"You are alive, are you not?"

"How do I owe that life to Qotal? Explain that if you can." She tempered her anger slightly, wondering what Chitikas was trying to tell her.

"I saw you once before, protected you then. Perhaps you will recall?" The snake flickered his tail slightly across her vision, a familiar gesture. Suddenly she made the connection.

"My last day in Palul… I was tending my father's snares! On the far side of the ridge, I saw something, and I followed it. That was you!"

Chitikas nodded smugly, then ducked as she tried to strike the snake in the face.

"You lured me away from the trail… right into the arms of that Jaguar Knight! I might still be free, might have grown up in my own home, if it hadn't been for you!" Her muscles tensed as she prepared to flee. Something in his eyes, a faint appeal perhaps, held her in place.

"Lured you I did," admitted the serpent, without a trace of remorse. "But you would not have grown up there. Indeed, you would not have been alive for many more days."

"What – what do you mean?" For some reason, Erix did not doubt the truth of Chitikas's words.

"You are a child of destiny, Erixitl, though you may be the last to know it. The priests of Zaltec and their masters, the Ancient Ones, fear you. They planned to claim you from your father's home for sacrifice, and it was only your disappearance that saved you."

Erix sagged backward, staring at the serpent in shock. Chitikas nodded. "Your ten years in Kultaka were relatively safe, until the Ancient Ones learned of your presence there. Once again they tried to kill you, but you proved stronger than they anticipated. If that attempt had succeeded, we would have been helpless to save you.

"But it failed, and the attempt – the talonmagic of the sending – warned your owner of the threat to your life. He decided that you would be safest among a people who exalted Qotal over Zaltec, and thus he arranged for you to come to Payit."

Erix shook her head slowly, not so much in disbelief as in wonder. Huakal, acting to save her by selling her to Kachin? Yet she knew in her heart that this was the truth.

"Why am I so important? Why do the Ancient Ones fear me?"

Chitikas waved his head impatiently. "I do not know."

But Erix wasn't listening. Another question had been nagging at her mind, and now she put it into words. "Why do you want to thwart the will of Zaltec? Who are you?"

The feathered serpent bowed his head humbly. "I am Chitikas, and I serve the Plumed God, the one true god of Maztica. I have aided you because in thwarting the will of Zaltec, he of the Bloody Hand, I further the will of Qotal."

"Qotal! Qotal!" The harsh words came from a tree above them, and Erix looked upward, into the glittering eyes of the bright macaw that had accompanied Chitikas before. The bird's voice was loud, and Erix suddenly felt very vulnerable in her scant concealment near the pyramid.

"Qotal, the true god!" squawked the bird. "Zaltec the pretender, the buffoon!"

Erix cringed, noticing the priests and warriors atop the pyramid looking in their direction. Several warriors stepped off the platform, starting down the steep stairway on the structure's side.

"Perhaps I can deter them," whispered the serpent conspiratorially. "But remember, you must rescue the man!"

Erix didn't take the time to object, though to her, the issue remained far from settled. Chitikas disappeared suddenly, too quickly for physical movement. With a startled gasp, Erix reached out and felt the creature's downy tail slipping away, even though she could see nothing. The snake had become invisible!

She wanted to flee, but she feared that the noise of flight would only give her position away. Instead, she watched the warriors descend the temple. The priests, the Jaguar Knight, and many other warriors, together with the prisoner, remained atop the pyramid.

"False god! Zaltec is the god of gutter snakes and filth!" squawked the bird, not very helpfully.

Suddenly one of the warriors tripped on an unseen object. He tumbled down the side of the steep pyramid, cracking his skull on a step far below the top. His limp form continued to bounce and tumble to the bottom, where it lay still.

The other warriors reacted immediately, leaping and tumbling down the steep sides of the pyramid. They reached the lifeless body of their comrade and then looked around suspiciously. They showed no inclination to move away from the pyramid.

The stranger remained carefully guarded by several strong warriors, still at the top. A minute passed, and Chitikas did not return. Darkness had settled further, though the sky still glowed with the fading sunset.

Swiftly and silently, Erix turned and melted into the jungle, intending to be very far away by morning. Pushing quickly through the fronds, she turned back toward the trail.

She parted the huge leaves and stepped through. Before she could scream or react, two powerful arms reached forward and seized her.

Halloran stood numbly, looking from the savage warriors to the fanatical priests. He could not bear to look at Martine's lifeless, bloodless body. Nor could he stand the sight of the bestial statue, with its gaping mouth. The last memory of the sacrifice had been the priest's throwing the cool, still heart into that savage maw.

Despite his averted eyes, the image of that snarling face, vaguely human but combining elements of serpent and lion as well, remained embedded in his brain. It symbolized to him ultimate barbarism, the callous murder of innocents to feed the insatiable appetite of a monstrous god.

Martine! Why couldn't they have taken me instead?

All of his annoyance with the woman had vanished at the moment of their capture. Now he groaned under a sense of all-encompassing failure and sorrow.

His hatred burned with white-hot fury, but he could not break away from the snakeskin rope that bound him. He hated these savage warriors. He hated this hot, primitive land. And mostly he hated the ash-streaked, scarred priest who had performed this abominable rite. Halloran fixed his cold eyes on that priest, and the man flinched and finally turned away.

The priest had argued at some length with the warrior in the spotted skin, and Hal sensed that his own fate had been the topic. Apparently the warrior had prevailed, for the priest made no move toward him. In fact, the legionnaire almost hoped that he would be selected for sacrifice. In the guilt of his massive failure, he did not feel that he deserved to live after Martine had been so brutally killed. For some moments, he considered hurling himself off the edge of the steep-sided pyramid, the ultimate self-punishment for the ultimate failure.

But somewhere deep within himself, Halloran's warrior's heart burned with the need for vengeance. Without life, there could be no vengeance, and so he would have to live.

At least, he would have to live long enough to kill.

"Muster the legion!" cried Bishou Domincus. "Disaster threatens!"

"Quiet, man!" urged Cordell, as gently as possible. "We don't know for certain yet just what's wrong." The two men, together with Darien and Kardann, stood with a panting swordsman beside the legion's camp on the wooded shoreline. "There was no sign of Halloran or the Bishou's daughter?"

"No, sir," gasped the man. He had just descended the tall stairway from the bluff top, racing to report to the captain-general. "We found four men, all dead – along with quite a few of the natives."

"Helm's curses on his head, on his soul!" cried the Bishou, waving his fist in the direction where Halloran had last been seen.