“Do you ever leave here, to go to the world outside the valley?”
She seemed baffled. “Of course not. That is impossible…” Her eyes widened suddenly. “I cannot tell you.”
Chimal changed the subject quickly. “You know about our gods?” he asked, and she nodded agreement. “Do you know about Coatlicue?” Coatlicue who had entered these tunnels.
“I cannot tell you about that.”
“There seems to be very few things that you can tell me about.” But he smiled at her when he said it, instead of hitting her as he might have done earlier, and she almost smiled back. He was learning. “Haven’t you wondered how I came to the place where you found me?”
“I had not thought about it,” Steel admitted frankly: she obviously had little curiosity about things unknown. “How did you get there?”
“I followed Coatlicue in from the valley.” Was there no way of getting information out of the girl? What did she want to hear? “I want to return. Do you think I could?”
She sat up and nodded happily. “Yes, that is what you should do.”
“Will you help me?”
“Yes…” then her face crumpled. “You cannot. You will tell them about us and that is forbidden.”
“If I told them — would they believe me? Or would they take me to the temple to release the captive god from my head?”
She thought hard. “Yes, that is what would happen. The priests would kill you at the temple. The others would believe you possessed.”
You do know a lot about us, he thought — and I know nothing at all about you except the fact of your existence. That is going to change. Aloud he said, “I cannot return the way I came, but there must be another way…”
“None I know of, except for the vulture feeding.” Her hand went to her mouth, covering it, and her eyes widened as she realized she had said too much.
“The vultures, of course,” he almost shouted the words. He jumped to his feet and paced back and forth the length of the aisle. “That is what you do, you feed them. You bring them your sacrifices and your dead instead of burning them. That is how the meat got to the ledge, the gods did not bring it.”
Steel was horrified. “We do not give them our sacred dead. The vultures eat meat from the tivs.” She broke off suddenly. “I cannot tell you anymore. I cannot talk to you because I say things that I should not.”
“You’ll tell me much more.” He reached for her but she shrank back and tears filled her eyes again. This was not the way. “I won’t touch you,” he said, going to the far end of the aisle, “so you don’t have to be frightened.” How could he make her help him? His eyes went to the tumbled heap of clothing and to the end of the belt that protruded from beneath. He pulled it out and waved it at her.
“What is this thing?”
“A monasheen, it should not be here.”
“Teach me that word. What does it mean?”
“Mortification. It is a holy reminder of purity, to clarify the thoughts in the correct manner.” She stopped, gasping, her fingers flying to her waist. A wave of red suffused her face as she realized what had happened. He nodded.
“Yes, it’s yours. I took it from you. I have power over you, do you understand that now. Will you take me to the place of the vultures?” When she shook her head no he took a single step toward her and said, “Yes you will. You will take me there so I can return to my people and you will then be able to forget about me. I can do you no harm when I am back in the valley. But if I remain with you, I know what to do with your taboo. I will do more this time than remove your mortification. I will open your clothes, I will take them off—”
She fell, but she did not faint He did not help her up because he knew that his touch might push her too far and she would then be of no help to him at all. Now it was just fear of what might be done that drove.
“Get up,” Chimal said, “and lead me there. There is nothing else that you can do.”
He stepped back as she pulled herself up on the shelves. When she started out he went one pace behind her, not touching her, with the killing thing ready in his hand.
“Stay away from people,” he warned her. “If anyone tries to stop us I will kill them. So if you call to them you will be killing them.”
Chimal did not know if his warning meant anything to her, whether she took deserted passages or that this way was normally empty of people, but in any case they encountered no one. Once there was a flicker of motion at a crossways ahead, but when they reached it there was no one there.
It was a very long time before they came to the side cavern that branched off from the main one. Steel, swaying with fatigue, pointed wordlessly to it, but she nodded agreement when Chimal asked her if this was the tunnel that led to their destination. It reminded him very much of the way he had first entered. The flooring was of smooth rock, while the walls and ceilings were rough-hewn, still bearing the marks of the tools that had cut them. There was one important difference here: two thin bars of metal were fastened to the floor and vanished into the distance with the arrow-straight tunnel.
“Leave me,” she begged.
“We stay together, every foot of the way.” There was no need to tell her yet that he had no intention of leaving the tunnels, that he was just gathering information about them.
It was a very long way and he regretted not taking water with them. Watchman Steel was staggering now and they stopped twice so she could rest. In the end the tunnel emerged into a larger cavern. The metal bars continued across the floor and into another tunnel on the far side.
“What is this?” Chimal asked, looking around at the unknown fittings of the place.
“There is the way,” she said, pointing. “You can move that cover to look through, and those are the controls that open the door.”
There was a large metal panel set into the wall where she pointed, with a disk in its center. The disk moved aside when he pushed it and he could see out through the opening it revealed. He found himself looking through a cleft between two rocks at the afternoon sky. There, blue in the distance, he could see the cliff and the range of peaks that lay beyond Zaachila. Directly in front of him was a shadowed ledge and the stark silhouette of a vulture. It extended its wings while he watched and launched itself out into the sunlight, soaring away in a great slow circle.
“This is Watchman Steel,” he heard her say, and he turned quickly. She was across the cavern and was talking at a metal box that hung on the wall. “The one is here with me. He cannot get away. Come take him at once.”
3
Chimal grabbed the girl by the arm, pulling her away from the metal box and throwing her to the floor. The box had a round disk on the front, and buttons, as well as a slotted opening. A voice came from it.
“Watchman Steel, your report has been heard. Now we are checking the ralort. What is your exact location…”
Chimal raised the killing thing and pressed the metal lever. It killed black boxes as well. The voice spluttered and stopped and the box exploded with flame.
“That won’t help,” Steel said, sitting up and rubbing her arm, her lips curved into a cold little smile of success. “They can find out where I called from, so they know you are here. There is no way to escape.”
“I can return to the valley. How does that metal door open?”
Reluctantly, she crossed to the spot where a bar with a black handle protruded from the wall, and pulled the bar down. The plate swung outward silently, and daylight flooded the cavern. A vulture, about to land on the ledge outside, frightened by the motion, flapped loudly and soared away. Chimal looked out across the valley, smelling the familiar cool air above the odor of bird excrement