have been a bloodletting ritual,” William said. “My grandfather told me about them. They do it to have visions… to talk to their ancestors.”
“If that’s what it takes to talk to my dead relatives, then to hell with them,” she said.
“Balam, Bati,” Priest Quisac spoke from the hallway behind them.
Betty jumped and spun around, startled to see the Serpent Priest lurking there, his silver eyes glowing like a cat in the dark.
“Forgive me for alarming you,” he said in Yucatec-Maya, after seeing her surprised reaction. “The King would like to speak with you both.”
“Well, he’d better be dressed,” Betty said, drawing a laugh from William.
Priest Quisac understood her thought, but the frown on his face indicated that he didn’t grasp the humor in it. He turned and proceeded down the northern hallway toward the King’s room, with Betty and William following close behind.
“Welcome,” Yax greeted them from across the room, sitting in his jaguar padded throne as they entered. “The Serpent Priest told me of your adventures with Yum Cimil. It is no wonder that you became ill. I understand that he is most hideous.”
“You’re right. I hope I never see that ugly demon ever again!” William said, drawing a laugh from Yax and Teshna. He glanced around the room, noticing wall paintings of bloody battles and large statues of Mayan gods.
“Come and sit here with us,” Teshna said, gesturing to the animal skin mats on the floor. She exchanged a long moment of eye contact with William as he sat.
“We have much to discuss,” Yax said. He paused for a time, thinking, and then blurted out, “Where are you from?”
Taken aback by the directness of his question, William struggled to think of the best way to put it. “We actually came from this very land, not too far from here… near Bacalar.”
“But there is no one like you anywhere in our land,” Teshna said. “There would have been stories of you throughout the kingdoms had you indeed been here, in these lands.”
“That’s because,” he said, glancing at Betty, “we’re not from this time. We’re from the future.”
The Serpent Priest let out a satisfied sigh; he had the look of someone who just solved a difficult riddle.
“Our future?” Yax asked. “That is not possible. How can you be from a place that does not yet exist?”
“Balam speaks the truth,” the Serpent Priest said, reassuring him.
Teshna leaned forward, looking worried. “Perhaps he thinks he is speaking the truth, Priest Quisac, but he is still confused by the demon.”
While Yax and Teshna leaned back to whisper with each other, William took a moment to tell Betty what they were discussing. Priest Quisac sat with his arms folded, watching a tiny lizard scurry up the wall. It stopped on the ledge of a window and looked back as though it was listening to their conversation as well.
“If this is true… how far into the future are you from?” Yax asked.
William shrugged his shoulders, thinking. “I don’t know… maybe a thousand years.”
“Impossible!” Yax said, becoming angry, as though the fabric of his reality was falling apart.
William took off his watch and handed it to him. “This is also from the future.”
Priest Quisac stood and moved near Yax and Teshna, peering over their shoulders as they examined the watch. Yax studied it for a moment, and his eyes grew wide. “What are these symbols that continue to change before my eyes?”
William took some time to explain his watch to them-how it worked, and what the different symbols meant. They were all impressed by the technology, but could not understand why anyone would want to record such small increments of time.
As Yax stared at the watch, looking at it from all angles, a look of revelation crossed his face. “Is this what you use to travel through time?”
William laughed. “No, it just tells what time it is-that’s all. In fact, you can have it.” He moved closer and attached it to the King’s wrist.
Yax held his hand up before him with a smile as big as someone who had just been given a briefcase with a million dollars in it.
“That’s gonna give an archeologist something to think about when he finds it,” Betty said, chuckling.
“Then tell us,” Teshna demanded. “How did you come to be here in our time?”
William went on to tell them the entire story: how he tried to rescue Betty when he thought she had drowned in the cenote, how they were pulled into a giant underwater whirlpool, how they escaped from the underground cavern by going through the tunnel with giant serpent carvings, and the passage with lights flashing all around them. He told them about their adventures on the way to the temple, and how they got trapped up in the chamber when the warriors arrived. “That’s when we realized we had gone back in time.”
As William spoke, Yax and Teshna listened to his story like they were watching an Indiana Jones movie, glued to their seats and munching on dried fruit like it was popcorn. Priest Quisac stood behind Yax, staring at a spot at the ceiling with a glazed look on his face, seeming to absorb the images from William’s mind. Betty, on the other hand, appeared bored, unable to understand what William was saying. She hugged her knees to her chest and rocked back and forth.
The Serpent Priest perked up when he heard William mention the underground cavern. He walked over to the narrow window in the corner of the room, rubbing his chin as if trying to remember something. When William finished his story, Priest Quisac turned around, cleared his throat, and said, “Near Bacalar, there are tunnels beneath the Sacred Cavern of Jade that lead to a chamber with an underground cenote, such as the one Balam describes. There is also a legend that his story reminds me of-when the feathered serpents first arrived in our lands many baktuns ago.”
William told Betty what Priest Quisac had just said-although he wasn’t sure what feathery snakes had to do with anything-and then asked the Serpent Priest if he could take him to the jade cavern to see it. “If it’s the same place, maybe we can figure out how to use the passage to return to our own time.”
“I must point out, Balam,” Priest Quisac said in a warning tone, “that if you are from a time one thousand years from now, that is near the end of the Great Cycle, when a cataclysm will purge the world of its negative imbalances.”
“Yes, I know. I’ve heard about that,” William said. “It’s supposed to be next year… in 2012.”
“Then you shall never go back, Balam,” Teshna said, pointing at him as if it was an order. “You will stay here with us.”
Priest Quisac coaxed the little lizard by the window into his hand, and he held it up, looking into its tiny black eyes as he spoke. “I sense that their arrival here is also connected to these events in
“But keeping to the events in
“As Calakmul used
“Oh, is that all?” William asked, being sarcastic. “How do you plan to capture their king?”
Seashell trumpets sounded off in the distance and approaching footsteps could be heard down the hall. Yax held up his hand to pause the conversation, as the steps grew louder. A moment later, noble Lamat entered and explained that ambassadors from the kingdom of Kohunlich had arrived. Yax told Lamat that he would be with them shortly. The noble nodded and left to pass on the King’s message.
Yax turned to William, thinking back to his question. “King Aztuk desires to defeat us, Balam. He will come to us,” he said, standing. “In a bloodletting vision, I entered the body of the white owl and watched through its eyes. We landed on the shoulder of Honac-Fey as he spoke to King Aztuk. I heard their plans.”
William translated to Betty. She rolled her eyes and shook her head, obviously recalling the boy’s unusual behavior on the temple the day before.
“What are their plans?” William asked.
