Na-Yaxhal painted his forehead and nose, his lips and chin with the blood on the stingray spine.

"Six-Kauil's-Daughter!" The woman emerged from the midst of the leading clan of the village. "Draw out the next spine. What is it made of?"

"Silver," she said.

"Paint your neck with my blood."

She drew the long silver spine across her neck.

"You will be the mother of kings and your strength will be in the ships of the Zapotec people, if you serve the King of Xibalba-on-Earth, and me, the servant of the King of Xibalba!"

"I will," she murmured.

"Speak loudly!" Hunahpu commanded. "You did not whisper when you spoke wisely of the loose bowels of your husband! The voice of a woman can be heard as loud as the voice of a man, in the Kingdom of Xibalba-on-Earth!"

That's about all we can do for egalitarianism right now, Hunahpu said silently, but it should be revolutionary enough as the story spreads.

"Where is Yax!" cried Hunahpu.

The young man came forward timidly.

"Will you obey your father, and when he is carried to Xibalba will you lead this people in mercy and wisdom?"

Yax prostrated himself before Hunahpu.

"Take out the next spine. What is it made of?"

"Gold," said Yax, when he had it out.

"Paint your chest with my blood. All the gold of the world will be yours to command, when you are worthy to become king, as long as you remember that it belongs to the King of Xibalba, and not to you or any man. You will share it freely and fairly with all who drink the blood and eat the flesh of the King of Xibalba." That should help get the Catholic Church on the side of conciliation with the strange heretical proto-Christians when the two cultures met. If gold flowed freely to the Church, but only on condition that they confessed that they were eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the King of Xibalba, the heresy should find itself well on the way to become an acceptable variant of Catholic dogma. I wonder, thought Hunahpu, if I will be declared a saint. There will certainly be no lack of miracles, for a while, at least.

"Bacab, toolmaker, metalworker!" A thin young man came forward, and Hunahpu had him withdraw the next spine.

"It is copper, Lord One-Hunahpu, " said Bacab.

"Do you know copper? Can you work it better than any man?"

"I work it better than any man in this village, but there are surely other men in other places who work it better than I do."

"You will learn to mix it with many metals. You will make tools that no one in the world has seen. Paint my blood upon your belly!"

The coppersmith did as he was told. After a king, a king's wife, and a king's son, the metalworkers would now have the most prestige in the new kingdom.

"Where is Xocol-Ha-Man? Where is the master shipbuilder?"

A strong man with massive shoulders emerged from another clan, smiling in pride and slapping his shoulders in piety.

"Take out the next spine, Xocol-Ha-Man. You who are named for a great river in flood, you must tell me, have you ever seen this metal before?"

Xocol-Ha-Man fingered the bronze, getting blood all over his fingers. "It looks like copper, only brighter," he said. "I've never seen it."

Bacab looked at it too, and also shook his head.

"Pee on this metal, Xocol-Ha-Man. Make the current of the ocean within you flow upon it! For you will not paint my blood on your body until you have found this metal in another land. You will build ships and you will sail them until you find the land in the north where they know the name of this metal. When you bring back the name of this metal to me, then you will paint my blood upon your groin."

Only the iron spine remained. "Where is Xoc? Yes, I mean the slavegirl, the ugly girl you captured and no one would marry her!"

She was thrust forward, a filthy thirteen-year-old with a harelip.

"Take out the last spine, Xoc. Paint my blood upon your feet. For by the power of this last metal will the King of Xibalba make all slaves free. Today you are a free citizen of the Kingdom of Xibalba-on-Earth, Xoc. You belong to no man or woman, for no man or woman belongs to any other. The King of Xibalba commands it! There are no captives, no slaves, no servants-for-life in the Kingdom of Xibalba-on-Earth!"

For you, Tagiri.

But what he had given in pity was used in power. Xoc drew the iron spine from his penis and then, just as a Maya queen would have done, she stuck out her tongue, gripped the tip of it with her left hand, and with her right hand drove the spine through it. Blood flooded down her chin as the spine and her lips made a strange cross.

The people gasped. What Xoc was demanding was not the kindness of a lord toward a slave he plans to free, but the honor of a king for the queen who will bear his children.

What do I do with this? Who could have guessed, watching Xoc's abject servility during her months of slavery, that she had this kind of ambition? What did she mean to accomplish? Hunahpu studied her face and saw in it -- what, defiance? It was as if she saw through his whole charade and dared him to refuse her.

But no, it was not defiance. It was bravery in the face of fear. Of course she acted boldly. This kingly man who claimed to come from the land of the gods was the first chance she had to rise above her miserable condition. Who could blame her for acting as desperate people so often do, seizing on the first opportunity to reach far beyond all reasonable hope? What did she have to lose? In her despair, all salvation had seemed equally impossible. So why not try to be queen, as long as this One-Hunahpu seemed disposed to help her?

She is so ugly.

But smart and brave. Why close a door?

He reached down and drew the iron spine from her tongue. "Let truth flow from your mouth forever as blood does now. I am no king, and so I have no queen. But because you mixed your blood with mine upon this last spine, I promise that for the rest of your life, I will listen every day to one thing that you choose to tell me."

Gravely she nodded, her face showing relief and pride. He had turned away her bid to be a consort, but had accepted her as a counselor. And as he knelt and painted her feet with the bloody spine, she could not help but know that her life had been changed completely and forever. He had made her great in the eyes of those who had mistreated her.

As he rose to his feet, he put both hands on her shoulders and leaned close so he could whisper in her ear. "Do not seek vengeance now that you have power," he said in pure Maya, knowing that her native dialect was dose enough that she would understand him well enough. "Earn my respect by your generosity and truthfulness."

"Thank you," she answered.

Now back to the original script. I hope, thought Hunahpu, that there aren't too many more surprises like this.

But of course there would be. All he could ever do was improvise. His plans would all have to be adapted; only his purposes were unchangeable.

He flung out his voice over the crowd. "Let Bacab touch this metal. Let Xocol-Ha-Man see it!"

The men came forward, studied it in awe. Alone of all the spines, it would not bend, not even slightly. "I have never seen a metal so strong," said Bacab.

"Black," said Xocol-Ha-Man.

"There are many kingdoms, far across the sea, where this metal is as common as copper is here. They will know how to smelt it until it shines white as silver. These kingdoms already know the King of Xibalba, but he has hidden many secrets from them. It is the will of the King of Xibalba that the Kingdom of Xibalba-on-Earth find this metal and master it, if you are worthy of it! But for now, this black metal spine will stay with Xoc, who once was a slave, and you will come to her or to her children in order to see if you have found the hard black metal. The faraway people call it ferro and herro and iron and fer, but you will call it xibex, for it comes from Xibalba and must only be used in the service of the King."