Chapter Thirty-Four

 

 

"Better than blood."

 

Jak could hear the voice that kept repeating the three words to him, as though it were some sort of religious mantra. It had been speaking for what seemed to be hours.

 

"Better than blood."

 

He wanted to scream at whomever it was to shut up. On and on, around and around.

 

"Better than blood."

 

For some time, Jak had been aware that he was dying. The herbal poison that the natives had given him was working its claws deeper and deeper into his system. He had a memory, or it might have been a nightmare, that Ryan and the others had abandoned him.

 

Then he thought he'd still been standing up, or resting on a bed. There'd been a tingling like pins and needles in his fingers, in his hands and toes.

 

In his arms and legs.

 

"Better than blood."

 

The words seemed to be whispered in his ears, like rats scrabbling behind the walls of an old house.

 

He couldn't remember how long ago it had been since he'd gone blind.

 

Time no longer meant anything. It was just a word, an empty word in the hollow blackness that had been Jak's world. He was lying in the dark, vaguely aware of the warmth and wetness at his groin.

 

"Better than blood."

 

He wanted to stop the voice. Angered and on the edge of tears, Jak bit at his lip.

 

And the voice stopped.

 

 

 

RYAN AND THE OTHERS had burrowed deep inside a massive clump of flowering orchids. They had a rich scent that Doc said reminded him of visits to a crematorium, but they provided excellent cover.

 

Despite protests of tiredness from Doc and Dean, Ryan had insisted on leading the group in a huge circle, covering about fifteen miles during the hours of darkness, finishing to the north of the village, then closing back in again, until they were less than a hundred yards away from the steep-sided, flat-topped pyramid.

 

It was thirty minutes or so from full dawn.

 

 

 

JAK WAS AWARE of hands holding him, helping to move him to what seemed to be an upright position. But his body was stiff, his limbs resisting any attempt to bend. They were trying to get him to drink something, the edge of a pottery vessel pressing against his numb lips.

 

He heard words in a harsh, guttural language. Occasionally an odd English word would penetrate into the swirling mists of his dying mind.

 

"God," had been one of them. "Hope" and "late" had been others.

 

 

 

DEAN WAS ASLEEP, lying curled up, hands jammed between his thighs, snoring quietly.

 

Doc had also given himself up to rest, lying in a similar fetal position, hands folded on his chest, eyelids twitching with REM.

 

Mildred smiled at the old man. "Look at him," she said. "I don't know how he keeps up. Tougher than last year's Thanksgiving turkey. Now he's got rapid eye movement, showing how he's enjoying a good session of dreaming."

 

Krysty lay back against a large moss-covered boulder, feet crossed. "That was a tough march." She yawned. "Wonder how Jak's feeling?"

 

Ryan moved to the edge of the cover, peering through the broad leaves, making sure that nobody from the village was yet stirring on the nearby trail.

 

"Mebbe we'll learn something. Overhear a word on how he is. Possible."

 

"Only happens in some of the predark vids with all those steroid-inflated heroes," J.B. said mockingly. "Just have to wait here and watch."

 

"Wish I knew how Jak was," Krysty repeated.

 

 

 

THE TASTE WAS SO BITTER that he gagged on it, but the hands were ruthless, gripping both sides of his head like an engineer's vise. Fingers probed at the angle of his jaws, so painful that Jak was forced to open his mouth. Someone else pinched his nose to make sure that he had to swallow or choke.

 

The bitterness had sweetness to it, lying back on his palate like an afterthought.

 

And it was hot.

 

Jak drank and drank until he thought he'd throw up. Just when he couldn't take any more, the cup passed from him and the powerful hands relaxed.

 

"Be all right," someone said.

 

 

 

J.B. CRAWLED next to Ryan. "Going up to take a look at the top of that pyramid thing," he said.

 

"Why?"

 

"Just a bit of an idea. We've only seen it from the side. I want to know what's around the back. Whether it's possible to reach the top without being seen."

 

"Make sure nobody spots you."

 

The Armorer grinned. "Sure thing. Just an idea, Ryan. Be back soon."

 

 

 

JAK OPENED HIS EYES, blinking at the brightness of sunshine dazzling through the curtain of glass beads across the front door to the hut.

 

A black-clad priest sat on the floor by the side of his bed, a frightening figure with a skull mask dotted with shards of broken mirror and obsidian. As soon as Jak began to awaken, the man stood and walked quickly outside, calling in a loud voice to others.

 

While he lay alone, waiting, Jak took stock of how he felt. Throat and stomach were sore, as though he'd been very sick. The muscles across his abdomen, chest and shoulders were all tender. But he was alive.

 

"Better than blood," he said experimentally. It didn't sound so bad.

 

The curtain of beads whispered and Itzcoatl walked in, his feathered green gown sweeping over the floor. He had taken off his mask, and he smiled at the youth.

 

"You are well again."

 

"Better than I was. You poisoned me."

 

"I am sorry, god. It was the only way to keep you safe and to persuade your companions that they should be leaving."

 

"They've gone?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Unharmed?"

 

"Of course."

 

"What happens now?"

 

"Warriors will keep you safe until it is time for you to offer your greatest gift to the people."

 

Jak didn't like the sound of that, but he let it pass. "When will it be?"

 

"At sunset. Be a neat time. Until then, ask for whatever you want."

 

"I want to go."

 

Itzcoatl shook his head, still beaming at the albino. "No, lord. But any food or drink or the company of girls. All you do is ask."

 

 

 

J.B. WAS GONE FOR MORE than an hour.

 

The sun rose higher, and the forest around them came to morning life.

 

Dean woke up, complaining he was thirsty. Ryan told him to pick his way back through the undergrowth for about a quarter mile, where they'd crossed a narrow stream, making sure, at all costs, that nobody spotted him.

 

Doc had also awakened, and he looked around, blinking owlishly. "Stands the church clock at ten to three and is there something for tea?" He then promptly fell asleep again.

 

Mildred and Krysty also dropped off, exhausted by the long sleepless night.

 

Ryan stayed awake, watching for J.B.'s reappearance from his recce up the pyramid.

 

The Armorer eventually returned, sweating profusely. He'd left the scattergun behind in the bushes, carrying the Uzi machine pistol slung over his shoulder.

 

Dean had come back with water, and J.B. took three or four deep gulps, throwing his fedora on the grass.

 

"What did you find?" Ryan asked.

 

"You think they plan to sacrifice Jak, don't you?" J.B. looked around to make sure none of the others could hear him.

 

Ryan nodded. "Nothing else makes sense. Itzcoatl almost let it slip out a few times and only just stopped himself in time. You think the same?"

 

"Yeah. If they do, then it'll be soon. Tonight or tomorrow night is my guess."

 

"I'll go with that," Ryan said.

 

"So, what I found up there could be real useful."

 

 

 

THE DAY SLIPPED BY for Jak.

 

In their eagerness to make sure the poison took effect, the natives had underestimated the dosage. Jak, who was less than five foot five and weighed only a little over one-ten, didn't have the body mass of many of the natives, and the drugs carried on working well past noon.

 

Itzcoatl had arranged for three of the prettiest young maidens from the village to wait outside the hut in case the god became hungry for tender flesh.

 

But Jak dozed through the whole day, only waking when the sun was already well down on the western horizon.

 

He was given a feast, but he could only manage some slices of duck and a goblet of water. Unknown to him, all of the dishes on offer had been liberally dusted with the powerful analgesic drug, yauhtli , as a way of keeping him quieted through the ceremony to comeand as a way of relieving him of the worst of the ghastly pain that he was to endure at the height of the great ritual of sacrifice.

 

Itzcoatl had sat with him, but he left after a few minutes, checking that the fires had been readied on the pyramid and the obsidian swords had been specially honed.

 

"It must be right," he said to the assembled priests. "It is not given to us to sacrifice a god every day of the week. There must be no mistakes."

 

 

 

THE VILLAGERS had gathered around the base of the pyramid, oblivious to the proximity of the group of outlanders in the center of the huge mutie orchid plant.

 

Ryan made sure that everyone was fully awake and knew exactly what the plan was. He and J.B. had worked on it for most of the afternoon, trying to find any loopholes, trying to see how they might be blocked, looking at everything that might happen, for better or worse.

 

Trader used to say that an hour of planning was worth a minute of action.

 

Dean was restless, kneeling with his big Browning ready in his right hand. He still had Jak's blaster tucked in his belt. Mildred was at his side, keeping up a whispered conversation with the boy, helping to keep his nerves calm, helping to keep her own nerves calm.

 

Ryan had the Steyr placed in the leaf mold, close to his right hand. A round of 7.62 mm ammo lay under the firing pin.

 

Krysty was the last of the four. She sat in the lotus position, her hands laid flat on her thighs, her eyes closed, calming herself with the meditation techniques that she'd learned at her mother's knee.

 

All four were ready.

 

 

 

"IN THIS LAND it will not be said, I slew a sleeping man." Jak sang quietly to himself as he walked through the evening stillness of the forest, surrounded by the colorful masked elders of the village. One of his father's friends, back in the bayous, had possessed a vast repertoire of old predark songs and had taught some of them to the skinny albino teen.

 

He felt very good, relaxed, calm, ready for whatever was going to happen.

 

Itzcoatl walked in front of him, holding a beautiful crystal skull aloft, chanting in his own tongue. Then came a pair of priests, one holding a blazing torch and the other an unsheathed sword of black stone. They wore strange cloaks that seemed to have dangling arms and legs. When one of the priests tripped and nearly fell, Jak couldn't stop from giggling.

 

Ahead of him he saw a great pyramid of carved stone that seemed to reach toward the orange sky. The whole village stood around its base, and all of them bowed low as he appeared, which made him giggle again.

 

The steps were steep and Jak had to be helped toward the top of the pyramid.

 

His legs felt wobbly, his head swimming. The pounding of the drums and the high squealing of the trumpets drove through his skull like white-hot chisels, making him whimper with the pain. But the odd thing was, the pain didn't seem to hurt him. It was all happening, yet once removed.

 

Below him, the natives were chanting. Far, far below, and far, far away.

 

 

 

"DRUGGED OUT OF HIS DOME," Mildred whispered. "Danger he could fall clear from top to bottom."

 

"We got that covered," Ryan said.

 

"Can't I go around the back, as well?" Dean asked urgently. "Please?"

 

Ryan shook his head. "No. Stay here. Once the shit hits the fan, then it's going to be triple action. Need all our blasters here."

 

Krysty turned from the small gap in the bushes that had enabled her to watch the unfolding drama. "Nearly at the top," she reported. "Another ten steps."

 

Ryan brought the Steyr to chin level, settling the walnut stock into his shoulder, finger reaching for the trigger. He pressed his eye to the Starlite night scope, using the laser image enhancer to give him a clearer view of his target.

 

Jak's shock of white hair filled the sight, and he adjusted upward a little to the figures on the flat apex of the pyramid, standing grouped together, all looking down at their young god. Ryan noticed that one of the black-clad priests, standing at the back, was a great deal taller than any of the others, looking to be close to six-three.

 

The same height as Doc Tanner.

 

 

 

ITZCOATL HAD TAKEN the center of the ceremony, as befitted his position as chief of the tribe. He stood between the two heaped fires, which waited only the application of a torch. Out of the corner of his eye he noted all the priests of the village, in a row.

 

He had come up the back of the monument, passing through the small hidden room where the high priests sometimes waited in their main rituals. It contained spare sets of robes in case too much blood was spilled.

 

After the prolonged giving of the outlander to the older gods, he and the priests would make their way to the back of the flat top, hidden by the pall of smoke from the fires. They would return to the ground down the rear steps of the pyramid, keeping elements of the mystery from the crowd of onlookers from the village.

 

 

 

JAK FINALLY STOOD ALONE, swaying slightly, with the priests circling him, none of them actually laying hands on his serene person.

 

The drug that they'd administered to him was beginning to wear off, but he still felt kitten weak, sick and dizzy.

 

One by one in the gathering darkness, the priests came to him and touched him on the heart with their fingers, each whispering an incantation to him.

 

None of it made any sense, as it was spoken in their guttural tongue.

 

Yet, oddly, two of the incantations did make sense to him, both coming near the end.

 

"Hang on, kid, we'll have you out of here."

 

It sounded like J.B., and Jak automatically started to respond. "Don't call me" he began, when he realized that this was a part of the illness.

 

Until the last priest in line, an enormously tall man, also whispered to him in English.

 

"Avert your eyes from the fire, dear boy, lest you be blinded by it. And hold yourself ready."

 

On top of the pyramid it was almost dark, and Jak strained to see why Doc's voice was coming from a skull mask of jade and obsidian that topped a cloak of sable feathers.

 

"Let the fires be lit!" Itzcoatl's voice rang out through the gloom.

 

The priest with the torch stooped and applied it to the two piles of dry branches, which instantly flared into crackling life, smoke curling into the evening sky.

 

Itzcoatl stood at the front of the platform, the other characters in the drama ranged around him. Out of the corner of his eye, Jak noticed that one of the priests had moved silently to both fires and pushed something into their hearts, something that looked like a couple of metallic tubes.

 

 

 

"HERE WE GO," said Ryan.

 

There was no longer any need to whisper. The watching throng of natives was roaring out a rhythmic chant, hands raised, feet stamping, faces lifted toward the crowded top of the pyramid. Jak's slight figure stood alone, the rising flames making his hair glow like living fire.

 

Ryan's finger tightened on the trigger. He held his breath, waiting for the precise moment, muttering a silent prayer that the thermite would work properly this time.

 

 

 

DESPITE THE EFFECTS of the powerful drug, Jak was recovering his senses. Despite feeling as strong as a drowning mouse, he tensed himself, ready for action. He remembered to avert his eyes from the bright red-and-orange flames, which suddenly turned to a torrent of bright silver fire, flaring out like a supernova, blinding everyone on top of the pyramid.

 

Everyone except Jak, who'd actually closed his eyes, and J.B. and Doc, who were also ready for the inferno of dazzling light.

 

Down below, Ryan squeezed the trigger of the Steyr rifle.