It was not the safest group of Zapotecs to run into in the forest -- they were a war party, bent on finding a captive for sacrifice at the start of the rainy season. Their first thought would be that Hunahpu would make a splendid victim. He was taller and stronger than any man they had ever seen before, quite suitable for an offering of exceptional value.

So he had to preempt them -- to appear to them as one who already belonged to the gods. In the end, he virtually had to capture them. He had been blithely confident back in Juba that his plan would work. Here, when he was surrounded by the birdcalls and

whining insects of the marshy land of Chiapas, the plan seemed ludicrous, embarrassing, and painful.

He would have to imitate the most savage royal sacrifice ritual anywhere that didn't actually leave the king dead. Why had the Mayas been so inventively self-abusive?

Everything else was ready. He had hidden the library of the lost future in its permanent resting place and sealed the opening. He had cached the items he would need later in their weatherproof containers, and memorized all the permanent landmarks that would allow him to find them again. And the items he would need now, for the first year, were bundled in packaging that would not look too bizarre to the eyes of the Zapotecs. He himself was naked, his body painted, his hair feathered and beaded and jeweled to look like a Maya king's after a great victory. And, most important, on his head and draped down his back were the head and skin of the jaguar he had killed.

He had thirty minutes before the war party from the village of Atetulka would reach this clearing. If his blood was to be fresh he had to wait until the last minute, and now the last minute had arrived. He sighed, knelt in the soft leafmeal of the shadowed clearing, and reached for the topical anesthetic. The Mayas did this without anesthetic, he reminded himself as he applied it liberally to his penis and then waited a few minutes for it to become numb. Then, with a hypodermic gun, he deadened the entire genital area, hoping that he would have some opportunity to reapply the anesthetic in about four hours, when it began to wear off.

One genuine stingray needle and five imitation ones made of different metals. He took them one at a time in his hand and pushed each one crosswise into the loose skin along the top of his penis. The blood flow was copious, dripping all over his legs. Stingray needle, then silver, gold, copper, bronze, and iron. Even though there was no pain, he was dizzy by the end of it. From loss of blood? He doubted it. It was almost certainly the psychological effect of perforating his own penis that made him feel faint. Being a king among the Mayas was a serious business. Could he have done this without anesthetic? Hunahpu doubted it, saluting his ancestors even as he shuddered at their barbarism.

When the hunting party trotted silently into the clearing, Hunahpu stood in a shaft of light. The high-intensity lamp pointing upward between his legs caused the metal spines to glint and shimmer with the trembling of his body. As he had hoped, their eyes went right to where the blood still trickled down his thighs and dripped from the tip of his penis. They also took in his body paint and, just as he had expected, they seemed to recognize at once the significance of his appearance. They prostrated themselves.

"I am One-Hunahpu," he said in Maya. Then he repeated himself in Zapotecan. "I am One-Hunahpu. I come from Xibalba to you, dogs of Atetulka. I have decided that you will no longer be dogs, but men. If you obey me, you and all who speak the language of the Zapotec will be masters of this land. No longer will your sons go up to the altar of Huitzilopochtli, for I will break the back of the Mexica, I will tear out the heart of the Tlaxcala, and your ships will touch the shores of all the islands of the world."

The men lying on the ground began to tremble and moan.

"I command you to tell me why you are afraid, foolish dogs!"

"Huitzilopochtli is a terrible god!" cried one of them -- Yax, his name was. Hunahpu knew them all, of course, had studied their village and key people in the other Zapotec villages for years.

"Huitzilopochtli is almost as terrible as Fat Jaguar Girl," said Hunahpu.

Yax raised his head at this mention of his wife, and several of the other men laughed.

"Fat Jaguar Girl beats you with a stick when she thinks you have been planting corn in the wrong field," said Hunahpu, "but still you plant corn where you want."

"One-Hunahpu!" cried Yax. "Who told you about Fat Jaguar Girl?"

"In Xibalba I watched you all. I laughed at you when you cried under Fat Jaguar Girl's stick. And you, Flower-eating-Monkey, do you think I didn't see you pee on old Great-Skull-Zero's cornmeal and make them into frycakes for him? I laughed when he ate them."

The other men also laughed, and Flower-eating-Monkey raised his head with a smile. "You liked my revenge joke?"

"I told of your monkey tricks to the lords of Xibalba, and they laughed until they cried. And when Huitzilopochtli's eyes were filled with tears, I jabbed him with my thumbs and popped out his eyeballs." With this, Hunahpu reached into the pouch hanging from the string around his waist and brought out the two acrylic eyeballs he had brought with him. "Now Huitzilopochtli has to have a boy lead him around Xibalba, telling him what he sees. The other lords of Xibalba set obstacles in his path and laugh when he falls down. And now I have come here to the surface of Earth to make you into people."

"We will build a temple and sacrifice every man of the Mexica to you, O One-Hunahpu!" cried Yax.

Exactly the reaction he had expected. At once he threw one of the eyeballs of Huitzilopochtli at Yax, who yelped and rubbed his shoulder where it had hit him. Hunahpu had been a pretty good Little League pitcher with a decent fastball.

"Pick up the eyeball of Huitzilopochtli and hear my words, dogs of Atetulka!"

Yax scrabbled around in the leafmeal until he found the acrylic eye.

"Why do you think the lords of Xibalba were glad and didn't punish me when I took the eyes of Huitzilopochtli? Because he was fat from the blood of so many men. He was greedy and the Mexica fed him on blood that should have been out planting corn. Now all the lords of Xibalba are sick of blood, and they will make Huitzilopochtli go hungry until he is thin as a young tree."

They moaned again. The fear of Huitzilopochtli ran deep -- the success of the Mexica in war after war had seen to that -- and to hear such terrible threats against a powerful god was a heavy burden to place upon them. Well, they're tough little bastards, thought Hunahpu. And I'll give them plenty of courage when the time comes.

"The lords of Xibalba have called upon their king to come from a far country. He will forbid them to drink the blood of men or women ever again. For the King of Xibalba will shed his own blood, and when they drink of his blood and eat of his flesh they will never thirst or hunger anymore."

Hunahpu thought of his brother the priest and wondered what he would think of what was happening to the Christian gospel right now. In the long run, he would surely approve. But there would be some uncomfortable moments along the way.

"Rise up and look at me. Pretend to be men." They arose carefully from the forest floor and stood looking at him. "As you see me shed my blood here, so the King of Xibalba has already shed his blood for the lords of Xibalba. They will drink, and never thirst again. In that day will men cease to die to feed their god. Instead they will die in the water and rise up reborn, and then eat the flesh and drink the blood of the King of Xibalba just as the lords of Xibalba do. The King of Xibalba died in a faraway kingdom, and yet he lives again. The King of Xibalba is returning and he will make Huitzilopochtli bow down before him and will not let him drink of his blood or eat of his flesh until he is thin again, and that will take a thousand years, that old pig has eaten and drunk so much!"