Barkah quickly silences them.
He pulls a roll from his bag, flips it open—it’s a map of Uchmal. Rough, but I can spot the river, the waterfall, the big main roads, the mostly round city wall. The mountains to the west, the lake to the north, that crescent-shaped clearing to the northeast. It’s everything I could see from the top of the Observatory—I wonder if that’s where he was when he drew it.
Barkah lays the map on the floor, then chirps a command. Rekis and Tohdohbak scramble to the dirt and rubble. Each of them brings back a handful of small rocks.
Barkah takes a rock, holds it between his finger and thumb. He moves it through the air, makes a strange noise with his mouth—like a little boy’s impression of a rocket engine.
He sets that rock on the map, looks at us.
“The shuttle,” O’Malley says. “That’s where the landing pad is. They know exactly where we are.”
Have they known all along? I think of Aramovsky saying how the Springers could come attack us whenever they like.
Barkah taps my cluster of marks, then he places three rocks outside the city walls, at the edge of the crescent-shaped clearing. He reaches into his bag again, pulls out three small, wooden spiders. He sets them on the other side of the clearing. He looks at me, waits.
“That must be where the Springers want to fight,” I say.
O’Malley leans in. “Three spiders. But the Springers got Coyotl’s spider, didn’t they? Shouldn’t there only be two?”
“Maybe Barkah doesn’t know we don’t have it anymore. He’s not marching with that army, so maybe he’s not part of it?”
The prince pushes the three rocks representing the Springer forces into the middle of the clearing. He pushes the three spiders out to meet them.
He pulls out more wooden toys, the ones with the wheels. He sets them on the map, in the jungle behind the clearing, on the Springer side of the battle lines. Then, he starts placing rocks with the carts. Dozens of rocks. He places more on the sides, and even more in the jungle behind the spiders.
“A trap,” I say. “They’re only going to show a few of their troops, lure the spiders out into the open. They’ll have our people surrounded from all sides. They’ll destroy us.”
How long have the spiders been slaughtering Springers? How long have the Springers cowered underground, waiting for a chance to fight? And along we come, mastering the spiders, getting them to march to our command. Maybe this is the moment Barkah’s people have been waiting for, a chance to put all the spiders in one place so they can battle it out once and for all.
I don’t know how they will lure Aramovsky to that clearing, but I don’t think it will take much. Even if Bishop recognizes the trap, will anyone listen to him? Aramovsky has total control. He has already said he wants to march to the jungle and bring the war to the Springers—he’s going to get my people slaughtered in the process.
Barkah makes one final drawing: a few lines, a half-circle, and it’s done—a ziggurat with the sun rising behind it.
“Daybreak,” O’Malley says. “They’re going to spring the trap at dawn.”
“How do we stop it?”
O’Malley doesn’t answer.
I take Barkah’s hand. He pulls back at first, surprised, but maybe the look on my face lets him know I mean no harm. His skin is warm, his grip strong.
“We have to stop this battle,” I say. “You are royalty, or whatever—you have to get them to stop.”
O’Malley’s eyebrows rise. “Royalty?”
“Something like that,” I say. “The one we think is the leader, he has the same necklace Barkah has. They are the only Springers we’ve seen with that kind of decoration.”
That inexpressive, stone-faced look washes over O’Malley’s face.
“To stop the battle, we need a unified front,” he says. “You ask our people for peace, Barkah asks his.”
“But Aramovsky won the vote. You were there, he’s not going to listen to me. And we don’t know if Barkah’s father—or mother, or whatever—will listen to him.”
O’Malley reaches down to the map, moves the spiders back to the edge, then does the same with the rocks representing the Springers. The two sides are once again poised for battle. He walks to where the floor is dirt, looking for something particular.
“The Springers hate us because of what the Grownups did, what the spiders do,” O’Malley says. He bends, picks something up. “Many of our people hate the Springers because of Visca’s death and Aramovsky fanning the flames.”
He picks up another bit I can’t see. He walks back to the map.
“Those are key reasons, but mostly, I think the sides hate each other because we’re so different,” he says. “Different is scary. What we need is a gesture that shows we’re not so different after all. A gesture that sends a clear message—no one has to die, we can talk to each other.”