"You are weary," Chiun said. "Let us take you to your bed."
"No. I will remain here. There is much to be done in preparation for the attack of the Olmec. I will rest, but here, and just for a moment."
"As you wish," Chiun said. They left quietly.
* * *
From behind a panel of mirrors, a figure moved. The king was alone, and his heavy, even breathing filled the empty room. The man behind the mirror was dressed in a beggar's rags, but on his neck hung the precious topaz amulet of Quintanodan, high priest of the Olmec. He moved slowly, quietly as a cat, to the king's throne. Then, with practiced fingers, he encircled the old man's neck and squeezed. The king's eyes opened in silent terror.
"I have waited ten years to find the magic spears of fire," Quintanodan, the priest, whispered, staring directly into the king's face. "And now you have shown them to me. The Olmec will kill your people, destroy your gods, and level your kingdom to ashes. When you are gone, there will be nothing left of you but your rotting bones."
The king opened his mouth in a futile gesture. No sound came out. His face started to shake with spasms; his eyes bulged. He reached up with one trembling hand and clasped the topaz amulet, cold against his hot, numbing skin.
"Look in my eyes, old man, and despair," the priest whispered as he choked the life out of the dying king.
?Chapter Twelve
"Read this," Lizzie said, handing Colonel Cooligan's log to Remo.
10/13/2033
Today we have an interesting project. Major Bolam, now the kingdom of Yaxbenhaltun's principal road builder, wants to construct a major trade route between this city and Chetumal Bay on the Gulf of Mexico, some 40 miles east. Bolam says the route will spur trade. I know what he's got in the back of his mind, though— a transatlantic crossing. I suppose nothing will stop Bolam in his quest for knowledge.
The main difficulty in surveying this route seems to be a local superstition about an area due east of here called, of all things, the Forbidden Fields. From all accounts, they lie between us and the caves of the Olmec.
The people here claim that the Olmec, who worship death, have poisoned the air of the fields, and Bolam's surveying team absolutely refuses to go. More than that, the king himself forbade my men to explore these so-called Forbidden Fields unless we use "magic" to protect us— meaning the oxygen equipment we were wearing when we first stepped out of the time module.
So I agreed. I figure there's no harm in wearing the equipment, at least until we're out of view of our hosts. The Olmec themselves, I understand, keep far away from the fields, so I don't think we'll have any problems with them. I think it will just be a nice journey through some non-jungle countryside, and that will be a pleasant change for us all.
We'll build a road to the sea. Take that, Fate. Old Kukulcan, practically blind as a bat and no good for flying even if the Cassandra suddenly decided to work, is not so bad, after all.
I'm proud of all my men. They all know by now that we're never going to get out of here. Metters is even getting married to a local girl. When he does, I think I'll let him dismember Cassandra's wiring so that he can invent electricity. The town could really use a generator for water. One of the other men has begun to draw up plans for a sewage system here.
Malaria's already practically nonexistent now. That's my contribution. God, every time I see a little sick kid get well, I think of Michael, dying the way he did, and I wish I could have helped him. Maybe by helping these others I'm sort of helping him, too, in a roundabout way. I hope so.
We'll be together soon, Sandy and Michael and. This disease I've got is supposed to progress geometrically. I guess the end will be pretty bad. Unfortunately, I don't know how to invent morphine for the pain. Well, nobody's perfect.
I can't say I'm glad about dying. It's funny, after I lost Sandy and the baby, dying was all I wanted. But this time I've spent here in Yaxbenhaltun has changed all that.
These people think the Olmec are the most evil thing they've got to worry about, but they're wrong. Disease is worse. So is ignorance. And poverty. And despair. My men and I have changed that for them, maybe forever. We've shot all to hell the cardinal rule about not changing the course of history, but one look at how these folks live now tells me it was all worth it.
Besides, maybe the king is right about this being our destiny. Who knows? Maybe one day the Mayans will be famous for being an advanced civilization. Maybe this is the course of history, and we would have changed it by not coming. Very weird.
This has been the greatest adventure any man could want. My crew knows that, and so do I.
I wouldn't have missed this for anything in the world.
The rest of the pages were blank.
"I wonder what happened to him," Remo mused.
"Simple. Metters got the module to work, and they all went home," Lizzie said confidently.
"Yeah," Remo said, trying to sound convincing. He knew that an experienced commanding officer who'd spent fifteen months trying to escape wouldn't leave without his weapons and his log. Cooligan had grown to love the people he'd lived among. He wouldn't have gone back to his time without saying good-bye. The colonel who had become a god had died, probably somewhere nearby.
From down the palace's long hallway came the terrified scream of a girl.
"Nata-Ah," Po said, jumping to his feet.
They found the girl running toward them in the hall. "My grandfather," she screamed, a topaz amulet dangling from her hand. "He is dead. The priest has murdered him." She ran past them to the palace's main entrance, shouting to the villagers to stop the evil priest.
But there was no priest. On the outskirts of the city, close to the fortified wall, walked a solitary figure dressed in rags and carrying a large sack over his back. No one paid attention to the beggar, or bothered to look inside the sack, where six laser weapons of green metal, the magic spears of fire of the gods themselves, rested.
"He's got to be here," the girl shouted. "Find him! Find the man who killed your king!"
The palace guards rushed into the square. Then, seemingly from out of nowhere, a horde of men, inconspicuous except for the black ash dot each wore on his forehead, rushed out of a thousand hiding places.
The guards fell first, their necks and chests spurting blood from the black knives that gleamed dully all around them. Then the screams of the villagers began as the Olmec blades sliced indiscriminately through the flesh of women and old men and those who had no defense.
Nata-Ah, her face a mask of unbelieving terror, rushed up to one of the killers as Po, limping, cursing himself for his slowness, came up shouting behind her. The killer swung wide, just missing the girl's throat. He forgot her immediately, lashing out with his long knife at others. Still fighting, he saw the limping boy out of the corner of his eye and kicked.
The blow struck Po square in the knees. His legs buckled with the pain, his vision dimming. As he struggled to retain consciousness, he saw a blur of blue, a garment on an old man who moved as swiftly as a wild bird, fly past him and imbedded two delicate fingers into the spine of the killer, stopping him forever.
"Take the right half of the square," Chiun commanded.
Remo obeyed, seeking out the black ash dots on the foreheads of the screaming, bleeding people in the square.
A knife flashed near him for a moment, and in another moment the knife was gone, along with the hand that held it.
A few yards away, a blade tore through the belly of a man fighting with a stick. The man screamed, watching his bowels spill onto the dirt in a gush of blood. Before the knife was withdrawn, Remo swatted the attacker's head with a flick of his hand, hearing the neck snap under his fingers. Another ash dot rushed at him. He clasped it in the center of his palm, crushing the skull behind it with one movement.
He let his body move automatically, instinctively. The days of frustration and inactivity were like an anger boiling inside him, and now he could permit it to come out. Too late to save the man with the stick, whose bloody entrails lay beside his corpse. But with speed, with thought, he and Chiun could fight for the others.
Lizzie, sobbing, dragged the two stunned children back into the entranceway. "Don't ever do that again," she shrieked into their faces. "You could have been killed, both of you...."
Her tears dried instantly as she saw two Olmec, crouching and guarding their path with vicious slashes of their weapons, heading slowly toward the temple where the Cassandra lay.
"Oh, no. Not the pod," she whispered, feeling her throat constrict. She stood, horrified, releasing the hands of the children. "Remo!" she screamed. "They're going to destroy the plane!" But Remo was moving too fast to be seen.
"Wait here," she told Po. She ran as fast as she could toward the two Olmec warriors. "Stop it. Stop," she called, clawing at their sweating chests with her fingernails.
One of them clasped both her hands swiftly behind her back, his eyes flashing. The other smiled, with his mouth only, and nodded.
* * *
A full set of ribs cracked and imploded beneath the force of Remo's elbow. With a rattle of air, the warrior fell. Remo looked around. To his left, Chiun stood among the dead, his stance calm and ready. Around Remo lay the corpses, most of them with black dots on their foreheads. The remaining Olmec were in retreat, already disappearing into the thick jungle brush beyond the city walls.