Aztec

It was a crude and lumpy statue, since it consisted only of piled round rocks: a big boulder for the abdomen, a smaller for the chest, a yet smaller one for the head. But that whole worthless heap of inanimate rock was colored the glowing purple. And all about Tiat Ndik were stacked flasks full of the dye, and hanks of yarn colored with it: a buried treasure of incalculable value.

When we had climbed as far as the ridge again, the red-hot disk of Tonatíu was just sinking into the far western ocean and boiling up a steam of clouds. Then the disk was gone, and for an instant we saw Tonatíu's light shining through the sea out there where it thins at the brink of the world—a brief, bright flash of emerald green, no more. The priest and I made our way back toward where we had left the others, while he continued explaining: that the offerings of the purple dye were essential, or Tiat Ndik would entice no more fish to the nets of the Zyu.

I argued, "For all these sacrifices and offerings, your Sea God lets you eke out a miserable fish-eating existence. Let me take your purple to market and I will bring you gold enough that you can buy a city. A city in a fair and pleasant country, brimming with far better foods than fish, and with slaves to serve them to you."

He remained obdurate. "The god would never allow. The purple ca

He smiled and pointed to where the four other priests stood around a driftwood fire. It was broiling two fresh-cut human thighs, spitted on my own spear. There was no sign of the rest of the boatman. Forcing my face to give no indication of the trepidation I felt, I took from my loincloth the wadded packet of gold dust and dropped it on the ground between me and the chief priest.

"Open it carefully," I said, "lest the wind get at it." As he knelt and began to unfold the cloth, I went on, "If I were to fill my canoe with your purple, I could bring back the boat almost as full of gold. But I offer this amount of gold for only as many flasks as I can carry in my own two arms."

He had the cloth open then, and the heap of dust gleamed in the sunset light, and his four brother priests approached to ogle it over his crouching figure. He let some of the dust run through his fingers, then, holding the cloth in both hands, he bounced it gently to judge its weight. Without looking up at me, he said, "You give this much gold for the purple. How much you give for the girl?"

"What girl?" I said, though my heart lurched.

"Her behind you."

I flicked only a quick glance backward. Zyanya stood directly behind me, looking unhappy, and a little way behind her stood six or seven more men of the Zyu, eagerly craning to see around her and me, to eye the gold. The priest was still kneeling and weighing the packet between his hands when I turned again and swung my maquahuitl. The packet and his clutching hands dropped to the ground, though the priest barely swayed, staring in shock at the blood gushing from the stumps of his wrists.

The lesser priests and the fishermen rushed to converge—whether to grab for the liberated gold or to aid their chief, I do not know—but in that same instant I whirled, seized Zyanya's hand, plunged through the closing circle of men, and dragged her after me in a headlong run along the ridge and down its eastern side. We were briefly out of sight of the milling Zyu, and I made an abrupt left swerve to dodge among some boulders higher than our heads. The Zyu would give chase, and they would expect us to bolt for our canoe. But even if we could have reached and launched it, I had no experience of rowing a seagoing craft; the pursuers could probably have caught us merely by wading after us.

Some number of them did go ru

But then I noticed that the birds were rising not just from around us, but from all parts of the mountain—land birds as well: parakeets, doves, rock wrens—twittering and flying about aimlessly. And there were not just birds; animals normally furtive or nocturnal were also strangely in evidence: armadillos, iguanas, rock snakes—even an ocelot loped past without giving us a glance—and all the animals, like us, were moving uphill. Then, though the dusk had still a while to last before dark, I heard a coyote's mournful keening from somewhere on the heights, and not far ahead of us a sinuous skein of bats came spewing from some cra

"Hurry," I panted to the girl. "Up there. Where the bats are coming from. Must be a cave. Dive for it."

We found it just as the last bats departed, or we might have missed it altogether: a tu

The first shock was sharp but also soundless. I heard Zyanya whisper fearfully, "Zyuüú," and I clasped her protectively tight against me. Then we heard a long, low, rumbling growl from somewhere far inland. One of the volcanoes in that range was belching, if not erupting, and violently enough to quake the earth as far as the coast.

The second and third shocks, and I do not know how many more, came with such increasing rapidity that they all blended into a dizzying motion of simultaneous rocking, tilting, and bucking. The girl and I might have been wedged inside a hollow log careering down a Whitewater river. The noise was so deafeningly loud and prolonged that we might equally have been inside one of the drums which tear out the heart, it being beaten by a demented priest. The noise was of our mountain falling to pieces, contributing more of itself to that rubble of immense boulders already around it in the sea.

I wondered whether Zyanya and I would be among the rubble—after all, the bats had elected not to stay—but we could not have squeezed out of the tu

Then my mouth went even drier, as I heard a muted thunder from behind us, from inside the mountain. That vast hollow cavern of the bats was crumbling inward, its dome roof plummeting down in pieces and probably bringing with it all the weight of the mountain above it. I waited for our tu