The sky was fading to early twilight, that time of day when nothing is seen perfectly, when the sky is half light and half shadow, blue alternating with gray, the color of thunderclouds. He narrowed his vision to take in distance. Past the marsh was a row passing through a flat field, grassy as the savannahs of western Africa, where no trees grew. The row looked like flattened grass created by footsteps. But it was too narrow for all the Olmec who had left the square at Yaxbenhaltun. Had they walked in single file? Why?
There was no time to think it over. He stepped out of the marsh to follow the path made through the recently trampled grass.
Two sets of footprints. He was sure of it. Fading light or not, no more than two people had made the path Remo was following. It didn't make sense, but he tracked it doggedly, the bottoms of his trousers growing wet from contact with the high, damp grass. The field stretched for miles, widening after the marsh so that it seemed to go on forever in all directions, green, green grass dotted occasionally by white flowers. As he went on, the flowers grew more numerous, bringing with them the sweet, drugged air Remo remembered. By the time he had followed the footprints for a mile, the flowers blanketed the ground.
Remo's eyelids drooped. He would have to slow his breathing to keep from falling asleep again. Slowly he pumped the air out from his lungs and breathed shallowly, ever more slowly, feeling his heartbeat drop from fifty beats a minute to forty to thirty to ten. His mind cleared somewhat. Still, the delicious fragrance of the field, looking as if it were covered with snow, seeped into his lungs and his mind and teased him with sensual promise.
The Forbidden Fields... Kukulcan's last mission, Remo remembered. Something about building a road. Going to the sea, and going blind. Cooligan of the Forbidden Fields. The flowers killed him, can't you see?
Remo gasped. The swift intake of air sent his senses reeling. He calmed himself, making the white-covered fields stop whirling around him. But when he did, the sight in front of him was still there. Not more than twenty feet away, the trail ended. It ended with the prostrate bodies of two men whose uniforms identified them as members of the palace guard.
He turned them over. Their faces were blue, their bodies already beginning to stiffen and cool. A trap. The two men must have been taken prisoner and set off to walk through the Forbidden Fields until they dropped, while the Olmec took Lizzie on some other route.
He looked around. The fields stretched to every horizon, broken only by the rounded tops of huge rocks. He stilled himself, forcing his breathing to come even more slowly, consciously enlarging his senses to take it every sight, every sound.
There was water. Somewhere. The river, Remo said to himself. If he could find water— a stream, a trickle— he could follow it to the river and get his bearings from there.
The sweet fragrance lingered. The air was thick with it; there was no way to blot out the cloying, sleep-filled scent of the white flowers that beckoned him to rest among their soft petals.
Water. Follow the sound of the water.
He dragged on. Night seemed to fall palpably as he walked, then crawled, following a sound he was no longer sure he heard. The wind in the flowers, sending up its thick, forgetful smoke, drowned out every other sensation with its haunting music.
Remember the water.
And there was water. A swirling river of it, crashing and dancing between a thousand white stones. He shook his head to see if the water were no more than a clouded vision. But it remained, he could smell it, he could feel its cool mist enveloping him. He stood upright, blinking against the lightheadedness that willed him back to the ground. He walked downstream, plodding like a man dying of thirst in the desert, until he stood beside the crest of a small, low fall where the water rushed white and bubbling. And on the crest was a woman, shrouded in mist, naked except for the thick ring of white flowers around her neck, her hair golden. She turned slowly toward him, holding out her arms.
It was Elizabeth Drake.
As if he were in a dream, Remo went to her, stepping through the shallow water at the top of the fall. She smiled. There was no hardness about her now, no cranky modernity. She was Woman, eternal and ageless, soft in her mystery, calling him silently to her.
Without thought, he embraced her. In that moment, their lips touching, his body aching for her, he took in the scent of the flowers, luxurious, devastating, smelling of sin and ecstasy, and gave in to it.
The sky darkened. The earth fell away. He was complete.
* * *
He awoke next to her. His clothes were still wet from the mist of the waterfall, and they clung coldly to his skin. Beside him, on the stone floor where they lay, he could feel Lizzie shivering in her sleep.
His head was pounding. He tried to sit up, but the movement was too difficult for him. Part of him, a great part, wanted just to go back to sleep, despite the cold and the wet and the uncertainty. But the other part of him, that part which was Remo, had to stay awake. He had to force himself out of the feeling of drunkenness and uncaring that seemed to hang over him like a sheet.
He willed his eyes wide open. The first items they focused on were the barrels of the six laser weapons, surrounding the two prisoners in a circle. Their guards, six tall, rangy men with tattoos on their bellies and black ash dots decorating their foreheads, kept at a distance from them both.
No sweat, Remo thought thickly. One turn, a spiral air attack, and...
He couldn't move. Thick ropes cut into his wrists and ankles. Ropes? How had he permitted himself to be tied like a pig going to slaughter?
And then he smelled them. Fresh, enchanting, the scent of the white flowers assaulted his newly awakened senses from the heavy garland he wore around his neck. Lizzie wore one, too, and their perfume weakened and sickened him.
They were in a cave. Behind the fragrance of the flowers, Remo could pick out the dank odor of damp earth. The walls, painted with pictures of grotesquely endowed human figures engaged in sexual activity, were lit by oily torches that sent up strings of black smoke.
The guards seemed to be part of the tableau. Motionless, their fingers poised on the triggers of the lasers, they watched the prisoners. The flesh on their faces sagged with the effort of fighting off sleep.
They're getting drugged too, Remo thought. The white flowers around their necks were affecting the guards. It would be so easy. So easy... But Remo did not struggle against the ropes. There was still time for fighting, and he had no advantage now. He would wait.
He looked over at Lizzie. She lay beside him, naked, unconscious, her clothes in a bundle at one of the guards' feet.
She was neither harpy nor goddess now, just another poor sucker who had been pushed senselessly into a nightmare that might end her life. As Colonel Cooligan had so eloquently written, fate had given them all the finger.
Lizzie was a strange woman. She was as selfish and abrasive as they came, a bra burner of the first water. Yet she had cried over Cooligan's diary. And when the thick of the battle with the Olmec was around her, she had tried to save the time module.
And succeeded. The Olmec had taken prisoners, but they hadn't destroyed the Cassandra. Good for you, Lizzie.
He closed his eyes. Sleep would feel good. A long, pleasant sleep to let go in, a sleep of endless dreams...
The harsh voice of a man sounded above him, jarring and loud. It struck his senses awake like a physical blow. By his head, the priest Quintanodan stood, leering.
The priest had changed much. The sharp aristocratic features of his face were painted with rough strokes of white and black, to match the ash dot on his forehead. His hair was matted and awry, falling in ropy strands on his bare, oiled shoulders. He was naked except for a strip of jaguar skin around his loins, and two ringlets of brown feathers on his ankles.