Climate of Change (52 page)

“What's going on?” Tula asked. She had always had an uncanny awareness of things.

Rebel glanced at Keeper, evidently trying to decide what to tell the children.

“The Spaniards are getting ready to attack,” Keeper said. “Maybe tomorrow. It may be bad.”

“But didn't we stop them before?” Tula demanded.

“Why do they keep coming?” Allele asked in turn.

Keeper exchanged another glance with Rebel. They were not going
to be able to keep it from the children much longer. It was better to prepare them. In easy stages, if possible. “It will be worse this time,” he said.

“Why?”

Rebel plunged in. She had always been militant, and had studied history. “Here is part of it. A hundred and seventy years ago the Spaniards first came to our land. They demanded that we swear loyalty to their king and give up our gods. We fought a battle and lost, but did not surrender, and finally drove them out.”

“Yes!” Risk agreed.

“But a few years later they returned with more power, and captured some of our cities. We rose up against them and drove them out again. But some Maya sided with the Spaniards, and a few years after that they took most of our lands.”

“Except for
our
land,” Risk said.

“Yes. About seventy years ago the Spaniards marched on Noh Petén, but we killed them. Two years later they tried again, and we killed them again. That kept them away for sixty years.”

“Yes!” This time the girls joined the boy in their appreciation.

Keeper winced. If only it were that simple.

Rebel continued grimly. “Two years ago a force of sixty Spanish soldiers and Maya allies attacked, but we beat them back. But that made them angry, and now they have come by the hundreds.”

“So that's bad,” Risk said.

“Very bad,” Rebel agreed.

“They made a road through the jungle,” Keeper said. “They brought equipment. They even brought a big boat in pieces, and put it together on the lake. They have weapons we have never faced before. It will be very hard to beat them back this time.”

Now the children took it seriously. “Will we win again?” Risk asked.

Rebel shook her head. “No. Not unless they do something stupid.”

“There's more,” Tula said, looking truly frightened.

“We don't need to go into that,” Keeper said quickly.

“What about the Long Calendar?” Risk asked. “What does it say?”

“That records significant events,” Rebel said. “It doesn't predict future outcomes.”

“Sometimes it does,” Tula said. “Like Baktun 13.”

“What is that?” Allele asked.

“That is too complicated to go into now,” Rebel said.

All three children rebelled. “No it isn't,” Allele said. “I want to know.”

Well, it was a distraction when they needed it. Rebel gave them a simplified version. “The Long Calendar started many, many years ago, before the time of the Maya. It counts days, and it never repeats. Twenty days make a uinal, eighteen uinal make a tun, which is 360 days, and twenty tun make a katun, which is 7,200 days or about twenty years, and twenty katun make a baktun, which is 144,000 days or about 395 years. There are thirteen baktun in the Long Count. Baktun 12 started almost eighty years ago, and Baktun 13 will start 315 years from now. So it really isn't relevant to the present crisis.”

“Don't the Spaniards have a different calendar?” Risk asked.

“Yes. But that doesn't relate well either.”

“When is now on theirs?”

Keeper stepped in. “1697.”

“Days?”

“Years.”

Risk shook his head, not making sense of it. The Spanish had weird gods and weird dates.

“It's very bad,” Tula said.

“That's why we oppose them,” Rebel said. “We don't want to have to honor their mixed-up system.”

Allele wasn't satisfied. “Our gods will help us. We can make a big sacrifice.”

“Yes, the way we do for every big occasion,” Risk agreed. “The bigger the sacrifice, the more the gods will help.”

“Not this time,” Keeper said. “This is beyond the gods.”

“How can you say that?” Risk demanded. “The gods can do anything.”

“We can't afford the sacrifice,” Rebel said.

Tula screamed. Rebel quickly pulled her close, but the child was inconsolable.

Now Allele came alert. “She knows something! She always knows! What's so horrible?”

There was no help for it. “The priests did a reading,” Keeper said heavily. “They concluded that there has to be an awful sacrifice to the Rain God.”

“The Rain God!” Risk said. “So he'll make a storm and blow away or sink those boats!”

“But that's good, isn't it?” Allele asked.

“No,” Rebel said grimly, still hugging Tula.

“But if the boats sink, they can't get here, can they?”

Tula screamed again.

Then Risk caught on. “Children! They sacrifice children to the Rain God!”

Allele paled. “And we're children. Fair ones.”

“But not us,” Risk said. “There are other children.”

Keeper got out the rest of it. “A noble is interested in Tula and Allele. He. . . he asked to. . . to have both of you. We refused, of course.”

Allele was not too young to miss the import. “I think I know who. His last mistress is getting too old. Thirteen.”

“But that's not the same as sacrifice,” Risk protested.

“When we told him no, he didn't like it,” Keeper said. “Then the priest made his reading.”

“Retaliation!” Risk said.

“Yes. Maybe if we change our minds, the priest will do a different reading.”

“So it's him—or death,” Allele said.

“Or escape,” Rebel said. “We are making ready. Don't tell.”

“That's what Haven and Crenelle are doing,” Risk said. “Packing supplies.”

“Without alerting the priests or nobles,” Keeper agreed. “Hero and Harbinger are getting the boats ready. We have a secret place to go to. We'll leave tonight.”

Tula screamed again.

Suddenly armed men filled the chamber. “But you'll do it without the children,” the captain said.

They were helpless. Any attempt to resist would only get them killed. The priests and nobles had anticipated their attempt to escape, and struck when they had confirmation.

They carried the screaming children out. Keeper and Rebel were left alone. There was no need to arrest them; they were going nowhere without the children.

“It's my fault!” Keeper moaned. “I shouldn't have spoken.”

“The children had to know,” Rebel said. “They were catching on anyway. We were both careless.”

She had spoken bravely enough, but now she dissolved into tears. Keeper tried to comfort his sister, but the horror was too big for comfort.

Yet how could they have allowed the girls to become the playthings of the corrupt noble?

At it turned out, the authorities were not so careless as to leave them long to their own treacherous devices. The warriors returned, and hauled the two of them roughly to a nether cell. There were the others, already rounded up: Hero, Craft, Haven, Crenelle, Harbinger, and Tuho. It was no glad encounter, and not just because it was crowded.

Next morning the news was that the Spaniards were assembling their boats, making obvious preparations for a massive attack. The warriors were at the ramparts, ready to repulse them. But Keeper knew it wouldn't be enough. The main boat was a small ship, with metal armor; arrows and spears would bounce off. That was the lesser threat.

“The artillery,” Craft murmured. “That's what will destroy us.”

“Surely a few hurled rocks won't hurt us,” Keeper said. “Unless one happens to strike a person on the head.”

Craft didn't answer. Keeper didn't have time to debate the point; he had been elected by the family to make a plea to the king. Only the king could overrule the priestly edict. But how was he to approach the king, when the guards wouldn't let any of them out of the crowded cell?

Then they were brought out, their hands bound behind them, and led to the temple. This was not promising.

But Keeper tried. “I must talk to the king,” he said. “It is my right.”

The guards consulted. They had been friends of the family, until this crisis, and surely did not approve of what was happening. But they would be sacrificed themselves if they did not obey orders. They sent one of their number to inquire.

King Canek was surely hard-pressed, but he granted Keeper a brief audience, because Keeper had done good work with animals and plants. Keeper was brought, bound, to see the king, who was garbed in his formal regalia for the sacrificial occasion. The king wore a large crown of pure gold, with a crest of gold, and his ears were covered with gold disks. The disks had hangings that shook and fell over his shoulders as he moved. On his arms were rings of pure gold. It was highly impressive, in part because Keeper knew that gold was exceedingly rare, and most of what existed in the city was what the king was wearing here. His tunic was pure white, copiously adorned with blue embroidery. He wore a broad black sash, signaling that he was also a priest of the Itza. His sandals were fashioned of blue thread with many gold jingles. It was his royal dress uniform, intended to be impressive, but Keeper couldn't help it: he was impressed.

“What is your concern?” the king inquired, as if he didn't know. There was that in his aspect that hinted he regretted the situation. Keeper had always gotten along well with him.

“My daughter, our children—the priests have taken them for the sacrifice,” Keeper said. “I come to plead for their lives. They are innocent, and we love them.”

The king gave him a serious look. “I understand. But we face incipient invasion, and our head priest knows best. I dare not overrule him, lest disaster befall us. I am sorry.”

And that was that. The king had spoken. Keeper bowed and retreated. There was nothing else he could do. Nothing else the king could do. They were caught in the crisis, complicated as it was by the web of deceit concerning the children.

The sacrifice ceremony proceeded all too swiftly. There was music,
dancing, and the burning of pom incense that Keeper himself had made from the resin of the copal tree. It was time for the bloodletting.

The priests brought out the three children, who had of course been drugged; they walked without animation, possessing no free will. They were placed before the sacrificial altar and tied there, their chests bared. There was chanting, the official offering of this blood to the Rain God. Then the head priest brought out the wicked obsidian sacrificial knife.

The priest was going to cut out their living hearts. And the family had to watch.

Crenelle sank to the floor. She had fainted, unable to bear the thought of seeing her daughter so cruelly murdered.

The guards hauled her roughly back to her feet. She was required to watch. But that gave Keeper an idea. If they could somehow stall the process, maybe there would come a chance to break it up. Their feet were free; he could lurch into the priest, maybe causing the man to drop the knife. It wasn't much of a hope, but any hope was better than none.

Suddenly there was a boom of thunder. The Rain God was answering, though there had been no sign of a storm before. The priest paused, perplexed. Any signal from the Rain God was important. What did this mean?

Something crashed into the wall of the building, smashing a hole in it.

They all looked, startled. The priest stood frozen, his blade uplifted. This was a remarkable response by the Rain God, considering that the offerings had not yet been made.

There was another boom, and another part of the wall was smashed open. This time part of the ceiling collapsed.

“The bombardment,” Craft murmured.

Craft had been correct in his prediction: these were not pebbles, but solid metal balls that blasted apart what they struck. It was a devastating barrage.

A third boom and crash. Now the roof of the temple was cracking, and stones were falling to the floor.

Even the priest realized that this was no ordinary thunderstorm. He
lowered the blade, dismayed. This did not seem like an expression of godly favor.

“The Rain God is angry!” Keeper shouted, surprising himself. “He wanted to save these children for his own purposes. Now we face his wrath!”

Panic erupted. They thought the Rain God was hurling thunderbolts. The musicians scrambled to get out of the temple, and the guards were as eager to escape as they were. Only the king paused, demonstrating his courage. He walked to Keeper, put his hands on his shoulders, turned him about, and pressed something into one of his bound hands. Then he moved on outside.

Keeper felt the object. It was cold and hard, a small stone. No—it was an obsidian knife!

“Hero!” Keeper said, turning his back to his warrior brother.