“Hey, let’s get on with it,” I said. “I’ll even give you the first punch.”
I didn’t figure he’d take me up on my offer, but he laid a fist into my ribs that felt like a sledgehammer. I made a whooshing noise like an airlock in a science fiction movie and landed on my knees. I couldn’t breathe, and he’d gone out of focus.
“Please listen to me,” he said.
“If you’ve had enough,” I gasped. Darla had a gentle hand on my shoulder in case I was inclined to bounce to my feet and finish him off.
“The representation of Chan Bahlum’s father, mother, and younger brother was of an event that took place after the death of his parents.”
Then to Darla he said, “You would have discovered the truth sooner or later in your readings. To the Maya, time is fluid. They were anointing Kan Xul to replace Chan after he died. Chan ruled until his death in your year 702. Kan Xul succeeded him. In 720 Kan was captured by one of Palenque’s enemies and sacrificed.”
Then to both of us, scanning us with eyes as dark and hard as obsidian, he said, “Lord Pacal died in a mysterious manner that you can perhaps explain to me.”
“Shoot,” I said, wincing.
“On the morning of your August 31, 683, he awakened ill in his stomach. It had been unbearably hot for days, so it was thought his nausea was a result of the heat. Soon he complained that his left arm was on fire, but no flame was seen. His chest felt to him as if ten men were standing on it. His breath came in gasps. Suddenly he was gone. Maya medicine could not save him. It is our belief that our gods sent for him uniquely. Is this true, or do others die this death?”
His obsidian eyes were shiny, damp. Darla and I looked at each other.
She said, “It is true. Lord Pacal was a great king for nearly seven decades. The gods could not invite him as they would an ordinary mortal.”
I thought he almost smiled, but I couldn’t vouch for that on account of after Darla helped me to my feet, he was gone. We went back to the café. We’d lost our appetites, but we stayed for coffee. We didn’t talk for a while. We watched this big fuss between the cops and a guy who said he was the rightful owner of the taxi.
Darla said, “It’s logical that they were unfamiliar with the symptoms of a heart attack. In that era they didn’t have the risk factors of coronary artery disease, and it was rare for a person to five long enough to die of a degenerative disease.”
I agreed. “Yeah. The biggest risk of heart trouble was having it sliced out of you. But answer me this, how come our cabbie didn’t know the signs that his ticker was kaput? These days twelve-year-olds take CPR training.”
She took my hand. “These days. Maybe those are the key words.”
“Maybe.”
“Case closed?”
“Case closed,” I said.
We headed out to Uxmal at oh-dark-thirty. We made a deal on the way. She wouldn’t pester me about culture if I kept my nose out of local business.
The rest of the trip she spent her days at ruins with her notebooks and camera. I reconnoitered the pool area with a cold one locked on my lips.
It was the best vacation of my life.
Leftovers
by Dan Crawford
Miss Muffet had only that one second to decide what to do, and only two hands. Her spoon was in one of the hands, her bowl of curds and whey in the other. She set off pell-mell, milk dripping from the breakfast dish as she ran.
The tuffet was left behind, of course, just sitting in the meadow with no idea what had happened. It had not minded its work, which was usually to be sat on indoors, but it had not been tuffeting long enough to know this was unusual. I wonder if she’ll come back for me, the little cushion thought.
She never did, between her fear of spiders and the unreasoning terror that had made her forget exactly where in the countryside she’d been having her snack. For lack of anything else to do the tuffet waited.
The rain was an annoyance now and then, and for a while a batch of baby spiders lived in the lining, which the tuffet found ticklish. But by and large the tuffet found life in the meadow no more irritating than a life of being sat on in the house.
After several months the tuffet heard a sound of heavy breathing. It thought at first that this might be a cow. Cows had wandered through the meadow from time to time accompanied occasionally by a goat. But none of them had had any interest in tuffets.
This was a tall man, though, a man who had been dressed in bright armor and shining royal garb. The clothes were torn now, and the armor was dented. There were scorch marks on his helmet, and some of his hair was singed.
He was breathing hard and walking with difficulty. His eyes were wide with horror.
He’s seen a spider, thought the tuffet sagely.
The man looked over his shoulder and stumbled. His head came down smack in the middle of the tuffet. This appeared to surprise him. He tried, briefly, to rise. Then he put up a hand, pulled the tuffet up into a bunch under one ear, and went to sleep.
The nap was a brief one, but the man seemed gratified by it. “I’ll take you along,” he whispered, lifting the tuffet. “I may live to sleep again.” He thrust the cushion behind his breastplate and turned back the way he’d come.
One corner of the tuffet protruded from behind the armor so the cushion could see where it was heading. The man was making his way to a burned, broken forest. “General Keles?” he called. “Colonel Bural?”
No one answered. The tuffet couldn’t see where any spider could be hiding in all this devastation.
“They must have gone back to the castle,” the man murmured. “But where is the...”
“Araaaa!” something answered.
Slithering toward them came a long yellow snake. Flame flickered at its nostrils. Here we go again! thought the tuffet.
But the man did not run. Instead he reached to his waist and drew a sword.
“Well met, worm! Have you killed my friends?”
The creature was either snickering or taking deep breaths. A bolt of flame flew from its nose, sizzling the air around them. The man ducked, but his sword was knocked from his hand. As he reached for his dagger, the creature hurtled forward with surprising speed.
And the man could not touch his dagger. The tuffet was in the way. “Out!” ordered the man, pulling it free.
No need to shout, thought the tuffet. It isn’t my fault.
“Ack!”
The snake stopped short and twisted its head to one side, eyeing the man.
“What?” The man, about to drop the tuffet, took a step forward, the cushion upraised. “What is it, worm? You’re not afraid of a... a pillow?”
Tuffet, thought the tuffet.
“Ack,” the snake said again. “Ackackack.” It turned, starting away as quickly as it had started forward.
“No, you don’t!”
The man charged, reaching under his breastplate for his dagger. “Come back!” He ran after the big snake.
“Ackack,” the snake said, but now the man had caught up with it and was climbing its back. The snake’s head shook left and right, but the man held on with his knees, the dagger in one hand, the tuffet in the other.
“Ackackackack,” said the snake. “Ack-a-choo!”
This was the last thing it said.
“I don’t know what happened,” the man said when he was back at the castle, where his friends had indeed gone for shelter. “I shook this pillow at it, and it started to make strange sounds and tried to run.”
“Is the dragon allergic to feathers?” demanded the king.
“No,” said a tall man with a long grey beard, “only to dairy products. You weren’t eating your lunch near this pillow, were you? It looks over here as if someone spilled some whey on it.”