark night had now fallen, we lit torches and prepared to go underground. The medicine man had taken us through the heavily forested volcanic landscape, and we now stood at a steep 100-meter volcanic cliff shooting upwards toward the skies. I could tell the cliffs were painted with petroglyphs but couldn’t make them out from where we stood. We came to the entrance of an underground cave, nestled into the thick jungle, just past a small pyramid that had been retaken by the jungle vines and plants. This pyramid had been abandoned for many years, I thought. The natural opening in the earth was about 10 meters in width and 20 meters in length, surrounded by large basalt rocks of the area. Four large statues adorned the cave entrance in each cardinal direction. They were replicas of the same rain God, Chac Mool, lying down, gracefully holding pots on their bellies with their heads turned toward the forests.
One of the men unraveled the rope we brought and tied one end to a tree, throwing the remainder slack down into the cave opening. We couldn’t see where it ended so I threw my torch down into the hole. As my heart raced to discover what rests in time immemorial, I was the first to descend into Xibalba.
Copyright © 2023 By Mind on Fire Books
All Rights Reserved. This is a work of fiction. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission in writing of the publisher or authors, not be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this coordination being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
The Sigua is a short story written by Willy Martinez.
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