The blood trail remained, showing a man that had stumbled and was assisted by his kinsman. Here and there the pool of blood was larger, almost as big as a hand print, and Gathelaus knew the man had lost too much to live much longer.
A wind pushed through the hallway and Gathelaus wondered if the door had been opened behind him, but he heard nothing. Then the lights went out in a wave heading toward him but returned back to their curious soft glow an instant later, as if a surge of energy had dimmed and then relit them.
Somewhere farther ahead, he heard a low muffled sound, and he suspected men were trying to open a stone doorway. Perhaps Tezomoc knew of a secret passage?
At last a figure presented itself beside a pillar. It was a man, but one slumped on the ground as if sitting or in a swoon. The blood trail was his and he had either passed out from blood loss or was dead.
Gathelaus prodded him with the butt end of the spear but the man did not respond. The sound of voices grew louder, though not enough that he could understand what they said. He crept on, sticking close to the pillars on the right side, ever cautious for an ambush.
Bleeding light that snatched its way through the pillars gave him just enough of a glimpse into the round twisting maze of pillars that he spied a group of men standing close by one another. Almost to the end, he realized that the circular path had gone round and round upon itself like the inner workings of a sea shell.
Gathelaus pressed himself between the pillars and crept toward the center of that brilliant light.
Instead of a great blank wall as a passage to another world here, there was massive dark mirror, suspended upon golden chains and held in a golden frame. The chains hung to golden posts which crossed to the floor in three multiples of three. Each end looking like a clawed foot with massive talons.
Tezomoc stood before the black mirror with his arms upraised, another seven or eight men beside him. All of them armed with either a bow, spear, or macahuitl. Gathelaus determined that if he struck down the bowmen first he could make quick work of the others and still capture Tezomoc for Itzcoatl. Then he could be on his way and free of this strange and dangerous land. How he missed the snow and ice, the cold rain on his face and Nicene.
He had not thought of her for some time and now he felt guilty at his forgetting her. He could not do the same to Coco and abandon her to these bloodthirsty folk. He would take her away with him to the north and take back his kingdom. Vikarskeid and the others would pay dearly for their treachery and thieving.
The Nagaul had said that Coco was being held here too. Why didn’t he see her yet? Was she to be sacrificed so that Tezomoc might open the door to some monstrous being from the nether?
Gathelaus crept closer. Only a few spaces between pillars separated him from the open chamber—and still he could not see Coco. She was not with Tezomoc and the others. What were they trying to do?
Tezomoc cried out, “Oh great gods of the ether, you who were here before the world and who will be here after it is dust. Come and hear me, your son!”
Silence alone answered.
“They don’t hear you,” said Gathelaus stepping out from the pillars.
Tezomoc and the others glanced back in shock.
Gathelaus threw the spear and caught a bowman in the chest, crumpling the man. He dropped the torch, drew the flint-lined club and charged all in one sweeping motion. He ripped a man’s head from his shoulders with the first blow and struck down another before they could even gather their wits.
One man screamed and fled back down the curving hall.
Tezomoc shouted, “Hold him off fools! Malintzin!”
The second in command charged to meet Gathelaus, weapon drawn. Their blades met, cracked, and slapped back against each other once again. Another warrior sought to attack Gathelaus from behind while he fought with Malintzin, but Gathelaus kicked the second’s leg out from under him and then tore the blade across the man’s face with enough momentum to meet the attacker from behind and beat him down.
Gathelaus finished him with a stomp of his sandaled foot. Gathelaus stepped over the bloody corpse of Malintzin to face the next two men. They were armed with both a spear and macahuitl and rushed in together yet stealing quick glances back at their master Tezomoc as if to see if he had conjured the gods yet. This weak assault left them vulnerable and Gathelaus’s hammering blows wore them down until both lay bleeding upon the dark stone floor.
“It is done!” shouted Tezomoc. “He comes!”
Gathelaus traded blows with the final warrior, cut the man down and then stood facing the beaming Tezomoc. His back to the black mirror, Gathelaus could perceive something moving in that incandescent, misty surface. It rippled like a still pond and thrown stone.
“You cannot betray me without impunity, barbarian. Your doom awaits you!”
“Tell me where Coco is and I’ll not have you suffer.”
“Who?” questioned Tezomoc with a look of puzzlement.
Gathelaus struck Tezomoc across the mouth, sending him reeling to the floor. “My woman, Coco. Where is she?”
Tezomoc wiped blood from his lips and shrugged. “How should I know? I sold her to Cuauhtémoc. I had to buy him off somehow, and he said she would be an ideal bargaining piece. He has her.”
“You lie. He told me you held her here.”
“I don’t have her,” shouted Tezomoc. “You came with me across the causeway. None of my people came to the city ahead of us. I sold her to Cuauhtémoc back in Chalco. He has her. I know not where.”
Tezomoc glanced back at the dark mirror expectantly but said, “You’ve done a great thing today, Gathelaus. You beat me at my own game and are victorious and have captured me. That is a thing no other men have ever done. An amazing feat.”
“This is the least of all things I have yet done in Tultecacan,” snapped Gathelaus, as he prodded Tezomoc away from the black mirror.
The would-be king frowned and said nothing more.
Gathelaus did not put his back to the mirror but stared at it cautiously. He came a step closer and kicked over one of the golden legs—the whole thing fell with a resounding crash. The unbroken mirror lay flat on the ground. Its limpid black surface unfazed.
Tezomoc’s eyes widened. “You’re a madman to mock the gods.”
“They’re not gods. They’re parasites!”
Tezomoc shook his head disbelievingly. “You’re a fool. Even now they come.”
“Who? The king’s men?”
Tezomoc chuckled. “Nay, the blood of my men that you slew and even my own you have drawn out has brought them. They hunger, they always hunger and they will feed upon your heretical soul!”
Gathelaus glanced at the mirror. It rippled and then became still once again. Tezomoc chuckled with glee. A probing thing resembling a snake slithered out of the black surface and began questing about. It wrapped around the ankle of one of the dead men, tugged, and the dead body slid into the mirror’s ebon surface and vanished. Common sense said there should have been a sound like water, but there was nothing.
“Hahaha! It will do the same to you, unbeliever!” cried Tezomoc.
Gathelaus slammed a fist into Tezomoc’s chest, knocking the wind from him. “Shut up.”
Another black thing quested from the surface of the mirror and grabbed a body by the neck, pulling him into the invisible gloom. Three more came in rapid succession and stretched even farther, gathering the rest of the bodies nearby and pulling them all in, silent as worms feeding.
Gathelaus gritted his teeth, watching for the next wave. A dozen protuberances exploded from the mirror, reaching for Gathelaus and Tezomoc.
Gathelaus knocked several away at once with his macahuitl, but Tezomoc screamed as four of the arms curled around his body. They yanked him to and fro then snapped him in half—his cries of terror abruptly silenced.
Countless tentacles swarmed forth out of the mirror. Its black surface boiled over like oil in a pot and a revolting stench threatened to overturn Gathelaus�
�s stomach. Were these the arms of one creature or a hive of insatiable black worms? Nothing more could be seen.
He backed away, swinging the flint-lined paddle as swiftly as he could, taking the writhing ends of the things off with each blow. The severed ends wiggled toward him on the flagstones as if they hoped to still take hold of him. He stamped on one and it gushed a vile black ichor that made his stomach clench. An explosion of vomit erupted from his mouth, mixing with the ichor on the floor.
Distracted by his heaving guts, he failed to evade as one of the snake-like appendages looped around his leg and picked him up halfway off the ground. He swung the blade, severing the thing, and fell back just as a dozen others slammed into the spot where he had just stood.
Heat bit at his fingers. The torch! Gathelaus snatched it, waving it before him. The writhing horde retreated from the flames and tried to encircle him by stretching even farther from their source.
They avoided the flames, never directly touching them. Gathelaus tossed the burning torch up and toward the face of the black mirror. The tentacles jerked back into the voided murk and the surface rippled once as the torch landed on top of it. The torch sunk slowly, as if in tar. It sizzled like the searing of raw meat. A cry of pain echoed from across the gulfs of time and space. The earth shook, rocking the temple. Pillars began to collapse and fall as the shuddering increased. Those things of the ultimate dark could not tolerate the burning light entering their own realm.
Fire belched out from the mirror and inhuman screams boomed from the nameless void. More pillars toppled and, as Gathelaus ran from the temple center, the mirror exploded in a brilliant orange flash. The eerie green witch lights that had illuminated the far-off edges of the wall, blinked out, but, as the temple crumbled, shafts of daylight shone through, leading Gathelaus from the tumbling dark chaos.
He reached the final door and pushed, knocking the men behind it asunder. He was bruised, bloody, and covered in dust, but very much alive. He stood and dusted himself off. “It is done. Tezomoc is dead.”
A few of the men cheered, others stood somberly by and looked to their present commander, Cuauhtémoc, for guidance.
Gathelaus had lost his weapons in the escape. “We had a deal. I’ve kept my part of the bargain with your king.”
Cuauhtémoc said, “There is no bargain for you. Take him. He dies tomorrow.”
The royal guardsmen swarmed in.
House of the Serpent
Gathelaus was beaten, flogged, then tied with wet rawhide until his extremities turned purple. They threw him inside a hammock situated on porters who carried him like a nobleman’s baggage train. He was brought across a private causeway into the rear entrance of the Palace of the Moon. The scent of the salt marsh on his right and the fresh water paddies on his left gave a strange juxtaposition. The sound of the throng of people jeering him was deafening. But before he had any time to consider it, he was taken inside the palace through a side door of the main court and the sun light was stolen away as he was dragged into a gloomy and dank dungeon. Inside the cell they freed him of the cords about his wrists and ankles. But the hours of constricted blood flow had weakened him to nothing more than a bruised heap for the moment.
The jailors kicked and spit on him. “I lost fifty senine on you!” shouted one.
“Tomorrow you will gain your true reward, white devil! Tomorrow you will feed the serpent god!” they taunted before delivering another few kicks and leaving.
Blood seeped from his lips and ear. Straw was matted to his hair and his clothing had become rags.
As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could see he was in a squared room of smoothly cut blocks. Straw and offal littered the floor and the only light came from a slit at both the bottom and top of his door.
Once he gained his feet, he slammed his body against the hardwood, but to no avail. It was a stoutly made door riveted with copper plates and barred with a heavy plank on the outside.
Thirst drove him to investigate the bucket in the corner of the cell and, relieved to find only water, he quenched his thirst, heedless of whether it might be poisoned or not.
“How the mighty have fallen,” came a cool lilting voice at the door. A small hatch had been opened and the high cheek-boned face of Tazcara stared at him with obvious malice. The witch queen laughed at his plight before tossing him a scrap of raw meat through the bars. “You will need your strength on the morrow. I’d hate to see you not put up a good fight.”
Gathelaus, ravenous as a starved wolf, snatched up the bit of flesh, smelled it and just as suddenly devoured it.
Tazcara laughed again. “Perhaps I spoke to soon. You do still have a fighting-man in you.” She looked behind herself at someone Gathelaus could not see and said, “He is fit enough. Wash him and prepare him for the arena.” Then she vanished, and the doors were opened by a throng of guardsmen.
Gathelaus stomped and punched the first few that entered, but in time they overpowered him and drug him out of the cell and into a gallery with a sloping pool. They tossed him unceremoniously in and then they, too, left before he could climb out. When he did, a trio of winsome young maidens had replaced the jailors.
“We are here to bathe you and prepare your body for the sacrifice.”
“My sacrifice?”
The women looked to each other and answered almost in unison. “They will have you meet the Coatl in the arena tomorrow,” said the first.
“You must look presentable,” said the second.
“The king declares it to be the triumph of the Great Serpent of Order and Day versus the Lord of Night and Chaos. You represented the lord of chaos in the games did you not?” asked the third, her breast heaving in excitement. She held a bucket of sweet smelling oils, the others had numerous sponges and brushes.
“Please let us prepare you,” spoke another, flushed with excitement.
But as Gathelaus swung a leg up, they simultaneously jolted back.
“My lady, the queen Tazcara, promised you would not hurt us.”
“I’ll not hurt you, girl,” grumbled Gathelaus. “Do what you must.”
They each got to work on him, scrubbing and tending to his wounds. No stone was left unturned and when they had finished, he felt more taken care of than when he’d been king back in Hellainik.
The trio departed with soft giggles and he was alone once more in a vast chamber, with naught but the still dark pool beside him.
“They told me they did fine work, worthy of a lord of chaos and night,” said Tazcara. She eyed Gathelaus up and down with lustful appreciation. A perpetual smirk stamped her face, her eyes full of mischief. She wore but a strip of silk and colorful feathers that barely covered the top of her bosom and left the rounded underside exposed most provocatively. Gathelaus could see small red gemstones affixed to her nipples. A skirt made from a jaguar skin encircled her waist, held with ebon leather studded with golden rivets. A wide flat emerald, cut and polished into a hexagram, decorated the buckle.
“Does Cuauhtémoc know you wear the skin of one of his children?” Gathelaus taunted.
She ignored the remark and crossed the polished stone floor with a hip-swaying swagger.
Gathelaus remained upon the bench, with his feet dangling in the water. She was a witch to be sure, but he did not fear that she could do anything to him now, despite his nakedness.
She strode around behind him and caressed his bare shoulders. He threw off her touch. “I could find a way for you to escape this place. Perhaps make your way to the coast where you might find a ship that could take you far and away.”
“At what price, witch?”
“Give me your seed,” she said sharply, digging her nails into his shoulder just enough to make them red.
Surprised at the witch’s unexpected request, he stammered, “What? Why?”
“Itzcoatl is powerful, true, but his wineskin is tied and cannot be unplugged. He can give me no sons. At this I am more concerned than he, for he is still in denial. But I have
conversed with the spirits and I know that he shall father no sons and be the last of his line.”
“What the devil does that have to do with me?” snarled Gathelaus, throwing her hands from his shoulders once again and standing to face her.
Her wicked smile only showed more appreciation.
He growled at her but did not cover himself.
“I need a strong son.” Her brows raised sharply and she smiled at him, “and there is no stronger man than you in all of Tultecacan. Perhaps all the world.”
He snorted in derision. “And if they knew what you conspired, would not all the folk crucify both you and your bastard? The sight of his pale skin would be testament to your royal infidelity.”
Her smile waned as she strode about him, glancing up and down like a butcher inspects a prize bull. “Do you credit me for so little? That a witch queen such as myself does not know how to keep a secret and hide her works in darkness or, in this case, the light? I will have many ways to keep my son’s identity a secret, to keep his skin bronzed and his features my own. In sixteen years, when he becomes a king here, no one would even recall the tall white stranger who visited our lands. Goddess, no one will even remember you in nine months if I have my way.”
“Is that a threat?”
She laughed. “I’m not threatening you. I’m promising you. Give me your seed and leave our lands, never to return. I will see you away safe and swift.” She stalked about him, running a hand across his chest and back, circling like a vulture.
“I was told I am meeting a Coatl in the arena for my crimes.”
She shook her head. “And if I use my skills, I could make you seem as one dead, and that event should not happen. As I said, you will soon be forgotten. Do me this service, and I will set you free.”
“And my companions?”
“Who?” she asked in surprise.
“The men I have been imprisoned with. Other gladiators and slaves meant for the sacrificial pits. I want all of them freed with me, and the woman, Coco as well.”
FIERCE: A Heroic Fantasy Adventure (BRUTAL TRILOGY Book 2) Page 20
