In the black dungeon underground, once there were holes that let in light, it was no longer a darkness where day and night could not be told apart. By day there was clear sunlight; by night, a little moonlight. Those rays shone through the holes, casting the light and shadow of the sun and moon.
"The Sun is a sacred disk. The shadow it casts upon the ground is likewise a perfect circle... It is also a sacred petal, the most resplendent flower borne upon the heaven-reaching Kapok Divine Tree, the sunflower..."
The Maya merchant Tikalo leaned against the corner of the stone cell, gazing at the patch of sunlight on the stone slab and muttering to himself. He recited the Maya myths he had known by heart since childhood, and the round shape of the sun was reflected in his eyes as well. In this lonely, even pitch-black dungeon, only such ceaseless muttering could keep him clearheaded, keep him from being crushed by despair and fear.
"The sunflower opens like a disk, and the Lord of the Sun, Ah Kin, awakens from slumber! He is the incarnation created by the ancient Sky Serpent god, and He too leaves projections in the mortal world... Ancestors of the Sky Serpent! They embraced the radiance of The Sun and fell from the petal-like disk, descending from the heavens! And the God-descendants who carry the bloodline of the Sky Serpent inherit His divinity... just like my nephew, Tiakin..."
"The God-descendants of the mortal world inherit the divinity of the heavens. That is a legacy from time immemorial, the origin of the gods' first descent!... Our hands and feet, our twenty fingers and toes, correspond to a month guarded by a god... Eighteen ancient gods created the year, and with the addition of five