When he reached the marsh, past the Forbidden Fields, he ran at double time toward the volcano. Earlier, when he had climbed the eastern slope of Bocatan with Lizzie, they had made their way up a narrow pass. If he could collect the Olmec there, Chiun would have an easier time of getting rid of them.

  He approached the pass minutes before the six Olmec.

  “Hey, you fruits, hubba hubba,” he shouted to the oncoming warriors. A laser shimmered in the air toward him. It struck the exact location where he stood, but in the split second it took the beam to travel, Remo was gone. The shaft dug a deep crater into the side of the volcano.

  “That’s good, fellas. Just what I wanted.” He stuck his thumbs into his ears and blurted a raspberry at the confused soldiers. “Come on, creeps, it’s target practice.”

  Another laser lit up the sky, striking the hillside. And another.

  “Chiun, get a move on, will you?”

  “Watch your tone of voice,” Chiun said indignantly from the shadows. He leaped high in the air, taking off the top of a man’s head in his descent.

  “Good work, Little Father.”

  “Mind your own affairs.”

  Remo was ready. One of the warriors, aiming his weapon directly at him, stood in firing position, open from every angle.

  “The problem with guns,” Remo said as the man’s finger moved back imperceptibly on the trigger, “is that your body is wasted.” He spun out of the way of the fiery charge. The soldier tried to get a bead on him again, but he was gone.

  “The only part of your body you use with a gun is your finger, see,” Remo said from behind him. The warrior spun around. No one was there.

  “The rest of you is completely vulnerable.” The soldier turned again, firing without looking. The beam tore into the side of the mountain.

  “See what I mean?” Remo said, delivering a kick to the man’s kidneys that turned them to brown jelly. The corpse’s fingers twitched spasmodically on the sensitive trigger. A burst of fire sliced into Bocatan’s worn and pitted slope. Remo reached the weapon and crushed it to gravel in his hands.

  “Okay, who’s next?” he shouted. Chiun was in the process of splintering someone’s neck into a thousand pieces with a rapid drum of his fingers. The man’s weapon soared upward. The other laser bearers were fleeing back toward the caves. “Oh, no you don’t,” Remo said. “You’re not getting another chance, Bonzo.” He took off after the man, caught him, and smashed his weapon to shards in front of his face.

  The man’s mouth dropped open.

  Remo said, “You were willing to fight me when you had the laser. Now I insist we go on.”

  But the man only sputtered, his eyes staring straight ahead of him. He raised a violently shaking finger and pointed behind Remo’s back.

  “Come on,” Remo said in disgust. “That’s old. I look behind me and you get a chance to break my nose. Well, it doesn’t work that way, chum.” He tossed the man to the ground, looked behind him, and within a half a second picked the man up again. “See? Oh, God.”

  Bocatan was cracking open before his eyes.

  The probes made by the lasers had torn her surface to shreds. Now the swollen volcano glowed red from its gurgling mouth to its base, streaked with deep fissures where pulsating red liquid oozed out.

  “Remo!” Chiun shouted from the far rim of the volcano’s peak. “Leave the warriors.”

  “Gotcha,” Remo said, suddenly remembering the Olmec soldier supported in his hands. Almost absently he tapped the man’s solar plexus. The man slumped to the ground.

  And the fire mountain exploded.

  Its entire eastern side blew in a stream of lava shooting from its base. The red mouth of the volcano darkened and receded as the lava spewed out of its collapsing side.

  The heat and force of the molten rock blew Remo aside like a weightless feather as it tumbled onto the valley, swallowing rocks whole and burning a blinding path past the marsh and into the Forbidden Fields, where the burning miles of white flowers gave off a stench of sweet decay.

  Above the din of the collapsing volcano could be heard the wails of the Olmec trapped in the inexorable flow of molten death, their screams sounding like the chattering of small birds, insignificant in the roaring eruption.

  A man, his face burned horribly, ran toward Remo carrying a long-bladed knife in his hands. The entire top half of his body was blackened. On his shoulders were huge bubbling blisters, sprouting from deep within the muscle tissue. Remo could tell the man wouldn’t last for ten minutes.

  “Don’t put yourself through the trouble,” Remo said, taking the knife. The man covered his face with his charred hands.

  “I’ll help you to die,” Remo said quietly, placing his arms around the man’s body so that he would feel as little pain as possible. Then, with two fingers, Remo prepared to touch a cluster of nerves at the base of the man’s throat that would put him to sleep painlessly and forever.

  As if he could read Remo’s thoughts, his eyes widened. In a burst of strength he pushed himself away.

  “You’re him, aren’t you?” Remo said. “Quintanodan.”

  At the sound of his name, the priest painfully pulled himself erect. Even through his burned flesh and obvious agony, Quintanodan’s expression retained all of its arrogance and cruel authority. He pointed to the rim of Bocatan, where the Mayans watched the inferno below in awed silence.

  “You want me to take you there, huh?” Remo said, gesturing.

  The priest nodded curtly.

  “Why should I? You didn’t exactly treat me like your long lost brother. Not to mention your hospitality toward Cooligan.”

  Again, the dying priest seemed to know what Remo was thinking. He blinked rapidly, striving to keep his eyes in focus. Clearly the man was losing consciousness. Then, with great effort, he bowed to Remo.

  “Oh, cut it out,” Remo said, picking the man up deftly. The movement, gentle as Remo tried to make it, must have been excruciating. Still, the priest made no sound. “I guess you’re not going to hurt anyone now.”

  Good guys and bad guys, killers and saints…In their final moment, all men knew terror. It was Quintanodan’s moment now, and Remo respected it.

  He did not despise the man for being a killer. Remo was one himself, after all, and although he had known since the death of the old king that Quintanodan would have to die, Remo was hard pressed to feel any hatred for him now. He had looked into the eyes of too many dying men to hate an enemy in torment. All life was sacred in the moment it was extinguished.

  And so he carried the priest to the top of Bocatan, steaming above the destruction in the valley.

  Quintanodan, lying on his back, beckoned to the boy Po to come near him while he spoke. The boy translated the man’s anguished words.

  “It is written that the voice of the gods will come to rule the Maya and defeat their enemies,” he said. “The prophecy has come to pass. My people are dispersed, my tribe decimated. But you will not rule forever, because the Olmec understand what you do not: that the past and the future are one. That which flourishes must decay. That which lives now must return to its ashes. My people are clever. Many have died this day, but others have fled to wait, to fight again. Two of the gods’ weapons remain. They are well hidden now, but one day they will be found.

  “I have come to tell you this. We will fight you one day, and on that day we will defeat you. Until then, we will wait in secret. The name of the Olmec will be no more. But when our time comes, your empire will crumble to dust at our hands. For all the ages of man, no one will know why the great Mayan civilization vanished, but you will know, and your children, and your children’s children, for I speak from the Sight, and the Sight does not lie. Ages hence, the Olmec will conquer you, you will be as dust in the wind of the sea.”

  He stood up painfully, rivulets of sweat running down his disfigured features. He faced the gaping mouth of the volcano and repeated an ancient prayer:

  “All moons, all years, all days, all winds, take their course and pass away.”

  He held his blackened arms over his head. Then, his face composed, his mouth set, he dived into the distended mouth of the volcano, making no sound as he died.

  The Mayans standing atop Bocatan turned to Remo and Chiun and knelt. Dawn flooded the sky with red, looking through the smoke and steam like a vision from hell.

  The moment lingered forever, it seemed. Each man tried to take a measure of the events of the past twenty-four hours, and could only remember it as a time of great moment, its details already fading into the realm of legend. Only Chiun remained entirely in the present, lowering himself to the ground, listening.

  “What are you doing, Little Father?” Remo said, noticing the strange posture of the old Oriental.

  “Take them away from here,” Chiun said.

  “Why?”

  The old man spoke softly. “Earthquake.”

  The boy was the first to respond. “Nata-Ah,” he cried, limping as fast as he could toward the village, where the women and children of Yaxbenhaltun slept.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THE LIMESTONE COLUMNS OF the palace were already crashing by the time the boy reached it. Remo was inside, pulling the women and the household staff to safety, while Chiun and Lizzie worked with the Mayan warriors to wake the rest of the village.

  “Where is Nata-Ah?” Po asked.

  “I can’t find her. Maybe she’s already out.”

  “She is not. She must be here!” the boy bellowed.

  “Look, I’ve got enough on my hands,” Remo said, pulling a bevy of shrieking dancing girls through the falling rock. “The building’s full, and it’s going to go fast, so get out of the way.”

  “I will help,” the boy said, rushing into the palace. Two old women, balancing a load of clay dishes between them, tottered from the kitchen, blocking the hall where others screamed behind them. The boy knocked the dishes out of their hands and pushed them forward, making room for the stampede.

  “Nata-Ah!” he called, forcing his way against the crowd. He scanned the panicking faces that swept past him, but the beautiful young girl was not among them.

  Po made his way into the interior of the palace, where the ornate painted ceilings dipped and swayed rhythmically to the deep rumbles of the earthquake. The roof would cave in within minutes with him inside, unless he got out quickly. But Nata-Ah. What if she was still somewhere in the palace?

  He walked under the buckling ceiling of the reception hall and into the labyrinth of the palace’s great rooms.

  “Nata-Ah!” he shouted, but his voice was drowned out in the splintering crash of stone on ground outside.

  She was not in the room where she normally slept. The other rooms were also empty, their doors hanging open. Only the king’s throne room was sealed.

  He burst in. The girl was inside, sitting straight and tall upon her grandfather’s magnificent throne.

  “Nata-Ah, you must come. There is danger,” Po said in the Old Tongue.

  “This is the end of the world,” the girl said softly. “I am the world’s ruler now. I will remain here.”

  “Oh, Nata-Ah,” Po pleaded. “There is so much I have to tell you. This isn’t the end. It’s just the beginning. Me, I come from the end, not you. Your people will make a mark on history that will never be forgotten, never.”

  “You know this?”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “You are the voice of the gods, just as my grandfather said. You are like Quintanodan. You have the Sight.”

  “Nata-Ah, your grandfather was only setting a trap for Quintanodan when he called me that. And I don’t have the Sight. It’s just that I come from—”

  “You came with the gods,” she said. “And you will leave with them. And I will remain here, for I do not wish to live without you.” Her eyes shone with tears.

  He was stunned. Long moments passed. Down the hall, the ceiling burst and a ton of rock poured into the smashed palace with a sound like thunder. The door to the throne room flew open and creaked mightily, twisting out of shape as an ocean of debris showered behind it.

  Po touched her face. “Then I will stay here with you,” he said. “For you are all I need in this life. I have followed you forever, and now that I have found you, I will stay to my last breath at your side.”

  Suddenly, through the wreckage, a man appeared.

  “What the hell are you two doing here?” Remo yelled angrily, grabbing each child in one hand and vaulting to the window. “Hang on.” He tumbled outside, leaping over the piles of fallen cement to safety.

  “You’ve got rocks in your heads, both of you,” he shouted over his shoulder as he ran toward the square. “When this is over with, I’m going to spank the daylights—”

  “Remo,” Lizzie shouted excitedly.

  “I don’t have time,” Remo said.

  “But it’s an earthquake. That’s what brought us here in the first place. ‘The vibration of molecules,’ that’s what Cooligan said made the time module Work.”

  Remo pulled a screaming man from beneath a slab of rock. “If an earthquake’s all it took, then why didn’t Cooligan get out during one?”

  “Because while Cooligan was here, there wasn’t an earthquake. Not one is mentioned in the log. He never had the chance, but we do. Come on,” she said, pulling at his arm. “Get the others. It has to be now.”

  Remo straightened up. He swept his arm over the scene around him. The entire city was a wreckage. White plaster and dust covered the faces of the dead on the street. Hundreds of small fires burned everywhere. “We can’t go, Lizzie. People’s lives are still in danger. In a few minutes, when the earthquake’s subsided, maybe—”

  “We can’t wait for it to subside! This is the only chance we’re going to get, and you know it. If the pod hasn’t already been damaged, that is. A few more minutes, and the temple holding the Cassandra might be destroyed.”

  “We’ve just got to wait,” Remo said stubbornly.

  “I don’t have to do any such thing,” she screamed. “This is my last shot to get out of here, and by God, I’m going to take it!”

  “All by yourself? What if the mechanism won’t work again?”

  “That’s your problem,” Lizzie said.

  Remo shook his head. “Guess I was wrong about you, old girl. Still looking out for number one, aren’t you?”

  “Can you blame me?”

  Remo looked closely at her, and then at the ruin of the city. “No, I can’t. I’m the same way myself. No strings, no responsibilities. He travels fastest who travels alone.”

  Lizzie regarded him suspiciously. “Then why aren’t you coming?” she asked.

  Remo looked out over the far horizon, shimmering in the wake of the city’s flames. “Because I’m tired of hating myself,” he said.

  Her eyes hardened. “If you think that this is going to make me—”

  “I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about me.”

  Struggling to keep her face impassive, she stood watching him for a moment. Then she turned and strode away.

  “Well, that’s that for the moment,” Remo said.

  Most of the rubble had been cleared away from the square. Miraculously, only six lives had been lost. The bodies of the dead lay wrapped in makeshift shrouds near the city’s walls. Someone had unobtrusively taken care of the survivors, since the streets were clear of the wandering homeless.

  It was nearly twilight. Remo and Chiun had worked with the Mayans for nearly eighteen hours salvaging what they could of the city. Several of the men had collapsed from exhaustion. Po, the improvised bandages on his legs blackened from soot, slept in the open courtyard as Nata-Ah rummaged through the vacant buildings for a new dressing for his wound.

  “The boy served us well,” Chiun said.

  “Yeah, he worked out okay after that stunt in the palace. I guess I won’t spank the little bugger.”

  Chiun surveyed the area with his alert hazel eyes. “The damage is not so great as I feared.”

  Remo shrugged. “Nothing a good team of masons couldn’t fix in a decade or two.” He laughed. He was bone-tired, but he knew he couldn’t rest until he had delivered the bad news he’d put off for most of the day.

  “I might as well tell you, Lizzie’s gone,” he blurted.

  “That is too much to hope for,” Chiun said.

  “It’s true. She took off in the time module. I don’t think we’ll see her again.”

  “I do,” Chiun said disgustedly. “That woman is like misfortune. She always turns up when you need her least.”

  “Well, she’s not going to turn up now.”

  Chiun pointed, his face forming an expression of distaste. “Think again, O Brilliant One.”

  Walking from the crumbled city wall, her shirt torn at the shoulder, her hair turned gray-black from dirt and plaster dust, Lizzie ambled over to them and sat down in the dust without a word.

  “Where’d you come from?” Remo asked.

  “Outside the city. I’ve been finding temporary homes for the villagers. It’s no bed of roses out there, either, but the damage isn’t as bad as it is here.” Resting on her elbows, she closed her eyes and threw her head back in fatigue.

  “So that’s where the villagers went,” Remo said.

  “She helped?” Chiun asked incredulously.

  “I know it’s not my style,” Lizzie said, a bitter smile playing around her mouth.

  “What about the pod? Did you try it?”

  “Oh, yes. It worked. I sent a vase up in it as an experiment. Turned the switch, presto. Vase gone.” She looked into the distance. “I put a note in it. I thought maybe Dick Diehl would come exploring the temple some day and find it.”

  “Hey, wait a minute. A vase? What about you? I thought you were going home.”

  She chuckled, a half-laugh born of deep exhaustion. “Yeah, I did, too. And then I started to think about you here, and about all these slobs in trouble, and about Cooligan and how he felt good even though he knew he was going to die here…Oh, I don’t know,” she said, getting wearily to her feet. “It was a hell of a time to develop a conscience.”