Her astonishment grew as a pair of huge wings, brilliantly plumed in red, gold, green, and blue, broke free from the leafy bower, fluttering very slowly. They emerged from the serpent's midsection, extending a man's height to each side. The snake assumed a weightless quality as more and more of its enormous length appeared, for no portion of its visible body rested upon the ground.
The serpentine shape drifted into aimless coils, slowly writhing in the air, while the wings continued their slow cadence. Its brilliant yellow eyes bored into Erix, yet she felt no menace in the gaze. Hesitantly, needing to relieve her numbed muscles, she sat on a rotten log.
"You have troubles," whispered the creature. "Perhaps I can help you."
"Sure, help!" The macaw squawked its approval of the plan, fluttering down to rest on the snake's head.
Erix finally began to relax. Somehow she felt comfortable in the presence of this strange creature. The droning of insects and the heavy warmth of the afternoon air seemed to soothe her. She sighed. The snake's eyes bored into her, seeming to whirl in opposite directions. Its body moved with liquid ease in a slow dance.
"I come from Nexala," she said dreamily. "Very far from here." And before she could continue, she was asleep.
Mixtal groaned again in soul-wrenching agony. The Ancient Ones would slay him, he knew, but not until an eternity of torment had been inflicted upon his miserable person. He barely noticed the twenty apprentices standing in an awkward circle around him, but gradually he sensed that they awaited his instructions, his leadership.
Several of the youths kept watch over the strange visitors, who as yet had made no effort to climb the bluff. Nevertheless, Mixtal was certain that, after making the journey from wherever they called home, these strangers were not about to limit their explorations to a stretch of wooded shoreline.
It quickly became clear to the cleric that the priests' present location at the base of the pyramid would be one of the first sites investigated by the newcomers when they moved off the beach.
"The girl!" he finally said. "Did anyone see which way she went?"
The priests looked at the ground. Their spikes of stiff hair shook slowly, like a band of porcupines performing a mournful dance.
"Inland," offered one apprentice, a strapping young man named Atax. Mixtal remembered him as one who had wielded the sacrificial knife with exceptional acumen on his initial attempts. Like any apprentice, Atax had made mistakes, requiring the sacrifice to be performed over, even once requiring three victims before the proper cut had been made. But Atax learned quickly, and his strength might now be an asset.
"We must find her!" Mixtal stood quickly. He paused at the edge of the bluff to observe the newcomers — he admitted to himself that they seemed to be men. Their great canoes had furled their wings, and it seemed to the cleric that perhaps a hundred of them had already gathered on the beach.
"Give me your knife," Mixtal demanded, claiming the obsidian blade of a younger apprentice. He tried to ignore the shame of his own blade's loss but felt a flush creeping over his features. "Into the forest! Follow me!"
For many hours of a day that grew hotter with each passing minute, the score of priests combed the jungle along the coast. They pressed eastward for a time, crossing Erix's trail at numerous points, but none of the clerics had the woodcraft to recognize it as such. Then they reversed course, moving back through the beaten zone, as the humid air settled heavily around them and morning became afternoon.
"Let's rest a moment," gasped Mixtal, collapsing against a tree. He noticed with annoyance that none of the apprentices seemed as exhausted as he was. All of their prickly hair spikes had collapsed into tangled mats, however.
"Most Holy One, perhaps we should seek help," suggested Atax tentatively.
"No!" Mixtal stood straight, vigorous once again with the alertness of cold panic. "We must find her! This is our task!"
Atax recoiled from the outburst, and Mixtal took mild satisfaction in that fact. At least there were some who would treat him with respect! Then Mixtal blinked, disbelieving, and watched Atax slide to the ground before him. The man was sleeping!
Raging, Mixtal spun to face his other apprentices. His rage quickly cooled into something approaching fear when he saw that they all slept!
"What's happening here?" he demanded plaintively. "Wake up!"
"Softly, O Holy One," soothed a voice.
"Who's that? Where are you?"
"I will speak and you will listen." The voice coaxed him gently, and Mixtal felt himself slumping to a seat on the ground. He listened.
"Searching for the girl in this fashion is foolish. Instead, you must gather warriors." Mixtal halfheartedly looked for the source of the voice, but he saw only flowers and birds, whirling colors gathering around him. He did not remember the jungle as such a colorful place, but it was really quite beautiful.
"Warriors?" he answered, from a great distance. "How?" Now the priest felt as though his eyes had been covered with a soft glaze, not painful, like looking through colorful smoke when the smoke was inside his eyes.
"Wait here." The voice soothed him further with its reassuring advice. Mixtal could not question the words. "The warriors will come to you. And then, if you look but a short distance, you will find her whom you seek."
And then Mixtal, too, slept, lapsing into a dream filled with singing flowers, talking snakes, and chattering, brilliant-plumed birds. He did not awaken for some time, and then only when he heard a man's guttural question.
"Priest, why do you sleep here?"
"Wha — ?" Mixtal's eyes popped open and he sat up. He saw three Jaguar Knights, including the one who had just spoken, and beyond them a column of spearmen stretching to the limit of the cleric's vision in the undergrowth. Each spearman wore the breechclout typical of the Payit and carried three obsidian-tipped javelins, a caster, and a round shield of jaguar skin mounted over wood. Each had a bone or wooden ornament stuck crosswise through his nose and wore a high headdress of orange feathers.
"Warriors!" Now the priest sprang to his feet animatedly. "Wake up, you louts!" He gave Atax and another apprentice swift kicks. "The warriors are here!"
"You were expecting us?" demanded the knight as the apprentices roused their comrades.
"Do not question the will of Zaltec!" snapped Mixtal. "I have heard directly from the Ancient Ones!" At least, he thought he had. Things were happening so fast that the priest couldn't quite keep up. But he enjoyed the fear that passed across the Jaguar Knight's face at Mixtal's words.
"We have an important task to perform! A sacrifice demanded by Zaltec has escaped and is even now arousing the anger of the god. We must find her!"
"What tale is this?" asked the knight. "We have been sent here, this hundredmen, to keep watch over the invaders. A hundred hundred even now gather to the shore. I know nothing about a sacri — "
"The invaders!" Mixtal's mind seized upon an idea. His eyes still seemed to stare through a shifting haze of smoke, but now his brain whirled with ideas, with command. "Yes, they are the ones. They have taken her from the altar of Zaltec! Don't you understand? They are an affront to our gods! We must reclaim that which is rightfully Zaltec's!"
"I have my orders, from Gultec himself," grunted the knight, nervously.
"Would Gultec want you to stand by idly while our gods are defiled because of a woman taken from us?" Mixtal felt tall, as if the warriors were child-sized people gathered around him.
The knight turned and conferred quietly with the two other Jaguars of his company. Mixtal looked down and saw them gesturing and whispering.