He stood up painfully, rivulets of sweat running down his disfigured features. He faced the gaping mouth of the volcano and repeated an ancient prayer:
"All moons, all years, all days, all winds, take their course and pass away."
He held his blackened arms over his head. Then, his face composed, his mouth set, he dived into the distended mouth of the volcano, making no sound as he died.
The Mayans standing atop Bocatan turned to Remo and Chiun and knelt. Dawn flooded the sky with red, looking through the smoke and steam like a vision from hell.
The moment lingered forever, it seemed. Each man tried to take a measure of the events of the past twenty-four hours, and could only remember it as a time of great moment, its details already fading into the realm of legend. Only Chiun remained entirely in the present, lowering himself to the ground, listening.
"What are you doing, Little Father?" Remo said, noticing the strange posture of the old Oriental.
"Take them away from here," Chiun said.
"Why?"
The old man spoke softly. "Earthquake."
The boy was the first to respond. "Nata-Ah," he cried, limping as fast as he could toward the village, where the women and children of Yaxbenhaltun slept.
?Chapter Fifteen
The limestone columns of the palace were already crashing by the time the boy reached it. Remo was inside, pulling the women and the household staff to safety, while Chiun and Lizzie worked with the Mayan warriors to wake the rest of the village.
"Where is Nata-Ah?" Po asked.
"I can't find her. Maybe she's already out."
"She is not. She must be here!" the boy bellowed.
"Look, I've got enough on my hands," Remo said, pulling a bevy of shrieking dancing girls through the falling rock. "The building's full, and it's going to go fast, so get out of the way."
"I will help," the boy said, rushing into the palace. Two old women, balancing a load of clay dishes between them, tottered from the kitchen, blocking the hall where others screamed behind them. The boy knocked the dishes out of their hands and pushed them forward, making room for the stampede.
"Nata-Ah!" he called, forcing his way against the crowd. He scanned the panicking faces that swept past him, but the beautiful young girl was not among them.
Po made his way into the interior of the palace, where the ornate painted ceilings dipped and swayed rhythmically to the deep rumbles of the earthquake. The roof would cave in within minutes with him inside, unless he got out quickly. But Nata-Ah. What if she was still somewhere in the palace?
He walked under the buckling ceiling of the reception hall and into the labyrinth of the palace's great rooms.
"Nata-Ah!" he shouted, but. his voice was drowned out in the splintering crash of stone on ground outside.
She was not in the room where she normally slept. The other rooms were also empty, their doors hanging open. Only the king's throne room was sealed.
He burst in. The girl was inside, sitting straight and tall upon her grandfather's magnificent throne.
"Nata-Ah, you must come. There is danger," Po said in the Old Tongue.
"This is the end of the world," the girl said softly. "I am the world's ruler now. I will remain here."
"Oh, Nata-Ah," Po pleaded. "There is so much I have to tell you. This isn't the end. It's just the beginning. Me, I come from the end, not you. Your people will make a mark on history that will never be forgotten, never."
"You know this?"
"Yes, I know."
"You are the voice of the gods, just as my grandfather said. You are like Quintanodan. You have the Sight."
"Nata-Ah, your grandfather was only setting a trap for Quintanodan when he called me that. And I don't have the Sight. It's just that I come from—"
"You came with the gods," she said. "And you will leave with them. And I will remain here, for I do not wish to live without you." Her eyes shone with tears.
He was stunned. Long moments passed. Down the hall, the ceiling burst and a ton of rock poured into the smashed palace with a sound like thunder. The door to the throne room flew open and creaked mightily, twisting out of shape as an ocean of debris showered behind it.
Po touched her face. "Then I will stay here with you," he said. "For you are all I need in this life. I have followed you forever, and now that I have found you, I will stay to my last breath at your side."
Suddenly, through the wreckage, a man appeared.
"What the hell are you two doing here?" Remo yelled angrily, grabbing each child in one hand and vaulting to the. window. "Hang on." He tumbled outside, leaping over the piles of fallen cement to safety.
"You've got rocks in your heads, both of you," he shouted over his shoulder as he ran toward the square. "When this is over with, I'm going to spank the daylights—"
"Remo," Lizzie shouted excitedly.
"I don't have time," Remo said.
"But it's an earthquake. That's what brought us here in the first place. 'The vibration of molecules,' that's what Cooligan said made the time module Work."
Remo pulled a screaming man from beneath a slab of rock. "If an earthquake's all it took, then why didn't Cooligan get out during one?"
"Because while Cooligan was here, there wasn't an earthquake. Not one is mentioned in the log. He never had the chance, but we do. Come on," she said, pulling at his arm. "Get the others. It has to be now."
Remo straightened up. He swept his arm over the scene around him. The entire city was a wreckage. White plaster and dust covered the faces of the dead on the street. Hundreds of small fires burned everywhere. "We can't go, Lizzie. People's lives are still in danger. In a few minutes, when the earthquake's subsided, maybe—"
"We can't wait for it to subside! This is the only chance we're going to get, and you know it. If the pod hasn't already been damaged, that is. A few more minutes, and the temple holding the Cassandra might be destroyed."
"We've just got to wait," Remo said stubbornly.
"I don't have to do any such thing," she screamed. "This is my last shot to get out of here, and by God, I'm going to take it!"
"All by yourself? What if the mechanism won't work again?"
"That's your problem," Lizzie said.
Remo shook his head. "Guess I was wrong about you, old girl. Still looking out for number one, aren't you?"
"Can you blame me?"
Remo looked closely at her, and then at the ruin of the city. "No, I can't. I'm the same way myself. No strings, no responsibilities. He travels fastest who travels alone."
Lizzie regarded him suspiciously. "Then why aren't you coming?" she asked.
Remo looked out over the far horizon, shimmering in the wake of the city's flames. "Because I'm tired of hating myself," he said.
Her eyes hardened. "If you think that this is going to make me—"
"I wasn't talking about you. I was talking about me."
Struggling to keep her face impassive, she stood watching him for a moment. Then she turned and strode away.
"Well, that's that for the moment," Remo said.
Most of the rubble had been cleared away from the square. Miraculously, only six lives had been lost. The bodies of the dead lay wrapped in makeshift shrouds near the city's walls. Someone had unobtrusively taken care of the survivors, since the streets were clear of the wandering homeless.
It was nearly twilight. Remo and Chiun had worked with the Mayans for nearly eighteen hours salvaging what they could of the city. Several of the men had collapsed from exhaustion. Po, the improvised bandages on his legs blackened from soot, slept in the open courtyard as Nata-Ah rummaged through the vacant buildings for a new dressing for his wound.