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eBook Category: Fantasy
eBook Description: In the ancient Mayan kingdom of Copan, Two Frog is a jade-carver who can work magic. Saddled with a wicked, complaining wife, Two Frog's world is turned upside-down when the beautiful, but deadly Great Lady, daughter of the king of Copan, arrives at his workshop, saying, "Make me something of magic for my father, little man." If Two Frog does not comply, he dies; at the same time, the barbarians from the North are coming. "Heart of Jade" is the story of a little man who becomes great, in the end-days of the great Mayan empire, because after Copan fell Tikal, and all the other great Mayan cities, but in the deep heart of the Guatemalan jungle, still beats a "Heart of Jade."

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Black Gate, ed. John O’Neill, 2000
Fictionwise Release Date: March 2002

17 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [112 KB], eReader (PDB) [41 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [28 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [26 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [73 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [96 KB], hiebook (KML) [100 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [54 KB], iSilo (PDB) [23 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [30 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [57 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [42 KB]
Words: 9377
Reading time: 26-37 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

"Lazy! You should have finished that last week," Two Frog's crippled wife said, poking her head in his workroom.

"Finished?" Two Frog asked, puzzled. He realized, chagrined, that she meant the jade ornament in his lap, commissioned by the great maize merchant.

People said that Two Frog was Copan's finest jadeworker, perhaps the best in all of the Mayan lands. Two Frog didn't think of himself that way, of course. But despite his wife's nagging, he knew that time had to be taken, whether he prayed to the Gods of Xibalba to put special magic in an ornament or merely worked the green stone for its beauty.

"You'll be punished. The merchant will have no mercy. It's not even close!" She pointed at the jade ornament in Two Frog's lap.

"I know," Two Frog said. She was right. The amulet wasn't ready for polishing. "But it's better to do things properly, isn't it?"

"You'll be fiddling around trying to do things properly while they drag you off to cut out your heart and feed it to the Jaguar Lord of Skulls," she snapped. "And besides," she said with a superior-sounding sniff, "You've got a surprise coming. You just wait." She disappeared through the sisal screen, her graying braids swaying betwixt her twisted shoulders.

Sighing, Two Frog made a few half-hearted strokes with his awl. She'd shattered his concentration. If his wife had been so concerned about his being late, why had she interrupted him?

How had she grown so sour? As sour as the city had gotten lately. Three bad harvests in a row. Even the warriors were looking thin and sickly. And perhaps, he thought, with such bad harvests, the maize merchant would not be so quick in paying as Two Frog was in finishing his ornament.

They'd take him away? Sacrifice him? She knew how to torment him. He'd always had a horror of the killing places, for that was where the Guardian Lords had taken his brother when Two Frog was still a young apprentice. Even though she knew of this, his wife loved to speak of those terrible places; they fascinated her. She worshipped the Jaguar Lord of Skulls, while Two Frog made homage to the good gods of Xibalba. Two Frog trusted them, though if he was honest, many days they answered no prayers at all. He didn't know how his wife could worship the Jaguar Lord, cruel and bloody betrayer that he was.

Two Frog's surprise came in the form of a pair of long gray shadows slashed across his workroom, marking the same place his wife had stood moments earlier. Two Guardian Lords of the Daughter of 20 Rabbit peered at him from long-toothed jaguar heads, spotted pelts thrown haughtily over their shoulders.

Were they there to drag him off? For being late with the maize merchant's carving? They wore the insignia of the greatest Mayan royal family, which made little sense. Could they really be from ...