Chapter Eighteen

 

 

"Those are the arms and legs, hanging down both sides. See the fingers and toes," Ryan whispered.

 

"Gaia!"

 

"I couldn't believe it when I saw it. The head's been cut clean off. Wondered at first whether the priest was wearing that, as well, like a kind of mask."

 

The woman mimed gagging. "Sickies."

 

"Guess it's their religion. Some kind of ritual that they wear the skins of their enemies. Like some of the Native Americans eating the hearts from dead enemies to sort of take their courage inside them."

 

"Still makes my lungs shrink. Gives an idea of what we're about to see."

 

Doc was at their heels. "And may the Lord make us truly thankful," he breathed.

 

 

 

THEY FOLLOWED THE PRIEST and his young assistant out of the main part of the village, toward the ancient pyramid that towered above the evening forest.

 

All the men of the village were gathered around the base of the stone mountain, the women and children ranged behind them. Ryan saw that many of the council of elders were dressed in their best ceremonial finery, with whispering beads, jeweled masks and swaying feathers.

 

He recognized Speaking Eagle and Smoking Crest, both wearing blue shrouds. Itzcoatl was in red, streaked with black. In the front line of the women stood Rain Flower, her eyes fixed to Jak.

 

Drums pounded and trumpets shrilled. The shadows were elongated, stretching from the trees while the setting sun dappled everything with crimson. Scented smoke drifted across the scene from iron braziers placed at each angle. There were several larger fires built on the flat top of the pyramid. More ghostly figures, wearing flayed human skin and sodden with blood, moved slowly from corner to corner in what seemed to be a stately dance.

 

"Looks like a scene from some big movie," Mildred said quietly.

 

"Too grim," Doc replied. "Oh, my dear lady, it is far too real and far too grim."

 

The priest turned and scowled, holding a bony finger to his lips. "Not speak," he snarled.

 

The boy led Ryan to a position of honor in the first line, alongside some of the older warriors, their scarred bodies showing the battles they'd fought. Krysty followed, the others at her heels. There was a susurration from the natives as Jak took his place, last of the friends.

 

All of them carried their firearms.

 

For a moment the large natural arena was totally still and silent.

 

Ryan could just make out the mirrored surface of the lake between the trees and huts, and he saw the sudden silvered splash of a fishing eagle diving into the deeps. It emerged empty-beaked, tiny drops of water tumbling from its flapping wings as it flew higher and caught the last rays of the sun.

 

Heads began to turn, and Ryan looked back toward the village, seeing the three prisoners being brought out by an escort of warriors.

 

The men were dancing in a ponderous ritual, two steps to the front and then one to the side, one back and one more to the other side, then two strides forward. The whole cycle was repeated to the slow beating of a slack-skinned drum, feet rising and falling in the endless rhythm of those beneath the earth, rising and falling. Living and death. Partly living.

 

To his great surprise, Ryan saw that the two Jaguar warriors were also dancing, following the pattern of the others, faces impassive, unsmiling. Their hands and feet were free, and sweat glistened on their bodies.

 

The swarthy slaver, still wearing the blood-soaked shirt that masked the deep wound to his stomach, was not participating gladly in the ceremony.

 

His hands had been tied behind his back, his feet dragging furrows through the dirt. Two warriors hauled him along between them while a third walked behind, keeping the prisoner moving with a spear tipped with the black stone.

 

He fought and struggled all the way, crying out in a strange, guttural way, with no words audible among the stream of tortured sound.

 

At a gesture from Itzcoatl, one of the junior priests strode forward and stopped in front of the white man.

 

He held a small tube in his hands and poured something into it from a pouch at his waist, lifting it and blowing into the prisoner's face.

 

Ryan saw that it was a pale powder, and it had the effect of calming the man.

 

"Drug?" he whispered to Mildred.

 

"That stuff they call yauhtli . Indian hemp. Narcotic. Takes away a little of the pain. Takes a lot of the fear and anxiety from the poor bastard. Helps him to go more gently into the endless night."

 

Now the dancers were nearly on top of them, heading toward the foot of the pyramid. At an unseen signal, all of the ordinary natives bowed down, foreheads touching the dew-slick grass. The priests and elders stood where they were.

 

In the sway of movement, Ryan found himself pushed against the chief, who turned to him.

 

"This is dedicated to Huehueteotl, who is the god of fire. That is why" He gestured to the blazing piles of logs all around them and on top of the pyramid.

 

"The Jaguar people? They seem to be going willingly to their deaths."

 

Itzcoatl nodded. "Right on, my friend. They have also been given yauhtli , which"

 

"I know," Ryan said. "Makes the pain less painful."

 

"And it helps to go with the ritual."

 

Now the dancers had reached the foot of the pyramid and were performing a complicated interweaving step, circling around and around, in and out, hypnotically. The drums were beating faster, and the trumpets had been replaced by the delicate, warbling note of the pipes.

 

Then they began to climb. As the men moved higher, they rose from the grayness of dusk into the last rays of the sun, which painted them scarlet and gold, catching the brilliant glitter of their necklaces and earrings, glinting off the polished stone of the daggers.

 

"By the Three Kennedys!" Doc whispered. "This is like being transported in a time machine, back, far back into the sixteenth century. And beyond. We are witnessing a ceremony that no white man could have seen for hundreds of years. It was believed long lost."

 

"They going to chill them, Dad?"

 

"Think so, Dean. But whatever happens, you're not to move or cry out. Understand? Our livesall of our lives could depend on not behaving stupe."

 

"Sure, Dad."

 

The dancers were more than halfway up the side, climbing row after row of the steep steps with fluid ease. The wounded slaver seemed much more passive, waiting at the bottom, half supported by his guards.

 

A large log fell into the heart of the nearest fire, raising a flare of dazzling flames.

 

"Dark night!" J.B. exclaimed, taken by surprise. The light showed the white prisoner more clearly, revealing the reason for his inability to call out properly for help, showing the waggling stump of his amputated tongue, raw and bleeding.

 

Now he was being helped up the pyramid, a faltering step at a time. The watching natives had all stood, watching the progress of the ritual.

 

Time passed with a strange drugged slowness.

 

Ryan was becoming increasingly disoriented, his head weightless, feeling as though the solid turf were shimmering under his feet, like the scales of some gigantic reptile.

 

The smoke that swirled all around was tainted with the bitter scent of herbs, which he began to suspect might be seriously intoxicating. He tried to breathe in a more shallow manner, through his mouth, hoping that it might minimize the adverse effects of the native drugs.

 

Without realizing it, Ryan had closed his good eye, drifting away from the present, jerking back to life when Krysty nudged him in the ribs.

 

"Dropping asleep, lover," she warned.

 

Now all three prisoners were together on the top of the pyramid. Most of the dancers had stepped away, returning carefully down the shadowed steps to level ground. The sun was nearly done, illuminating only the very topmost layer of stones. It was beginning to get cool.

 

"Soon," Itzcoatl said softly.

 

Two warriors remained beside the white slaver, bracing him up as though he might have collapsed without their support.

 

Now the Jaguar men danced together, just the two of them alone, very slowly, hands on each other's shoulders, faces almost touching, eyes closed, lips moving as if they were whispering their farewells. The dark clearing was so still that the watchers below could clearly hear the faint slap of their bare feet upon the hewn stones.

 

Three of the priests now joined the dance, their long matted hair gleaming with fresh-spilled blood, their gowns of human skin whirling about them, dancing closer to the three prisoners, almost caressingly.

 

One by one they each lifted a prisoner on their backs, carrying them as if they were frail elderly relatives. Neither the Jaguar natives nor the slaver seemed to be offering any resistance to this.

 

They seemed to find the men weightless, dancing with an infinite lightness. Slower and slower. Slower.

 

"This isn't too" Jak began, the sentence choking in his throat.

 

At a hidden signal the drums and the pipes stopped, and there was a single piercing note on the trumpet.

 

The trio of priests turned and dumped the prisoners off their backs into the center of each of the three main fires that topped the huge pyramid.

 

"Oh, Jesus!" Mildred exclaimed, turning her back on the ghastly spectacle. But it wasn't over. It had barely begun.

 

The screams of the three hapless men soared above the eagerly watching crowd as the flames frizzled and blackened their hair, blistering the skin from their bodies with fierce intensity. All of them tried to stand and move from the hearts of the fires, but more of the priests pushed them back into the blazes.

 

"Why do this?" Ryan asked Itzcoatl. "It's fucking barbaric to chill someone like this. Even if they're your enemies."

 

But the chief merely held up his right hand. "Peace, friend. It is not yet done. The fire god has only received a part of his tribute. The right word? Tribute?"

 

But Ryan ignored him.

 

Even a hundred feet below the crest of the pyramid the air was filled with the stink of roasting flesh, rising above the scent of the smoky herbs.

 

"They're rescuing the poor devils," Doc said, standing on tiptoe to study the ritual.

 

"Don't look," Mildred called. "I know what's happening next. I remember the black swords"

 

Doc also turned away, staring blankly into the dark wall of trees.

 

The burned men were still alive, wriggling and crying out as they were dragged from the fires and pinioned in a firm grip, legs spread, arms held wide.

 

Each of the main priests was holding a short sword of polished black obsidian, lifting it toward the heavens. They cried out in a loud chorus, to which Itzcoatl replied in a firm, ringing voice in their own tongue.

 

The three swords flashed as one.

 

"Fireblast!" Ryan said, feeling vomit rising in his throat at the sight.

 

For a moment he was reminded of a method of execution called the flying eagle, where a sharp knife was thrust into the solar plexus and drawn up on the right and back again, then up on the left, like the wings of a bird of prey. Finally the ritual killer would stretch his hands into the deep, steaming gash, and rip out the victim's lungs.

 

This time the swords rose and fell, cutting open a massive wound in each prisoner's chest. The black blades, smoking in the cool evening, were dropped and each priest reached into the cavity and wrenched out the living, beating heart.

 

Dean's face was as white as ivory and he was swallowing hard, fighting for control, desperate not to let his father down in front of the entire tribe.

 

Now the sun was almost done with its day's journey, its last bright rays touching the tableau on top of the pyramid, the three dripping hearts held aloft to catch the light.

 

The natives around Ryan and the others cried out in a single word, which sounded like the name of their fire god, Huehueteotl.

 

Itzcoatl turned to Ryan. "It went well, did it not?" he asked, as calm as if he'd been watching a pie bake at a Kansas summer picnic.

 

"It was" Ryan was aware that the scar that seamed down his face from his good eye to the corner of his mouth was flaming with his anger. With the greatest effort he controlled his rage, keeping his voice calm and neutral. "Yeah, it was interesting, Chief."

 

"There is more."

 

"What?"

 

"The bodies will be brought down after the hearts are thrown into the fires. And the priests will build new fires in the empty bodies, where the hearts lived. This will be the final way of giving them to the fire god. He will be pleased and wars will go well. We will be warmed in the cold."

 

"And the crops'll grow," Mildred said. "Long as the creeks don't rise."

 

Itzcoatl looked puzzled. "No. This is not for the growing gods. That will come when we" He stopped as though his tongue had been running away with him.

 

"When?" Ryan asked.

 

"When we are ready."

 

"Well, forgive me, Chief, but we've had a busy day and we've seen most of your service. Think we'll all go on back to our huts now."

 

"It is not over," the chief insisted stubbornly. "You stick around."

 

"No."

 

"There is food after."

 

"More rat's brains," Jak said.

 

"Yes, if you want them," Itzcoatl replied eagerly. "We thought you did not like them."

 

"I don't," the teenager replied.

 

"Then what ?" The smile disappeared. "Have we done something shitty and offended you, Jak? Was it me? Or another? Give us your command."

 

"No. Nobody."

 

"They will be punished. The spines of the agave cactus will be pushed into their flesh and then set on fire. Or they will be strangled. Or stoned to dying. Or we will pluck out their eyes."

 

"I said not. Look, we're tired and we've had enough. All right?"

 

"If the gods wish it so."

 

Ryan nodded. "They do, Chief. They surely do. Can you send some of that atolli stuff to our huts, along with water? And we'll manage just fine."

 

"But the lighting of the fires in the bodies is the hottest potato, Ryan."

 

"No, Chief. Thanks a lot, but I reckon not. Thanks anyway. Some other time."

 

Ryan turned on his heel and led the others back toward the center of the village and their huts.