Shield Skin

by F. E. Arliss

  The morning of the ritual dawned bright and clear. After eating a hearty breakfast of eggs and beans mixed with rice, Emery secured her hair tightly and then dressed in one of the long-sleeved swim tops they’d found and put on a pair of narrow-legged, paddling pants, as they’d been called in the catalog. She figured the less loose clothing for things to get snagged on, the better. Blessing her rugged sandals one more time, she ventured forth to meet the coming challenge.

  Most of her fellow students were white-faced and grim. Two of the girls who had begun to fall behind in the long treks they made through the jungle each day, even looked a little sick and were clearly worried. Emery had given up being polite and when able to outpace them on the treks, simply stepped around them and kept going. They’d earned no allegiance from her with their slapping branches and vines.

  The priestess approached with two dark-skinned men in baggy black pants and loose fitting white shirts. Both wore straw hats pulled down low on their foreheads. Each carried a long pole that appeared to have a torch head on the end. The priestess simply nodded and the entire group set off in a stately procession.

  For the first time, they rounded the back of the fortress and scrambled along a rock path beside the rapidly rushing narrow river. Emery kept her eyes on her feet, as she was sure this was the area where the toilet hole in her passage emptied. Sure enough, a mighty stench began to build and they passed along the trail further than the fortress, the foul odor didn’t abate.

  Reaching a deep crevasse in the base of the cliff, above which the fortress loomed as a sentinel guarding the city that spread before it to the East, this dark crack hugged the westerly base of the entire stone plateau. A narrow track disappeared into the inky-blackness of the massive rock foundation. Emery knew this would be a perfect place for bats to roost. She wondered if there was an opening up further where they could fly out at night, or if they had to come out through this narrow crack.

  “Stay quiet and follow closely,” the priestess snapped, then disappeared into the darkness. This time, Emery didn’t wait for the others, who hung back in apprehension. She followed closely behind the priestess and one of the men, who soon lit the torch he carried to cast a dim light along the narrow foot trail. Several girls scraggled along behind and the other man brought up the rear. They walked a good distance into the cave. In places it dipped lower or wound to the side. Eventually they came out into a central area that bordered a large pit. Glancing up, Emery could see daylight. This was the exit for the bats.

  Across the pit lay a narrow wooden bridge with vine handrails. She could already see what the challenge would be. Biting her lip gently, she tested the wooden planks. They were firm. Peering over the side into the depths of the pit, she didn’t even bother to ask if this was what the priestess wanted. She simply walked out onto the bridge, looked up at the light above and then looked again down into the abyss below her.

  Glancing up to see what was keeping the other girls, she saw most of them hugging the walls of the narrow path that skirted the pit. The priestess was sternly motioning for them to follow Emery out onto the wooden planks. None of them wanted to, but eventually all but the last two girls came to stand a short distance from Emery above the pit.

  The rear guide in his black pants, gestured once more to the last two girls cowering against the wall, then grabbed each by a hand and dragged them back down the trail behind him. They disappeared around a corner and were lost in the dim blackness of the cave.

  “Today you greet the first gods of Calakmul. It is their spirit that built the first temples of this great and powerful city. Greet them. Thank them. Draw their strength into your own body. Quiet your fear,” the Priestess snapped as one of the girls whimpered. Another had already sunk to her haunches, terrified of the drop into the depths on either side of the narrow plank.

  Emery wondered what games these girls had played as children. She’d walked over logs across the little stream behind her house, practiced balancing on the railroad tracks like a tightrope walker, and frequently trod the narrow rafters in her grandparent’s barn to look at birds nests on the other side. It wasn’t that she wasn’t afraid of heights, but more that she was even more curious about what lay on the other side. Or, in this case, down below.

  Suddenly, a deep reverberating clang sounded through the cave. It was so loud it made Emery’s skin tingle. A strange surge of energy and sound erupted from below. The gong had disturbed the ancient gods and they were now intent on escaping their deep sleep in the dark roosting points below.

  An enormous cloud of whirring darkness enveloped Emery. Slowly, she raised her arms out to her sides. She could feel the bats wings brushing softly by her, the sheer numbers of them stirring the air and creating a small whirlwind of stinky wind and sheer, flapping wings. Most burst through the opening in the ceiling far above, but a few continued to circle in startled confusion. They weren’t bumping into anything, but they didn’t appear to be ready to greet the daylight above either.

  Emery remembered the ones she’d often rescued after they’d had some type of accident. Usually after a tornado had ripped through the tiny town back home. Tornadoes were not kind to bats. Often dislodging them from their perches and hurtling them to the ground. Emery would pick them up. Give them nourishment for a few days with an eye dropper, then set them gently on a sheltered ledge of the backyard shed. Usually they were gone the next day. The bats back home were cute. They had pale fuzzy brown bodies, sweetly wrinkled little faces and tiny claw-like hands. The translucency of their wings when stretched gently out was so amazing and soft that she just marveled over the ingenious construction of their miraculous abilities.

  She felt several flutter into her arms and sides. Tiny weights attaching to her clothing and she realized that they were clinging to her garments as a perch. Standing very still, she left her arms out to the sides as more of them landed. Gently, she allowed her arms to come down to her sides and felt the movements of most of them as they crept closer to her body’s warmth. Eventually all was silent. Only the steady glow of the torch as the side of the pit gave evidence that the priestess and her attendant were still present.

  Emery could see only three of her fellow students. They huddled singly in lumps on the wooden plank, arms wrapped around their heads. Two of the girls were audibly sobbing, while the third appeared to be swearing in Spanish.

  “Come girls! Remove yourself from the bridge!” The priestess snapped. As the first girl crawled on all fours to the edge of the pit, the priestess helped her up, then gave her a shove down the path towards the entrance where the other man stood with his torch. The other two girls scrambled off the plank as well and once they’d reached the torch-lit circle at the entrance, the man turned and escorted the three white-robed girls down into the darkness.

  The priestess stared at Emery. Emery stared back. “What are you doing?” the priestess asked flatly.

  “I don’t want to disturb my bats,” Emery said quietly. “They’ve been quite startled enough for one day,” she added rather vehemently. “It’s bad for them to be scared like that,” she said, glaring at the priestess.

  “Yes, it is. You’re right. On the other hand, we need to see who has an affinity for the first gods. You clearly do. Come, I will help you find a better perch for them,” the black-faced woman said serenely.

  Emery glared at her again, but slowly edged her way towards the wall. Stepping smoothly from the plank over the pit, she shuffled towards a small ledge with an overhang and gently one by one, began to pry the tiny claws from her clothing and help them cling to a rocky projection above the ledge. The priestess did not help.

  When she’d pulled the last one from under the side of her neck, where its tiny claws had been clinging to the curve of her ear and snuggling its body up into the base of her braid, Emery placed it gently on a rocky point then motioned for the man with the torch to proceed her. Turning her back on the priestess, she left the place.

  All she felt was anger. The b
ats should have been left alone. They needn’t have been disturbed simply to prove a point that most of the girls were afraid of them. It was mean. To the girls and to the bats. Her respect for the priestess had sunk to new lows. She wasn’t going to cower in fear just because the woman knew a few magic potions and spells. Disrespecting animals was the lowest form of power.

  Once the group had reassembled on the front terrace, the priestess addressed them. “The first great challenge has been presented. Two of you have failed. The rest of you are free for the rest of the day. Emery, you will stay behind,” the priestess said firmly.

  Swallowing down her anger, Emery reminded herself of what Dorothea had said - any emotion showed was a weakness the priestess would exploit. Endeavoring to keep her expression neutral, she turned to face the towering woman.

  “You did well with the bats,” the priestess said, a dripping disdain in her voice. Probably hoping her sarcastically given praise would elicit some type of response.

  Emery simply bowed her head respectfully and said, “Thank you, priestess. It was a great privilege to be allowed to participate.”

  The tall woman stiffened a moment, then nodded, relaxing. “Yes, it was. Most of your kind are not allowed. Therefore it is even more amazing to see one of your kind succeed. I am relieved to see you know your place.”

  Emery had no idea what one of “her kind, or her place” was supposed to be, but she assumed raggedy, pasty little girls from the States who hadn’t been born into the temple’s bloodlines. “I am sure any success I have had was due to the skill of my teacher,” she said, remembering to keep her voice neutral.

  She could hear Bertha’s voice in her head, “the priestess is prideful. Flatter her, but only in a way that she can believe. So be a brown-nose, but in a low-key sort of way.” Emery hoped she’d succeeded.

  The priestess sniffed, nodded slowly, then said, “Yes. Possibly.”

  Emery raised her head, looked at the priestess and said, “You are very brave.” then bowed her head again and stood silent.

  If she had been looking up, she would have seen a momentary look of pleasure flit quickly across the woman’s face. Instead, all she heard was, “You are dismissed for the day.”

  Emery fled to her cell and spent most of the day meditating in order to quiet her anger at the disregard the priestess had had for the bats and the anger and disdain she’d heard in the woman’s voice over Emery’s lack of fear of the bats. Priestess was not used to people who did not cower in fear. Emery was about to learn a very hard lesson. People fear those who themselves are unafraid.

  Chapter Twelve

  Snake Bite

  The next three weeks went slowly. In every exercise it seemed Emery always drew the short straw, often working hours in the makeshift laboratory at the edge of the jungle steeping teas and tinctures from the plants they harvested throughout the day. Since she still had to sit in on the lessons about the use of poisons and weapons, then practice using a bow and arrow and a small but lethal blow-dart flute, it made for long tiring days.

  At night she rinsed quickly at the waterfall’s edge, careful to keep away from the toilet area further down, then fell onto her hard, narrow ledge of a bed in relief. Quickly asleep, she only had time each night to whisper a few sweet nothings to the variety of reptilian life that had found their way into her sleeping chamber. A bevy of bats had taken to hanging upside-down in the narrow ventilation slits at the top of her room and several of the bright blue, poisonous dart frogs like the one back home, occasionally hopped in to say hello as well.

  A milk snake, maybe the one thrown so roughly at her head the first day, had found its way into the her cell as well, and she often found it curled up in one of her sandals when she went to dress in the morning. If she found any shed, dried reptile skins as they walked the jungle, Emery would bring them back and leave them for the milk snake. Dried up skin was one of their favorite treats. At least she was making friends, even if not of the human variety.

  Today was the day they were going to learn healing energy magic and Emery was excited. She leapt out of bed, ate her breakfast and took care of other necessities as fast as she could. Emerging onto the plateau in front of the fortress, Emery could see a line of people that had emerged from the jungle. It was something that happened every other month on the full moon: the priestess and her acolytes would hold a clinic of sorts, where people could come and receive treatment with herbs or have the priestess lay hands on them for healing.

  Emery was keen to observe this as it was the first real magic she was going to see here. Frankly, Dorothea and Bertha did more magic than this place. It was creepy, she’d give it that, but having a weird place full of the remains of human and animal sacrifices and blood stained altars didn’t make it have magic. Creepiness, yes. Magic, she’d see.

  She knew full well about the energy meridians in the Earth, and while this fortress was indeed upon a powerful one, so far all she’d seen here was that her own meditations were bearing fruit, though no one had really offered her any actual training outside of herbalism, tribal lore, and a long and arduous familiarity with the jungle and its inhabitants.

  She liked the herbalism and knew it was a rare opportunity. It just wasn’t what she’d expected of this remote and dreaded outpost. She supposed she should be grateful it wasn’t any worse than it was.

  Well that was the jinx. It got worse.

  It started when an ancient hag of a woman dragged a struggling goat to the feet of the Priestess and then suddenly plunged a small dagger expertly into its jugular vein. Blood flowed out into a clay bowl her equally decrepit husband had shoved beneath the goat’s neck just as she’d plunged her dagger into the frantically writhing goat. It's frantic bahhing suddenly cut off with a loud gurgle.

  Emery cried out. The Priestess shoved a flat palm towards Emery’s face and for the first time, she felt the power of the woman, as a wave of malevolent energy slapped her roughly in the face, effectively halting her cry.

  The bowl was quickly filled with blood. The now dead goat was carried away by four of the fortress workers, one for each leg, the goat’s head dragging on the ground leaving a trail of bright red slicked across the enormous old stones.

  Emery felt ill. As she watched, the blood from the goat was used to smudge the head of each of the infirmed who were helped forward to be blessed by the priestess. There did indeed seem to be some improvement in many of them. Whether through psychosomatic belief or real magic, Emery was unsure. Some were then weeded out and given herbal tinctures or had wounds dressed and wrapped. Emery helped with that, as she was the most informed about where each of the tinctures had been stored - having made most of them herself under the instruction of one of the more aged of the acolytes.

  Inside she felt angry and sick. There was no need to kill an animal for a sacrifice. The Navajo gave corn pollen or any other type of product they grew. She supposed that the animal was the product of the people who had come that day and she could understand that. In the end, it left her conflicted and angry.

  Towards the end of the day, a young man was brought in amidst a cacophony of cries. He’d been bitten by a coral snake and was writhing in agony. Emery came running with the correct items from the herbal stores, laying the items needed out on the flagstones to enable the Priestess to use them in order.

  Instead, the priestess waved a hand towards Emery and said, “Show us your experience girl.” A wave of moaning rose from the crowd clustered around the young man.

  The priestess didn’t waver, simply gesturing again. Emery knew that it was unlikely anything could be done for the young man. Coral snakes were extremely toxic and they had no anti-venom on hand.

  She asked the protesting group how long ago he’d been bitten. He’d been bitten ten minutes ago and as the two puncture wounds were on his foot, it would give him more time if he was upright so the venom had a harder time to work upwards in the circulation. She explained this to the group and with the help of two of the men,
got the young man slumped upright onto the ledge with one of them behind him to stabilize him. The foot now dangled about a half meter from the ground.

  None of the things you saw in those old Western movies really helped. You shouldn’t use a tourniquet as it could later cause the limb to atrophy if you cut off all the blood flow. You couldn’t really suck out the venom the way the old folklore described, by cutting it. Venom was just two sneaky in its spread.

  Emery examined the bite closely. Snakes have curved fangs and therefore the reservoir of poison is often a millimeter below the wound, depending on the direction of the bite. In the civilized world, where emergency services could be accessed, they always told you to immobilize the person and wait for the ambulance. That was not going to work here.

  Seeing the puffy deposit that lifted the skin every so slightly below the wound, she realized gravity would be their friend this time. Quickly she inserted a sterilized knife into the bottom-most area of the slight swelling and slit through the bite area all the way to the bottom of his foot, effectively creating a deep, penetrating puncture. Clear venom mixed with blood dribbled out from both sides. They’d been lucky. The bite was directly between two of his metatarsal bones.