Ancestor rasped the command gently, knowing that Spirali had implicitly understood the situation long before any of the rest of them had acknowledged the truth. Sometime our deliberateness hampers us, reflected the Ancestor. The humans move so much faster.
'I will enact the will of the council,' said Spirali. With another rustle of his cape, he bowed deeply and then turned back to the darkness.
Erix could not see the cycles of the sun, so she had no accurate means of measuring the length of her imprisonment. She had received ten meals — each a miserable portion of cold mayz and water — and her best guess was that ten days had passed.
Other than the silent servers who brought her food, slipping it to her through a small hatch in the cell door, she had no contact with other humans. Around her yawned a seemingly vast realm of silence. A perennial chill made her suspect that she was held somewhere underground.
Not long after her tenth meal, Erix again heard sandaled footsteps outside her cell door. She sensed that only a few hours had passed since her daily sustenance, so she knew this was an unusual visit. Crouching against the wall opposite the door, she waited. The latch lifted, and a sudden wash of torchlight filled the room as the portal opened, revealing a pair of men in loincloths.
With a shriek that contained all the pent-up anger and frustration of her life, Erixitl sprang at the first man. He stumbled backward in shock as her fingers raked across his face. Instantly her victim screamed and collapsed, moaning and clutching his bleeding face.
The second man stopped in shock, and the force of her charge bowled him over. She leaped on his belly, doubling him over, and then she sprang past. She was free!
Then she slammed into something hard, something that pushed back. She fell to the floor, stunned, and felt her arms gripped by talonlike fingers. In the fading light of the torch, she recognized the horrid visage of a Jaguar Knight. His dark eyes glowered at her through the gaping jaws of his helm. The jaguar teeth, long and ivory white, seemed to reach menacingly for her face.
'That was foolish, little one!' he hissed, lifting her easily off the floor and holding her upright. 'You may have blinded one of my slaves.'
He shook her like a rag doll, and she felt as if her teeth would bounce from her jaw. 'Now, behave!' he warned, setting her on her feet. Instantly her fist flew at his chest, scraping her knuckJes on his hishna armor of jaguar hide. She spit in his face and he cuffed her, she kicked his knee and he knocked her down.
Finally he grabbed her unceremoniously and tossed her over his shoulder, neutralizing her struggles. 'You are a spirited one, hey? Zaltec will relish the feast of your heart!'
For a moment, the confirmation of her suspicions drained her, and she slumped limply across his shoulder. She felt the knight, too, relax. And she realized that his remark had told her nothing at all, for she had never doubted that her captors intended her for the sacrificial altar.
She twisted to the side and brought her knee into the knight's throat in a crushing blow. He gasped and stumbled as she savagely struck his shoulders with her elbows. Like a wild beast, Erix twisted free as the man dropped to his knees. She saw him reach for her, and somehow she eluded his grasp, feeling his fingers slip from her arm.
Erix sprinted down the corridor, bursting through a reed curtain into a small courtyard. A wall obstructed her view of everything but the starry sky. She raced across the dark courtyard, pounding into a large gate and finding it barred.
Mixtal waited nervously in the courtyard while Gultec went to get the girl. He paced back and forth in agitation. The past ten days had been, for the cleric, a miserable period of suspense and anxiety. The girl had been hidden well, but her very presence had caused him constant, soulwrenching fear.
What if Kachin gained proof of Mixtal's involvement? The thought sent shudders through Mixtal's scrawny frame. The cleric of Qotal had been persistent in his questioning, outraged in his accusations against the Jaguars.
That house of warriors had defended itself well, claiming no knowledge of the capture. The blame, it was hinted, rested upon some young warriors who had partaken of too much octal. Their identities were unknown, but if they were discovered, Kachin would of course be informed.
Anxiously Mixtal looked back toward the dark entrance to the cellar. What was keeping Gultec?
A group of apprentice priests awaited them outside, ready to witness the sacrifice. The ritual would be secret, performed away from the city. They all knew that the priests of Qotal, peaceable though they claimed to be, would exact a terrible vengeance should the abduction of the princess be traced to the temple of Zaltec.
And now something was wrong!
The priest saw a lithe figure emerge from the house, dashing across the courtyard toward the gate. The girl had escaped! With a low groan, Mixtal turned toward the swinging reed curtain, hoping to see Gultec in pursuit.
He heard the girl bang on the gate, and his heart sank. He had no illusions as to his own fate should she escape. The summoning from the Ancient Ones had made that clear. Mixtal ran across the courtvard and saw her moving along the base of the wall.
The cleric grasped his necklace of snake fangs, calling forth the hishna sorcery of Zaltec. He pulled a wriggling snakeskin from his pouch. The object writhed with a life of its own. Holding the twisting thing before him, he concentrated on the girl, seeing her turn at the sound of his voice.
'Zaltec Tlaz-atl qoo!'
Mixtal pointed at the girl and released the skin. The object flew through the air, darting like an airborne eel into a tight circle around Erix.
'Tziliit!' Mixtal finished the spell by commanding the strands to contract around his victim.
He saw the girl shrink away from the encircling magic. Her own hand seized something at her throat, a gesture that looked instinctive. Mixtal heard a sound like a burst of air, and suddenly he shouted in pain. The skin fell motionless to the ground, and the cleric blew frantically upon his blistered palms. Somehow the girl had resisted the hishna, and with strength enough to send shock waves of pain crackling back to the magic-wielding priest.
Groaning, Mixtal looked up again. He saw, or imagined, an aura around the feathered necklace the girt wore. His hishna had been defeated by something, and he suddenly felt the coolness of pluma, the magic of feathers, emanating from the young woman before him.
Erix released her feather token as if it was a scalding stone. Stunned, she watched the sorcerous attack fall away. But in the next instant, she realized that her father's gift had only offered her salvation if she could seize it instantly.
She saw a nearby tree with branches extending over the wall, and she raced toward it like a gust of wind, leaping a bench that she barely saw in her path. In moments, she would reach the safety of the tree.
Then a shadowy form crossed her path, disappearing into the predawn darkness below the tree. Erix stopped, but she could see nothing in the inky blackness.
A low growl — a deep, horrible, animal growl — emerged from the darkness, and Erixitl moaned in all- encompassing terror. She took a step backward, but her body finally sagged with exhaustion, horror, even defeat.
A jaguar burst from the shadow, its paws striking her in the chest and knocking her heavily to the ground. She gasped for air, staring upward at bright yellow eyes, the slitted pupils burning with hatred. She felt its warm drool spattering to her chin and neck.
And then the jaguar was gone, and the knight she had attacked knelt upon her.
Roughly he pulled her to her feet, jerking her sharply around and binding her hands until the cords cut into her flesh. He stuffed a filthy rag into her mouth and bound that behind her head. Then he pushed her through the gate, where she was forced into the center of a procession of several dozen young priests. She did not need to inhale the scent of caked blood to know that these were priests of Zaltec, for the scalp of each bristled with the characteristic spikes of hair.
They would perform their sacrifice outside the city, she saw, as they led her down a street and then past the fields of mayz. Soon the trail entered the jungle, but just as quickly it emerged along the coast. For perhaps an hour, they marched along the beach. Erix felt numb, barely aware of the fading light of the stars as dawn
