The Reed Sea envoy, Ewehai, left. After kowtowing to Tiakin, the K'uhul Ajaw, and solemnly worshiping the divine relic once more, he hurried away with the joyful news of a God-descendant marriage alliance.
As for his return route, he would have to take the Reed Sea Clan's small oar-sailboat, circle almost half of the Yucatan Peninsula, and spend at least a month passing through six clans and chiefdoms—Kanul, Weiyu, Deer Worm, Chel, Chikin, and Ekab—before he could reach the Bay of Belize from the Bay of Campeche. And this route was likewise the road along the coast that one had to take to reach Cuba, the Maya sea route the Lake Kingdom had to open!
Kapok Trees encircled the Main God Temple, and the carved reliefs outside the temple still bore clear traces of the old gods. Inside the temple, the brand-new statue of the main god held a throwing spear in hand and stood silent and upright at the center of the great hall. And across from Tiakin beneath the idol, only the last envoy of the Huoyan Clan remained—Red Bird Huoyan from the Chikin Chiefdom.
The rise of the Chikin Chiefdom, in truth, had not been long ago. After the collapse of the Mayapan Kingdom, the royal power along the northern coast declined, and a power vacuum appeared in the salt-producing Salt Pools occupied by the royal house. Several small clans along the coast, in order to seize and guard the enormous profits of the marsh Salt Pools, had gathered into a clan alliance of seventy or eighty thousand people, or what could be called a chiefdom. This chiefdom had only formed forty or fifty years ago, and the political center of the chiefdom, Fire Salt Village, was not even a city-state. It could only be called a