Weeks later, they put their true plan into action.
As Dujot deactivated the shield after he and Kwetz emerged from their pods, a large group of priests rushed into the forbidden chamber.
“Mixcoatl!” Acalan cried. “We have been waiting for you to awaken! The Conquistadors are nearly upon us! Scouts spotted them heading this way!”
“Get out of the sacred chamber!” roared Dujot as he removed the bio-scanner from his robe.
“Forgive us, Divine One,” Acalan said. “Our concern for your safety made us forget ourselves.”
The priests withdrew from the chamber — all except one, who crouched down behind Kwetz’s pod.
Once Dujot was outside the chamber and believed it to be empty, he activated the shield, making sure no one could see the passcode as he entered it. Waving his bio-scanner in the direction indicated by Acalan, he detected a large group of humans approaching less than a mile away.
Dujot suddenly thought this would be an opportunity to instill fear in the Aztecs and regain the respect that had been lost through years of sitting idly by as they lavished him with the proceeds of their blood sacrifices.
“I will take care of this myself,” he said to Acalan. “You priests are my son’s beloved protectors, and that is your first duty.”
“But Great One, they are too many for you,” Acalan cried in pretended concern.
“Nothing is too great for a god to overcome,” Dujot said as he raced off into the rainforest.
Arriving at the location indicated by the scanner, he prepared to go into berserker mode in order to defeat so many. He abruptly stopped when he saw Aztec warriors instead of Spanish invaders.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
“Divine Mixcoatl,” said a warrior, “Acalan ordered us to engage a large group of invaders headed toward White City.”
Dujot frantically waved his bio-scanner but could detect no other human life signs in the vicinity.
“You saw them earlier?” he asked the warrior.
“Not us, Divine One, but Acalan,” the warrior answered. “We found nothing and were returning to the city.”
“But Acalan claimed your scouts spotted the invaders!” Dujot cried.
Without waiting for the warrior’s reply, Dujot rushed back to White City. Acalan had lied to him, and he needed to get back to Kwetz. As long as he had control of boy-god, no one would challenge his authority. He was looking forward to making an example of Acalan in front of the other priests, but when he reached the city, it looked deserted. Waving his bio-scanner, he saw the blips of human life forms in the trees. Hearing the whoosh of an arrow in flight, he winced in pain when it penetrated his forearm. Immediately, it began to burn, and he instantly recognized the scent.
Animal blood on the arrow tip!
Pulling the arrow out, he heard two more whiz by him. As he escaped into the jungle, he pulled out his ceremonial obsidian knife and made cuts into the wound. Bringing his arm to his mouth, he frantically attempted to suck out the poison. The liquid burned his mouth, and he quickly spat it out. When he could no longer detect any signs of his pursuers, he sat down to catch his breath. At length, the excruciating pain began to subside, but his strength had diminished considerably. If Acalan and the priests were to encounter him now, he would easily be defeated.
After burrowing into the jungle undergrowth, he willed himself into semi-stasis in order for his body to heal. If he could remain undiscovered for twenty-four hours, he would be restored to his original vigor.
*******
“We are free from the tyranny of Mixcoatl,” Acalan proclaimed, “and will celebrate the coronation of Quetzalcoatl as ruler in his own right!”
Just before dawn, Acalan and the priests escorted Quetzalcoatl to his royal chamber. Instead of Mix’s secret passcode being entered, Acalan made a small cut in his palm and pressed it against the shielding. An uneasy silence came over them as they waited. After several seconds, the shielding flickered then disappeared.
The priest who had hidden behind Kwetz’s pod triumphantly walked out of the chamber. “It worked, Quetzalcoatl! I changed the pro-gram-ing!”
Kwetz embraced Acalan. “Mixcoatl will never see the inside of the sacred chamber again!”
Once Kwetz was resting inside his stasis pod, Acalan addressed the priests.
“Send out hunting parties for fresh sacrifices,” he ordered. “When Queztalcoatl emerges tonight, the coronation celebrations will begin!”
*******
Yaotl’s family was disappointed when he returned without having caught any food. They reacted skeptically to his story about the jaguar, believing he was making it up to justify his failure.
Incredibly tired, Yaotl decided to rest in his family’s lean-to. He assured himself that the stress from his encounter with the jaguar was responsible for his lethargy and fell into a deep sleep.
He awoke suddenly when his mother shook him violently. “Yaotl!” she cried.
Yaotl opened his eyes.
“We must leave at once!” she exclaimed. “Your father saw an Aztec hunting party headed this way!”
As Yaotl got to his feet, he swooned.
“Hurry!” she screamed.
Yaotl fought off his dizziness as he followed her. Moving quickly in silence, his group came to an abrupt halt when a snapping twig sounded from behind them. Yaotl held his breath and squinted in the dark in a desperate attempt to make out shapes from where the sound had come. Something moved slightly.
“Run!” he yelled.
In his panic to get away, Yaotl’s foot grazed a vine that had been fashioned into a trip wire. One of his legs was instantly pulled out from under him, and he was catapulted upward. His terrified family looked back to see him hanging helplessly upside down. They could hear heavy footsteps closing in fast. The vine that had lassoed Yaotl’s ankle was too high for his family to cut him down. It would be secured to one of the nearby trees, but there was no time to locate it. Their fear of becoming Aztec sacrifices overtook them, and they fled.
*******
With his Vambir night vision, Dujot had watched as a group of natives ran away from him as he had emerged from semi-stasis. Ahead of him was a thin youth suspended in the air, attempting in vain to reach his lassoed ankle. Grabbing the youth’s hair, Dujot yanked his head back. As he was about to sink his teeth into his neck, an alarm from his bio-scanner rang out. Releasing the youth, he removed the scanner from his robe and read the warning.
CONTAGION!
DO NOT CONSUME!
Bending toward the youth, he sniffed, but his senses could detect nothing.
Leaving the helpless boy behind, the corners of Dujot’s mouth curled up into a smile as he disappeared into the jungle.
*******
The next day, Acalan was overjoyed to see the prisoners the Aztecs had brought back to White City. Walking up to Yaotl, he inspected the boy.
“He is of the same age and build as the divine Quetzalcoatl!” he said. “It is a good omen, and we will sacrifice him tonight at the coronation ceremony!”
Yaotl sank to his knees and vomited, and the Aztecs laughed at the sight — it was common for captives to become physically sick with fear. By the time the sun had gone down, the youth was unable to climb the steep stairs leading to the top of the temple. The Aztecs kicked him in the stomach and dragged him up by his hair. As blood dripped out of Yaotl’s eyes and ears, the officials standing at the top took no notice, assuming it was the result of the beating he had just received.
Four priests restrained Yaotl on the stone slab, and Acalan plunged the obsidian dagger into his chest. Blood gushed from the wound and splattered those nearby. When the heart was extracted, Acalan held it high for all to see, and the dripping blood was collected in bowls, with the first being offered to Kwetz.
Once Kwetz had partaken, he rose to acknowledge the cheers of the crowd.
Yaotl’s body was pitched down the stairs and hacked to pieces once it reached the
bottom. The decapitated head was hoisted aloft on a spear, and blood trickled down on those who paraded it around.
“Quetzalcoatl has taken his rightful place as our divine king!” proclaimed Acalan.
Kwetz slowly descended the stairs, maintaining an air of regal aloofness.
Safely concealed in a tree, Dujot had watched as Kwetz consumed the contaminated blood. He calculated that within thirty-six hours, the dying Aztecs would be powerless to stop him from reacquiring the stasis pods.
TRANSIT 2012
White City
Kevak’s scanner alerted him to the arrival of the cloaked lifeboat.
“We picked up a GPS reading,” said Tariq as soon as he had disembarked. “About five miles due west. It has to be Maz.”
“Were you able to obtain the samples with the required DNA marker?” asked Kevak.
Emanui nodded her head. “I found out that Native American populations have something called a ‘9-repeat variant’ that is absent in all other populations.”
“Father, did you find any more pictographs that depicted the Vambir?” asked J’Vor.
“No,” said Kevak. “If any answers exist, they’re in that cloaked chamber, waiting to be revealed at the Venus transit.”
*******
The day of the 2012 transit had come. As Maz paused for a sip of water, she caught a glimpse of the sacred black dot making its way across the sun.
We came so close in 2004…it will work this time!
Quetzalcoatl’s fate depended on her. If the contagion that had invaded his body could be defeated by the ebola antibodies in her blood, he would be released from his stasis prison. If not, then the chance to cure him would not come around again until 2117, and by that time there might not be anyone left who would possess the knowledge that she had acquired.
Removing the hand-held GPS from her pack, she briefly checked her position and heaved a sigh of relief when she learned she was less than a mile from White City. Right before sunset, Venus was still visible, and she bid it a final farewell. She had the rest of the night to revive and cure Quetzalcoatl with her blood.
It was becoming too dark to see, and when she stopped to remove the headlamp from her pack, something slithered near her feet. It was a snake with bands of yellow, black and red. She remembered the verse she had learned as a child to differentiate between the deadly Mayan coral snake and the harmless Mexican milk snake.
Red next to black is a friend of Jack, but red next to yellow can kill a fellow.
The snake was harmless, and she ignored it as she put her headlamp in place. Lifting her right arm to strike the overgrowth with the machete, she felt a razor-sharp bite in her shoulder. Quickly turning around, she was face to face with a yellow eyelash viper hanging from the tree directly behind her.
The strike to the back of her shoulder made it impossible for her to apply a tourniquet or attempt to suck out the poison.
“No!” she shrieked. Then she remembered that the eyelash viper had hemotoxic venom, which attacked the blood, and not neurotoxic venom, which attacked the nervous system.
Using the long machete, she crudely cut into the wound then tightly squeezed it. Bringing her hand to her mouth, she touched her tongue to it and tasted the bitterness.
Good! That means the poison is coming out!
She knew she wouldn’t be able to extract it all, and she had to get to Quetzalcoatl before the venom rendered her ebola-resistant blood toxic.
With the ferocity of someone possessed, she pressed through the rainforest toward her holy target.
*******
“The transit is over,” said Jasper. “Pocatello didn’t make it in time. We should try to enter using the blood samples we brought, and if that doesn’t work, we always have the lasdrills.”
“No,” said Kevak. “She is still moving toward White City. If it were too late, there would be no reason for her to continue. Besides, if Quetzalcoatl was a Vambir, it would make sense to wait until dark.”
*******
From inside the cloaked lifeboat, Kevak and the others watched as Maz breathlessly stumbled to the shielded entrance of Quetzalcoatl’s stasis chamber. Sinking to her knees, she cut into her hand with the machete blade. As she placed her bloody palm against the shield, she held her breath and waited.
Nothing happened.
She cut deeper into her other hand and tried again.
Nothing.
She had failed. The hemotoxic snake venom had made her blood unacceptable, despite having the required DNA marker, and there would not be another Venus transit in her lifetime. The venom would kill her in a few hours, and even if she could contact the authorities, help would not reach her in time. She turned her hand up, exposing the inside of her wrist, and prepared to make a deep cut with the machete.
“Stop, faithful servant,” said Kevak, who had silently exited the lifeboat and was standing behind her. “You have proven your devotion, now accept my assistance.”
Maz looked up unbelievingly at the being encased in a Hazmat suit. “Quetzalcoatl?” she asked.
“No,” answered Kevak. “He is my kinsman, and like you, I wish to help him. Tell me what to do.”
“Native blood is needed for entry,” said Maz. “Mine was corrupted with snake venom. Once inside, vain Chimalma must be fed first. Only then will her son be revealed.”
She was startled to see other figures in Hazmat suits walking toward her.
“Fear not,” said Kevak. “They are my servants.”
Tariq ran the bio-scanner over Maz. “She needs to be put in stasis. The lifeboat doesn’t have anti-venin.”
“You can do no more for him tonight,” said Kevak to Maz. “Permit your body to heal so that your blood will be compatible at a later time.”
As Maz allowed herself to be carried back to the lifeboat, Emanui brought the Native American blood packets to the shielded entrance. Using a piece of gauze to soak up a large amount, she pressed it against the invisible barrier, and it briefly flickered before deactivating.
When they entered the chamber, they did not see a stasis pod, as expected. Instead, there was a large alabaster sarcophagus with a carved female face.
“Chimalma,” said Kevak. “Pocatello said Chimalma must be fed first.”
As they moved closer to the sarcophagus, they could hear a faint humming and saw a small opening between the carved lips.
“Something beneath the sarcophagus is supplying power to it,” said Jasper.
“Pour a little of the blood through the opening,” said Kevak to Emanui.
They all watched as the blood dropped between the carved lips then disappeared through the tiny hole. Seconds later, loud screaming emanated from inside. The sarcophagus abruptly slid away, exposing the stasis pod that hidden beneath it. The pod lid opened and revealed a male Vambir, who was suffering from some type of hemorrhagic contagion. Black matter seeped from his eyes and ears, and his chest heaved up and down as he gasped for air.
Kevak spoke soothingly to the Vambir in their native language, assuring him that he was safe and would receive immediate treatment. While J’Vor and Tariq carried him back to the lifeboat, Kevak easily disabled the shielding program from inside the pod.
“You can now attempt to cut through the sarcophagus,” he said to Jasper.
Jasper’s laser-saw easily sliced through the obsidian cylinders that held the top in place.
“It should come off now,” he said to Kevak.
Standing behind the head and shoulders portion of the lid, they pushed until the body inside was revealed. It was a skeletal hybrid female that resembled a well-preserved mummy with its leathery brown skin.
“What happened to her?” asked Jasper.
“She’s been in semi-stasis all this time!” exclaimed Kevak as he waved his bio-scanner over her.
“But the time between the Venus pairings is over a century!” exclaimed Jasper.
“The pod beneath her was supplying a power source that made prolonged semi-stasis
possible,” said Kevak. “Quick, we must get her into a proper pod.”
*******
Left alone in the chamber, Emanui saw that not only were the walls covered in pictographs, but written records from Travelers had also been left over the centuries. After carefully removing and neatly stacking them, she carried them back to the lifeboat.
With all traces of Vambir depictions removed from White City, the lifeboat departed for Kozheozersky Monastery to rendezvous with Boris.
THE LOST COLONY
Roanoke Island, 1587
“It could be the English garrison,” said Governor John White as he inspected the scattered, sun-bleached bones in the clearing.
“We were told that fifteen soldiers were being left behind to meet us,” said Roger Bailey.
“Get to the fort,” said White.
Pushing through the woods, White’s group found the fort abandoned and the dwellings overgrown with melon vines.
“The structures are mostly intact,” said Manteo, chief of the Croatan tribe who had welcomed the first English explorers in 1584.
Travelling to England on two occasions, Manteo had returned to the island with Governor White and his colonists.
“Everyone back to the pinnace,” ordered White. “We must return to the Lion.”
As the pinnace approached the Lion, the Portuguese navigator, Simon Fernandez, called out to Governor White, “You must leave all settlers on the island! Summer is almost over, and the farmers must stay here to plant!”
“Navigator Swine!” yelled Bailey, calling Fernandez by his hated nickname. “This is mutiny!”
“You have no authority here!” insisted White to Fernandez. “I am the governor! Admit us onboard at once!”
“I will fire upon you if you attempt it,” Fernandez called back.
White and the colonists could do nothing as they watched Fernandez depart. Returning to the fort, they set about repairing the dwellings.
“Manteo,” said White, “see if you can find out what happened here.”
The Nosferatu Chronicles: The Aztec God Page 14