Teoxi, Mayan Prince III

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Contents

Summary of the First Part: "The End of Tikal"..............................xiSummary of the Second Part: "Montezuma's Rage".............................xiiiPreface....................................................................xvChapter 1 An Unexpected Visit..............................................1Chapter 2 A Mysterious People..............................................11Chapter 3 The Darkening of the Sun.........................................21Chapter 4 The Great Adventure..............................................29Chapter 5 God of Maya......................................................39Chapter 6 End of a Villain.................................................49Chapter 7 The Echo of Distant Lands........................................67Chapter 8 A Timeless Glory.................................................73Chapter 9 Looking for a Solution...........................................83Chapter 10 Finally Chief!..................................................95Chapter 11 A Bastard ... Owl...............................................103Chapter 12 The Pleasure of Revenge.........................................111Chapter 13 The Courier of the Tlatoani.....................................125Chapter 14 The Tarascan Dwarf..............................................139Chapter 15 The Mockery of the Tribute......................................151Chapter 16 Sounds of Freedom...............................................157Chapter 17 Lying Tongue!...................................................165Chapter 18 Damn One-Eye!...................................................173Chapter 19 Inca, Lord of the Mountains.....................................193Chapter 20 The Hag of the Forest...........................................201Chapter 21 Surprises Never End.............................................207Chapter 22 A War for a Lie!................................................215Chapter 23 Roaring Puma, Lord of Snows.....................................225Chapter 24 The Word "End" for the Mayan Nation.............................231Chapter 25 A Wicked, But Divine Plan!......................................237Chapter 26 Playing a Crafty Game...........................................245Chapter 27 A Miserable Soul Looking for Glory..............................257Chapter 28 Cem-anahuac!....................................................277Chapter 29 The Base of Tulum...............................................287Chapter 30 Ingratitude for Reward..........................................303Chapter 31 Last hope fades away............................................309Chapter 32 Two Faces of My Death...........................................317Chapter 33 The Magic of Curare.............................................327Chapter 34 "Sun City" or "Curare City".....................................333Chapter 35 The Prisoner of Calakmul........................................345Chapter 36 Last Wounds of a Stormy Life....................................361Epilogue More Haphazard Thoughts: Last Drops of Wisdom.....................373

Chapter One

Three years had passed since our return from the island and life in the village had gone on with no outside interruptions. We strengthened the defenses around the swamp in order to prevent any incursion and it would now be a death trap for any unfortunate who tried to capture us during the night. (For one defensive measure, I created in the swamp, an enclosure where I maintained a small crocodile farm. It's known that when adult crocodiles are hungry, they eat their young; therefore, to save the young crocodiles from this fate, every time we saw a young one, we captured it and put it into the enclosed area. The enclosed area was bounded by a stone wall in which the stones were placed a small distance from each other so that water could filter through but the young crocodiles couldn't get out. Only when they were older and could defend themselves did we release them into the open swamp. With this system, the swamp had become overrun with crocodiles—even more than during the time of Tikal when, during the dry season, we used to kill many crocodiles for food and our crafts.)

Meanwhile, the forest had completely covered the entire valley of Tikal and, with the forest, came the animals. During dry seasons of years past, animals would come down from the mountains to drink at the swamp but, now, our world became theirs; before, they were forced to stay on the mountains, now they had taken possession of the valley! One advantage of this change is that now we had the opportunity to get good quantities of game not far from the village.

Fishing just offshore from our village gave good results and, since we managed to draw more than we needed, the surplus went to feed the crocodiles.

Using waters from the nearby 'River of Death,'(an unfortunate name because the waters, instead of being a place of death, were, in every sense, our secret of life), we created a canal to irrigate the fields. This created a natural reserve for food as well as places for plentiful harvests of corn.

Things that I as a young man had learned from my mentor were put to good use for the benefit of the whole village and everyone was happy with the results.

These successes contributed to my 'rehabilitation' in the eyes of the community, except, of course, for those who had lost a son in the unfortunate expedition to Tenochtitlan and who still saw me as a burden or danger to the entire village.

During those three years, our population almost doubled. Because a new child arrived almost weekly, the village was in a continual feast. My family was also cheered by the arrival of two more children. With so many young ones in our family, we had to expand our accommodations in the swamp and add fences to prevent being overrun by the terrible reptiles. It was a strange life for us all: mothers with infants remained permanently in quarters within the swamp while the other women went to the village to take care of the common needs during the day. With these adaptations, life was normal although I (and only I) continually worried about our defense. At night, the village dogs were good protectors and my Puxi seemed to be the leader of the group. In the morning, some dogs stayed in the swamp to protect women, elderly people and children, while other dogs followed us to the village and accompanied us to our places of work. Our lifestyle and defensive measures gave us some confidence because a possible Aztec incursion would have little chance of success, except, of course, in case of a large expedition.

Our lives passed with few surprises. It seemed as if the entire village was happy because all the people had what they needed—except for me. I was unhappy, not only because we had lost the empire of my ancestors, but also because a painful presentiment told me that all our efforts were in vain, and that, sooner or later, we could lose everything—including our lives—at the hands of the eternal enemy. Or, we would lose everything to the mysterious men who will come from East. I preferred not to think about it. Sometimes I wanted to convince myself that it was all a fantasy derived from superstition, false priests, visionaries and impostors.

Then, I returned to the clear and specific prophecy: Tikal would disappear after a thousand years, and thus it did! Why should we doubt the...