Two Petals’ collapse had taken him by surprise, his attention on the city itself. The fortifications atop the steep bluff were tall, well made, and capable of withstanding an assault. The high archers’ platforms gave good fields of fire down the incline surrounding Rainbow City. Around him were bent-pole thatch-roofed houses, looking like overgrown mushrooms atop thickly plastered walls. People were flocking out, watching, and talking to each other in low voices.
Trader gave a quick nod to Old White and resumed his pace. Their route took them west along the northern edge of the plaza. Passing a high moiety house, the Priests led them to a grand building atop a square earthen mound on the northwest corner of the plaza. Perhaps three times his height, the mound was coated with a layer of light-colored clay that looked pale in the torchlight. The Priests led the way up a ramped stairway, passed through a low palisade and into a yard. Fierce panther heads had been carved from the guardian posts on either side of the entrance.
As the warriors ducked through the gate, the Priest gave them strict orders, pointing to either side. The warriors hastily divested themselves of their loads. “You three, come with me,” the Priest added.
Trader managed to linger long enough to see a sweating warrior carefully set his medicine box on the ground beside Old White’s pile of Illinois bowls in their net bag. Then, like water through a hole in a cup, the warriors vanished through the gate.
Did he dare try to scoop up the medicine box?
“Trader?” Old White called from the temple doorway.
He turned, reluctantly, casting glances behind him as he carried Two Petals’ wood-stiff body.
Inside, the temple was elaborately furnished. A fire crackled, and illuminated masks that hung from the walls. Hide-covered benches lined the walls; beneath them beautifully carved wooden boxes, burnished clay jars, and intricately woven baskets had been placed. A low wide clay altar rose behind the fire; and on the back wall hung a beautifully crafted image of a warrior, a turkey-tail mace in one hand, a severed head in the other. The relief had been crafted from a great single piece of wood, the image carefully painted. Parts of it were clad in copper. Shells and pearls had been inlaid. Real feathers hung from the apron.
The wall to the left was dominated by a huge wooden relief, the center of which was a spiral: three spinning wedges within a yellow sun disk. The spaces between the curving wedges had been left open. Surrounding the spiral was a ring that contained six copper moons evenly spaced; the area between them had been painted black and was dotted with white stars. The perimeter was a series of oblong white circles.
A competing relief hung on the opposite wall; this one consisted of two great rattlesnakes carefully carved from wood, their bodies intricately detailed in yellow, red, and white bands, while oval-shaped black portals—the doorways to alternate worlds—had been rendered along the serpents’ sides. In the center, the two snakes faced each other, large eyes done in copper, mouths gaping and filled with sharp teeth. Long tongues flicked out into the empty space between them that represented the opening to the Underworld.
The floor was of packed white clay covered with fine rush matting that had been interwoven with strips of fur. On either side of the doorway they had entered was an image of the sun carved from wooden planks, each clad in shining copper that reflected the firelight like rays of reddish gold light. Just below the ceiling, all the way around the room, shelving held a line of human skulls.
Just so mine doesn’t end up there.
He walked forward, lowering Two Petals’ wood-stiff body to the floor before the great fire. The war chief had taken a position guarding the exit. One of the Priests disappeared into the hallway leading to the back. The other stood watching, his arms crossed over his chest. The expression on his face was anything but friendly.
Blood and dung! There’s no escape from this place.
Trader placed his hand before Two Petals’ nose, feeling her warm breath. He could see the whites of her eyes behind her thinly slitted lids. Her hair draped the floor in a swirl.
“Two Petals?” he asked, patting her cheek. “Are you all right?”
“She is not,” a raspy voice said in Trade Tongue.
Trader looked up. His eyes widened, and he swallowed hard. An old man had stepped out from the rear. While he wore a white triangular apron, the exposed skin of his bare chest was covered with scar tissue, the glassy kind that came from fire. A piece of neatly folded white fabric had been tied around the ruin of his eyes. Sometime in the past, his nose had been sliced from his face, leaving two oblong holes for nostrils. No fingers remained on his right hand. The gray hair, pulled back, was pinned to hold a shining copper headpiece that depicted a stylistic rendition of a tall mace or war club.