049

Malina was on deck as the sun rose. The sailors that manned the ship gave her a wide berth as they went about their tasks. Few were on deck at this early hour and it was the closest to outdoor solitude that Malina could find. Last nights encounter with Itzi had not gone as she had wished. The news was good, by all accounts the promised land was being prepared for them. They should have been celebrating.

But Itzi had doubts, his faith in the Gods and prophesies as not what she had assumed it was. Why had he waited till now to tell her. She had no doubts in the feathered serpent. Quetzal gave her people, the Totec their magic, blessed them with an empire that stretched back into the ages. An unbroken line of Emperors and Empresses that vanquished all that rose against them. Quetzal was a quiet god, he required no worship save the well lived lives of the Totecs. Malina worshiped the feathered serpent each day the way she ruled the Totec. This was her church. Did this make her soft? Had Quetzal faded into her the background as Itzi's mother had? Were the prophesies something to believe in, or parchment to be used?

A series of images dating before memory of the Totec's themselves. Copied and recopied as images faded and parchment fell apart. A ship on the water, an island, the promised land of rebirth. After that two images: the reclamation of the promised land and a rain of fire. From their the prophecies split into new rolls. One empty and the other shows the Totecs on the island. The very same island that occurred thousands of images earlier bathed in blood. In that images the Totec's were driven from the island, or they abandoned it.