“If I am also to protect the codex, I should be told everything about it and the society.”
“You will be told when it is necessary.”
Maybe that was enough for her to give, but I had not decided that was enough for me. The codex was more than a book of fates; to some it was a king’s treasure, perhaps even a magic amulet that would give the bearer great powers.
I needed proof from them that they were, in fact, members of the secret society and that their only motive was to protect the secret—evidence besides her bare statement that I was a naïve villager who needed to be told what to do.
Sparrow knew a great deal about my current movements. Her mother was dead. She claimed her father was dead. Who was the source of her information?
“We must go,” Sparrow said.
“I have to return to the princess’ procession. Soon they’ll know I’m gone and start a search for me. I’ll catch up with you later.”
That was a polite way of telling her I wasn’t joining them. But I also wasn’t planning on returning to the snail’s-pace procession where others wanted to control me, either.
“Travel with them, and you will be killed.”
“We have fifty warriors. It would take a large band.”
“There are many people. Unhinged by hunger, they do more than rob and kill defenseless travelers. They roast them over an open fire and devour them.”
She led me to the edge of the hillside, where a good view could be had of the area for a long distance. “Your friends are about to learn these harsh truths the hard way,” she said. “Do you see?”
Her remark required no answer. The princess’ procession was walking into an ambush. Below, around a bend that the procession would soon reach, was a large group. They appeared to be a shabby band, a ragtag army of what were, no doubt, farmers and servants before the gods’ divine drought wiped out the crops and drove them to steal, murder, and feast on human flesh.
The weapons I could see were almost all clubs—hardwood limbs or, like Axe’s weapon, a rock tied at the end of a piece of wood.
They would do battle with trained warriors, but they were a small army, numbering in the hundreds.
After spending days with the warriors protecting the princess, my opinion was that other than the four from the palace guard, the rest were past their prime, the sort used to guard the city walls rather than go into the field and do hand-to-hand battle.
“The warriors will run when they see the horde rushing them, screaming for their blood.”
Eyo! She spoke my own thoughts. The procession was doomed.
“I should warn them.” Even as I said it, I knew it was hopeless. They were too far from me and too close to the ambush to be warned.
“It’s too late, but even if you did, you would only accomplish the deaths of more starving peasants fighting to get fed, because the royal warriors will be slightly better prepared to do battle. In this famine-ridden land, a fat rich caravan of lords and ladies has little hope of surviving. Moreover, not all the bandits are farmers with clubs—some are roaming bands of warriors, mercenaries, and trained killers.
“When Flint Shield and his brothers fled the city to avoid the king’s red paint and the sacrificial altar, the War Lord’s guards feared that the king would color them crimson as well. Also, the War Lord had the largest private army in the kingdom, second to only the king’s itself. They are now well-armed, well-trained robbers, capable of challenging anything but a sizable army.”
Sparrow pointed to a bundle on the ground where we had been standing. “Those are your new clothes.”
“I have clothes.”
“Your clothes will draw every killer and brigand between here and the Eastern Waters. These clothes are the same peasant’s attire that you wore when you were a stonecutter.”
She was right, but I chafed hearing it from her.
“Hide your sharp weapons underneath your clothing,” she said, “but carry a stout staff so that others will know you are not harmless. We will move quickly, trying to link up with porters as much as possible. There is some protection in numbers.”
“Where are we going?
“To the place you want to go—the city of the great Montezuma, emperor of all the Aztecs, and to Huemac the Hermit, to whom even he bows.”
“What will I find there?”
“Answers.”
“What do I do with the codex after I find it?”
“We know what must be done. You will be told at the proper time.”
I grinned at her. “As far as I’m concerned, this is the right time.”
“You must trust us.”
“Why?” I held up my hand to stop her reply. “I know you’ve saved my life, but only to gain some advantage for yourselves. I just can’t figure out what that advantage is or why you seek it.”
Angered by my remarks, she got into my face. “We have no time for these endless questions and doubts. You have no other choice but to do as I tell you. Return to Mayapán, and the king will give you to the temple priests. Go on by yourself, and you will die before you reach the land of the Aztecs.”
“If I am the chosen—”
“You are not the chosen!”
That took me by surprise, but I was sure she said it to belittle me so I would obey. “If I am not, who is?”
“Questions, questions, questions. We leave now.”
I looked down to the right, over the edge of the hill’s vertiginously steep slope. “What’s that?”
Axe stepped over to look down past the edge, and I gave him a body block. It was like hitting a tree, but he lost his balance and teetered on the ledge. A hard shove, and he was tumbling head over heels downslope.
I turned, pulling out my dagger, and held it at Sparrow’s throat, my other hand grabbing her wrist as she tried to pull her own dagger out from beneath her robe.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” she said.
“I don’t know what you’re doing. Did you lie when you said Ajul is dead? Tell me, and I won’t cut your throat.”
“You won’t cut my throat.”
“Why won’t I?”
“Because you’re too soft. Besides, you don’t have all the answers you need.” She stared at me with a gaze that revealed nothing. Her eyes were unfathomable in their blackness, enigmatic pools of darkness and death.
“You’re right,” I said. “So join your friend.”
I shoved her off the edge.
I grabbed the bundle of clothes they wanted me to put on and hurried down the other side of the hill, avoiding both the battle that would soon erupt below and the path Sparrow and Axe would have to take to climb back up and get their packs.
I moved as fast I could to get through the forest and onto the road ahead of where a starving horde would soon fall upon the princess’ greedy, gluttonous caravan.
Throwing them over the ledge gave me perhaps an hour’s head start. But even though Sparrow was fast on her feet, I could outpace them because the tree trunk had short legs.
Keeping up a fast pace, I could reach the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán ahead of Flint Shield—if he and his brigands were on the road searching for me.
I had too many enemies and too many unanswered questions to trust anyone—even people who had reason to protect me.
65
I heard the battle taking place on the road behind me as I cut across the country to get far ahead of it.
In my mind’s eye, I saw the guard captain’s face—he would have killed me the moment I got my hand on the Dark Rift Codex. Then I flashed to Koj, the rat—he would have grabbed the codex from my dead hand and taken it back to Mayapán for the proffered reward . . . after slipping a knife into the captain’s back.
Generally I wished no one harm, but I was pleased that the gods had killed them before they cut my throat or I slit theirs.
As for the princess and her contingent, after the starving villages confiscated their food, the brigands would most likely dress them out, quarter them
like deer, broil the choicest cuts over a cook-fire, and feed them to the village children.
Before I hit the road, I put on the beggar’s cloak and found a solid limb to use as a walking staff and club. I then joined up with the porter caravan.
I could not travel as quickly as I wished, because I could not stray from the group’s protection. Porter caravans were not only well armed, but the merchants who employed them paid regular protection money to the highwaymen, who did not want to lose that regular stipend. Still, they moved slowly, burdened by their trade goods.
How much the land had changed in such a short period of time was amazing, but it took only one bad crop to create pervasive hunger and mass desperation. We had had four bad years already, and now we had no crops at all due to pandemic drought.
I studied my back-trail for Sparrow and Axe yet always kept up with the flow of porters. Falling behind was not a viable option. Over a short distance, Sparrow was capable of catching us, but over the longer haul, the tree stump’s short legs would give us the edge.
Carrying no food was no problem if you had money. Despite the food shortages, periodically along the road women sold fruit, tortillas, beans, and peppers, with sometimes even a piece of meat. Food was in short supply overall, but the women sold the items at a premium that permitted them to buy more food with which to feed ravenous families. But the women were smart enough to stay hidden in the bushes and not come out until they saw they were dealing with merchants and not thieves.
An even steadier supply for me was paying merchants for the privilege of eating what they fed their porters, but not all merchants had food to spare even at a price.
I tagged along with a merchant hauling honey. The merchants traveling in the opposite direction apprised me of the road conditions ahead and the prevalence of bandits. Their predictions proved so accurate that I became too trusting in their assessments. I frequently hurried ahead, gambling that I would outpace Sparrow and the stump and catch up to the next caravan.
Spending the night at a rendezvous clearing where hundreds of porters were camped out, I bought dinner from a merchant and then sat around a campfire with others and listened to a storyteller speak of the Hero Twins and their battles with the Lords of the Underworld.
I gave the storyteller two cacao beans after he was done and received a look of surprise that he got a reward from a beggar. The claw marks on my face were covered with the dye I used, but I still hurried away, worried he might see through my disguise and realize that I was the most famous storyteller in the land.
No traveling was done at night, because it was too dangerous. Not only were hungry two-legged animals out hunting after the fall of night, but four-legged ones were on the prowl, too.
The next day I increased my pace, putting one caravan after another behind me, buying food, and spending the night.
The bandits seemed to have miraculously vanished, and each day I became more confident. Increasing my speed, I left one caravan behind and hurried forward to find the next one, even though I had to sometimes traverse miles alone to join it.
I had left behind a cloth merchant and set out on my own to get to the next caravan ahead when a pretty young girl, no more than fourteen, slipped out of the bushes with a basket of fruit. It was the middle of the day, and I was famished.
A pleasant girl, she gave a nice smile as I waved to let her know I would buy her wares.
When I was fifty feet away, a man suddenly rushed out of the bushes and grabbed her. She screamed as he grabbed her hair and pulled her into the bushes.
I broke into a run as he pulled her into the foliage. They disappeared from sight around a fat tree, and I went around the tree after them, suddenly finding myself in a clearing.
The man stopped on the other side of the open space, and releasing the girl’s hair, he turned to face me.
One look at the girl’s face, not the man’s, and I knew I had walked into a trap. The little bitch smirked.
They came at me from all sides—poor villagers by their dress, all armed with clubs, not charging, but slowly closing in from all sides.
I got a good grip on my staff, and twisting back and forth, I tried to watch my front and back at the same time, ready to smash the first one who came close.
The girl stared at something above my head.
I looked just in time to see the blunt end of a club coming at my head from someone in a tree.
A volcanic eruption exploded in my head. Lights flashed everywhere—all the colors of a blindingly bright rainbow, and I was falling, falling, falling into the underworld’s deepest, darkest pit of hell.
When I hit hell, the lights went out.
66
I awoke to the smell of fresh meat broiling on red-hot embers.
My sight was blurred, my ears rang, and my head felt as if it were in the jaws of the jaguar I had once wrestled, but my sense of smell was still good and the cooking meat that my nose detected was a feast fit for a nobleman or rich merchant.
The scent of good food roasting on a fire had a warm, friendly feel to it.
I slowly opened my eyes
The first thing I realized was that I was in a cage. An animal cage, the sort of thing in which you might keep animals like deer and dogs while you were fattening them up for the supper fire.
Then I noticed my hands and feet were tied.
Despite the ropes, I could sit, but sitting up caused a shot of pain to my head that felt like it had been whacked again.
There was no room to stand in the cage, but when I got my balance, I was able to kneel. That was about it.
At last the ringing in my ears subsided, and I was instantly sorry it had. I heard the sounds of villagers laughing, drinking mezcal, and toasting the feast to come. One of them was even offering up our blood to the gods, thanking and praising them for their bountiful gifts.
I wondered if they needed a storyteller.
I got a whiff of something else and realized it was not only the godly nectar that elevated their spirits but also the smoke from a plant. Snaring their souls and robbing them of their senses and inhibitions, the evil herb was notorious for transporting the smokers them into ethereal worlds and surreal realms.
I twisted around to get a better look at my captors. They were, in fact, gathered around a fire. It was still daylight, but they were getting an early start on their evening meal.
It took a little squinting, but I made out what was roasting over the fire.
A human leg.
I checked my own legs and found I still had two attached.
Eyo! Sparrow was wrong. I was not a naïve villager, but a country bumpkin who needed a keeper when I ventured into the world.
She had misjudged me, giving me too much credit for having even the common sense of a simple villager. I had not even the intelligence or wisdom level of the fourteen-year-old girl who lured me into the forest to “save” her from an attacker.
The people—who inhaled the dream-smoke, hammered down mezcal, and would now dine on my limbs, loins, and balls—were simple villagers, the kind of people who, as I did once, worked hard and enjoyed the companionship of their neighbors around the cooking fire at night.
Only protracted famine had forced these people into cannibalism.
The comment made by the light-skinned foreigner called Jeronimo flashed in my head. What had he asked me? Something about how I would feel if I washed up on a beach, watched as savages devoured my companions, and knew almost beyond a doubt I would be next.
Mine was the only cage, and I knelt in it alone. There was no one else around.
I am next.
67
During the night, after the villagers had their fill of their fellow man, their mezcal, and dream-smoke, they fell asleep. Exhausted, I tried to get free of my bond, failed, and finally fell into a troubled sleep of my own.
Before dawn I got another smell, this one striking more terror in me.
Fire.
I smelled smoke and heard the
crackling of the flames. At first I thought the eager cannibals had started an unusually early cooking fire to roast some tasty morsels, perhaps my meaty buttock or a succulent thigh.
I quickly realized it was a forest fire. In seconds, the foliage, which had had the moisture sucked out of it by years of drought, ignited like kindling and spread as if the gods were blowing it.
The flames ate hungrily through the dry brush, spreading at a speed I didn’t think possible.
The people got up and ran in mindless panic as the flames roared, not bothering to free me.
As they ran, I shouted at them. “Open this pen! The gods will punish you! I’m Pakal Oracle!”
The ignorant bastards had probably never heard of me.
They left me to burn alive.
I squirmed around until I was in a position to kick at the gate, and I let loose with every ounce of strength I had. After repeated kicks, the door broke off its frame.
The opening ran along the cage floor but was surprisingly tiny. In time, I would worm my way through it, the now open doorway, and the pen, but by then I would have suffocated from the smoke, which was already blinding and gagging, or be cooked alive by the flames.
With superhuman effort, holding my breath to prevent smoke-asphyxiation, I worked my way through the crawl hole. I was two-thirds of the way out. I was going to make it.
No such luck.
Suddenly, a dark figure came toward me—the man who had pretended to drag the girl into the bushes. He had a sword in hand, and from the look on his face, I didn’t think he was there to cut me loose.
I’m sure he had come to cut off a succulent piece before the forest fire burned me to a crisp.
I recognized the sword. Someone had taken it off me after I had been knocked unconscious.
The man suddenly jerked back, a look of surprise on his face . . . and an arrow in his throat.
A small dartlike shaft that I knew would have a poisoned tip.
Sparrow was there, sending arrows into the clouds of smoke that were so thick, I couldn’t see what she was shooting at.