War God: Return of the Plumed Serpent

by Graham Hancock

  So … the girl’s name was Miahuatl. Unseen, invulnerable, Tozi fell into step beside her as she was moved on with a dozen other children of about her age into the larger group, whose private parts were being exposed and inspected, like fruits at the market, by a coven of toothless crones.

  How long had this been going on?

  Perhaps as long, Tozi realised, as she had been away from Tenochtitlan – and she had been away for a very great while. Except for the past thirty-five days, she had not kept an exact count, but she knew it had to be close to a hundred and twenty days since Acopol had seen through her invisibility and driven her in terror from Moctezuma’s palace, and close to one hundred and ten days since she had last attempted to penetrate the palace and been driven back by the sorcerer’s warding spells. Afterwards she had succeeded in her magical attack on Moctezuma during the summer solstice festival at the pyramids of Teotihuacan – even that was now almost eighty days in the past – then continued the quest for Aztlán and the Caves of Chicomoztoc that Huicton had sent her on, telling her to seek out the visions that would prepare her to confront Acopol again.

  Well, there had been no shortage of visions.

  In the desert, twenty days’ walk north of Teotihuacan, while mortally stricken by the snake bite, she had left her body and wandered in spirit through a mystic labyrinth, where she met a being dressed in red, a being in the form of a woman whose face she never saw but who told her she had found Aztlán and the Caves. All that had occurred in the realm of vision, while she drew close to death in the physical world, and she would certainly have died, and never returned, had she not been rescued in the desert by a group of Huichol medicine men, rightly known as mara’kate – shaman-priests – who restarted her heart, brought her spirit back into her body and took her under their care. With them she had travelled for eight further days through the hostile and dangerous Chichemec badlands on what they called their ‘deer hunt’, which was in reality an expedition to gather a year’s supply of hikuri, the vision-inducing cactus that the Mexica knew as peyotl and that the Huichol symbolised as a deer.

  ‘Why a deer?’ Tozi had asked.

  ‘Because,’ the mara’kate replied, ‘deer was the magical animal that gave hikuri to our first forefathers on their first hunt in the long ago.’ And, even today, they explained, their strategy was to watch for the descent of the deer from the heavens and mark the point where it alighted on earth ‘for there, and there only, we will find hikuri.’

  All this had sounded like so much foolishness, and Tozi might have laughed at the three wizened elders, had it not been for the fact that they, like her, knew how to work the spell of invisibility. They had used it, effortlessly casting the net wide enough to hide her as well as themselves, when a large band of Chichemec nomads had passed near their camping place the morning after they’d brought her back to life. Subsequently, as they led her through the desert, stopping here and there to gather hikuri buttons, they’d been obliged to deploy the spell many more times, for the Chichemec were in a boiling turmoil, ranging far and wide on the war path, and frequently threatened to discover them.

  However, it was not their command of powers similar to her own that had persuaded Tozi to stay with the Huichol, but their story of a prophecy that spoke of her and of Acopol. She also instinctively liked and trusted the three mara’kate, whose names were Irepani, meaning ‘Founder’, Taiyari meaning ‘Our heart’, and Nakawey, meaning ‘Owner of the stars and water’. It was Nakawey who served as her interlocutor throughout the time she spent with them, for the others spoke no Nahuatl, but she noticed he consulted with them on almost every point before communicating with her, with the result that their conversations were often frustratingly long and convoluted.

  The prophecy itself seemed simple enough: ‘In the time of darkness will appear the harbinger of the light. She will fight against the evil one for the future of the world. By these signs you shall recognise her. She will be an orphan born of Aztlán. She will be a witch and the daughter of a witch. She will be a protector of children. She will be offered as a sacrifice to he who stands at the left hand of the sun, but she will escape this doom.’

  ‘Have you escaped sacrifice?’ Nakawey had asked at this point. Tozi confessed that she had been consecrated as a victim of Hummingbird – whose name Huitzilopochtli meant ‘Hummingbird at the left hand of the sun’ – and that she had indeed escaped sacrifice.

  Nakawey continued to recite the prophecy. ‘She will be tested in battle’, he said with a knowing nod, ‘against one who shall be named Acopol, a man who is not a man, a sorcerer whose power comes directly from the evil one.’

  ‘From Hummingbird?’ Tozi asked.

  ‘Yes, child. Acopol has sold his soul to Hummingbird in return for great power, and we have seen the result this past year amongst the Chichemecs, who he has driven to madness. At his urging they, who were once wild and free, now offer themselves as soldiers in Moctezuma’s armies; at his urging they make war upon each other, tribe upon tribe; at his urging they eat the flesh of their own children; at his urging they have even ranged up into the sierras, seeking out the villages of the Huichol to take victims from us.’

  Tozi did not tell the mara’kate that she, too, had received an increase of her powers from Hummingbird. It was none of their business, was it? And besides, she would only use what she’d been given for good purposes – to serve the god of peace Quetzalcoatl – and never, ever for evil. But the one question in her mind was whether her powers were sufficient for the burdens she’d been called upon to bear. ‘I’ve been tested in battle against Acopol already,’ she admitted, ‘and I failed. He defeated me.’

  ‘Which is why we must help you, Witch of Aztlán.’

  So she had walked with them for the eight days that remained of their ‘hunt’ in the desert gathering hikuri, and then for three more days as they had climbed into the high sierras, finally coming to the village that the mara’kate called home. There, after a two-day fast, when she was allowed only water for sustenance, they placed Tozi in a darkened room and made her eat twenty of the small, green hikuri buttons.

  The visions that had followed had been terrible and strange, of a world utterly unfamiliar to her, a world devastated by pestilence and famine and war, a world patrolled by huge devices made of metal that crawled across the ravaged face of the earth and screamed through the skies, a world in which there were no green places left, no fertile fields, no lakes or oceans teeming with fish – a world that seethed with death.

  But while these visions were unfolding, Nakawey, Irepani and Taiyari sat with her chanting in their Huichol language, and their songs lifted her up out of that place and took to her a different world, a world filled with light and joy and peace where she witnessed the peoples of many different lands coming together in love, teaching one another, learning from one another, a world of abundance and beauty, teeming with vibrant and colourful life.

  This was the first of her lessons and the mara’kate made no attempt to explain it to her, or any of the other wondrous mysteries she witnessed over the next seven days of continuous eating of hikuri and visionary ecstasy. Finally, at the end of it, they told her that her powers were stronger than their own, that they had been mistaken, suffering from the sin of pride, in imagining they could tutor her, and that the time had now come for her to return to Tenochtitlan and fulfil the prophecy.

  ‘But how does the prophecy end?’ she asked, feeling disappointed and in some way cheated. ‘You told me I would be tested in battle against Acopol, but you didn’t say what the outcome will be. If I confront him again, will I fail again or will I win?’

  ‘We told you the whole prophecy,’ said Nakawey, his voice flat, his eyes narrowed, his wrinkled features expressionless. ‘It says no more about you.’

  ‘The whole prophecy? But what about the world – the future of the world that I’m supposed to fight the evil one for? Will it be that place of darkness that I saw, or that place of light?’

  �
��We told you the whole prophecy,’ Nakawey repeated. He looked to his left at Irepani and to his right at Taiyari. Irepani merely shrugged, but Taiyari hunched forward and said something in Huichol. His voice had a singsong quality, as though he were reciting a verse.

  ‘What did he say?’ Tozi demanded.

  ‘She will be an orphan born of Aztlán,’ Nakawey translated. ‘She will be a witch and the daughter of a witch. She will be a protector of children.’

  The words from the first part of the prophecy! ‘But that doesn’t tell me what will happen and it doesn’t tell me what to do,’ Tozi protested.

  Nakawey sighed. ‘What Tayari means,’ he said, is that ‘you should go and protect children.’

  * * *

  Thirty-five days had passed since the mara’kate had dismissed her; thirty-five days of continuous walking, which took Tozi from the high sierras of the Huichols, through the burning deserts of the Chichemecs and finally back to Tenochtitlan. During the long and arduous journey there had been a great deal of time for her to reflect on the meaning of her adventures and her visions. In Teotihuacan she had found her courage again, and amongst the Huichols she had learned that the only person she could depend on was herself. She could not make a better world come into being or prevent a worse one from being born; no prophecy could tell her what the future held for her. She did not know if she would face triumph or defeat when she confronted Acopol again, but until that day there was one thing she could do, and that was protect the little children who suffered under the knife of Moctezuma.

  It was this thought, more than any other, that had brought Tozi directly to the fattening pens when, this morning, covered with the dust of her thirty-five-day journey, she made her way into the heart of Tenochtitlan, and crossed invisibly through the gates of the sacred precinct into the shadow of the great pyramid, with the temple of Hummingbird, towering on its summit, looking down on all.

  There were dreadful memories for her here, from the time at the beginning of the year when she and Malinal had narrowly escaped sacrifice at the hands of Moctezuma and been separated from her friend Coyotl, a little castrated boy, mistaken for a girl, who she’d taken under her wing in the women’s fattening pen. Afterwards, convinced he could not be dead, and that he, too, had somehow cheated the knife as they had, Tozi had stolen invisibly into every one of the fattening pens in Tenochtitlan, hoping to find him. But that search had proved fruitless and at last she’d turned her back on those places of terror that awakened such painful memories for her.

  Now she’d come back, determined to spirit away whatever children she found here – to protect them the way she’d failed to protect Coyotl – only to discover they numbered in the thousands and that three of the five huge prisons within the sacred precinct, once mostly populated by adults, seemed to have been given over entirely to the selection and preparation of children as sacrificial victims.

  What could this great change signify? What force had set it in motion?

  It was not long before Tozi had the answer.

  ‘Reckon we’ll hit the target,’ she overheard one of the guards ask another, ‘before the god’s birthday?’

  ‘The full ten thousand? Reckon so. Just had orders to begin moving the men out of the last two pens tomorrow to make room for more girls.’

  ‘Beats me where they’re all coming from … ’

  ‘From all over! Increased tribute payments where we can get them, raids where we can’t – Zapotecs, Mixtecs, Totonacs, Mazatecs, Purupechas, Tlapanecs, Tarahumaras, some Maya, some Tlascalans – though they’re hard bastards to catch these days – some Huichols, even some Popoloca and Yaqui, I’m told.’

  The target, Tozi was thinking, the full ten thousand, the god’s birthday. And suddenly, as though a lantern had been lit in a dark room, it all made sense to her. Moctezuma was going to sacrifice ten thousand virgin children to Hummingbird to mark the annual celebration of the war god’s birth at the beginning of the month of Panquetzaliztli.

  If it couldn’t be stopped, this abomination would take place less than seventy days from today – and Tozi knew she was powerless to prevent it. Only Quetzalcoatl, the god of peace, could halt the bloodshed, but to do that he must reach Tenochtitlan in time.

  When she’d left the city on her quest, the tueles had been far away on the coast, camped on the dunes near the town of Cuetlaxtlan.

  Where were they now?

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Tuesday 7 September 1519

  ‘No!’ Malinal screamed, running along the top of the wall in front of the guns, her skirts flying, fear giving her strength. ‘Don’t fire! Name of God, don’t fire!’

  Mesa’s face, smudged with black powder, was set in an expression of fury. ‘Get out of the way, woman.’ He was holding a lighted taper a finger’s width from the touchhole of one of the two huge cannons.

  Malinal stood square in front of the barrel: ‘No! No fire!’

  ‘What’s going on here?’ It was Cortés, angrier than Mesa, thrusting himself forward, reaching to drag her from the wall.

  She struggled with him. ‘No, Hernán! They fly peace banner.’

  ‘What? What’s that you say?’

  ‘Peace banner! Blue! Four arrows, white feathers, point down.’

  ‘You can see arrows on a banner at this distance?’ Though well within range of the lombards, the nearest Tlascalan units were still more than half a mile away.

  ‘I see very good. I sure of it, Hernán. Peace banner. Must not fire!’

  Some doubt showed in his face. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Sure! Fire now and lose chance of peace forever.’

  ‘It’s a trick,’ scoffed De Grado. ‘Don’t fall for it, Hernán. Fire the guns before they’re all over us.’

  She saw Cortés narrow his eyes, squinting into the distance. ‘I see the blue,’ he said, ‘but not the arrows.’

  ‘I see arrows,’ said Díaz. ‘Four of them, pointed down.’

  Sandoval agreed: ‘I see them too.’

  ‘It means peace,’ Malinal said again. ‘You must give them chance, Hernán. Hear them! Hear what they say.’

  He frowned: ‘I don’t like it! They don’t need their whole army to make peace. Shikotenka and fifty men of rank would be quite sufficient.’

  Malinal was almost crying with frustration. ‘They are Tlascalans! Tlascalans different! Do things own way in own country!’

  The banner was now close enough for everyone to see, but the men advancing beneath it came on at a fast march and were dressed for war.

  Cortés called for his horse and lifted Malinal off the wall. ‘Ride with me,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk to them.’ He turned to Mesa: ‘Hold your fire.’

  On an afterthought he sought out Pepillo. ‘Follow behind us,’ he said. ‘Don Pedro will bring you on his horse.’

  * * *

  They galloped down from the hill of Tzompach, Malinal before, Cortés behind, and as he reined in a few hundred paces from the Tlascalan front line, the whole army of savages came to a halt.

  ‘Tell Shikotenka to come forward,’ Cortés said. ‘Just him. No one else.’ As he spoke, he could already hear Alvarado with the rest of the cavalry riding to join him. He waved his hand, signalling them to stay back.

  Malinal called out a few words in Nahuatl. Although her voice was steady, clear, proud and unafraid, Cortés could feel her lithe body trembling.

  For a moment there was no response, and then from under the huge, fluttering blue banner, which did indeed bear an emblem of four white-feathered arrows pointed down towards the ground, a warrior strode forward. Dressed in sandals, a loincloth and a fine purple cloak, he was of middling height, perhaps a little taller than Cortés, and powerfully built with lean, muscular legs, a narrow, athlete’s waist and broad shoulders. His black hair was long, tied in braids, and he wore a scarlet headband into which was set a diadem of iridescent green and gold feathers. On his left forearm was a sturdy circular buckler of some dark wood painted with the white
figure of a heron, its wings outstretched, perched on a rock. In his right hand he held a large native broadsword, its obsidian blades glinting black in the sun.

  ‘Is he coming to make peace with me,’ Cortés asked, ‘or fight me?’ But just at that moment, now less than fifty paces away, the advancing warrior paused, laid down his sword and shield, revealing bloody bandages covering a wound to his forearm, plucked a long flint dagger from his waistband and set it down also, then continued to stalk towards them. There was something of the panther about the way he walked – something dangerous, poised and confident.

  ‘You think this is Shikotenka himself?’ Cortés whispered in Malinal’s ear.

  ‘I sure of it.’

  ‘Then we’ll dismount.’ He turned to where Pepillo sat with Alvarado and beckoned the boy forward. ‘Get down off that horse and come with us, lad. Later I’ll want you to write an account of what’s said here, word for word. You can help Malinal put what this great chief has to say into good Castilian and, while you’re at it, you can hold Molinero’s reins and my sword.’

  Vaulting from the horse, Cortés helped Malinal down, passed his sheathed sword to Pepillo, and stood waiting as the battle-king of the Tlascalans approached. His face was not handsome, but strong – a broad brow, a firm chin, high cheekbones, watchful oriental eyes, the nose somewhat flattened, full lips, a wide, sensual mouth. He was, Cortés thought, thirty or thirty-five years old – about his own age. And, like him, this was plainly a man of experience and calculation, a man who had lived in the world, a man who had killed and who had faced death, a man of decisive action. All this was written on his face and much else besides – pride, humour, sadness, even a certain wisdom. Without having exchanged a word, Cortés found he liked him and sensed he could do business with him.