The Gods of Color

by Gunnar Sinclaire

  “Our maw is gaping; our fangs are bared; poison ebbs,” the acolyte chanted, and the congregation responded with an identical intonation.

  “We are the children of the dragon goddess Tiamat, who was a millennium old before Egyptian priests poured blood libations to Set,” roared Hommler.

  “Hail!” cried the masses.

  “We are the children of Tiamat, who warred with Marduk at the dawn of creation.”

  “Hail!”

  “We are the children of Tiamat, who once again enfolds the world in her draconic wings.”

  “Hail!”

  Keedu raised his hands like a suppliant, and dropped to a knee, a chalice in his right hand.

  “I invoke the Seven disciples of Tiamat, the vampiric gods of chaos,” intoned Hommler. “May the Seven bless this sanguine potation and convey their power to me and my children. May the Seven bless our people, and bless the new order we are imposing on the world. May the Seven bless our neohumanity, and endow us with superiority, power, and perfection.”

  “Hail!” affirmed the hooded congregation.

  Hommler received the chalice, appraised the dark red liquid with burning eyes, and drank it vigorously, his thin neck undulating with each gulp. Streams of blood spilled down his chin and throat, so greedily was the flask tilted back. He grinned after eeling his tongue along the silver for a last drop, and his filed teeth were bordered in crimson.

  “Blessed be the Seven,” he averred, then wheeled, his cloak fluttering, and pointed at a titanic stained glass window rising behind the dais. Depicted on the glass, hued in reds and greens and golds, was a dragon in flight.

  “Let us see what portent lies on the horizon tonight, my children.”

  Attendants rushed in from alcoves, threw back a latch, and opened the massive stained glass window like a double door. The sky was a wizardly blue, frosted with stars. An onrush of cool September air swept inward.

  “Keedu, my seer, tell us what you see beyond those dark gulfs,” commanded the high priest.

  The acolyte stared neurotically, his lips parted, his hands readied as if to grip something. He scanned the gabled roofs of the houses scattered at the castle’s base, then lifted his head until his gaze settled on the crescent moon. His eyes blinked, his purple lips twitched.

  “I see an invasion,” gasped Keedu, his hands slowly rising to grip his malformed head.

  “The Aztecs!” Hommler spat, red lips snarling.

  “No . . . I see a navy . . . an armada being outfitted. I see war machines . . .” The acolyte’s eyes darted left to right, as if the midnight sky were a scrying pool.

  Suddenly, Keedu screeched piercingly, digging his nails into his scalp.

  “The lunar monotheism. The crescent moon.” Foam glistened on his lips. “It is the cold moon of Mohammad above desert dunes. It is the waxing of Islam! The waxing of Islam!”

  Chapter 9

  Guerrero’s daughter applied her palm to a panel on her front door, and an automated voice chattered, “Welcome home, Marisela.” She reached down, picked up her shopping bags, and entered the mansion.

  Antonio was rushing down a winding staircase that opened into the foyer. In his right hand he brandished a toy Aztec maqahuitel sword. In his left was his Captain Aztlan action figure.

  “Dad invited priests over for dinner,” he said excitedly. “They’re in the dining room. I’m going to show them my Captain Aztlan toys.”

  Marisela walked slowly after her charging brother, but did not enter the dining room. Setting down her bags, she peered from behind a column in the living room.

  Antonio jumped over the threshold separating the rooms, and skidded several feet in his socks.

  “Haaaa! I’m Captain Aztlan!” he cried. “I’m going to set my people free.”

  “By the gods, it’s Captain Aztlan!” said a well dressed man with a black flowing mane. “It is the savior of our people. What a pleasure to meet you in person, Captain.”

  The boy postured heroically for a moment, then put down his sword and figure.

  “It’s just me!” he said with a smile and a jump. “I’m Antonio now.”

  “Antonio!” The man laughed. “I thought for sure you were Captain Aztlan. You looked just like him.”

  “This boy has good instincts, Juan. You’re raising him well,” congratulated the other priest, his face bristling with piercings.

  “Wash your hands, Antonio, then come to the table. Dinner’s almost ready,” Rosa told her son. “Marisela, is that you? Come in and meet our guests and have some supper with us.”

  The girl walked hesitantly into the dining room, a light jacket tied around her waist.

  “Marisela, I’m glad you’re back,” said her father, “I would like to introduce you to the following two gentlemen, both high priests of Aztlan.”

  The girl quickly scanned the two guests, and gave a weak smile at the one with the long hair.

  “A pleasure to meet you, Marisela.” The long-haired man stood and greeted her. “My name is Teoctli, but my friends call me Teo.” He rose out of his chair to shake her hand. She took his hand shyly, and withdrew. Marisela guessed him to be in his late twenties, and judging by the way his suit fit him in the shoulders and arms, he balanced priestly duties with athletics.

  “And I am Mictlantecuhtli,” offered the second priest, rising. His head was shaved and painted red. “For many years I did not abbreviate my name for fear of desecrating the god that is my namesake. But then he came to me in a dream, riding a fountain of gore, and gave me permission to call myself Mictlan.” He offered his hand, which Marisela stepped forward to accept. As she did so, the crucifix worn around her neck fell onto her shirt.

  Mictlan’s bottom lip curled, and he stepped away from the girl. He scowled at the president, then produced a pendant hanging from a silver chain around his own neck. He positioned the pendant, a tiny jade skull, prominently on his chest.

  “Wait a minute, here,” demanded Rosa. “Why wouldn’t you shake my daughter’s hand just now? You stepped away like in disgust. Is there something wrong?” There was no concern for the priest in her voice, only menace. The interrogatories could only be interpreted one way.

  Mictlan nervously thumbed the plug transfixing his bottom lip.

  “I do not touch people wearing . . . that symbol.” He fumbled. “If you could see what I can see, you would not permit your daughter to wear that.”

  “What can you see?” little Antonio asked boldly.

  The high priest looked to Guerrero, who, after a few moments, nodded.

  “First I must apologize, Marisela,” Mictlan almost whispered. “That was indecorous and rude.”

  “But what can you see?” pressed Antonio, his face animated with childish wonder.

  Mictlan’s eyes fell. He folded his arms, and stared impassively at the dinner plates.

  “I can see the racial memories of our people,” he acknowledged finally. “Sometimes I think it is more of a curse than a gift.”

  “You can see what?” asked the boy.

  The priest sighed, and rested his thumb and index finger over his eyes.

  “Don’t be so nosy, Antonio,” Rosa lightly reprimanded.

  “That is quite all right, Mrs. Guerrero,” Mictlan said drowsily. “He has an inquisitive mind. Warriors need that. Besides, he needs to know. I will explain.”

  Maids filled glasses with rubicund alcohol, and Mictlan, Antonio, and Marisela took their seats.

  “Ever since I was a boy, I have been able to psychically examine the collective memories of the Aztecs,” the priest spoke slowly, dramatically, his eyes riveted to his glass of sangria. “As Aztecs we all have these memories, but very few of us can remember them. They reside in our bloodlines, and offer themselves for inspection to those sensitive enough to perceive them.”

  Antonio watched how the priest’s piercings shifted as he spoke, how the bone through his nose necessitated more frequent breaths through his mouth.

  “So what do you se
e, Mictlan?” The president sipped his drink.

  “I feel it as much as I see it . . . all my senses are alive with it,” said the priest sadly. “Most people who have this gift are especially receptive to memories of national trauma. I’m no different in this respect. For me, the Spanish conquest of our people resonates most deeply. About six hundred years ago. I can feel it like I was there.” He folded his arms, and stared mournfully into the deep redness of his glass. “For me, the memories that are most vivid are those of the siege of Tenochtitlan.”

  Marisela blinked, as if startled, and stared intently at the storyteller.

  “The Spaniards outnumbered us, and our people were so weak from the European smallpox. I feel like I have it myself when I have my visions. During the siege of our capital city, the fighting was brutal. I remember rushing bravely with contingents of Jaguar Knights to engage the Spaniards hand to hand, but walls of gunfire raking us down. I remember all the damned guns they had during the siege, how our obsidian swords would break on their plate mail.

  “There were line after line after line of them, bristling with guns, their armor glinting in the sun. And perhaps most of all, I remember their crosses held aloft, carried like standards and placed in our temples over the massacred bodies of our priests and women. Oh yes, I remember. I remember the cries of motherless Mexica children, I remember the blood on my fingers after feeling where a bullet entered my chest.”

  Guerrero’s daughter took a breath as if to say something, but then stopped.

  “That’s an amazing ability you have, Mictlan.” The president sighed.

  “But a sad one,” said Rosa. “Do you have any particular memories about any of the leaders, like Emperor Guatemoc?”

  Mictlan was about to address the question when Marisela interjected.

  “We just finished studying the Spanish conquest in school,” she said. “Mr. Santos, my teacher, is a military historian and has a special interest in the siege of Tenochtitlan in 1521.”

  The priest turned his head toward the girl so only she could see his face, and glowered at her. Oblivious, or unbothered, she talked on in a didactic tone.

  “First of all, there were less than a thousand Spaniards at the siege against about one hundred and fifty thousand Aztecs. So I don’t know where you get your idea that the Aztecs were outnumbered.”

  “It’s a figure of speech. Their guns counted for so much that we were outnumbered in that sense.” The priest coughed. “Besides, how am I to extract numerics from memories? I don’t sit and count the people around me in my visions. I know that in the areas of the battle the gods showed me, we were outnumbered.”

  The girl nodded briefly in acknowledgment, then continued.

  “Second of all, the Spanish gun, the arquebus, was very ineffective and used in very small numbers—the Spaniards didn’t have more than about twenty during the siege. Third, by the time of the siege, the Spanish armor had rusted due to the Mexican climate and was unusable. So the Spanish wore indigenous padded leather armor that wouldn’t have glinted in the sun.”

  “Marisela,” uttered Mictlan, his patience straining, “are you doubting the word of a holy man, a man who communes with your gods?”

  “I only know one God,” she said curtly, then continued. “Fourth, you didn’t mention that the Spaniards had about seventy-thousand Indian allies with them that hated the Aztecs for treating them like crap for hundreds of years. And fifth, I don’t feel too bad about Christians destroying the Aztec religion because it’s been proven, even by original Aztec accounts and archeology, that their religion had lots of human sacrifice and even cannibalism.”

  “Enough!” The priest slammed his fist down on the table. His eyes seemed to spark with flame, and the girl gasped. “You are precocious. But you are also sacrilegious and insulting!” He then turned to his host. “President Guerrero, I do not understand how one of your children shows so much promise of becoming a strong Aztec patriot while the other portends dissidence and a stab in the back. You heard the way she just spoke to me. If you do not watch her, she will one day drive a wedge between our people!”

  The president looked at his daughter. Her long black hair was tousled, and her brown eyes radiated defiance. He then shot a glance at Mictlan, who looked back like a plaintiff smugly awaiting a favorable judgment.

  Guerrero wavered, poised on a fence. As the seconds ticked by, the priest’s eyes widened.

  “Marisela!” boomed the president finally. “Go to your room, take off your cross, and reread The Broken Spears.”

  “Fine!” She leapt from her chair. “I’ll go to my room. But I won’t take my cross off. And I think I’ll read William Prescott instead!”

  Antonio, so accustomed to his sister’s arguments, was the only one at the table not watching her. Instead, he watched Mictlan. The priest gnashed his filed teeth, and partially rose from his seat at the mention of Prescott, a name the boy knew many Aztecs associated with evil. The boy wondered if the priest would have lunged for her in a different setting.

  Marisela rushed from the dining room, through the living room, and up the winding staircase. Moments later, the diners heard the faint slamming of a door.

  Rosa glared angrily at her husband. Teo sighed, and folded his heavy arms. Mictlan sank, unnoticed, back into his chair. The silence was palpable.

  “At least I don’t like that William Prescott guy.” Antonio gloated. “I’m proud I’m a strong Aztec.” He scowled when no one acknowledged him.

  Teo spoke up, slowly shaking his head.

  “President Guerrero, if I may.” After a nod from his host he continued, “this whole episode was very disheartening. And I think it was unnecessary. Mictlan acted unreasonably by shrinking away from Marisela and offending her. The girl has a right to wear her crucifix and be a devoted Catholic. We need harmony between pagans and Christians, not friction.”

  “Teo is . . . well intentioned.” Mictlan smiled. “But it is a regrettable fact that there can never be true harmony between Christians and Aztec pagans. There can be no harmony because all monotheistic faiths, including Christianity, view all other religions as false and illegitimate. That is the nature of monotheism—one God, one truth, one right way to worship.”

  “Do Hispanic Christians need to view the religion of Hispanic pagans as legitimate, though? I think as long as there is mutual respect and civility that we could achieve relative harmony,” countered the younger priest.

  “Well, that is where you and I differ, Teo,” replied his peer. “And it’s not the only subject you and I clash swords on.”

  “Unfortunately, you are correct,” acknowledged Teo. “Why don’t you share your idea you mentioned to me earlier today, the one that horrified me, with the president?”

  Mictlan blinked in surprise, and laughed weakly.

  “I thought I told you that I would share this idea with the president sometime in the future at a proper time.” A bead of sweat struggled through the priest’s painted pate, and rolled down the side of his head.

  “What better a time than this?” Teo smiled sneakily.

  “So be it,” spoke Mictlan, cornered, “I channel the will of Huitzilipotchli, so understand that the origin of this command is divine.” He looked keenly into Guerrero’s eyes. “Now that most of the whites, blacks, and Asians have been expelled from Aztlan, the gods wish us to scrutinize our own ranks. Some ‘Hispanics’ dwelling in our country are, racially, exclusively Spanish European. We may speak the same language, but they do not look quite like us. And that is because they are not quite like us. They do not have one drop of native Indian blood. They are white! And they must be eliminated. Aztlan is for Aztecs and other Mesoamerican peoples. It is not for the European exploiters, even those who camouflage themselves with knowledge of Spanish. No person less than seventy-five percent native Indian deserves to be here.”

  Guerrero choked on his sangria, and succumbed to several moments of hard coughing. Mictlan waited patiently, and ran a calloused finger a
long the enamel blades that were his teeth.

  “You’re crazy!” the president finally exclaimed, his face a hue mere shades from his drink. “And your failure to apprehend my first and foremost desire is insulting. I’ve told you time and time again, I want to unite our people, not splinter them. I don’t want a rigid, militant paganism. I don’t want a rigid, militant Catholicism. And I sure as hell don’t want quibbling over what percent Caucasian we all are. Even you are, O priest of Aztlan! You don’t think there’s conquistador blood somewhere in your veins—after all these centuries of Spanish and Indian intermarriage? And what the hell do you mean when you talk about ‘elimination?’”

  Mictlan ran his tongue along the top file of his teeth, staring at his empty dinner plate. All eyes were trained on the priest, who reached down to his boot. He unsheathed a flint knife near his ankle, brought it up to the table, and showed it to the onlookers. A faint smile lifted the corners of his mouth, and his tongue’s pendulous sweep quickened along his teeth. He then placed the knife on his plate and pushed it to the center of the table.

  “I want to take them, one by one, and lie them spread-eagle, face up, along an altar. The altar will have a slight curve to elevate their rib cage. My fellow priests will restrain them, and their cries will bring the harmony you so desperately seek. It is the old way. It is the only way. Aztlan must be consecrated in the blood of the Spanish.”

  Guerrero’s expression was a medley of horror, frustration, and bitterness. “God damn it!” he fulminated. “Why do you pagans have to be so crazy? Do you realize, historically, how hard it’s been for our people to have a stable government in Mexico? And I try so fucking hard to make this new country work right, for our people to cooperate and unite, and you have the guts and craziness to come into my home, insult my daughter, then tell me about some disgusting sacrificial plan that would start a full blown civil war as soon as news of it hit the internet? Get out of my house! And you, and all your other priests who share your ideology are no longer welcome in the priesthood of Aztlan!”