The ancient Great Fire God Mountain towered over the coast beneath the moonlight, gradually receding southward. Though this dead volcano had erupted only once in the distant myths of the coast, it still held a sacred and special place in the hearts of the People of the Coast.
If the thousand-li Coastal Lands were like a long Water Boa stretching from west to east, then the snake's tail would be Ancient Feathered Serpent City. The snake's head would be Hidden Snake Holy City. And the Great Fire God Mountain was the slightly bulging pouch of the neck behind the snake's head, guarding its most vital seven-inch point.
The God-descendant priests who carried on the legacy in Hidden Snake City had realized long ago how important the location of this peak was to the safety of Hidden Snake Holy City. Thus, atop this dead volcano stood not only ancient altars and divine statues, but also perilous stone forts and wooden ramparts. At the foot of this godly mountain, too, there were shrine sites and water forts like stone strongholds. As for farther west, Lake Sacrifice City at the foot of the great lake and the mountains had become the outermost guardian.
At the end of the last era, during the great cold age four or five hundred years ago—which was the period of the Two Song dynasties of the Celestial Empire—the Wasteland tribes swept south on a vast scale, once raising a wave of southward migration and invasion! This terrifying tide of migration, accompanied by cruel Cold Waves and famine, shattered the Toltec Empire of the highlands, and its aftershocks struck the Coastal Lands, forming the Nahua-Totonac tribes.
Year-round tribal slaughter, wave after wave of tribes migrating south, endless blood and fire and corpses, food forever in short supply—these were the