“How interesting. Why the Mayans? What did they do to deserve it?”
“Nothing, just failed to listen.”
“You don’t suppose this indicates Quetzalcoatl is on my side?”
“You’d have to ask him. Like I said, he told me nothing.”
“Come on,” the Great Speaker pressed him, “he must have given some hint of his goals. What game is he playing? Why has he returned? Why now?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t.”
“But it seems as though he confided in you to some extent. Favoured you. After all, he killed those others but let you live. Why?”
“Beats me. I think he had a soft spot for me. Or felt sorry for me. One or the other.”
The answer seemed to jibe with the Great Speaker’s own view. “Yes, that sounds about right. He does like his pets, does old Quetzalcoatl. Fond of the lesser beings and the afflicted. Like Xolotl. And that disgusting syphilitic old cripple Nanahuatzin. So he didn’t mention me at all?”
Reston searched his memory. “Maybe. Sort of. Indirectly. In passing. He talked about not doing what Xibalba was hoping to do, not resorting to drastic measures. A nonviolent resolution. And there was something about ‘unfinished business.’ I suppose that might apply to you, the Empire, all of that.”
“Nonviolent,” said the Great Speaker, musing. “That would be just like him. Always thinking he’s above such things, always trying to plant his flag on the moral high ground, when really he’s no better than anyone else.”
“But he isn’t the actual, genuine…” Reston began. Then his voice dropped, taking on a note of numb resignation. “He is, isn’t he? There’s no point trying to fight it any more.”
“Yes.”
“But then that would mean…”
“I, Mr Reston, am what I appear to be, and so much more.”
By now Mal was beyond confused. It seemed the two of them had lapsed into talking in riddles. She was seized by the urge to butt in and demand they speak straight, stop being so damn cryptic…
All at once, the Great Speaker tensed. His whole body went rigid, right to the fingertips, every inch of him alert.
“Your Imperial Holiness?” said Tlanextic, partway unsheathing his macuahitl. “What is it?”
“Quiet!” The Great Speaker turned his head, fixing his attention on the eastern horizon. “Oh yes,” he said slowly. “There you are. Peekaboo. I see you.”
Mal followed the line of his gaze but could see nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that hadn’t been there a moment earlier. It was the exact same view as before: the lake, the far-off shore, the folds of hill beyond.
“Come on, then,” the Great Speaker said. “It’s time we had this reunion. Long overdue, I’d say.”
“Sir,” said Tlanextic, “is there trouble? Perhaps we should get you inside, down to one of the command bunkers. You’ll be safe there.”
“No, it’s not trouble, colonel. At least, nothing I can’t handle. I think what’s coming could be called an official delegation.”
Reston was looking eastward too, and Mal could tell he was anxious, even though there was no obvious threat.
Then she spotted them — a trio of tiny dots in midair, dark against the shimmering hazy blue of the sky.
Some kind of aircraft?
They came closer, growing in size. They were moving fast, quicker even than an aerodisc could travel.
They were…
People?
Three of them.
Winged.
Flying.
The hairs on the back of Mal’s neck stood on end.
“Colonel Tlanextic?” said the Great Speaker. “I’d recommend you don’t do anything rash or precipitous. You’ll regret it. Just stay where you are. That applies to all of you. Be calm. Show due deference.”
He spread out his arms.
“Gods are coming.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Same Day
They descended, landed.
All three were unusually tall, like the Great Speaker, and were kitted out in sleek versions of traditional Aztec dress. The pairs of wings, attached to them by ornate harnesses, were rigid arcs of metal which swivelled on pivots, for steering and braking. The shoulder-mounted units from which they sprouted were clearly what lent the wearers the power of flight. They gave off a familiar faint hum; portable neg-mass generators.
The wings stowed themselves automatically as the three men landed, retracting and folding neatly away behind their wearers’ spines. The neg-mass units fell silent. The three looked around at the group assembled on the terrace. One of them, the tallest and by some margin the handsomest, bestowed a look of recognition on Reston — a slightly frowning one, as if surprised or puzzled to see him. Hesitantly, warily, Reston returned it. It was obvious to Mal that they knew each other, and some of Reston’s recent conversation with the Great Speaker began to make sense. These were the people they were talking about, the ones Reston had had a run-in with in the rainforest.
But who were they?
And how come they had personal antigrav capability? That wasn’t possible, as far as Mal was aware. The Japanese had expended huge amounts of time, money and resources on trying to scale down the size of neg-mass technology from its original specifications. They hadn’t managed to by much, and if they couldn’t, no one could. The dream of individual flight had yet to become a reality. Except, here it was.
The Great Speaker turned his head, looking at each of the three arrivals in turn. Finally he said, “Well, well, well. It was inevitable, I suppose. You left me alone for long enough. I was beginning to think you’d forgotten about me.”
“I wish,” said the tallest.
“Oh, so that’s how it’s to be, is it?”
“No, I apologise. It was a cheap shot.”
“So you’ve come to kiss and make up. Or am I to view this visitation in a more sinister light? As a prelude to something worse?”
“It all depends.”
“On?”
“How you choose to play things.”
“It’s been a long time. Can’t we simply let bygones be bygones?”
“I’d be glad to. But some deeds are hard to overlook, or forgive.”
“Such as?”
“What you’ve been up to in our absence, for starters,” growled another of the three. This one was superbly muscled and completely hairless, with a belligerent jut to his jaw.
“You don’t like what I’ve done with the place?” The Great Speaker put a hand to his chest in the manner of someone mortally offended. “And here was I thinking I’d been an exemplary caretaker. Preserving the legacy. Making the most of what we’d started. Maximising on the potential.”
“This was never what we envisioned,” said the third of the flying men. “A worldwide dictatorship based on conquest and terror — that was never the plan. Quite the opposite.”
“Then perhaps you should have thought about that before you all flounced off and left me to it. If you’d been really committed to the project, you’d have stayed on and helped see it through. Instead, you abandoned me here on my own. That gave me carte blanche to continue as I saw fit. You can’t hold me solely accountable for how
