“But now you are not sure,” Roubyn whispered. “Do you now remember old legends, very old legends? When you addressed me as ‘lord,’ I wondered if you knew me.”
Kira donned her helmet, touched the hilt of her sword and backed toward the door.
“Remember the were-men, Kira,” Roubyn said. “They are silent, but they wait still, eager for my cast-offs.”
Low, menacing growls erupted from the other side of the closed door, mere inches separating her from the sources of those animalistic noises. Then she heard whimpering sounds, as if curs crouched at the feet of their master.
Kira’s attention was distracted for the barest of moments, but long enough for Roubyn to leap at her. She fell to the flagstone floor, Roubyn upon her, sharp teeth seeking her throat.
She grasped his head, digging her strong fingers into his hair. One hand came into contact with his ear, pointed and fur-tufted. Then she knew.
Kira threw him off her. He landed in a crouch like an animal, but one foot, in seeking purchase, stabbed into the hearth. Sparks and smoke swirled. His laughter boomed, mocking and derisive.
“Run into the night, Kira!” he yelled as she started for the door. “My children wait, and they are hungry.”
Kira instead darted up the stone stairs. She sensed his reaching for her and slashed downward with her blade. There was a slight resistance, then a scream. At the top, she stopped and turned, ready for any pursuers. No one followed on her heels, but the lower floor was suddenly filled with shamblings and animalistic cries.
Cool light came from lanterns set into the walls of the circular room. Strange objects hung from the ceiling on bronze hooks, casting terrible shadows.
Were-men surged up the stairway. She cut two creatures down, left them, and dashed to the third floor. A whisper called her name.
The uppermost level was quiet, dusty, dim-lit by a crystal sphere set in a silver tripod in the center of the room. The floor was scattered with old bones which went to flying dust at Kira’s touch.
They would come, she knew, and she would not be able to destroy them all before they overwhelmed her. Her bones would mix with the others, but what she feared most was that death would not find her immediately.
She glanced at the three windows. There was no way out but them and the way she had come. She sliced the stretched bladder of the nearest window and leaped through. She hit the ground hard, limped away and fought the pain that threatened to consume her.
She ran desperately.
The stars guided her eastward. She concentrated solely on attaining Yoran. She ignored the wind that whispered her name.
But the urge to answer the ancient call was strong.
She kept the steady Northern Eye star on her left. She did not recall coming upon the walls of Yoran in the predawn darkness, nor her evasion of the city’s guards—she moved with the instinctive moves of a warrior hunted.
Kira found sanctuary in a temple of the Goddess, found relief of suffering from the healing woman who gave her herbs and brews that made her sleep and set the broken bone of her leg. She slept deeply and dreamed of a man who whispered her name, his voice becoming fainter until it vanished altogether.
When Kira finally escaped delirium, her leg was mostly healed and the High Priestess came to her.
“In the fullness of Our Lady of the Three Ways, we sent a force against the tower in the woods,” the old woman said. “It has been in ruins for many centuries.”
Except when the Goddess turns her bright face from the Earth. Kira thought when she was alone. And then lives again the Lord of the Woods.
Sometimes I’m very aware that the civilization surrounding us, the streets and buildings, is but a veneer over something much older. The same could be said of the people who walk those streets, work in those buildings. Scratch them, and you see glimpses of other cultures. When people want to exert the heritages from which they believe they spring, their cultural advisor seems to be a girl named Pollyanna—wear these bright colors and these festive images; sing happy songs. Yet, if people were honest about their cultures, they would display the scalps of their enemies, lift beating hearts to the sky. I would have to paint my body blue and play soccer with the heads of Romans and other outsiders. Well, maybe it’s for the best that I just brought Shepherds Pie in for cultural history day.
Olmec Dreams
A Tale of Fantasy
I fear the footfalls, like padded paws, outside my door, though I know it’s only the motel manager wondering what sort of crazy gringo has taken refuge from the night.
I sit in the darkness, fearing death will come…fearing it will not. I ran from the dig at Laguna de las Calaveras, fleeing the ancient gods, but I can flee no longer—the dark seduction that swayed the others toward death and darkness finally touched me.
The motel is mean and filthy, skittering beetles and an iron-frame bed, but still of an oasis in the midst of the high desert plateau of Central México. Brown water trickles from the faucet into a rust-stained sink.
Outside, the wind blows through dusty streets, raising whirling dust devils. Only a few cars out there, but they squat like silent beasts in the night. Grimy windows, yellowed by pulled shades, punctuate the darkness with flickering lights. A few peons shamble along, wrapped in layers of coarse fabric.
I sit on the edge of a rickety tick-infested bed, swilling tequila from a smoky bottle. The curled worm at the bottom seems to stare at me mockingly. The liquor neither burns nor brings craved oblivion. I still remember everything all too well.
The Olmecs were Mexico’s earliest masters, and they were my obsession. They dwelt in the mistiness of time, long before the rise of the later, more familiar, civilizations of the Maya and Aztec. The start of their calendar predated the raising of the Egyptian pyramids or the city-states of the Sumerian flood plains. They worshipped savage gods and deformed babies; they believed men could become jaguars.
Their study had been my passion since graduating from Cal State, but I was denied field work among the Olmec ruins by bad timing, personal financial crises and a lack of connections in the academic world. It also did not help that I never seemed to know when to keep my mouth shut. All things considered, I was lucky to land a job as junior assistant preservator at the Los Angeles County Museum of American Archaeology and Anthropology. How well I remember long, lonely hours sitting in my basement workroom, piecing together fragments of another world, one I desperately wanted to be a part of.
A letter from Professor Roger Latham arrived unexpectedly one Friday toward the start of summer in care of the museum. There was an unexpected vacancy in the dig at Laguna de las Calaveras and would I be interested in filling the position? I pestered the museum’s personnel director until she decided to grant me three month’s vacation without pay rather than fire me. I sold everything I had, except the books and clothes I would need, skipped out on my landlord and caught the next flight south out of LAX.
Latham had been one of my instructors at Cal State, the only one who had shared my passion for the Olmec culture. I wanted to do well in his class more then any other, but he had never seemed to take notice of my efforts. The letter, though, seemed to testify to the contrary.
The flight southward was boring, uneventful until we neared Mexico City. As we started our final approach, the plane swept low over the terraced pyramids of the Aztecs. Perhaps the pilot was the son of a warrior.
At the airport, continuing my southerly trek, I traded a jet for a vintage prop job owned and piloted by a grinning one-eyed Russian-German named Walt Procherov.
After a shuddering flight in a cargo bay filled with assorted hardware and many items that were probably illegal, we landed in a coastal town called Los Gatos.
A narrow-gauge railroad carried me into the jungle, through villages of increasing isolation, until I reached a village with no track beyond. A jouncing bus, touched on each side by the encroaching jungle and occupied by dark men and women who watched me silently and suspiciously, finally
deposited me in the tiny town of Laguna de las Calaveras.
I spoke fluent Spanish, but it was of little help in this shadow-infested village. The natives stared with open hostility and spoke an ancient dialect that I could barely follow. Eventually I found my way to the dig, but it required a two-hour walk along the wheel-rutted jungle trail.
By the time I arrived at the dig, weary and tattered and holding my suitcases and bedroll with arms about to drop off, dusk was flooding the jungle. It was impossible to see any of the excavation work that had already been done. Their work had been sporadically referenced in cryptic notices in archaeological journals, but I knew no details. I reported to the administration tent.
“Very glad to have you with us, young man,” Professor Latham said, a grin splitting his weathered face.
“I’m ready to start to work,” I replied.
“Good, good,” he muttered. “I remember you as a good worker from that field methods class. Lots to do.” He was silent for a moment, then said: “We have no native laborers.”
“That’s strange,” I said. “From the looks of the village I passed through on the way in, I would have thought they’d be more than eager to take our money.”
“They have peculiar attitudes about this place,” Latham explained. “Not even Yankee dollars tempt them. They think we’re disturbing the old gods of the land.” He laughed. “Perhaps we are, but they can’t do a damn thing about us because if we have any problems with them, they know we’ll call in Federal soldiers to enforce our excavation permit. Don’t worry about the natives, though; we know how to handle them. This is our second season.”
“I’m looking forward to…”
The tent flap flew open and a woman with short brown hair and tense features entered. “Who’s this?”
“It’s Dennis Owens, the one I told you about. Remember? Assign him a tent, would you, Blake?”
“He signed the oath yet?”
Latham wiped his brow. “I thought we would…”
“Might as well let him know how things are now rather than later.” Blake snapped. “Might change his mind.”
“Oath?” I said. “What oath?”
Blake went to a field desk, rummaged around, and returned with a poorly mimeographed document. I was prepared to sign it blindly, anything to get on with my dream, but she insisted I read it. I was not to take any artifacts from the site, take photos of the excavations or anything recovered from the dig, make no statements public or private, or answer any questions about the dig asked by nonmembers of the expedition. There was more. Much more.
I had seen these kinds of contracts before, but I had never seen one so compete or restrictive. I signed it.
“Get your gear,” Blake ordered tersely. “Follow me.”
I had to sprint to catch up with her.
“How do you know Latham?” she asked when we were outside.
“I took a class from him when I was…”
“This is your tent,” she said, pointing. “Lights out in an hour. First and last call is at five. You miss meals, you don’t eat. Report to me after breakfast. I’ll be your team leader. Don’t wander around on your own—if you’ve never been in the jungle before, and you look like you haven’t, it can be dangerous. We don’t want anyone to have an accident. We’re shorthanded as it is, and we have a lot of work to do.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” I told her. “The chance to spend my vacation working in a place like this is a dream come true.”
She stared at me with narrowed eyes. “More like a goddamned nightmare.”
She turned and walked away. Lanterns burned within other tents and in the tent behind me. I entered my assigned tent and was greeted by apathetic stares. One of my taciturn tent mates directed me to a vacant cot, and I settled down for the night. I read until the lights went out, then tried to sleep.
I lay on my cot, awake, aware of the strangeness of the place, sweating in the oppressive jungle heat. Somewhere in the darkness was an Olmec city that had not seen light in over three thousand years. Hot winds shook the trees, and exotic birds called to each other.
The stentorian breathing of my tent mates was distracting. I thought I heard padded footfalls in the night, passing close by my tent. Eventually, the darkness passed into dawn.
After a strained breakfast with people who seemed content to remain strangers, I reported to Blake. There were twelve in her team. We had been given an outer portion of the Olmec city to clear and survey, near a steep-sided cenote, or natural limestone wall.
My first sight of the Olmec city filled me with awe. The misgivings of the previous night dropped away. This was what I had journeyed two thousand miles to experience—vine-laced pyramids, hidden shrines, and ruined ball courts where noble warriors had played games of life and death. Temples to savage gods and bloody goddesses peeped tantalizingly from the undergrowth. It was easily five times the size of La Venta.
“Come on, Owens, this isn’t a damn tour!” Blake snapped. I threw myself into the job with an eagerness that seemed to further alienate my co-workers. Inch by inch, we forced the jungle to surrender the Olmec city.
I often found excuses to venture near the steep-walled cenote, to gaze into its obsidian, mirrored waters. It reminded me of the so-called Sacrificial Well near the Mayan city of Chichen Itza, and I could not help but wonder how many victims had been given to the gods of the Olmecs. The Spanish name of the place, Laguna de las Calaveras—Lagoon of the Skulls—was a further source of speculation, but, seemingly, only for me.
Toward the end of the day, weary and streaming with sweat, we trudged back to camp. I lagged behind. No one noticed. Alone, I wandered wide avenues still held by the jungle, beneath the long shadows of stepped pyramids My spirit was not very scientific at the moment— a bit like Woolley, I suppose, fantasizing among the elder ruins of Ur—but I was happy, maybe for the first time, ever.
I presently found myself again near the edge of the cenote, which was brackish despite the underground streams that fed it. The sinkhole was nearly circular, as was their nature, and I walked around it. Unexpectedly, I came across a path leading downward. Actually, it was nothing more than a curving limestone ledge not nearly as wide as a man’s foot. Only a fool would have tried to traverse it.
I made my way down, into the gloom already beginning to gather at the bottom. Not having had a chance to read any of the group’s reports, I did not know if the cenote had been dredged. If not, it would be eventually. I crouched at the terminus of the ledge and gazed into the black water.
For a moment, it seemed I could see the bones beneath my face. I stared, trying to keep the cosmos from spinning, then came to realize I was looking at something just beneath the surface, within the muck that ringed the cenote just before the waters dropped to black unplumbed depths. I reached down and pressed two fingers through the eye sockets and carefully lifted. Finally, the skull was released with a wet sucking sound, and, trembling, I examined the victim of the well.
The cosmos spun again. I held onto a small outcropping to keep from toppling in.
The flesh had not long deserted this skull. This was no ancient sacrifice to the scowling.
The air was oppressive and still. Clouds of insects swarmed and buzzed in the heat. Blood had been spilled here, blood that seemed mirrored in the day’s last light, but by whom, and for what purpose?
I looked around, then replaced the skull where I had found it, pressing it into the muck, letting the brackish water flood the sockets, inundate the cranium. I retraced my steps up the ledge and headed for camp.
Three-quarters of the way back, there appeared a slim brown apparition, a boy who watched me from the shadows. He stared at me, not speaking. He was garbed in clothing no better than what the villagers wore, but he was certainly no villager.
By their own sculptures, the Olmecs were an odd-looking race, having long and narrow hands, and arms and legs that seemed double-jointed. They had wide mouths and almond eyes. Except for the clo
thing, this boy was a child of the Olmecs.
“Don’t be afraid,” I said. “I won’t hurt you. We’re trying to learn about the folk who lived here a long time ago. Do you understand me?”
The boy abruptly darted into the undergrowth, making no sound in his passage. I heard only the whisper of the hot wind and the ceaseless droning of insects.
I speculated it was possible the Olmec bloodlines could have continued undiluted in some isolated areas of Mexico, just as the poor Tasmanians had survived from the stone age into the Nineteenth Century. If for no other reason than to touch what I had always reached for, I had to speak with the boy.
I stepped from the trail, intending to follow.
Something growled and I froze. The sound came again, not far away, hidden by the clotted jungle. I stood there for long moments, staring into a jungle haphazardly lit by the bloody light of sunset. I somehow found the presence of mind to move step by slow step back to the trail. Heart hammering in my chest and breath barely being sucked in by fear-constricted lungs, I made my way back to the imagined safety of the camp, dogged all the way by soft growls and something that padded always just out of sight.
I recalled the were-jaguar motif prevalent in Olmec art, more popular than even the cult which worshiped images of deformed long-headed babies.
No meal for me that night. I was too rattled by my experience to be seen immediately by the others. I went straight to my tent and stared into the darkness. When my tent mates returned, I turned on my side and paid no heed to their patter and shop talk. Then one of them said something that crumbled the barrier I was erecting between myself and them.
I turned, sat up, and looked at Dunnings, a graduate student from Texas A&M. “What did you say?”
Dunnings looked at me as if noticing me for the first time. “I said, I don’t know why the Mexes won’t work for us,” he drawled. “I see them around the dig all the time, watching us break our backs. Like it’s some kind of joke.”
Beneath Strange Stars Page 30
