Moctezuma II (/mawktesoo*mah/) (sometimes written as Montezuma) was the Aztec emperor in the early 1500s. In the court of Moctezuma II, no one was allowed to look the emperor in the eye. When he entered the room, even the nobles threw themselves face down on the ground. When he left the palace, he was carried in a fancy litter. When Moctezuma wanted to walk, nobles laid mats on the ground so he would not dirty his golden sandals.

Moctezuma was a powerful leader. But during his reign, some disturbing things were happening. There was a drought. A comet appeared in the sky. Lightning struck one of the temples in Tenochtitlán. Fantastic rumors began to spread. Some people said that a ghostly woman was walking the streets of the capital at night. She wailed, “My children, we must flee far away from this city!”

The Aztec believed the world might end at any moment. Moctezuma and his priests worried that the strange events might be a warning from the gods. They feared that the end of the world might be near.

As it turned out, a form of doomsday was coming, but it was not coming from the gods. It was coming from across the Atlantic Ocean. Spanish soldiers were sailing from Europe in search of riches and glory. In the final chapter, you will learn what the arrival of these pale-skinned men meant for the mighty Aztec Empire.