His name is Topiltzin. He is the son of the Dragon,
a blue-eyed Mesoamerican hero. He is also a godless ballplayer,
a wanderer, a rogue warrior. He will become known as the Plumed
Serpent, the man who became a god, who transcended death to
become the Morning Star.
In the world of the Fourth Sun, Topiltzin is the unconquered
hero of the rubberball game. When he comes with his companions
to a city to play, children flock to meet him, maidens cover
the roadway with flowers for him to tread on, and people gather
to watch the mighty Turquoise Lords of Tollan. They are the
undefeated champions of the ancient game of ritual, a game
so fanatically revered that spectators would often wager their
own children on its outcome. To lose meant decapitation. The
Turquoise Lords of Tollan never lost. At least until now.
The Smoking Lord, descended from Highland Mountain kings,
has come with vast armies. He has learned of the splendid
Tolteca from a priest who tried to teach him the true way
of the one god. After offering the old man up as a sacrifice
to the midnight sun, Smoking Mirror has now come north to
see if the legends are true.
An army has come, and a new age. Topiltzin witnesses its
horrors. He finds cities destroyed, villagers raped and ritualistically
slaughtered by sorcerer priests sent as heralds to offer up
human sacrifice. Unable to stop the blood slaughter of innocents,
realizing the vast armies of the Shadow Lords will annihilate
even the mighty Tolteca, Topiltzin becomes obsessed with one
final objective, one last move in the rubberball game: the
death of the Smoking Mirror.
