Could the Ocelot spies see something was up? I wondered. Or was it so subtle that you had to know it was happening to catch it?
The signal came down that Fanged Hummingbird had seen the raise. There was another blast of commotion. I got Hun Xoc and Red Cord into a kind of a huddle and got my mouth onto Hun Xoc’s ear.
If this turns into a fight we have to head into the Ocelots’ compound, I said. West.
Why? he signed on my arm. He was planning to stay here and fight it out.
We have to get to the Ocelots’ tree, I said. There’s something I promised 2 Jeweled Skull I’d do. I didn’t want Red Cord-or even Hun Xoc, I guess-to know about the earthstar compound. Better they thought I wanted to ring or somehow poison the Ocelots’ celestial tree-which would be a reasonable goal, actually, ritually speaking. It would be like killing the clan.
Hun Xoc signed that he didn’t want to run.
I started to try to tell him the old thing about how we weren’t running, we were just advancing in a different direction, but I tripped over the words. It wasn’t that easy to translate an English phrase into Chol, or at least it wasn’t for me.
We’re not running anywhere, I said, I have to ajma-xoc. It meant “follow what our father says.” It was incontrovertible. Come on, I thought, switch hats. You’re not a ballplayer right now, you’re a commando.
He demurred again. I insisted. Finally he said “Agreed” by contracting his shoulder muscles.
It’ll just be the three of us and six of Koh’s guards, I said. Maybe not even that many. We can still make it, though.
Listen, something’s going on, Hun Xoc signed by tapping my yoke.
What? I asked, but I heard it.
“Kot Chuupol! Ile Kot Chuupol!” It was Emerald Immanent’s voice.
He’d recognized me.
(37)
“Kot Chuupol! Ile Kot Chuupol!”
His voice was like he was trying to throw up, except loud. You’re supposed to be silent like your stupid name, I thought. Ch’uupul was a Chol word for like gay or queer-not in the okay sense of a epicene, but in the sense of being a willing bottom-so the most popular insult-name for me was just something midway in sound between that and “Chacal.”
“Yan Kot Chacal!” he yelled. “It’s Harpy Chacal!”
Just ignore them, dear, I thought.
“Yan Chuupol Chacal! Yan Chuupol Chacal!”
I was sort of half-aware that a couple of people up in the Ocelot stands had heard Emerald Immanent identifying me, and they were having mixed reactions. Some of them were more than a little spooked and kept on rhubarbing about it. But I was too pumped to pay much attention. The chanter and Magister and beaters and everybody just went on with what they were doing, cruising through the protocol on inertia.
Anyway, the serve went out. Hun Xoc got it and passed to me. In the femtosecond I spent looking at him I could see he was too winded to make another goal run himself. In a normal ball game, with more bench players, he’d have dropped out already.
I passed back to Red Cord. Just get me a good shot, I signed to Hun Xoc. Red Cord passed back to me.
Okay. No point holding back now.
I scooped the ball out of the air and passed it back to Hun Xoc and fell back and turned, setting up my signature run. I mean Chacal’s signature run. It was like one of Lebron’s dunk-in-the-post, I’d perfected it over so many repetitions it was almost one motion and felt completed as soon as I swung into it. I built up speed and ran up the red wall, like Donald O’Connor in Singin’ in the Rain. I was giving myself away, but I was like, Fine, I don’t give a fuck, I’m doing my transcendent little dance and nothing’s gonna stop me cause I’m the Duke of Earl.
I turned like a skateboarder just above the lip of the wall and dashed down, building up momentum, and diagonally across the alley and up the Ocelots’ emerald-tinted wall. By the second step up I’d revisualized my path up the bank, felt my speed, yep, everything in place, THE TIME IS NOW!!!
I came to that moment of perfect equipoise where I was standing motionless like a fly at this crazy forty-five-degree angle. I felt the wind from Ocelot spectators’ fists as they swung at me, not quite connecting. The goal was only six arms ahead of me and three arms above. Hun Xoc yoked the ball up to me like he’d done a thousand times, and it came up just as I was falling, nearly right where I wanted it, so that I could gauge its stately spin by a pink spot of bloody chalk-dust, and I dug my wrist-guard into the black moon and just fed it right into the side of the vase. I could see the bloom of turquoise powder as I fell out of my equilibrium and as I rolled I could hear the chanters squealing above the cheers:
“20 Ocelots, 22 Harpies.” You could tell from the chanters’ voices that this wasn’t how it was supposed to go. They’d been sure the Ocelots had a lock. Well, choke on this, I thought. One more.
Hun Xoc got the eighteenth serve, set up, got a solid hit on it, and grazed the peg. Somebody’d checked me, and I’d fallen over. But as I hoisted myself up I could see a tiny but incontrovertible wisp of blue-green dust.
We did it, I thought, but as the chanters’ voice swelled into a chorus of “ Kax kot, kax Kot,” “Win, Harpies, win, Harpies,” I could hear, closer and louder, Emerald Immanent’s voice, and then Emerald Snapper’s, and then two, and four, and then what sounded like a hundred other voices, all screaming:
“Yan Kot Chacal!” “It’s Harpy Chacal!”
I staggered toward the central marker. There were Harpy bloods chanting back, “Kax! Kax! Kax!” “Victory! Victory! Victory!” and the Ocelot crowd shouting, “Tuus! Tuus! Tuus!” “Deception, deception, deception.” Nearer, I heard Hun Xoc’s voice.
“Chokow pol!” It meant “crazy” or “Crazy Man,” another common and somewhat more admiring pun on my name. But he used it only as a warning. I turned. All I could see was this big black thing but I ducked in time for it not to tear my head off.
4 Blue Howler had scooped up the dead ball and yoked it at my head.
What’s going on? I thought kind of dully. I was still endorphined out. Ball was supposed to be an elegant game-at its best combining the artistry of rhythmic gymnastics with the excitement and finesse of men’s lacrosse-and now it’s turning into Australian football. Howler ran at me, following the ball. I turned like I was going to run away and then dug my right foot into the bank and pushed off the angle between the floor and the sloping wall, stopping myself. Howler skidded into me from behind. I hunched forward and pushed my rear end back and felt the left prong of my horseshoe-shaped yoke connect with bone. I rolled forward and was on my feet again. Howler was sliding in a clockwise arc down the bank, leaving a wide black streak. The crowd loved it. I crouched into a “turtle,” expecting a tackle from Emerald Immanent, but it didn’t come. I looked up. Red Beak had gotten hold of him. Not for long, though, it looked like. Behind them I noticed Emerald Snapper and the two Emerald bench players running at us. Snapper was huge and big-boned and I thought for a beat that I’d had it, but he got off balance and as he fell toward me I got his head right on the sweet spot of my yoke. There was no crack, it was more like just a quiet glutch. Whatever, I thought, yeah, forget the damn Marquess of Queersbury rules, let’s take the buttons off the foils. As Snapper fell back he got a hand into my yoke and pulled me down onto the slaughterhouse floor. I managed to roll away before he rolled onto me and flattened me. Emerald Immanent was coming back around on my right. The umpires’ drivers and both sides’ invisibles were already out on the court, trying to shield the players they were assigned to.