Age of Aztec

TWENTY

Same Day

As Stuart entered the camp he found the guerrillas busy around a portable gas stove. Two of them were pouring a viscous brown liquid out of a cooking pot into small jars, and the others then took a jar each and ran the contents through a sieve, mashing out excess water with a spoon until all that was left was a resin-like paste. Stuart’s best guess was that they were preparing curare for their blowpipe darts. The original brown liquid was a stewed mulch of leaves and bark fragments from the curare plant.

They were so intent on their work that they didn’t even notice Stuart was there watching them. He had to clear his throat to get their attention. Immediately they leapt to their feet. Guns and knives appeared. The guerrillas moved in on Stuart, Zotz to the fore.

“Where have you been?” Zotz demanded.

“‘Welcome back, Englishman,’” Stuart said sardonically. “‘We missed you. We were worried.’”

“Don’t piss about. What happened last night? We heard an l-gun discharge, and then you’d vanished and Auilix too.”

“Where is Auilix? Is he all right?”

“Asleep in his tent. He’s shaken up but fine. At first we assumed you must have killed him and run off. Then we heard him calling. He was stuck halfway up a tree, terrified out of his wits. He was gibbering, saying something about hurtling up into the air — something about a big black insect with wings. We thought he’d been at the tequila but he swears not. What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure you’d believe me if I told you. I need to speak to Chel. He around?”

“I’m around,” said Chel, emerging from the cabin. “Zotz poses a very good question. What is going on? We were under the impression you’d deserted us. Maybe even run off with a view to betraying our whereabouts to the Serpent Warriors. Hence the curare.” He indicated the gas stove. “We’re making a fresh batch in anticipation of a Serpent attack. Now that you’re back, is it safe to assume that no such attack is coming?”

“No attack to the best of my knowledge, no.”

“Can I believe that answer?” said Chel, taking a few steps closer to Stuart.

“I’m here, aren’t I? If I’d sold you out to the Serpents, why would I return?”

“To lull us into a false sense of security. Then, when they arrive, they make sure to kill everyone else but spare you.”

“But it would still be a foolish risk,” said Stuart. “And judging by the way you’re all acting now, I’d have been justified in not taking it.”

“Forgive me, but it’s going to take a bit more than that to convince me. Men?”

Chel nodded to Stuart’s left and right, and Stuart glanced around him and cursed himself. While he’d been talking to Chel, guerrillas had sneaked round and taken up position on either side of him. He’d been so focused on protesting his innocence that he hadn’t noticed he was being flanked. He made to turn, to defend himself, but too late. The guerrillas pounced, and within seconds he was being gripped tightly and painfully by several sets of strong hands. One man had a chokehold around his neck, and two others were twisting Stuart’s arms backwards. He struggled, but he was helpless.

“Listen to me,” he said, having to force the words out through his constricted larynx. “You’re not alone in this forest. There’s somebody else here and they want you out.”

“Of course we’re not alone in this forest,” said Chel. “It’s a big damn forest. But as for somebody wanting us out — I sincerely doubt that. Xibalba is popular. You’ve seen it for yourself.”

“But these people — ”

“Reston,” Chel interrupted. “Do you know what a lethal dose of curare does to a person?”

Stuart tried to let nothing show in his eyes. “I’ve a pretty good idea.”

“Do you?” Chel gestured to one of his men, and in no time he had a blowpipe dart in his hand. The tip had been dipped in the paste. He approached Stuart. “Then I’m sure you’re aware that it’s not a pleasant death. Curare is a muscle relaxant. In weak doses, it merely incapacitates. Remember when we rescued you at the theatre in London; we’d decided we would not kill Jaguar Warriors if it could be avoided. Shame they didn’t return the courtesy, but there you go. Each one we hit with a dart went down in an instant, paralysed, without use of their limbs for an hour or so. Well, in more concentrated form, as has just been brewed here, curare causes every muscle in the body to stop functioning. Ultimately death comes in the form of asphyxiation. Your diaphragm fails and your lungs cease to work. But it can take up to twenty minutes, and the horror of it is, you’re conscious the whole time, fully aware of what’s happening to you but powerless to do a thing about it. You lie there unable to move, unable even to scream, feeling yourself gradually, inexorably shutting down. It is, I imagine, a truly terrifying experience.”

He held the dart up in front of Stuart’s cheek.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Stuart said.

“Wouldn’t I? One prick, and a long, lingering death awaits you. So tell us the truth. Where have you been these past eighteen hours? Are there Serpent Warriors on their way?”

He brought the dart closer. Stuart strained away from it. The guerrilla who had him in a chokehold pressed his head towards it again.

“No, no Serpents, I swear.”

“Or Jaguars?”

“No, no bloody Jaguars either. But these others I’m talking about, they definitely don’t like having you around. They’re who I’ve been with all this time, and they’ve asked me to ask you to leave. They have plans for the Great Speaker and you’re standing in the way.”

“Plans? What plans?”

“I–I don’t know. They didn’t say.”

Chel gave a scoffing laugh.

“But you’d be wise to do as they ask,” Stuart went on. “They have weaponry, skills… abilities. They outclass you in every department. Auilix’s ‘big black insect,’ that was one of them. And those mystery figures stalking us through the trees the other morning — them again. And the ants. Remember the ants?”

“Ants!” Chel boomed. “I’m supposed to be intimidated by a bunch of ants?”

“Someone controlled them, made them act as they did. You can deny it, but we all saw it, how they built a human figure. I’m not saying it’s ants themselves you should worry about. But someone who has the technological knowhow to get insects to obey commands — you’ve got to at least wonder what else they might be capable of.”

The dart hovered at Stuart’s cheek, a hairsbreadth from his skin. The point loomed as large as a javelin in his vision, the curare a thick dark smear. He felt a bead of sweat roll from his hairline, down his forehead, out along his eyebrow.

“Who are they, then, this unseen enemy of ours?” Chel wanted to know. “And why should what they want take precedence over what we want?”

“They’re your enemy only if you make them your enemy by not conceding to them. This isn’t about who’s got first dibs or who has more of a claim on the Great Speaker or any of that. It’s about who’s carrying the bigger stick, simple as that, and from what I’ve seen, the answer isn’t Xibalba. You’re up against a superior force, Chel, a bunch of very determined and well-equipped people. A couple of them could even be genuine psychopaths.”

“And our own fighting prowess can’t compare?” Chel sounded offended. “Now you’re belittling us?”

“I’m being as honest as anyone would be with a poison-tipped dart being waved at them.”

“Fear of death will make a man say anything to save his skin.”

“So what’s the point in threatening to kill me? Eh? If you’re not even going to believe what I tell you. Look at it this way. Would I have come up with a story as preposterous as this if it wasn’t true? I could just have given you some bollocks about wandering off and getting lost for a day. I didn’t. Fact is, I’m trying to help you. I’m delivering an ultimatum from some very serious people, and I urge you — beg you — to listen up and act accordingly. You may not survive if you don’t.”

Chel gave this some thought. Behind those warm eyes and that chubby, easygoing face lurked an iron resolve, a will that was like a torrential river, carving its own channel, meeting resistance with force.

The dart dipped away from Stuart’s cheek, just fractionally.

“You need to choose, my friend,” Chel said softly, grimly. “You need to commit yourself one way or the other. You did that as the Conquistador, but it seems you’ve lost your bearings since you last put on your armour. You’ve weakened. And I can’t have weakness on my team. It’s a liability. So decide, once and for all. Are you with us or against us? Look inside your heart and make that call. It doesn’t have to be right now, but it must be soon, because time is marching on, the b’ak’tun is drawing to an end, the hieratic synod is imminent, and our hour of reckoning is approaching. Are you going to carry through your mission as the Conquistador to its logical conclusion? Or are you going to be a coward?”

Well, when you put it like that, it’s no choice at all. “If you’re trying to win me over, Chel, you’ve got a damn funny way of going about it. But I will tell you that, threats notwithstanding, basically I’m still onside. In spite of everything” — Stuart lowered his eyes to the deadly dart — “you can count on me.”

“Can I?”

“Yes. Now, please put that bloody thing away and tell your men to let me go.”

Chel pondered, then with some finality jerked the dart back and passed it, flighted end first, to the man who had fetched it for him. A flick of Chel’s fingers, and Stuart was released.

“Be careful,” the Xibalba leader said to him. “Watch your step. Every move you make from now on is going to be scrutinised. More than ever you will have to prove you are worth the huge trouble we went to, the lives it cost us, to find you and bring you here. Don’t give us the slightest excuse to doubt you again. You will not live to regret it.”

“And about what I’ve been saying?” Stuart said. “These people I’ve told you about?”

Chel was striding away. He didn’t look back, just flapped a hand dismissively in the air. “If they’re coming, let them come. They won’t find us easy prey. Xibalba knows how to fight. We don’t give up on our goals, no matter what the obstacles. We’re dead already, remember? So we fear nothing.”

The guerrillas around Stuart echoed the sentiment with a low cheer.

“Well, I gave it my best shot,” Stuart said, mostly to himself, but also for the benefit of anybody who might be observing, eavesdropping by means of some sensitive listening device. “I really did.”