The priest reached the end of his rhythm and began repeating it. Before he was halfway through the repetition, the door of the hut slid open, the bronze reinforced stone slab rumbling aside on polished bronze runners. Two more priests came out of the hut, blinking like owls as they stepped into the full daylight. Along with the priests came a powerful blast of hot air, laden with a bewildering and disagreeable mixture of odors. Smoke, cooking, rotting garbage, human filth, unknown spices all poured out together, making Blade's nostrils wrinkle in protest and disgust. The priests, however, seemed not to notice it. The eight litter-bearers, who had caught their breaths now, came over to the litter and again hoisted it into the air. As they carried Blade into the hut, he got a better look at the white-painted carvings on its walls. All showed the same thing, in various poses and sizes-the figure of a man, with the head and wings of a bat. Ayocan? thought Blade. Then the smelly darkness inside the hut swallowed him up.

Before Blade's eyes recovered, the litter tipped up violently as the priests plunged down a steep flight of stairs-at such an angle, in fact, that Blade almost sailed right off the litter. He had momentary visions of plummeting down the dark staircase and reaching the bottom long before the priests-and breaking every bone in his body in the process.

They reached the bottom of the stairs safely, just as Blade's eyes adjusted to the dimness around him. The stairs came out into a long vaulted corridor, dimly lit by oil lamps hung on bronze brackets set in the walls. The lamps burned with the now familiar yellow-orange tinge, their oily smoke blackening the stones and adding to the thickness of the air. At intervals along the walls stood reliefs and statues of the man-bat, all painted white.