“Why are you here?” he asked.
Teshna heard several nobles chatting down the hall, nearing Priest Quisac’s room. She moved to the side of the doorway where she could not be seen. She watched them pass, sighed, and spun back to the Serpent Priest. “I must know…. who is this young man? Is it true that he is the Balam… from the prophecies… sent by the gods? He is indeed powerful and…” She blushed. “Well, is it true?”
“We are all sent by the gods to serve a purpose in this life. Have I not told you this before?”
“More riddles!” she said, and turned away.
Priest Quisac moved to the side of the room, where a large Mayan calendar was hanging on the wall. He studied it for a moment. “Life is indeed a riddle. That is why we have our sacred calendar-to give us guidance for each day.”
“Priest Quisac!” she blurted, becoming impatient.
The Serpent Priest turned with a confident enthusiasm; a slight smile crossed his lips. “Yes, he is the Balam… sent by the gods… not only to help our people, but his kind as well. He does not yet understand all this.”
“His kind? Where is he from? How can such a man-so different-be in our land? He has hair over his face and body-and the color of his skin!”
Priest Quisac turned the wheel on the calendar, as the interlocking outer and inner wheels moved together. He set it to the correct date and studied the calendar, lost in thought. “I see… broken images in his mind, of places and things that I have never seen before,” he said in a misty voice, and spun around with an intense look. “Clearly he is not of our world.”
Teshna perked up with a coy smile, somehow delighted by his words. “When you learn more, will you share it with me?”
“Perhaps,” he said with a questioning glance.
“I can show you something of his, in exchange for your confidence,” she said in a tempting manner. “I took it before it was seen by the others.”
The Serpent Priest thought for moment. “I suggest you return it to Balam. When he desires, he will tell us about his life, and his… possessions.”
She stared at the Serpent Priest the way teenagers glare at their parents when they don’t like the answer they were just given. “Good day, Priest Quisac,” she said.
He nodded.
Teshna stormed from the Serpent Priest’s room, angry as she always felt after having been outwitted by the old man. But when she considered the idea of returning the item to Balam, a delicious smile spread across her face.
After the festivities in the courtyard concluded, Yax insisted on giving William and Betty a tour of the city. Children gathered along the way, following William as though he were Chuck E. Cheese parading through the restaurant at a kid’s birthday party. Young women also joined the procession to get a look at him. They giggled when he glanced their way. Some of the girls even carried children of their own. It bothered William to see infants with braces attached to their heads. He assumed it was why most the adults had angled foreheads.
The kids dispersed just before they reached the ceremonial center, leaving them alone with Yax and a contingent of the royal guard. Many nobles were there too, scattered throughout the plaza and temples; they bowed when they passed by them.
William recalled his last visit there with his grandfather, and he recited the same tour script to Betty that he had been told before. “The pyramid we’re heading toward is the Temple of the Owl. They found the corpse of a lady in a tomb there. A ceramic plate with a painting of an owl was beside her.” He glanced to his left. “That building is the North Palace.” He pointed to a long stairway leading up to a structure at the top. “I think that’s the Temple of the Captives.” He noticed artists sculpting images along the steps, and he turned to the King, speaking in Yucatec-Maya again. “Yax, what are they doing there?”
Yax glanced over with a stern look. “I was imprisoned there by my uncle, along with other nobles who had been supporting me. My uncle began that project to record the moment in our kingdom’s history of the important captives he had held.” He gave William a proud grin. “I now complete this task for a similar reason… so that we will never forget how the god’s sent you here to free us.”
They reached the Temple of the Owl, and Yax motioned for them to follow him up the steps. When they reached the top, rather than going inside the ceremonial chamber-as William had assumed they would-they followed him around the platform along the edge of the pyramid to the back side. He motioned with his hand across the view of the vast jungles, extending into the horizon miles away. William recalled having stood in about the same position just a week before with his grandfather, admiring the same view. But what a difference now, he noticed, with massive sections of the jungle cut down, where plantations were being worked by hundreds of men.
“I reckon’ those are corn fields,” Betty said with an intentional hick accent.
It occurred to William that Yax had shared the source of his true power with them-the farming efforts that he governed.
As they returned down the temple steps, Yax paused behind them, kneeled for a moment of prayer, and then sprinted down the rest of the way. William and Betty, on the other hand, continued down the steep stairway with a bit more caution.
After the tour, they went back to the King’s palace-a massive stone building on a raised platform, covered by a thatched roof. William didn’t recall seeing any ruins of the grand structure during his previous visit, but he remembered reading how most of the residential buildings outside the ceremonial center of Dzibanche had been disassembled over time; the limestone bricks were hauled off by those who could make use of the building materials for their own purposes.
As they approached the palace, Yax spoke to the servants who had been waiting for his return, giving them instructions. He told William and Betty to get some rest and went in through the arched entrance.
Servants ushered them into the palace, taking them down a hallway that opened into a large plaza; an enormous ceiba tree grew from the very center of the courtyard. A sense of awe overcame William as he gazed up at the tree towering above him. It reminded him of the giant redwoods in California. The unusual ceiba tree rose straight up, without any branches along the body of its trunk, and then stretched out like a huge leafy umbrella at the top. William felt mesmerized by the tree. He reached over and touched its bark, running his hands across the big thorns; they looked like oversized chocolate kisses. William smiled, as a peaceful feeling swept over his mood.
“You two need some time alone?” Betty asked with a smirk. Her eyes grew when she saw the red gem glowing on his chest. “William, what’s with your necklace?”
“Oh, wow!” he said, snapping his hand away from the tree. The glow faded as he returned to Betty’s side.
“Okay, that was weird,” Betty said, and then noticed the servants waving at her to follow. “I guess they’re taking us to our rooms now.”
“Don’t get too comfortable,” William said. “Yax mentioned something about a ball game later today. That should be cool to see.”
“Whatever,” she said, rolling her eyes up. “I’m down this way if you need me,” she pointed to the hallway on her right that led deep into the palace. “Your room is straight ahead… same as the King, you big-shot.”
William shrugged. “Try to rest, okay?”
Betty came near with a secretive look. “Actually, I could really use a swim,” she whispered. “I thought I’d sneak off to that cenote down the road… where I bandaged your feet, remember? You want to come?”
“Are you kidding? I don’t think that would be a good idea, Betty. We should stay here where it’s safe.”
Betty groaned. “I haven’t gone swimming for days. It helps me to relax.”
William grabbed her forearm. “It’s dangerous. Promise you won’t go.”
She sighed, nodded, and left with her head down, sulking like a kid who had just been ordered to bed. When William returned to his room, an elderly lady was there waiting for him. She showed him various articles of clothing that he could wear and pointed at the jug by his bed, gesturing that he could drink from it.