Chapter 4

Joe finally got the courage to speak up.

"Commander, this is all just a big misunderstanding," said Joe, his words puffing from his lips like miniature smoke writing. They floated in the air before landing on the book's blank sheet, all in print. "Fred isn't a criminal!"

"Fred, is that his name, scribe?" Cuetlachi asked. His eyes were facing Fred instead of Joe.

"Yeah, we're best friends!"

"Familiar with the criminal and you didn't tell me?" Cuetlachi's voice lowered. "It can explain why all of you three dress so strangely…"

He walked up to Sam and eyed him suspiciously. "Maybe you three were in it together; you wanted to stay behind and rob me of all of my riches!"

"Why would I want to steal your stuff?" Sam asked. "I said I wanted to stay behind and find a book of mine and you said no because you wanted to make sure we made it in time before the high tides hit!"

"Liar! You would have searched everywhere until you found all of my riches behind a bookcase!" The older man pointed the sharp spear in front of Sam's face.

Joe faced palmed himself. "You just basically said that you hide all of your money in your library."

"You three were going to find out anyway…"

"No we weren't!" Joe rubbed his forehead, frustrated. "Commander Cuetlachi, I'm begging you… PLEASE let Fred go, otherwise he'll drown to death!"

"Then he committed a crime and was punished!" Cuetlachi curtly replied. "I see the water had already risen to his knees…"

Joe and Sam saw that Cuetlachi was right. Fred was already knee high in possibly freezing water.

"This is wrong Commander! Have an innocent person chained to a rock and if he dies - or not – THAT proves if he's guilty of a crime or not? Is that what you consider a fair trial?" Joe asked him.

"Commander, let Fred go and we can discuss this like civilized human beings!" Sam offered.

"I can't, you want to know why? The gods of Aztlan have imposed this as the epitome of a fair trial; the strongest of men are those who can commit no evil and those who commit no evil are innocent!"

Joe looked at Cuetlachi as if he was the stupidest person he ever met. And he was! "Wait, gods impose things like chaining someone up to a rock as 'fair' trials? Of course Fred will drown, because he's chained to a boulder in the sea during the high tide!"

"Guilty."

Joe felt a burning sensation flow though his veins, something he hasn't felt in the last several years or so. He was about to hand Sam the book so he could punch Cuetlachi square on the nose.

"Commander, someone is rowing a boat towards Sinking Rock!" Ban yelled.

"What?" Cuetlachi rushed to the edge of the cliff. Sure enough, he saw someone in a small boat rowing against the currents towards Sinking Rock.

"Should we stop 'im?" One of his men asked.

"Don't bother," Cuetlachi stood up. "If the currents don't tip over the boat, then they'll meet their end by crashing right into the jagged boulders surrounding Sinking Rock…"


Another wave of frigid sea water towered over Fred before it washed over him. He spat out the salty liquid as he was trying to make sure none of it got into his lungs.

That damned commander whatever-his-name-is was a crafty one, Fred had to admit that. That man found him wandering around and invited him over to his place. Everything was going great until some gawky assistant of his came with an important letter from someone of higher raking. Fred didn't know what it was all about, but the Commander had left the room to speak with his assistant privately. He was screaming and ranting wildly about how he couldn't be kicked out of his position after all of the work he put into. Then he couldn't hear them speak anymore. The man walked back in and offered Fred some values as gifts. Fred followed him to a room and he saw a whole bunch of gold and priceless artifacts. The Commander handed him some stuff in a nameless sack.

Fred shouldn't have taken that sack. After he took it and made his way outside, the assistant saw Fred with the bag and flipped out. When the Commander called for his guards to come and arrest him, Fred took off running. He was ambushed and was brought to the Commander. The Commander sent him to jail in a dingy dungeon and he waited there for a while until the same men that captured him put him on a boat and chained him to Sinking Rock. The way to Sinking Rock, the men wouldn't stop laughing on how gullible Fred was for accepting the sack full of sacred items ransacked from a destroyed temple. Fred had come to the conclusion that the Commander was hiding something that had to do with those artifacts and the destroyed temple.

All of that thinking he did only distracted his problems temporarily. He forgot how heavy his clothes felt when they were soaking wet with waiter. His wrists ached terribly from how tight the shackles were (and he was sure that his ankles hurt too; the water was up to his waist and his lower body felt numb).

He lost count how many waves hit him; the number of jagged rocks littering around the area jutting out from the sea. His eyelids felt heavy, and his body too tired to fight back.

He closed his eyes and let his body succumb to the vast darkness before him. He felt the weight of his body disappear, and was surprised to find he was floating in the air. He looked behind him and saw the tunnel of light grow smaller and smaller.

"Am I dead?" Fred thought. He raised his arms up and saw that his skin was a transparent light blue color. His feet didn't reach the ground. Out of nowhere, he heard a voice far away calling him.

"Wake up... wake up…" the voice said.

Fred tried to see where the voice came from. There was nothing but darkness and he seemed to be the only inhabitant in the tunnel.

"You must get up!" it said.

The walls around him shifted, and Fred felt something grab him roughly by the feet and drag him down a vertical tunnel. He screamed and attempted to grab on something to hold on, but the tunnel walls were perfectly smooth. There, at the end of the tunnel was a creature with multiple arms and mouths waiting for him. It licked its thick, slimy lips and gnashed its sharp teeth at Fred.

"Ahhhhh! Someone help me!" He yelled.

The light from the end of the tunnel grew bigger and blinded him. He felt a pair of warm hands grab him by the arm and pull him away from his death. The wind around him began to whip violently and he saw himself chained up to the boulder. As in, he was there when he saw himself chained up to the boulder and almost drowning to death. A figure stood on top of Sinking Rock, but it was too difficult to make out their features. They raised their hands up to the air and broke the chains. Fred's body then started to levitate on a cloud of golden sparkles. The cloud levitated and floated away from Sinking Rock, still in control of Fred's unknown savior.

Then Fred woke up.


Joe and Sam surrounded Fred as one of Cuetlachi's men performed CPS on him. After several trials, Fred's whole body jerked and finally started to breath. Fred turned over and coughed out any water left inside his lungs. He took large, heaving breaths while his body tried to regulate its temperature.

"Are you alright Fred?" Joe asked the blond.

"Ughhhh…" Fred groaned. "I – I think so."

"Thank goodness you escaped before Sinking Rock well… sank under the high tide." said Sam.

"Yeah," Fred sat up and saw his clothes were gone. All he had to cover himself was a thick blanket made of soft wool. "Ahh! Where are my clothes?"

"We had to take them off." Joe gave Fred an apologetic look. "Sorry, but we didn't want you to get hypothermia."

"Well, I'm going to need some clothes to wear. I can't wander around this place naked!"

"You should be lucky that you're alive at all!" said Ban. "Whoever freed you was obviously a divine intervention by the gods!"

"Or someone who can communicate with them…" said a voice behind them.

The trio turned around to see one of the most attractive girls in their lives. The girl was around their age, and wore a long white dress with a gold bodice and sandals. She had long, shiny black hair that reached her waist, with two tresses hanging at the front with hair decorations. Her skin was a smooth cinnamon tone. Her eyes were a gold color, wide and fringed with long black eyelashes. Her lips were full and smooth. She walked towards Ban with elegance and confidence with her shoulders back and her head held high.

"Cuetlachi," She eyed him coldly. "I see we meet again."

"Priestess Tlanextli!" Cuetlachi's face turned beet red. "I wasn't expecting you at a time like this! How long has it been since I've last seen you… two, three weeks?"

"It's been over two months." The girl, now known as Tlanextli, replied. "I've been busy working in charity funds for the needy. That's how I was 'informed' of your most recent activity."

"You mean this?" Cuetlachi pointed at the trio. "Oh, they're just a bunch of apprentices trying out a new method to use on the next bunch of prisoners of war…"

"What type of 'new methods'?" Tlanextli asked, not entirely believing him.

"The fair-haired one offered himself to be chained to that large boulder over there." He pointed to Joe and Sam. "These were supposed to play scribes documenting important information the POW is supposed to say."

"I see…" Tlanextli took the book from Joe's hands and flipped to the page where Cuetlachi gave Joe. "Let me see how it went."

Cuetlachi started to sweat nervously and all of his goons rubbed their hands together or started to look in the other direction. Tlanextli lowered the book and gave Cuetlachi a murderous glare.

"Cuetlachi," she said in a calm voice. "These aren't notes. Here describes someone detailing how this boulder, Sinking Rock, is used as a TRIAL for criminals. Didn't I order you to watch the covenant hand out provisions for the villagers instead of doing THIS?!"

"No! It's not what it looks like!"

"Oh no, no no!" Tlanextli thrust the book to Joe and walked up to Cuetlachi. "I freed him because some of the villagers saw you tie that boy to a boulder and have him nearly drown by the high tide! And you want to LIE to me about this? A priestess who can communicate with the gods?"

Cuetlachi weakly protested. Tlanextli have him a hard stare until she saw his lavish cape trailing behind him.

"Where did you get that new cape?"

"It was a gift from my grandfather!"

"Gift my foot!" Tlanextli yanked the cape off and examined it closely. "Red quetzal feathers are rare to find in these places and this cape is far too modern to be made over one hundred years ago! You wasted all of your money on it!"

"Yeah! He had a tailor and his two apprentices bring it to his place before paying all three of them 300 gold coins!" said Sam.

"He said he wanted to use his new cape to win some 'priestess' heart!" said Joe.

Tlanextli shook her head at Cuetlachi before throwing the cape on the ground. Cuetlachi gave her a pathetic smile.

"You never take 'No' for an answer, do you?" She said softly. Tlanextli pointed at the trio and motioned them to get up. "You three, come with me!"

Cuetlachi went to take the red book from Joe's hands. Joe placed it under his arm and rushed to Tlanextli's side for cover. Cuetlachi hesitated, and moved out of her way.

"Good day, priestess…" He bowed low to her.

"Your superior will hear about this!" Tlanextli replied.


After the trio, plus Tlanextli were out of sight from Cuetlachi and their goonies, the trio breathed a sigh of relief.

"Thank you for rescuing us from that control freak!" said Sam. "Who know what he would have done with us if you didn't arrive?"

"He's such a control freak!" said Fred.

Tlanextli giggled and shot the trio an impish grin, the first time they ever saw her smile. "It's no trouble. I was going to yell at him eventually. He can be such a pain, and he's a complete mess. I often wonder how he got to be a commander. "

"You know him?" asked Joe.

Tlanextli nodded. "Yes. He tried to have my hand in marriage but I rejected him."

"Marry him? But you're like 15 and he's twice your age!" exclaimed Sam.

"Uh… yeah. But in Aztlan and in other neighboring countries, it's common for girls to get betrothed to in their mid to late teens." She winked at them. "But, I had a choice to accept or reject any suitors I want."

"That guy is not the type to take rejection easily."

"I know." She wrinkled her cute nose. "I'd rather get abducted than to marry someone like him."

"Hey, do you mind if you can find me some new clothes to wear?" asked Fred, wrapping the blanket around his waist. "I'm pretty underdressed…"

"Of course! How could I have been so inconsiderate? Follow me…" Tlanextli grabbed Fred's arm and the two lead the way.

"Where are we going?" Joe asked.

"We're going to find your friend here some new clothes to wear. While we're waiting, we can have something to drink and we can chat for a bit." Tlanextli gave Joe a smile that made his heart flutter. "I'd really like to get to know you better…"


A/N: I'm glad I finally got my act together and finished typing out Chapter 4. I got Chapter 5 in the works now and a request for Writer25 to do. Thanks for reading and please leave a review! :)