ty, Xotalanc in the eastern, and Tolkemec with
his family by the southern gate.

"Anger and resentment and jealousy blossomed into bloodshed and rape and
murder. Once the sword was drawn there was no turning back; for blood
called for blood, and vengeance followed swift on the heels of atrocity.
Tecuhltli fought with Xotalanc, and Tolkemec aided first one and then
the other, betraying each faction as it fitted his purposes. Tecuhltli
and his people withdrew into the quarter of the western gate, where we
now sit. Xuchotl is built in the shape of an oval. Tecuhltli, which took
its name from its prince, occupies the western end of the oval. The
people blocked up all doors connecting the quarter with the rest of the
city, except one on each floor, which could be defended easily. They
went into the pits below the city and built a wall cutting off the
western end of the catacombs, where lie the bodies of the ancient
Xuchotlans, and of those Tlazitlans slain in the feud. They dwelt as in
a besieged castle, making sorties and forays on their enemies.

"The people of Xotalanc likewise fortified the eastern quarter of the
city, and Tolkemec did likewise with the quarter by the southern gate.
The central part of the city was left bare and uninhabited. Those empty
halls and chambers became a battleground, and a region of brooding
terror.

"Tolkemec warred on both clans. He was a fiend in the form of a human,
worse than Xotalanc. He knew many secrets of the city he never told the
others. From the crypts of the catacombs he plundered the dead of their
grisly secrets--secrets of ancient kings and wizards, long forgotten by
the degenerate Xuchotlans our ancestors slew. But all his magic did not
aid him the night we of Tecuhltli stormed his castle and butchered all
his people. Tolkemec we tortured for many days."

His voice sank to a caressing slur, and a far-away look grew in his
eyes, as if he looked back over the years to a scene which caused him
intense pleasure.

"Aye, we kept the life in him until he screamed for death as for a
bride. At last we took him living from the torture chamber and cast him
into a dungeon for the rats to gnaw as he died. From that dungeon,
somehow, he managed to escape, and dragged himself into the catacombs.
There without doubt he died, for the only way out of the catacombs
beneath Tecuhltli is through Tecuhltli, and he never emerged by that
way. His bones were never found, and the superstitious amon