The Great Speaker acknowledged the show of obeisance with the slightest of nods. When he spoke, his voice resonated deep and clear like a gong. The mask did not muffle it at all.
“You may rise,” he said, adding, “Those of you who had the good manners to bend the knee.”
“Your Imperial Holiness,” said Tlanextic, “I bring you Stuart Reston, as instructed.”
“Yes,” said the Great Speaker, studying Tlanextic’s prisoner. “Yes, indeed. The man who donned Conquistador armour and thumbed his nose at the Empire for many months. Quite the nuisance you were, Mr Reston, at least to your own countrymen and your High Priest. But the Empire is huge and thick-skinned, like a rhinoceros, and your little provocations were like the bites of a gnat. You scarcely penetrated its hide.”
Reston mumbled something.
“What was that?” The Great Speaker cupped a hand to his ear in a dumbshow of deafness. “Didn’t quite catch it.”
“I said, ‘But I’m here, aren’t I?’”
“The implication being…?”
“Well, despite your protestations, the Empire must have felt something, mustn’t it? I must have stung. Otherwise why the volcanic eruptions? And why has my sorry arse been hauled all the way over to your palace? Stands to reason. Oh, and by the way, while I have you, and because I’m never going to get an opportunity like this again… You’re a big fat phoney. Immortal? Ptah!” He spat at the Great Speaker’s feet. “Just the latest in a long line of anonymous dictators. Tell me, does it get stuffy in that mask? Does it stink of the sweat from all the others who’ve worn it before you?”
Mal couldn’t control herself. She delivered a knuckle strike to Reston’s waist, just where his left kidney was, so that he doubled over, grimacing in pain. “Don’t you behave like that before the Great Speaker. Don’t you dare.”
The Great Speaker cocked his head, as if amused. “Ah yes, the British policewoman. Vaughn. Am I right in thinking, Miss Vaughn, that you’re the one who headed up the Conquistador investigation?”
“I did, Your Imperial Holiness. It was my job to end his terror campaign. And I suppose you could say I achieved that.”
The Great Speaker inclined his head to examine Mal. Through the mask’s eyeholes she glimpsed a pair of irises so dark brown they were almost black. There seemed to be a vast depth of intelligence in those eyes, and a cold aloofness too. These, surely, were the eyes of someone who had lived for over five hundred solar years.
“How fascinating,” he said. “Such fire and tenacity, yet such insecurity too, buried away inside. I think you sometimes feel you’re doing the right things for the wrong reason, Inspector Vaughn, or else the wrong things for the right reason. You punish yourself, and yet to live with such inner turmoil must, I would have thought, be sufficient punishment in itself.”
Mal was dumbfounded. He had read her — comprehended her — at a glance.
“As for you…” The Great Speaker returned his attention to Reston, who was still smarting from Mal’s blow. “Your insolence doesn’t perturb me in the least. You are nothing to me. Once, for a very brief while, you seemed a cause for concern. But that time is gone. I have you before me, and you are a small and pathetic individual indeed. Your opinion of me is of no consequence, and neither are you, in and of yourself.”
“Then how about letting me go,” said Reston, “if I’m so insignificant?”
“Because you might still have your uses. Colonel?”
Tlanextic straightened. “Sir.”
“First of all, you can dismiss your subordinates. We shan’t be needing them.”
“You heard him, men.” Tlanextic jerked a thumb. “Take a hike.” As the lieutenants departed, he gestured at Mal and Aaronson. “And these two, Your Imperial Holiness?”
“They may stay. It would seem churlish to dismiss them, in light of how far they’ve travelled to be here. I wouldn’t like them to go home thinking the Great Speaker ungracious or niggardly with his hospitality.” He said this with a sly lilt to his voice, the tone of someone who enjoyed his whims and his freedom to indulge them. “Besides, who knows? Inspector Vaughn may yet be leaving with her prize.”
Yes! thought Mal.
“It all depends on how helpful he is. Oh, and these things, colonel.” The Great Speaker waved at Reston’s bonds. “Not called for. Take them off.”
“If you insist, sir.”
“I do. I’m not frightened of Mr Reston. While he’s shackled, it implies that he is a danger to me. Untying him will dispel that illusion. Losing the chains will weaken his position, not strengthen it.”
Producing a key, Tlanextic unlocked and removed the manacles. “One step out of line,” he hissed at Reston, “and you’re dead meat. You so much as sneeze suspiciously, you’ll find a sword through your heart before you’ve even wiped your nose.”
“Now then, Mr Reston,” said the Great Speaker. “Let’s all relax and talk in a civilised fashion. I want information. I’m curious to know about events that occurred in the rainforest. I have reason to believe you’ve recently been in contact with certain parties who may bear a certain animosity towards me.”
“Xibalba?”
“Come now, don’t be facetious. You know I don’t mean them. Poorly equipped separatist guerrillas with their foolish dreams of a Mayan state? I couldn’t care less about them. If the Conquistador is a gnat, they are smaller still. Microbes, perhaps. No, I’m talking about beings of considerable power. You’ve met them. I know you have.”
“I have no idea what you’re — ”
Quicker than the eye could follow, quicker than seemed humanly possible, the Great Speaker shot out a hand and seized Reston by the neck. Then, exerting no apparent effort, he raised him off the floor, using only the one arm. Reston clawed at the hand with both of his, trying to unpick the gloved fingers, straining and gurgling. His face reddened. His eyes bulged. His legs kicked violently but uselessly. He hung there, suspended, choking, for nearly a minute before the Great Speaker relented and set him back down.
“There, now,” he said as Reston, bent over, wheezed for breath. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to resort to those sorts of cheap bullyboy tactics. I’m not barbaric by nature, not in my day-to-day affairs. When it comes to getting results, I far prefer words to the fist. So let’s try again. Three days ago, out in the rainforest, certain energies were released.”
“The aerodisc blowing up,” said Reston hoarsely, gulping out each word.
“No. Other energies. Of a kind the world has not known in many a year. I detected them. I am, you might say, a spider, and the world is my web. I sit at the centre of it, feeling the hum and quiver of every strand. When there is an anomaly — anything that might upset the precise, orderly running of my domain — I am aware of it. There is a presence out there in the forest, just a few miles away. I sense that you have met it. The moment you stepped out onto this terrace, I knew. It has left its mark on you. You are redolent of it. I can see it on you. Smell it on you. Smell him.”
“Him,” Reston echoed.
“Yes. And where he goes, can the others be far behind?”
“You’re referring to — ”
“Who do you think I’m referring to?” the Great Speaker snapped. Then he composed himself, his voice resuming its serene purr. “So tell me. How is he? What sort of a mood is he in? What does he want? What are his plans?”
Very quietly, almost in a whisper, Reston said, “Quetzalcoatl.”
“Yes. Quetzalcoatl. Of course, Quetzalcoatl. Who else?”
Mal scowled. What the hell were these two talking about? Quetzalcoatl? What did he have to do with anything? She saw similar perplexity on Aaronson’s face. Tlanextic, by contrast, looked only mildly fascinated, as though the mention of the god’s name came as no surprise. It was evident that she and Aaronson were the odd ones out here, ignorant of some vital facts known to everyone else present.
“He…” Reston paused. “He told me nothing. Nothing about any plans. Just demonstrated what he and the rest of them can do. It wasn’t even a fraction of what they’re capable of, I don’t think. They barely broke a sweat.”
“And what was it? What did they do?”
“They killed — they swatted — Xibalba.”
