"Ah yes," he said, nodding to himself. "The itzompan . The ‘place of the skull.’ An alleged feature of the traditional ollamaliztli court—a sacrificial altar, set into the floor of the playing field, intended to receive the severed head of the victorious team’s captain. The winner’s head was offered up as a sacrifice to the sun god—just one of many ancient sacrifices designed to keep the sun in motion. It involved a form of what used to be called ‘sympathetic magic’ in the pre-Awakened world. The severed head represented the sun. The ball itself was also symbolic of the sun—its passage through the ball court’s hoop represented the descent of the sun into the underworld and its re-emergence. The Aztecs believed that—"