Neil yawned, suddenly aware of the fact he’d been awake most of the night.
He walked lazily across the city, leaving The Sacred Cenote and the industrious Mayas, and seeking the dark quiet of his own chamber.
He dropped onto the straw mat on the stone floor and was asleep almost instantly.
It was almost dark when he awoke. He glanced at his watch, then rubbed his eyes. Through the small window, the sky was painted a dull gray as twilight reluctantly gave way to night.
He got to his feet and shook the sleep from his body, stretching luxuriantly. Then he walked out of the chamber and down the steps that led to the street.
The city was strangely quiet.
Sleepily, Neil looked down the street to his left. Then to his right. The street was deserted.
Neil scratched his head, a frown beginning to work its way across his face. He looked at his watch again, supposing he’d made a mistake in the time. No, it was only a little past seven. He held his watch to his ear, thinking it had stopped. But the watch ticked away noisily.
Then why were the streets deserted?
Perhaps the nobles were playing another basketball game.
But in the dark? Or perhaps…
Neil’s thoughts were interrupted by the steady thump of a drum. Ra-bohm, it sounded. Ra-bohm. A long pause. Ra-bohm. Pause. Ra-bohm.
In the distance, winding their way through the city like little sparks of light scattered on the streets, Neil could see the glow of many torches.
A mournful dirge rose in the distance, and Neil was alert now, his eyes and ears straining into the darkness.
The torches came closer, and Neil saw the solemn faces of many Mayas, their wailing voices reaching his ears like the sound of a wounded animal. He watched as they filed past, solemn, slow, their faces pale in the light of the torches. Leading them, his long white robe flowing behind him, was Talu.
Slowly they twined through the city like a great snake, step by step, in time with the monotonously slow beat of the drum. Ra-bohm. Ra-bohm.
Neil watched with interest, wondering exactly what was happening. The procession circled the city and stopped at one of the thatched huts on its fringe.
Neil walked down the steps and into the street. He ran to the spot where the procession had halted, and sought out Talu in the crowd. “What’s happening?” he asked.
The old priest’s face looked like wrinkled parchment. His eyes reflected pin points of light from the torches.
“We are thanking the gods,” Talu explained.
Neil nodded. He had learned not to interfere with the religion of the Mayas. It was far different from his own, but they were honest and sincere about it, and he accepted it without question.
He was surprised to see Tela, the young native girl who’d been his guide, step out of the thatched hut. She was dressed in flowing white, and her hands were folded and tightly clasped over her chest. Her eyes were lowered as Rixal led her through the door.
Two men lowered a wooden platform covered with straw and twigs, and two others lifted her and placed her on it gently. She lay back stiffly, her hands still folded on her chest, her eyes closed.
Two men went to the front of the platform and lifted it, as two others did the same at the rear.
“What’s Tela doing?” Neil asked Talu.
Again Talu said, “We are thanking the gods.”
“But why is Tela dressed in white? Is she part of the ceremony?”
Talu’s face was emotionless as he said, “The gods have demanded a sacrifice.”
“Well, what’s that got to do with Te…”
Neil’s voice caught in his throat. His mind flitted back to the Mayas on the temple steps that afternoon. They had been tilting a platform toward the well- the very platform that Tela was stretched out on now.
They were going to throw Tela into The Sacred Cenote!
Neil gulped hard. Sixty feet down and sixty feet deep!
“Talu,” he gasped. “Tell me. Tell me!” he put his hand on the priest’s arm. “Is she to be the sacri…”
Ra-bohm, the drum sounded. Ra-bohm.
Ra-bohm.
Talu was silent. He raised his hand, dropped it to his side again, and the procession began moving toward The Sacred Cenote.
Torches gleamed. Faces were drawn and taut. On the platform, gently resting on the shoulders of the Mayas, Tela lay with her eyes closed and her arms folded.
The procession marched past Neil to the beat of the drum. He stared in horror as they wound their way through the city, a glowing spiral of chanting humans.
A cry tore itself from Neil’s throat. “Erik!”
And then he began to run, sweat bursting out on his body, to leave him cold and damp.
Chapter 15
Blood of a Fruit
Boots clatter against the stones of an empty city. The wail of a sacrifice chant is heard in the distance. Overhead, the sky turns black, and white stars etch brilliant pockmarks against the richness of the night.
You run. You run and your heart leaps against your rib case, and the lining of your throat is like sandpaper. Your eyes are blurred, and the sound of your thumping heart drowns out the sound of the incessant wailing.
A girl is about to be killed, and you run. You run swiftly, with the sound of your labored breathing and the clacking of your boots echoing through the deserted streets.
Run, RUN! Faster, faster, faster.
Neil leaped up the steps to his building two at a time, his feet barely touching the ground.
He tore into the room he shared with Erik, his eyes flicking from wall to wall.
“Erik!”
His own voice echoed around the empty stone chamber.
“Erik!” he called again.
Swiftly he turned and ran out of the room, out of the building, into the street again, pausing before the building, turning his head frantically to look up and down.
Where? Which way? Where, where is he?
In desperation, he shouted, “Erik!” And again there was no answer.
He turned to his left and began running again, his long blond hair whipping over his forehead, his breath struggling into his lungs. “Erik,” he called. “Erik.”
He ran down a long alley-like street, his shadow thrust before him like an inquisitive, sniffing hound.
Deserted.
He stopped short, whirled around, reversed his direction, and began running again. He stopped in front of a temple, looked to his right and left, and then behind him.
Where was he? Where was he?
“Erik-k-k-k,” he screamed, arid his scream came back to him, bouncing from a hundred stones.
Where would I go if I were Erik, he wondered? Where!
The ship! Erik would be down by the beach near the ship.
Stopping only long enough to locate his position in the city, Neil began sprinting for the beach. He was almost at the edge of the forest when a new thought struck him.
The maize. The crops. Erik might be at the fields.
He stopped, forced to make a decision that might cost Tela her life. The beach or the fields. Which?
His mind made the decision rapidly, and he fled toward the city again, over the stones, past the temples, past the palaces, past the basketball court and the Temple of the Jaguars, past the storehouse, running all the way, running, past one well, and then another, past the thatched huts on the fringe of the city.
The clatter of his boots stopped abruptly as his feet dug into earth, his knees pumping, his lungs ready to burst. He ran with the swiftness of the wind, for the life of a girl was hanging in the balance, like a leaf poised to drop from a tree.