Clash of Star-Kings (13 page)

Jacob Clay had ceased to think anything much except
,
What in God’s name am I doing here? and why don’t I just stop running and go home, for God’s sake?
He watched, dumbly, numbly, as they all came to a halt before the great gate sunken below the level of the worn stone threshold. The giant who (he was dimly aware) was known as the Elder Old One, with no sign of haste or strain, put his fingers to the lock and turned them as though they held a key. He heard the key, the nonexistent key, he heard it turn the protesting mechanism of the lock, heard the click-clack-clock, saw the door swing open upon loud-lamenting hinges. They entered. The door was swung shut and locked again. Echo, echo, echo….

Probably few of the multitudes had, throughout the course of pagan and Christian and secular centuries, been even dimly cognizant that the so-seeming solid bulk of the Sacred Mountain concealed within it a sort of maze or labyrinth, hall after hall, cave after cave, catacombs and chambers and vaults. Old statuary in rich dim gilt leaned against the rough-hewn walls, hands in stiff benediction raised. Grills barred ways to neat heaps of monkish bones. The splendid embroidered palls covering the Holy Hermit next engaged their eyes in the gorgeous gloom, but little dispelled by the huge dripping candles of brown beeswax on iron stands before the cracked catafalque.

“Guardian, arise!” The Great Old One as he spoke strode forward and touched the head and hands, the only visible parts. The dark and sunken eyelids rose and the candles glittered upon the dull eyes. The hands moved, groped, found those of the Great Old One, the covers were lifted and set aside, the figure which Luis had seen move before, moved now.

The Hermit set his feet upon the stone-flagged floors and moved, trancelike, down the dark and mazy corridors; the footsteps glowed and glimmered briefly before vanishing; they followed, followed, followed. Down winding passages, down flights of deep-cut steps.

Above, far above, muffled but audible, something crashed and battered at something. Something gave way. Monstrous feet trampled.

Door opened after door, door after door was closed. And the last door of all revealed a passage in the rock, a cleft —

“We cannot pass through,” the Elder Old One said. The Guardian, seeming to awake more from its trance, spoke briefly. The noise from above increased. Jacob never afterward was clear as to what was said, he recalled the Great Old Ones departing along the level to an unknown destination, recalled slipping, squeezing, getting through the orifice in the rock, recalled wet and darkness and then a kindled torch and resinous smoke and flaring, spurting light and the great stone head in the falling spray and the old Moxtomí swinging his one-piece censer before murmuring chanting prayers through the clouds of odorous smoke. Smoke which increased the dimness. Heard the increasing clamor behind him, recognized the chanting and the hooting … braying … blaring … the combination of human and inhuman voices he had encountered in the woods the night of the procession, a century or two ago —

— all happening very quickly —

— stones falling from the wall of the cave —

— the Great Old Ones thrusting their way through the new-made opening —

— the Elder Old One standing beside the great carven head with the enigmatic smile, something in his hands which glittered and shimmered and moved.
“Tlaloc, Tlaloc, Tlaloc-Tlamacazqui….”
Did the great carven eyes move? Did the great carven lips tremble? What hideous sounds of clamor and rage behind them! “Tlaloc, Tlaloc, Tlaloc-Tla-macazqui, give us your Puissant Heart….” And something moved, for certain and for sure, something came swimming through the surface of the stone, something not unlike the thing held against the stone by the hands of the Elder Old One, a something which also glittered and shimmered and moved. The two met, the two became one, then as deliberately and inexplicably as before, something retreated back into the stone as a stone sinks into ice, but swiftly. And the Elder Old One, that which he held in his hands now increased in size and light and weight, walked … slowly … slowly … walked away.

But not very far away.

He turned, a look of regret briefly resting upon his majestic and massive face, before giving way once more to its expression of infinite calm. He turned, he gestured. Jacob, Mac, Luis, the Moxtomí, found themselves having gathered behind him. Saw the other Great Old Ones moving forward with deliberate speed so as to form a shielding semi-circle around their Elder. And saw, too, and heard, too (and felt, up through the floor — and smelled, as well — ) the rushing onslaught of those who had pursued them.

Hideous muzzles stretched forward, inhuman eyes flashing redly, the Huitzili surged in upon them. And their allies from the debased Tenocha of the
Barrio Occidental
followed behind. Noise shouted and roared and echoed. It echoed still another endless second as all action ceased.

Then Huitzilopochtli spoke. “The Heart of Tlaloc!” it said.

Silence. A calmly resisting, a speaking silence.

“Old Ones, the Heart of Tlaloc! Let us have it, and you may then depart.”

From his guarded position, the Elder spoke. “You may not have it. You may not have it because it is not yours. You may not have it because you would misuse it. It is not for you to say we may depart and it is not for you to say that we may not.”

No shout followed on this, but from the gathered enemy came a low, guttering growl which was more chilling than any clamoring noise. Then the voice of Huitzilopochtli spoke up, low and intense and hideously grinding and echoing within itself. “Old Ones, our patience is short. Do not further abuse it. It is ours, the Heart of Tlaloc, because we defeated you before it was placed here. Surrender it and depart! Surrender it and flee once more to enjoy that peace which your perverted natures crave! Refuse, and we will destroy you forever. Now! At once! Relinquish the Object!”

The figures of the Great Old Ones did not move.

But from them a Voice composed of all their voices said, “If we are to be destroyed, we will not alone be destroyed. Better for us all here to perish here than for us to escape and leave you with the means of making millions perish.”

Warm and golden, like the tolling of great golden-bronze bells, was that Voice, yet Jacob felt himself shivering faintly. The enemy spoke no word. The Great Old Ones spoke no word. The confrontation, delayed such endless centuries, was now upon them all. Jacob tried to still his shivering; he could not. It became a quiver, then a tremble. The coldness of fear and the fear of death, he thought … so it was like this. The coldness of fear and the fear of death. The coldness of death, now and here, before he was already dead. He compressed his lips, but a soundless sigh escaped him anyway, and he saw his breath smoke and vapor on the still, chill air.

It took a moment for him to realize what this meant, and what it meant made no sense. It was no chill that lay only within himself, arising from his own human fears and weaknesses. The cold he had been feeling was from outside. And it was not, and it could not have been, affecting him alone. He saw that Macauley’s breath, and Luis’s too, was visible … and, slowly, slowly, at first like a mere haze upon the air, those of the Great Old Ones as well. Their metabolisms were different, then. That was to be expected. Less water-vapor in their lungs? He dismissed the fruitless speculation. He wondered if some sudden cold front of the sort which American television meteorologists were always announcing as “coining down from Canada” had come all the way this far down.

Something disturbed his ear. A noise? A sound? He cast his eyes around. The great Head of Tlaloc sparkled and shone and it glittered with an icy mantle. Ice! No wonder he was so cold! So terribly, terribly cold…. It was not sound but the absence of sound which had disturbed him: the soft sound of seeping water falling like a spray of rain upon the Head of Tlaloc below the spring. Jacob saw the newly formed stalactites. Icicles. It was unnatural. Uncanny. Frost was now appearing on the walls, spreading like a leprous white fungus. The air cut his nostrils, he breathed through his mouth, his throat and lungs hurt, he thrust his hands between his legs.

Listen, stranger: snow and ice, and it grew wondrous cold
…. He moved his icy-burning feet and heard the rime crackling beneath him.

He heard Luis draw in his breath, followed his glance, all but shrieked at what he saw. There, motionless as a frieze across the cavern, the Huitzili stood, burning red as fire. Heat rippled the air where they were, and he saw sweat rolling down the faces of the men and women beside them … among them he recognized Lupita, but he deliberately put this aside: he would wonder about this later…. Heat. Heat. Heat….

It was evident what was happening. They were locked in silent struggle, a battle raging nonetheless on the level, perhaps, of the flux of subatomic particles. The Huitzili, deliberately, were sucking the warmth and heat from the air of the cave and from the still-living bodies of their enemies, drawing the warmth and the heat as a magnet draws iron filings, drawing it unto themselves and into themselves….

Suddenly, almost shockingly suddenly, three things happened: the cold fled, the warmth returned; the Elder Old One had thrust his hand into the Heart of Tlaloc … one hand … the other he placed upon the shoulder of the Old One next to him … who extended his hand to another … who did the same … it was Luis’s hand which lay so warmly upon Jacob’s…. Warmth from the glowing engine called the Heart of Tlaloc. Thus, two of the things: and simultaneously and horribly, the Huitzili began the
Noise
.

It could not have come from their mouths and throats and lungs alone, it was too great, too dreadful. Sound upon sound, wave upon wave, and Jacob sobbed and fell on his knees and pressed his hands over his ears. But still the Noise clamored and echoed and rang and every cell in his body seemed stricken with a deadly vertigo and he screamed and screamed and —

“This must be the last for now,” the Great Old One said, his voice coming pained and painfully through the sudden silence. Something like a wavering shield, transparent but not utterly clear, had fallen (or risen) between the two groups. “We must begin to leave now, seek time — I do not yet know how long we may have — ” The other group beat upon the rippling panel, assailed and assaulted and were held back by it. “This must be the last for now.

“We cannot, we do not dare continue using the Heart of Tlaloc this way.” He went on to speak, but Jacob was no longer intent on listening.

He was watching Macauley, he was listening to Macauley. “I’m not sure about the amount of the charge,” Macauley was saying, preparing his dynamite and thrusting it deep into an opening in the cavern. “I don’t want to bring the whole mountain down on top of us, if I can help it — ” He grunted. His hands moved. They seemed, to Jacob, to be moving slowly. But he said nothing, realizing that of this he knew as near to nothing as made no difference.

Again the voice of the Great Old One broke in upon his mind’s ear. “ — if I can somehow fix this barrier to remain a while, then it may be that we can destroy their ship. They will still be dangerous, but less dangerous; if they emerge from here — ”

Mac said, companionably, puffing his cigar as though they were seated at ease over a bottle of gin, “Now, there’s the matter of the fuse, too. Over-long, I may blow up an empty cave. Over-short, I may blow up a corridor full of … well …
me!
And, of course, you. Read much Kipling? His politics left much to be desired” — another grunt. He cut the fuse. — “but he could turn a neat phrase.
The widow-maker
. Always liked that one…. Okay. The fire goes,” he gestured, “
here — ”

And then the Great Old One made a sound they had never heard from him before. Slowly, slowly, he began to withdraw the hand from within the alien engine called the Heart of Tlaloc. They all began to retreat. The shield, the barrier, rippled violently.

But not so violently as the beating of Jacob’s heart as he began to move.

That moment, however bewildering, however confusing, had yet had some element of clarity. Confusion worse confounded succeeded it. The barrier gave way in one place … in another…. Hideous muzzles thrust forward. Knives. Struggle. Stench. Mac falling. Jacob seizing him, somehow grasping and pulling. Screams. Smoke. Luis, calmly bending to pick up the still burning cigar which had fallen from Macauley’s lips. Crush. Trampling, dragging, dreadful noise, concussion, falling rock. Above, the stars.

From the hills above Los Remedios, the town and countryside, the Monte Sagrado itself, all looked the same. Slowly the mists rolled away, slowly the sun came toiling up from behind the two mighty mountains, slowly the morning cookfires sent their thin wreaths of smoke upward to be slowly dissolved upon the winds. Heaps of big brown adobe bricks stood curing in the air, cattle lowed and slowly moved along the roads towards pasture. Burros laden down with firewood passed them on their way. A thin and melancholy scream announced an eagle in the air. A thin and melancholy scream announced the
mas o menos
coiling its way up along the narrow tracks towards town. The bells of the three churches broke into voice as they had each morning for hundreds of years, the great wheels turning, the bells revolving, falling, falling back, the tongues resounding against the sides, the sextons bending to the ropes, rising, releasing, grasping, bending. The old women in black picking their way along the unpaved streets, the middle-aged women setting up their breakfast stalls in the market. And from every house, the sound, immemorial, older than the bells, older than any sound of human kind except the sleepy human voices themselves, the sound of the pat-pat-pat of women’s hands shaping the dough for the tortillas.

“Where now?”

The Great Old Ones lifted their great hands. “Some of us to our own vessel, hidden in Popo. Some of us to the vessel of the Huitzili-things, hidden in the crags of Ixta. We will destroy it. And thence, we hope, barring Time and Chance and the Unforeseen — things which no one and nothing can bar — thence to our own world.”