The Crystal City Page 0,122

white men following. Soon they were lined up near the front of the vast army, within earshot of the dignitaries coming from the city.

"We demand that you surrender!" shouted Austin. "If you surrender your lives will be spared!"

He turned to look for an interpreter, but apparently they hadn't kept up when the white men had ridden forward. No, there was one, and Austin beckoned him over. "Tell him to surrender," said Austin. "Tell him what I said."

But before the interpreter could go forward with the message, a befeathered Mexica standing on a huge litter borne by a dozen men began to speak.

"What's he saying?" asked Austin.

The interpreter listened. "He is the high priest and he thanks the people of... all these tribes ... for bringing so many fine sacrifices for the god."

Austin laughed. "Does he really believe these people came to offer sacrifice?"

"Yes," said the interpreter.

"What a fool," said Austin.

"There's a fool all right," said Bowie, "but it ain't him."

All at once, the reds who were surrounding them gave a great shout and dragged the white men off their horses. Bowie managed to get knives into a couple of them before they got him down. And Calvin was trying to work up some flames, but he couldn't get anything going before they had him down on the ground and hit him in the head with a club.

Calvin woke up in pain, and not just from his head, which was throbbing. He was also tightly trussed, and lying on a stone floor. He was also blindfolded.

He could make his bonds break apart, but he figured he ought to find out first where he was and what was going on. So with his doodlebug he worked on the threads of the blindfold and soon he had an opening he could see through. He was lying on the floor of a large dimly lighted room-a Catholic church of some kind, from the look of it, but not one that was used much. A couple of statues of saints stood against one wall, and there was an altar near the front, but everything looked shabby and dusty.

All the white men were sitting or lying on the floor, and at the doors stood heavily armed Mexica soldiers.

Calvin sent his doodlebug to see behind him, and sure enough, there were four soldiers standing over him. He was the only one of the white men with a special guard. Which meant the Mexica knew he was the powerful one. He was surprised they hadn't just killed him outright-but no, he was the prize, he was the one they'd be proudest to sacrifice.

Ain't gonna happen, he told himself.

He continued to lie still, checking the condition of the other men. It might still be possible to bring this thing off and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Then a door opened, putting a wedge of light into the room, and four women came in, carrying golden cups. They began offering drinks to the men, who took them eagerly, some of them even thanking the women. Calvin almost called out to warn them that the drink was drugged, but decided it was better to deal with it himself. One by one he went into the cups and separated the water from the drug, making it sink to the bottom of the cups and stay there, under the pure water. Except for the first few who had drunk, none of the others were getting any of the drug at all.

So when they got to him, Calvin offered no resistance. He pretended to be groggy-which wasn't hard, with his head hurting so bad. Pain shot through his head when he sat up, and he wished he'd paid more attention when Alvin tried to teach him how to heal injuries like this. But after the mess he had made of Papa Moose's foot, he wasn't about to start fiddling with his own head.

They put the cup to his lip and he drank eagerly.

No doubt they'd become complacent soon, thinking that even the great white wizard was under control.

Except, of course, only the first few men were acting drugged. The women were beginning to be confused, talking to each other, probably wondering why most of the men were still awake.

So Calvin put them to sleep, one by one, until they all lay unconscious on the floor. That was what the women wanted, and out they went. Out, too, went the Mexica soldiers, even the ones guarding Calvin.

As soon as they were gone, Calvin woke