Authors: Donald Hamilton
Normally we would have had a new high priest by now, a younger and stronger man who could be relied upon at the altar; but with the Day of Ixchal in sight the priesthood had closed ranks behind the old man who had guided us and our king, Becal Xia, spiritually through these last difficult years and who therefore deserved, they said, the honor of officiating to the very end. And at the very end. Today.
We—the highly placed men and women of my generation—had always known. We had known that the honor would be ours; that we would be the ones to lead our people into the Place of Night to meet the Lords of the Night, going not as before singly at the call of Ixchal, but all making the deliberate dark pilgrimage together to complete with courage and dignity this Great Cycle, allowing the sun to rise tomorrow on the beginning of the next, as the gods required.
We had served our purpose. We had made our contribution; but perhaps over the centuries sin and evil had grown among us that could only be eradicated in this way; perhaps the time had come for the world to see a shining new people, starting afresh where we had once begun when our own Great Cycle was clean and new. So the gods said, or were said to have said—but doubt was blasphemy and I was in no position to indulge in further sacrilege after flouting the commandments of my gods and the edicts of my priests in the most awful and wonderful way possible…
But old Achuac was doing very well indeed. He had now completed the third and final offering with a fine stroke and was holding the heart aloft for the crowd to see—and behind me, I knew, the men of Dog Squadron were nudging each other in unmilitary fashion, reminding each other of bets won and lost. Even on the Day of Ixchal, even with no hope of ever collecting on a successful wager, a soldier will gamble; and it is better for an officer to look straight ahead and feign total ignorance.
Looking over the heads of the great crowd, I could see her now with the others—her equals in rank and all their maidens—up there behind the high jaguar altar, with the plumes of her rank on her dark head, and the priestess-robes half-concealing her strong smooth body but open in front to reveal the fine breasts with which I was well acquainted; and the elaborate waistcloth; and the gleaming jewels.
It had been madness, of course; but when one knows the day of one’s death, even the hour, one does not look quite the same way upon the rules that have bound men of all previous generations, to whom lying with a virgin Priestess of the Jaguar would have been quite inconceivable. They would probably have been rendered impotent by the mere idea of such sacrilege and would have deemed that a just punishment from the gods for even entertaining the thought of such wickedness. But I had not been rendered impotent, knowing that there were only a few months left; if the gods required punishment, I would be with them soon enough, for them to deal with as they pleased.
Nor had she been rendered unresponsive by the disrespect she was showing for her holy position among the god’s attendants, by the sacred oaths she was breaking, by the risk we were both taking. Not that the risk was not considerable. The punishment prescribed, as is well known, is cutting and maiming in certain ways for both the man and the woman who must then—no longer recognizable as man, no longer recognizable as woman—be exposed to the populace in all their bloody naked mutilated shame to be pelted with rocks and filth for the specified time after which, if still living, they must be put to death in the manner reserved for the lowest criminals, and those who deliberately spit upon the gods.
But with the Day of Ixchal so close, after which there would be no more such pleasure ever, at least not for us, we had not counted the risk, my priestess and I; if anything, it had made our illicit lyings-together more desperately satisfying, helped by the knowledge that we had to make a few months take the place of the lifetime we would never have…
But now the time of the king had come; and Becal Xia was stepping forward up there to perform his part of the ceremony, a handsome figure of imposing dignity in his plumes and cloak but, some said, not as much his own man as some kings who had ruled us in times past, more a puppet moving at the wishes of the priests. But those who said this did not say it aloud. And the priestesses were now descending the tall steps of all the pyramids with the graceful gliding motion that, my priestess had told me, took years to master and yearly cost them several novices because a fall was not only dangerous in itself but was a sign of the gods’ displeasure, so even if you survived falling, you were instantly put to death where you fell.
The king had ceased his ritual of farewell. Old Achuac stepped forward; and the horns blew; and it was time for me to make certain that Dog Squadron was ready to stand firm if the crowd broke; but my people did not break. They did the directed thing with the material that had been given them, the little cakes that, my priestess had told me, had been prepared from a certain root. Like their king they took the bitter medicine that had been prescribed for them. Then Becal Xia was falling, dead, along the path of death that had been painted for him down the front of the Great Pyramid with the blood of the sacrifices that had preceded him; and the crowd before me was no longer before me. They were going down, all of them; and I watched my nation die.
The horns blew once more. I gave the opening command and the Axes separated to let the Spears come through. I gave the closing command, and we waited and watched as the spearmen of the now-dead king swept along the Great Court searching and probing while we stood ready to receive with the axes any who had betrayed their faith, our faith, but they shamed our doubts; they had faithfully taken the death that had been given to them. Not one of the thousands now lying there required the thrust of a spear; not one rose and fled alive to be dealt with by an axe. I was proud of them all, and I asked their forgiveness for the precautions we had taken that their faith and courage had rendered foolish.
It was the time of the Spears; and they formed and the priestesses passed among them with the cups of death—no death-cakes now—and they were soon down. Then it was our time, the time of the Axes, the time of Ixchal; and high on the Great Pyramid Achuac had a cup in his own hand; and my priestess was coming to me. There were no horns now; the blowers had gone before us. We were the last.
I watched her come and behind me her maidens were sharing their final cups with the men of the Axe. She held out the cup to me, and the thought was in my mind and in that moment I knew it was in hers as well: the thought that it would be very easy now. There were no eyes left to see, there were no spears left to probe. We could drink without drinking and die without dying and rise again; together we could leave this place of death. Together and alive.
But the gods would see and we would see. And it was not fitting for a Priestess of the Jaguar and a Warrior of the Axe to cravenly betray their people and sneak away into the jungle to live like animals with a great nation, their great nation, lying dead behind them.
I took the cup and drank and gave it back. I felt my death come quickly, but not before I had seen her drink deeply in her turn, smiling at me as she drank…
I came awake uneasily, feeling dazed and lost, not knowing where I was or where I had been; knowing only that it had been a long and harrowing journey. Then Frances moved beside me in the dark and turned toward me, sleepily indicating her wish to be held, as always in bed a trusting and vulnerable woman very different from the tall, cool, competent person I knew by daylight. But in the act of snuggling closer she came fully awake and sat up with a start.
“Oh, my God! Darling, I had the damndest dream!…”
We were in my bed in my hotel cottage without any clothes on. How we had got there I had no idea.
“It
was
a dream, wasn’t it?” Frances said uncertainly.
I rolled over and turned on the light. Our clothes were scattered untidily between the door and the bed as if we had fumbled our way out of them drunkenly—but of course it had not been drink, it had been that damned smoke. And perhaps a little hypnosis on the side? When I turned toward Frances, she looked suddenly a little sick. “Your face!… I guess it wasn’t really a dream, that part of it anyway. The cave part. Do I have… something on me, too?”
She turned her face to the light; and a neat band of dried blood ran from her hairline down her nose and across her lips to the point of her chin. She saw the answer in my eyes and, quite pale, started to get out of bed hastily. I grabbed her arm.
“Easy,” I said.
“Damn it, I have to get it
off
before I…”
“It’s not fuming nitric acid, sweetheart. Take it easy. Just sit right there and relax.”
I got up and went into the bathroom and wet a washcloth, wrung it out partially, and brought it back. I turned her face to the light again and gently removed the red brown stripe. I took the cloth back, rinsed it out, and returned and knelt before her so she could do the same for me.
“And why is that, any better than what I was going to do?” she asked a bit sulkily as I returned after disposing of the wet cloth.
I stopped by the dresser and peeled the usual protective plastic film off the glasses, also plastic—after the strange places we’d been this night, the familiar modern motel-hotel junk was kind of reassuring—and poured out a couple of drinks, one of which I put into her hand. I sat down beside her on the edge of the bed.
“Respect, doll,” I said. “Respect is the watchword.”
“Respect for what? Are you still afraid of offending their damn old gods?”
“I wasn’t thinking of the gods,” I said. “I was thinking of the people. They did us a considerable honor, remember; allowing us to participate in their secret ceremony. I wouldn’t want to give them the idea I didn’t appreciate that honor by removing the sacred mark in a hasty and disrespectful manner.”
She looked at me for a moment; then she grinned. “You are without a doubt the
weirdest
man… All right. As an archaeologist I have to agree with you. I was being childish; I was forgetting my scientific objectivity. But in this room? How would they know when they can’t see us?”
“Are you sure of that?” I asked. “We’ve had some very peculiar things happen. I’m not making any wild assumptions about what that old priest can and can’t see. Or the young one, either, for that matter. And I wouldn’t want to hurt their feelings for the world, if you know what I mean.”
She took a gulp of her drink. “I know.”
I hesitated. “How authentic was the sacrifice we saw?” I asked. “I’d always assumed they did it by hacking open the rib cage lengthwise, instead of just making that great transverse incision under the sternum and reaching up from below.”
“Ugh,” she said, “it was very authentic, judging by the friezes and murals I’ve seen, but do we have to talk about it?”
I grinned. “For a dedicated scientist who spends her life digging up dead bones, you are the most squeamish lady I have ever met. How the hell have you got as far as you have in your profession without realizing that those old bones were once surrounded by flesh and blood, lots of blood, and that a lot of them probably didn’t get to be old bones in an entirely peaceful manner?”
She looked at me and smiled a bit uncertainly. “Criticism acknowledged,” she said softly. “I
have
thought of it. But the crude gory reality was… was just a little much for a sheltered Ph.D. who got most of her education out of books and museums. I’m sure it was a very valuable experience, but I need a little time to assimilate it.” She hesitated. “We both saw the sacrifice, didn’t we? That was real. The blood we just washed off was real blood. I presume they went ahead and… and did it to the other two prisoners; but I wasn’t, well, really there after the first one. Were you? Or did you have a very strange and vivid dream instead?” When I nodded, she said, “To be scientific about it, we should both write down what we remember, independently, and then compare our dreams, if they really were dreams and not some kind of hypnotic suggestions. But I don’t think I’m up to the scientific method right now. Was I in your dream?”
“Yes,” I said. “In a manner of speaking. You were shorter and browner, you had lovely coal-black hair and beautiful brown eyes, and you were one of the high priestesses of Ixchal; but in some way I knew it was you. Was I in yours?” When she nodded, I asked, “What was I?”
“You were the handsome captain of the Dog Squadron of the King’s Axes. And you had no business at all, you wicked man, seducing a virgin priestess of the royal blood.” She was not looking at me; and there was color in her face. She spoke dryly: “Apparently I’m just a pushover in every incarnation. But anyway, we seem to have shared pretty much the same dream experience, wouldn’t you say?” She drew a long breath and turned to look at me. “Give me a critique of our joint dream, Sam. I know what I think of it as an archaeologist; what do you think of it as a layman? Did you believe what you were dreaming?”
I said, “If you put it that way, yes. While I was dreaming it, I believed in it completely. I could hardly bear to drink the poison out of the cup you gave me, not because I feared death, but because it would part me from you, my true love, my only love. I even considered betraying my people, and my honor as a warrior, for your sweet sake.”
She was smiling a little. “And now that you’re awake?”
I said bluntly, “I think most of it was a lot of Hollywood crap.”
She didn’t seem startled. She was watching me steadily. “Tell me why.”
I said, “Jesus, that one about the virile warrior and the virgin priestess has whiskers on it! The doomed lovers and the love that endures beyond the grave! Do you really think they entertained such romantic notions back in those early days? You know more about primitive people than I do, but I have a hunch they fucked when they felt like fucking, and maybe sometimes they felt like it enough to break a sacred taboo or two, but they didn’t make a tender production of it the way we like to. They didn’t lead that kind of sheltered dreamy live or think that kind of mushy thoughts. Or, dammit read that kind of slushy novel. Correct me if I’m wrong.”