The Sacrifice Game

(57)

There was no one else in the room. Blood drained out of my head. Hallucination? No. Hidden somewhere. Speaking tube. Yes. The stone god in front of me probably sat on a vertical pipe that went down to the tombs and the caves. Really, those things were pretty common, I remembered, there are spirit tubes in pyramids all over Central America. It’s just that the archaeologists all had said they were just spirit things. Like, nonfunctional. But not in this case, the hierophant really was down there. Maybe there were other adders down in the caves with him. Did 2JS know they were still alive down there? I’d have to ask him, if I could convince Lady Koh to let me near his cage for more than a minute. Did Koh know? Did the sitting oracle know where they were, and how to get in there? The oracle had called him with the beat. Did that mean you could ring them up anytime the same way, or did you have to set up an appointment “As when I felt you first you still trail death,” the sandstone voice said in old court language.

I didn’t know what to say, so I mumbled some line from On The Left to the effect of how the inevitable is also the necessary.

“You want to read your own k’atun,” he said.

He meant the future. I said yes.

“Then tell me what I’m going to do with these,” he said,

“And if you’re right, I’ll give you one of them,

And if you’re wrong, you don’t get anything.”

I had to get him to give me the blue one, which was baked with the blood of Ocelot and would make me speak for him in the zero level. Otherwise they’d force one of the others into my mouth and I’d be dead. Or, like he said, he wouldn’t give me anything. In which case I’d also flunk. And he’d give a sign, and when I came out one of the offerers would execute me with a blowgun, and in a few minutes they’d be rolling my corpse down the stairs.

Fine, I thought. All very Matrix avant la lettre. Whatevs. I love riddles. Give me a beat.