by Jeff Posey
Signal Now!
Tuwa sneaked out of the palace the same way he had entered. The naked girls were still in the room, gray and unmoving, men going at them. When he looked outside, he saw Choovio standing alone, a few loitering warriors side-glancing at him. One of Choovio’s eyes was swollen nearly shut.
“That goon Garr-oos beat you,” Tuwa said.
“I beat harder.”
“They let you go?”
“I let him keep his honor. He let me live.”
“I saw Nuva. And Chumana,” said Tuwa.
“You saw them?”
Tuwa nodded, and they began moving toward The Pochtéca and Fat Man, who walked together away from the palace.
“I stayed in the back dark hallways to keep the Fat Man from seeing me, and Nuva attacked me when she saw me.”
Choovio stopped and looked at Tuwa, his face swollen and blackened.
“Yeah, she really attacked me, knocked me over, started kicking me.” Tuwa chuckled. “She’s no Garr-oos, but she bruised me. Then we realized who we both are. She’s built something behind the scenes that will help us. She and Chumana are up to something. Makes me worried for them.”
“Many hands stir the pot,” said Choovio.
They saw The Pochtéca and the Fat Man stop ahead. They slowed and looked away from each other to survey both directions at once.
Tuwa saw Kopavi and Sowi milling among the crowd. People packed into the canyon and more continued to flow in. New trails crisscrossed the grounds and little villages of sleeping mats sprung up, each with a group of old men or women who napped or sat talking. Blending in was easy. People moved around like lines of ants. But warriors stood on low stacks of shaped stones and watched everyone.
“What will they do?” asked Choovio.
“I don’t know,” said Tuwa, uneasy thinking about what Nuva and Chumana had in motion. They could easily be hurt. “Something big, maybe.” Tuwa kept his voice down. “Kidnap The Builder. Something that dramatic. I can’t imagine they would risk doing anything to Pók.”
Choovio reached out, pushed Tuwa away, and began walking. Tuwa knew what he meant. They had been standing and talking together too long. Time to separate and get moving.
He saw the Fat Man walk away from The Pochtéca, and Tuwa casually approached without making eye contact.
“Where is he going?” asked Tuwa.
The Pochtéca smiled. “Good news, my Tuwa. I spoke with Nuva. She told me the woman wearing the bluestone mask is indeed your Chumana. They are both well at the moment.”
“Yes, I know. I followed you inside. I spoke with Nuva, too. And Chumana. Where is the Fat Man going?”
The Pochtéca looked at Tuwa in surprise. A small grin played across his lips. “To get me an audience with Tókotsi.”
“Why?”
“Wait. You really did sneak into the palace, didn’t you?”
“Of course. You went in. I followed.”
“That place swarmed with warriors. You couldn’t just walk in like we did.” The Pochtéca stood closer to him and chanced a short glare.
“Choovio made, well, a kind of diversion.”
“And you really did see Nuva. And Chumana too?”
“Yes.”
They were silent a moment and stood slightly apart as if they both independently decided to take a standing rest there. Others were gathered in clumps, some talking with each other, most silent.
“Anything change your mind about what we’re doing?” asked The Pochtéca.
“The opposite,” Tuwa said. He wanted to clench his fists, but he willed them to stay open and relaxed. He wanted his body language to display a bored young man. “I’m ready to kill that bastard father of mine.”
The Pochtéca said nothing, but took a longer risky look at Tuwa. “You really did see Nuva.”
“He’s coming back,” Tuwa whispered, getting ready to walk away. He saw the Fat Man lumbering toward them. “Where do you think you’ll meet Tókotsi?”
“The Fat Man thinks the Standing Grounds.”
They walked away from each other, The Pochtéca toward the Fat Man, and Tuwa past Choovio as they traded places to keep a close cover. Tuwa saw Kopavi not far away.
Tuwa breathed hard and tried to calm himself. He had spilled what he’d learned about his father to The Pochtéca without even being asked. He wanted to hit himself in the head. Focus, he told himself. A swig from his water bladder slowed his racing thoughts. But he still felt tight.
He paced and tried to clear his head, to think. The Standing Grounds. That’s where people gathered to watch Grandfather be the first sacrifice three summers ago. The Standing Grounds. It had been packed then. Like corn planted too close.
Ideas about what Nuva and Chumana had planned swirled through his mind. Something in the council chambers. Something big. But he didn’t know what. He should have had the sense to find out. He looked up at the altar, where crews still worked on the final touches. There were new rock cairns at every switchback up the steep front path, torches protruding from them. An enormous stack of bonfire wood piled at the top. guardsmen in full regalia stood both ready and bored.
Tuwa heard a low whistle and turned. Choovio pointed his chin. The Pochtéca and the Fat Man were on the move. He rushed after them until they stopped at a tight crowd of people straining to see the Summer Council procession slow-stepping from Tókotsi’s camp to the palace. The Southern Guard wore long sashes decorated with the oval-face symbol of Másaw, and hammered tuned sticks against their war clubs in time as they marched. The clicking sound was ear-splitting as they got close.
The Fat Man engaged the help of a couple of regular warriors, who pushed people out of the way. When they broke through into the path cleared for the procession, the Fat Man walked boldly in front of Tókotsi’s entourage. The Pochtéca held back at the edge.
Tuwa had never seen anyone ride like this before. Eight men lifted a platform carrying the High Chief of the Southern Alliance, Tókotsi. Though he couldn’t see far in the crowd, Tuwa got the impression a long line of Summer Council representatives followed.
When Tókotsi saw the Fat Man, he motioned for one of his men to run ahead and talk to him. The Fat Man spoke into the ear of the warrior, who ran back to Tókotsi.
Tókotsi sat up straight and looked at the Fat Man while the procession approached, the guardsmen clacking their sticks, marching steady. It looked as if they would run over the Fat Man, who held his ground, but two steps away from him, Tókotsi called a halt, and the ear-splitting sound stopped. Shouts went down the line, and the entire procession went quiet and still. Tókotsi motioned for the Fat Man to approach, and he walked forward among the sweating platform-bearers and Tókotsi looked down on him.
Tókotsi seemed to ponder a few moments, then leaned down to the Fat Man and spoke. The Fat Man nodded, and then moved away, squeezing through into the crowd.
Tuwa braced himself. The Fat Man could have just given away The Pochtéca, and Tókotsi might order his men to take him. He saw Kopavi, close to The Pochtéca for the first time, a swath of cloth over her shoulder, her bow and arrows hidden beneath, no doubt.
Tókotsi called an order, and the procession started again. The Pochtéca faded into the crowd. Kopavi walked behind him close enough to touch. Tuwa sighed in relief.
At the Standing Grounds, the procession stopped again just as the Fat Man came alongside The Pochtéca. They stood talking. Tuwa watched, dying to know what they said. Instead he tried to read their lips, but couldn’t, and in frustration glanced around looking for anyone who looked threatening. After speaking a few words, the Fat Man walked away. Tuwa forced himself not to rush, but he couldn’t help himself from getting closer. The Pochtéca saw him and said, “Standing Grounds.” He began walking that direction as if with a stiff neck. He wouldn’t let himself make eye contact with anyone. Tuwa followed close. He saw Sowi in the crowd.
At the top of the altar there was activity, but he couldn’t make out what. Lighting the fire
s? Had Lightfoot, Tootsa, and Peelay gotten there already? Tootsa said he knew a back passageway that went to the top of the altar from behind. He said the builders had left another entrance, a small, hidden one, behind a low wall under a sentry platform. That it was impossible for the guard stationed there to watch the entrance made Tootsa laugh. “Stupid grown-ups,” he had said. Lightfoot nodded and said he could get himself, Tootsa, and Peelay beneath the guard platform and through the secret entrance. They would climb to the top and hide. At the raised-hat sign from The Pochtéca, Peelay would break into flute music, and the Pochtécans would do what they could to extract The Pochtéca. The crowd was so thick, it would be difficult to do anything, which worried Tuwa.
Lightfoot was a weak link, he thought. If he got spooked and ran, then Peelay’s flute would be lost as a weapon, unless he had the sense to watch for the signal. Tuwa didn’t have much faith in anyone except his own orphans.
Even if they succeeded with Peelay, who knew if flute music would work against the Southern Guard? Lightfoot thought it would, and The Pochtéca had agreed it was worth trying.
Across the Standing Grounds at the palace, people lined every altar-facing nook to watch. The ones on the first-floor roofs and above had the best views. He tried to find the place on the third or fourth floor from where he had watched three summers ago, but he couldn’t be sure because there had been so much new building. It looked different. He searched for doorways that might lead into the interior rooms where he hoped Nuva and Chumana were safe.
The crowd became tightened in anticipation, and The Pochtéca began working his way through, pushing between people. Tuwa got close and hooked his fingers on The Pochtéca’s belt to follow. Sowi came as close behind Tuwa. They pushed toward the Standing Grounds, and when they got to the edge, they found it ringed by Southern Guard keeping it clear. People above courtyard level at the palace and everyone on the altar could see everything on the trampled grass of the Standing Grounds. Tókotsi walked alone to the center and stood.
“This is not what I expected,” said The Pochtéca over his shoulder to Tuwa. He turned and took Tuwa’s arm and pulled his ear close to his mouth. “Keep yourself alive. And Chumana.”
Tuwa wanted to touch his shoulder as a sign of honor and respect, but The Pochtéca turned to a woman carrying sitting mats and asked if he might borrow two of them. She resisted at first, but then nodded and allowed him to take two. Beneath her remaining mats, Tuwa saw a sharpened stick. He looked at the woman who gave him a flat-lipped grin. The way she held the stick, Tuwa could see three blurred tattoo dots on her fingers. Find fingers like these and you will find a friend, he remembered Grandmother Haki saying. He revealed his three dots and her eyes narrowed. She jabbed the stick forward a tiny bit, then nodded to the Southern Guardsman in front of her. Then her head wobbled in a circle. Tuwa looked around and then back to the woman, who nodded again. He realized women like her were positioned all around the Standing Grounds. One or more behind every Southern Guardsman. Nuva, he thought. Her Sisterhood. She had gotten them here. How many were there? Where else were they? Were there enough to take out all the warriors in the canyon? Tuwa’s head started spinning. This could change everything. They might have a chance.
The Pochtéca took the mats and then spoke to a guardsman, who called his captain, who escorted him to where Tókotsi stood waiting. The captain walked away, and The Pochtéca tossed a mat onto the ground for Tókotsi, and then sat on the other.
After a few moments, Tókotsi sat, and they looked like two civilized elders having a quiet discussion in a meadow.
Tuwa scanned the altar. He couldn’t see the back walkway to the top. He hoped there weren’t unexpected guards watching it and that Lightfoot, Tootsa, and Peelay had gotten through. He looked to the palace and for the first time saw it fully from the ground up, with the terraced levels, and a ring of rooms much higher than he remembered, a double sixth-story, half-finished from west to east. Always finish the east side last, he remembered Grandfather saying about building anything, even a temporary shelter. Out of respect for the giver of light, the source of shadows.
He hated being so low and not being able to see everything, especially the courtyard of the palace. He looked for a higher place to stand, but only a perch up the switchback pathway that wound up the front side of the groomed-earth altar mound would give him the view he wanted. Four warriors stood shoulder-to-shoulder blocking that entrance.
White smoke rose from the lighting of the bonfire. Drum beats filled the air. A deep, slow rhythm that announced a procession to a solemn ceremony. Although he wanted to turn in their direction to see, he looked instead at The Pochtéca and Tókotsi, both of whom had their faces in the direction of the drums. He could tell it surprised them as well.
When he turned toward the drums he saw a man dressed in the full blazing-white cloth of the High Priest walking along the low wall that bisected the courtyard of the palace, under the shadow of the giant sun-marker tree, the last remaining tree on the canyon floor. Behind the High Priest followed a woman in a bluestone mask and gown. Tuwa’s heart contracted in a jolt of pain. Chumana! She walked with her hands bound behind her. Nuva followed, her hands also bound. And behind her came Pók, wearing a black scarf tied over his hair, just as he had that time three summers ago on this very altar. The realization fired every nerve in Tuwa’s body. Pók took Nuva and Chumana onto the altar to kill them. Tuwa spun around wildly. He glanced at the shorter woman next to him. Her face told him she hadn’t yet seen.
He drew his two sharpest flake-stone knives, one in each hand, and the world receded as he focused on the four guards at the ramp. If he got close and came up inside on two guards at once and managed to slash them at the same time, he would have a chance to run up the altar path before the other two could grab him. At least until he got to the guard at the first switchback.
Before he could do anything, four more warriors joined the others and they stood to protect a corridor between the courtyard gate and the altar entrance. Tuwa pushed his way as close as he could behind the shoulder of a guardsman, and he stood just two strides away from The Builder in his High Priest outfit followed by Chumana. He caught a glimpse of unkempt black hair jutting from behind her mask, as if it had been put roughly onto her head.
He shook in rage, and just before he resolved to call her name and rush to her, a hand pulled his arm. He jerked around to see Choovio staring straight ahead. Tuwa turned back to see Nuva, her head high, eyes squinted to a slit in the sunlight. She looked older, more wrinkled, but full of pride. And then Pók passed, leering from right to left, enjoying the people staring at him. Choovio once again grabbed Tuwa’s arm and squeezed. Tears watered Tuwa’s eyes. He knew Choovio was right. Wait. Wait for a better moment. For Peelay to play his flute. For the Sisterhood to slaughter the Southern Guard. For a sign from the sky gods. Anything. But they would miss their chance if The Pochtéca didn’t give his signal in time. That would start everything in motion. If he didn’t do it before Chumana and Nuva reached the top, Pók could kill them quickly no matter what else happened.
Tuwa stepped up onto a discarded building stone so he could see The Pochtéca still sitting with Tókotsi in the middle of the Standing Grounds. Give the signal now, he pleaded. Now!
Out of Our Hands
The world grew small around The Pochtéca as he lowered himself onto the mat in front of the standing Tókotsi. The noise of the surrounding crowd left him, and he had a sudden feeling of peacefulness. On this field of golden-colored grass on a glorious day filled with white light he would play what might be his last game, his final negotiation. He didn’t see a realistic way out. He’d run out of much to bargain with, and even bluff would appear empty and foolish at this point. But he felt no panic. Instead he felt calm, as if the world were moving in a good-natured slow motion.
He looked up at Tókotsi, who seemed unsure of sitting with him. “Sit,” he said. “Let’s talk like the wise elder men we have become. They can wait on us.�
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Tókotsi sat but his body didn’t relax. “You are the red-hat man, I presume. You have no goods to bargain that I can see.” Tókotsi kept a hand close to his belt where an elkhorn-handled knife protruded prominently.
“They call me The Pochtéca. It’s the only name I’ve known since I became a man. I’ve always found things to trade, bargains to make. Even now, perhaps. And The Pochtéca does indeed wear a red hat, which I will show you in good time.” He felt himself relax even as he imagined all two-dozen of Tókotsi’s Southern Guard rushing in on him at once, while Tuwa made a mad rush to kill Pók or save Chumana or whatever the revenge-crazed boy chose as his last act. In a matter of moments it would be over, one way or the other. Probably the other.
“So make your bargain. I have duties to perform.”
“How far south have you traveled in your life?” asked The Pochtéca.
“Far enough.”
“Have you seen these?” The Pochtéca handed Tókotsi two tiny bells.
Tókotsi took them, examined them. “I have seen these before, long ago. I’ve never known anyone to possess more than one. Where did you get these?”
“I have a shirt with a thousand of these sewn into it.” Tókotsi’s eyes went to The Pochtéca’s shirt. “No, not here. It is being held by the albino. You can always trust an albino.”
“The albino woman in The Builder’s house?” Tókotsi rolled the little bells in the palm of his hand. “A thousand of them?”
“But even that is worth only a portion of something you have in abundance.”
“What’s that?” asked Tókotsi.
The Pochtéca smiled. He had hooked Tókotsi. Maybe he did have a chance. All he had to do was make someone want something, and he could work a trade. “Bluestone.” He let the word sink in. Like he noticed the young Tuwa had begun doing, making him a much more dramatic speaker. A legacy of Tuwa’s grandfather, The Pochtéca suspected.
“This?” asked Tókotsi, holding a large piece of polished bluestone that dangled from around his neck.
