Doc and friends debarked and the villagers crowded around them. These men and women were no taller than Harris’ sternum, but the young ones looked very strong and fit. They seemed dressed for visitors. Though some of the men wore nothing more than white cloth tied around their middles, many wore calf-length breeches and jackets that were a crimson dark enough to be nearly black; each jacket was embroidered with brilliantly colored geometric designs Harris could not decipher. The women were in dark ankle-length skirts, undecorated, beneath sleeveless blouses, like ponchos bound at the sides, embroidered with the same sorts of designs.
They stared openly at the northerners, especially at Doc and the late-arriving Welthy, whose fair hair seemed to draw their eyes.
Ish dragged Doc before one of the villagers, a middle-aged man whose clothes were the darkest and whose embroidery was the brightest. “This is Balam, the ahau, or lord, of the villages around the lake. Don’t call him the lord of the lake—that is a title reserved for one of their local gods.”
Doc bowed. The village lord, seemingly unable to tear his gaze away from Doc’s hair, bowed back. Ish gestured for the man to accompany her and Doc up to the village, and the whole mass of people drifted in their wake. “I spent a lot of Foundation money bringing very expensive dyes to these people. A rich bribe, much appreciated. Too, they are a peaceful folk. I think they will stay friendly.”
There was a stir at the back of the crowd. They turned to see two older villagers, a man and a woman, pressing Caster Roundcap from both sides, smiling, talking at him in excited tones. He answered them briefly in their own language.
Caster saw Doc watching. He looked up and shrugged. “I told you I’d been here before. It appears some are old enough to remember me.”
Ish said, “Now I know they will stay friendly.”
In the village plaza, east of the blood-red pyramid and in its shadow, the villagers of Itzamnál hosted them in a feast. They served fish and small steamed crabs, something like a mild tamale the size of an orange and wrapped in banana leaves, papaya the size of watermelons, coarse, tasty corn tortillas that were more gray than brown, roast turkey, roast pig, honey and bitter chocolate sauce for flavor . . . Harris decided that Jean-Pierre would have approved; he ate heartily, without guilt.
Caster nodded over at the grim bulk of the fortress a hundred yards away. “They’ve begun repairs since last I was here.”
Ish spat. “Another project of the blood-drinking, sons-of-Castilian-pigs government. I think they plan to put everything in shape so they can build a hotel and bring up wealthy Castilians to take the waters and stare at the volcanoes. This place is sacred. It should not be a playground. When I hear they have done this, I will use bombs and throw the first carloads of wealthy visitors off the mountain road. That will discourage them.”
Harris, alarmed, looked at Alastair, but the doctor shook his head and gave him a “pay no mind” expression.
“I don’t see anyone working on it now,” Caster said mildly.
“I sent them away! All workmen from the city. Any of them could be spies for Blackletter.”
Harris asked, “Why is it ruined when everything else is in good repair? I’m used to seeing pictures where the pyramids are overgrown and the more modern stuff is kept up.”
Caster gestured, a broad sweep that took in the lake and its surroundings. “During the Castilian conquest, the whole area of Itzamnál was a retreat for Aluxian kings who continued to fight. It was eventually conquered and the Castilians built that hulk. A few years later, the Aluxians came back, burned it, and kicked the Castilians out.” He shrugged. “Of course, the Aluxians kept fighting among themselves once the Castilians were at bay, and effectively destroyed themselves as a military power. The new government is not so easy to shake off.”
The village lord exchanged a few words with Caster.
Alastair asked, “What does he say?”
Caster and Ish smiled. Caster said, “He tells us it’s time. Half a bell since the last one. Look at the lake.”
They did. Nothing was different: the water was so still that the Frog Prince barely moved.
Then, in patches, the surface began to roil, as though the entire lake were heated to the point of boiling. The patches spread out to join one another. In less than a minute, the lake’s surface as far as they could see was a frothing mass. Steam rose from the water.
“Jesus,” Harris said. “How hot is that?”
Caster shook his head. “Not very. It’s usually warm; now it’s just a bit warmer, not even uncomfortable. It’s brought on by volcanic activity deep under the water.”
“Volcanoes!” Ish glared at him. “It’s the breath of the lizard in the earth. The trouble with you arcanologists is that you dissect and analyze your devisements until you forget to believe in them.”
They watched as the roiling finally settled down. The steam, a solid layer, lifted clear of the lake’s surface and slowly, gracefully rose until it was lost into the sky.
In a wood-pole hut given over to her use, Ish spread out a hand-drawn map of the kidney-shaped lake and its surroundings. Doc held down two of the corners for her.
Ish tapped a point not far from the village, two places along the southeast curve of the lake, and one on the southwest. “These are the passes out of Itzamnál. I have a man at each one. Scouts of the Hu’unal, my people, trustworthy. And another here,” she tapped the land portion between the two southward curves of the lake, “on the tallest mountain. No lorries full of cabinets can get in without our knowing. None is here now. We’ve even searched the castle, top to bottom, to make sure nothing is left there. All that’s there is wood, stone, and cement for the repairs.”
Harris asked, “What if they come in a seaplane like we did?”
“What if they do? They land, they taxi toward shore, and we shoot them.” She shrugged as though it were a small concern.
Doc frowned over the map. “Caster, which part is the sacred area?”
“It’s all sacred. But the link with the other world is strongest in the vicinity of the village, centering on the pyramid. You’d have to perform the ceremony here, anywhere within a few hundred paces.”
“That’s encouraging. I’d hate to have to protect fifty square destads of lake and mountain.”
Ish rolled up the map. “So. All questions answered? Good. Everybody go away. Now I can finally get some sleep.”
As Doc turned away to follow the others, she caught him by the collar. “Not you.” She smiled up at him. “I insist on company.”
Harris took a walk around the village, followed everywhere by two children and an old woman who seemed fascinated by his every move but too shy to talk to him.
Though the pyramid and the other buildings on the plaza around it were stone, he saw that the houses of the villagers were not just made of wood—they seemed constructed of living trees. New branches budded from the wall poles driven into the earth. Vines and ferns sprouted out of the thatch roofs. He saw women at work pruning their houses.
Near the village and all around the lake, he could see fields of what looked like tall grass; wind would stir the plants in great rolling waves. These weren’t the sort of fields he was used to from Iowa. They grew up the slopes of the mountains, some at angles of forty-five degrees or more. He saw men working them, pulling waist-high bushes and weeds free and hurling them downslope. He walked alongside the field nearest the village and saw that the tall grass was actually corn—or maize, most likely.