They were dangerously close to Bocatan. The Mayans, with no leader, were no match for the warring Olmec with their weapons from the twenty-first century. There was only one way to stop them from swarming over the volcano into the city of Yaxbenhaltun: Remo would have to create a distraction that would give Chiun enough time to work his way through the foot soldiers and then take out the laser bearers.
When he reached the marsh, past the Forbidden Fields, he ran at double time toward the volcano. Earlier, when he had climbed the eastern slope of Bocatan with Lizzie, they had made their way up a narrow pass. If he could collect the Olmec there, Chiun would have an easier time of getting rid of them.
He approached the pass minutes before the six Olmec.
"Hey, you fruits, hubba hubba," he shouted to the oncoming warriors. A laser shimmered in the air toward him. It struck the exact location where he stood, but in the split second it took the beam to travel, Remo was gone. The shaft dug a deep crater into the side of the volcano.
"That's good, fellas. Just what I wanted." He stuck his thumbs into his ears and blurted a rasberry at the confused soldiers. "Come on, creeps, it's target practice."
Another laser lit up the sky, striking the hillside. And another.
"Chiun, get a move on, will you?"
"Watch your tone of voice," Chiun said indignantly from the shadows. He leaped high in the air, taking off the top of a man's head in his descent.
"Good work, Little Father."
"Mind your own affairs."
Remo was ready. One of the warriors, aiming his weapon directly at him, stood in firing position, open from every angle.
"The problem with guns," Remo said as the man's finger moved back imperceptibly on the trigger, "is that your body is wasted." He spun out of the way of the fiery charge. The soldier tried to get a bead on him again, but he was gone.
"The only part of your body you use with a gun is your finger, see," Remo said from behind him. The warrior spun around. No one was there.
"The rest of you is completely vulnerable." The soldier turned again, firing without looking. The beam tore into the side of the mountain.
"See what I mean?" Remo said, delivering a kick to the man's kidneys that turned them to brown jelly. The corpse's fingers twitched spasmodically on the sensitive trigger. A burst of fire sliced into Bocatan's worn and pitted slope. Remo reached the weapon and crushed it to gravel in his hands.
"Okay, who's next?" he shouted. Chiun was in the process of splintering someone's neck into a thousand pieces with a rapid drum of his fingers. The man's weapon soared upward. The other laser bearers were fleeing back toward the caves. "Oh, no you don't," Remo said. "You're not getting another chance, Bonzo." He took off after the man, caught him, and smashed his weapon to shards in front of his face.
The man's mouth dropped open.
Remo said, "You were willing to fight me when you had the laser. Now I insist we go on."
But the man only sputtered, his eyes staring straight ahead of him. He raised a violently shaking finger and pointed behind Remo's back.
"Come on," Remo said in disgust. "That's old. I look behind me and you get a chance to break my nose. Well, it doesn't work that way, chum." He tossed the man to the ground, looked behind him, and within a half a second picked the man up again. "See? Oh, God."
Bocatan was cracking open before his eyes.
The probes made by the lasers had torn her surface to shreds. Now the swollen volcano glowed red from its gurgling mouth to its base, streaked with deep fissures where pulsating red liquid oozed out.
"Remo!" Chiun shouted from the far rim of the volcano's peak. "Leave the warriors."
"Gotcha," Remo said, suddenly remembering the Olmec soldier supported in his hands. Almost absently he tapped the man's solar plexus. The man slumped to the ground.
And the fire mountain exploded.
Its entire eastern side blew in a stream of lava shooting from its base. The red mouth of the volcano darkened and receded as the lava spewed out of its collapsing side.
The heat and force of the molten rock blew Remo aside like a weightless feather as it tumbled onto the valley, swallowing rocks whole and burning a blinding path past the marsh and into the Forbidden Fields, where the burning miles of white flowers gave off a stench of sweet decay.
Above the din of the collapsing volcano could be heard the wails of the Olmec trapped in the inexorable flow of molten death, their screams sounding like the chattering of small birds, insignificant in the roaring eruption.
A man, his face burned horribly, ran toward Remo carrying a long-bladed knife in his hands. The entire top half of his body was blackened. On his shoulders were huge bubbling blisters, sprouting from deep within the muscle tissue. Remo could tell the man wouldn't last for ten minutes.
"Don't put yourself through the trouble," Remo said, taking the knife. The man covered his face with his charred hands.
"I'll help you to die," Remo said quietly, placing his arms around the man's body so that he would feel as little pain as possible. Then, with two fingers, Remo prepared to touch a cluster of nerves at the base of the man's throat that would put him to sleep painlessly and forever.
As if he could read Remo's thoughts, his eyes widened. In a burst of strength he pushed himself away.
"You're him, aren't you?" Remo said. "Quintanodan."
At the sound of his name, the priest painfully pulled himself erect. Even through his burned flesh and obvious agony, Quintanodan's expression retained all of its arrogance and cruel authority. He pointed to the rim of Bocatan, where the Mayans watched the inferno below in awed silence.
"You want me to take you there, huh?" Remo said, gesturing.
The priest nodded curtly.
"Why should I? You didn't exactly treat me like your long lost brother. Not to mention your hospitality toward Cooligan."
Again, the dying priest seemed to know what Remo was thinking. He blinked rapidly, striving to keep his eyes in focus. Clearly the man was losing consciousness. Then, with great effort, he bowed to Remo.
"Oh, cut it out," Remo said, picking the man up deftly. The movement, gentle as Remo tried to make it, must have been excrutiating. Still, the priest made no sound. "I guess you're not going to hurt anyone now."
Good guys and bad guys, killers and saints... In their final moment, all men knew terror. It was Quintanodan's moment now, and Remo respected it.
He did not despise the man for being a killer. Remo was one himself, after all, and although he had known since the death of the old king that Quintanodan would have to die, Remo was hard pressed to feel any hatred for him now. He had looked into the eyes of too many dying men to hate an enemy in torment. All life was sacred in the moment it was extinguished.
And so he carried the priest to the top of Bocatan, steaming above the destruction in the valley.
Quintanodan, lying on his back, beckoned to the boy Po to come near him while he spoke. The boy translated the man's anguished words.
"It is written that the voice of the gods will come to rule the Maya and defeat their enemies," he said. "The prophecy has come to pass. My people are dispersed, my tribe decimated. But you will not rule forever, because the Olmec understand what you do not: that the past and the future are one. That which flourishes must decay. That which lives now must return to its ashes. My people are clever. Many have died this day, but others have fled to wait, to fight again. Two of the gods' weapons remain. They are well hidden now, but one day they will be found.
"I have come to tell you this. We will fight you one day, and on that day we will defeat you. Until then, we will wait in secret. The name of the Olmec will be no more. But when our time comes, your empire will crumble to dust at our hands. For all the ages of man, no one will know why the great Mayan civilization vanished, but you will know, and your children, and your children's children, for I speak from the Sight, and the Sight does not lie. Ages hence, the Olmec will conquer you, you will be as dust in the wind of the sea."