The Rings of Poseidon (17 page)

Chapter 14

It was a strange feeling, not being able to
move. I could see and hear and I was aware. The drug hadn't
affected my senses, but muscles were frozen. My reflexes also
seemed only partly affected. I had no trouble breathing and I could
blink, but my vision was limited by what I could see from where I
was lying. I couldn't move my head at all, even when the marble
slab beneath me felt hard and hurt the back of my skull.

I knew, of course, that I was going to die. I
knew well enough that was what happened to a sacrifice. The irony
of the situation did not escape me - I really did disapprove of
human sacrifice before I knew I was going to suffer that fate
myself. I think everyone knew that sacrifice had been introduced
and become more common in recent years but, until I was sworn into
the temple as a novice training for initiation I hadn't realised
how widespread and commonplace the ritual slaughter of humans had
become.

I was about ten years old when I entered the
temple and became a virgin in the service of Poseidon. My parents
brought me to the great gates of the temple of service but were
allowed no further. My father was a craftsman, a worker in metals.
If he had given money or land to the temple they might have given
him the time of day. Even then I'm not sure they would have let him
in. As it was, to have his daughter enter was a great honour.

I don't think I knew at all what I was
promising when I took the oath. Loyalty to the cult; obedience to
the high priest as representative of the God Poseidon; to remain a
virgin and so on. I didn't even know then what a virgin was.

Training was uninspiring. Much of what was
the duty of the girls and women was no more than housekeeping. The
older ones muttered that it had not always been so when they
thought no one in authority was listening. I gathered that things
had once been much more equal and that all had changed in the
lifetime of this one high priest. When we did spend some time in
religious studies I had more than once objected to the regular
throwing of children into the fire-lake of Mount Atlas and I asked
why every ceremony for every high festival seemed to need its young
woman; every ship or building its young man. I should not have
questioned or argued.

By the time I was fifteen or so I began to
feel that the whole thing was getting seriously out of hand and a
light of wanton fanaticism was beginning to gleam in the eyes of
the priesthood. I said as much on a number of occasions.
Unfortunately.

I knew, as an initiate with more than five
years in the service of the God, that all the cycles were going to
be complete on the same day at the same time, even the red one and
the slow one. We were told, though everybody knew anyway, that the
completion of the old age would usher in a new age. The priests had
been building a new temple on the centre island, to be dedicated to
their god Poseidon on completion of the cycles. A boat would take
six priests to rule six other new temples. The first two were over
the short crossing, two more were somewhere the other way, across
the true ocean, and the remaining two were on the island itself, I
know nothing of where.

The high priest summoned me. A young priest
came to the door of my room and told me, curtly, to follow him. His
face wore a kind of sneer. I don't know whether it was an
expression he couldn't help or one which reflected his nature, but
I didn't like it at all. He led me along tiled hallways, plain at
first and then delicately decorated and very beautiful. The windows
of the room were filled with a fine tracery that looked like stone,
with enough open areas to let the light stream in; the walls were
tiled lower down and patterned in relief higher up and the ornate
carved roof was gilded in orichalcum. The whole effect was of a
richness more fitting to a room in the royal palace than a room in
a temple. The furnishings were mainly a number of couches around
the walls and a chair. All had feet and arms carved from the same
dark wood.

The sneering young priest snapped, "Wait,"
and swept out of the room without looking back and I stood alone,
looking around. I temember thinking it was a beautiful room - I
wish I could say the same about the cult.

The high priest was a little man. He moved
soundlessly in white robes and a truly evil aura. I could feel the
coldness and heartlessness run over me like a physical chill. This
was the first time I had seen him close to and found him a
reasonably pleasant looking man of early middle age with very
piercing eyes and an immovability of purpose that left me chilled
to the core.

"Ah. I have heard reports about you Chimú. I
hear that you feel there are too many human sacrifices." I didn't
answer. "There will be many major rituals for the ending of the
cycles and I don't entirely like the idea of any discordant voices
spreading the idea that the celebrations are too costly." He seemed
a little tetchy in his manner.

I had said nothing about costs. Indeed, I
knew nothing about costs. The high priest continued, "No indeed. I
don't want to hear insinuations that too many lives are given to
our god. One way of being sure that such ideas are not widespread
is to give him those who spread such sedition. To die for Poseidon
is a great honour, you know. So prepare your soul. We will prepare
your body when the time comes."

He turned and glided soundlessly from the
room, dragging his cold, cold aura after him.

So that was to be my fate. I had to admit
there was a logic to his reasoning. If he rid himself of his more
outspoken opponents at the coming festival he would be more secure,
at least in the short term.

I stood for a minute alone in the room, then
two armed men - they looked like soldiers but only priests were
allowed in the temple - entered behind me, seized me by the arms
and without a word, led me away. We went back along the passageway,
but turned left and went down a spiral staircase. It was too narrow
for my guards to walk alongside me, so they walked one in front one
behind down the steps. There were no windows but the way was lit by
small lamps in niches, copper lamps with tiny wicks burning the oil
of some vegetable or fat of some animal. The passage was plain but
it was clean and dry. The room they left me in was windowless but
it too was clean and dry.

Except that the door was locked and there
were no windows it was a reasonable room. The bed was comfortable,
the food and drink were good, and there was a table and a chair. I
had what I needed in life, except the prospect of life itself.

In times past the old priest kings and
priestess queens had ruled the island firmly but moderately for
eons. The sun's disc had been worshipped as a symbol of light and
Mother Earth had been worshipped as a symbol of fertility. The only
blood spilled in the name of the goddess was the virgin blood of
fertility ceremonies to encourage crops to grow and animals to
breed. But I was not destined to be mated in such a ceremony of
love and hope. In my case my still beating heart was shortly to be
torn from me - and I was supposed to be grateful for the
honour.

It occurred to me that, although I couldn't
move to prevent it, I might well feel the moment of sacrifice. I
was aware of everything; I could see and hear and feel. I was
thirsty and chilly on this stone slab with no clothes on and no
source of warmth. I was also a little embarrassed, but there was
nothing I could do about of any of these things.

The hall was large and circular. I couldn't
see that from here either, of course, but I had watched it being
built, so I knew it was a large building supported by two circles
of pillars.

There was a flourish of wind instruments and
the procession began its approach. The floor must have been marked
with some sort of mosaic pattern of lines because the procession
moved around at the edge of my sight like an elaborate dance. I
wished I could see what was going on. I wished I could move and
ease the pain in my skull.

I don't know whether it was the pain in my
head or the wishing, but there was a firm 'click' and I was looking
down on myself and the proceedings. We'd used drugs to produce
out-of-the-body experiences and I'd tried it many times before but
this was the first time I'd been able to get out unaided. Or
perhaps it was the drug this time too.

I was right about the mosaic and the
appearance of a ritual dance. There were seven enormous concentric
circles on the floor, with four lines leading to the centre circle,
in which were seven young women to be sacrificed. One of the women
was me, of course: I wondered what had qualified the other six for
this 'honour'. The outline of the temple floor was like a map of
the city really, with black mosaic paths representing the canals on
a turquoise green mosaic floor. Though my body lay below me, I
viewed the whole business with a sort of detached interest at this
stage.

The procession wound round the outer circle
and left behind a circle of those dedicated to become priestesses
holding lighted candles. The elaborate ritual group went up one of
the paths to the second circle, where they left behind a circle of
young men, thurifers with incense burners to swing, and little boys
to hold the incense. The smoke and scent of copal rose in the air
and filled the temple.

Those who were left behind to form the third
circle held banners on spears, each with a design similar to the
mosaic on the floor, which seemed again to be a representation of
the layout of canals in the city. In the fourth circle stood six
priests and in the fifth stood stone altars with burning charcoal
but no incense. Past these the high priest went alone to the sixth
circle and up to the seventh. There he turned and faced those who
watched and waited.

He was that same tetchy little man with
greying hair, a dull, cold and evil aura and a manner that now
seemed brusque to the point of arrogance, which it may well have
been. He stepped onto the higher level of the seventh circle,
turned and spoke in ringing, vibrating, powerful tones.

"As the cycles of the skies comes to an end
and a new age begins, so a new age dawns here below. We will sweep
away the cobwebs of the old, the decrepit, the weak and bring in
the new, the fresh, the strong. It will be an age of our god,
Poseidon, with rituals of power. The days of the Goddess brought
life and enabled us to grow and mature, but those days are done
now. We will sweep away the old with glory, vitality and
strength."

What he really meant was cruelty,
ruthlessness and arrogant thoughtlessness - all the coldness of
spirit I had felt in his aura - but I was hardly in a position to
say so.

"I place a ring on each of the victims."

He went around the six in turn with a carved
wooden box from which he took a plain ring and laid it on the chest
of each young woman. When it came to me he placed a much more
elaborate ring between my breasts, his face expressionless but his
eyes smiling evilly. He put the carved box on a small, round,
marble altar at the exact middle of the temple and took a talisman
from an identical box already there. He positioned the talisman
with the seventh ring - on me!

He ordered in ringing tones, "Each one of you
will take your ring when you ascend to power and rule your
territory from your temple. I will rule you six from this temple
with this seventh ring and this talisman, which I will wear when
the sixth ring is adopted. Ux-atl!"

At his word of command a priest stepped
forward and went to the head of the nearest woman. He produced a
metal dagger with bronze blade polished to a deadly sharpness and a
gold hilt in the shape of a monstrous scaly leg with evil claws
which he placed on her stomach, while he took up from beside the
stone slab on which the victim lay, a mask of beaten metal in the
shape of a sea monster. He put on the mask and then took up the
dagger and held it aloft.

He said, "In the name of the god Poseidon I
dedicate this ring to the service of power and the rule of the
people," and with the dagger sliced downwards a long cut close to
her left breast and then cut left and tore back the flesh.

I felt his sacrificial victim scream a silent
scream of pain and horror as he reached in and took her beating
heart. The heart he flung onto one of the altars and sickening
smoke arose. His arms still bloody he took up the ring, brought it
to the high priest and put it in the box which had been picked up
from the altar and was held out to him. Then Ux-atl returned to his
place on the fourth circle.

The ritual was repeated exactly, six times in
all, by each priest in turn. The high priest closed the box, picked
up the talisman and put it back in its box on the altar.

"Go to the ship and sail to take up your
positions. Rule in the name of Poseidon and in accordance with my
instructions. Tagg-Andes!"

One of the priests stepped forward to the
altar and stood before the box. The high priest, who was still
facing the other way, continued, "It will be a glorious day when
all six temples rule the empire and word of Poseidon rules
all,"

He did not see Tagg-Andes take the talisman
from its box and put it with the rings. Nobody saw but me and I
wondered why. Tagg-Andes was not an ambitious man, he was too old.
Perhaps therein lay a clue. Perhaps he was old enough to remember
the old order and oppose the new. In any event he led the five
other priests along the mosaic path from the temple, while the high
priest waited until they had gone.

The high priest turned towards me and put on
a mask, similar to the ones worn by the other priests but more
elaborate and studded with stones. It was an impressive sight, with
circles of people, the smoke and scent of incense rising - I was
not impressed because the heavy hand of death was imminent but I
was more appalled by the words of the high priest and the kind of
world he planned.