Mixamaxtla had nearly reached the apex of the dark pyramid where Gathelaus had cornered the Sorcerer. Tazcara wailed behind him in innumerable curses. Just inside the doorway to his black temple, the Sorcerer held the breech. His many wounds trickled and his blood mingled now with that of his victims, but he would not give up.
“Another one of my friends, welcome Mixamaxtla,” he said eyeing the white Tultecacan as he came up over the top. “Care to affix yourself on my sword?”
“You are broken; your vile city has fallen to the Alux. You are done, son of perdition,” said Mixamaxtla. This caused a strange look in the Sorcerer’s eyes but he did not stop thrusting and fighting with Gathelaus.
The grim Northman eyed him like a hungry wolf. “Your days are at their end. Throw down your sword and accept judgment.”
“Never,” said the Sorcerer.
Mixamaxtla brought his spear up. “Will you die to justify your vanities and lusts? Stop your madness, surrender to us.”
The Sorcerer King stilled his weapon and looked at Tazcara, still sobbing beside him as she held her broken hand, the square face of the war clubs blow deeply embedded into it. He lowered his sword and brought her in close, she was tall but he towered over her. Looking down into her dark eyes, he whispered something that looked like “I love you” to Gathelaus and Mixamaxtla. Then he said to them, “I fear nothing, not you or you, nor King Ixcoatl.”
“Do you not fear the spiritual death? You will be utterly unmade,” said Mixamaxtla.
“Yea, that I do. My only choice, as I have covenanted with my master, is to be victorious. To wipe the old priesthoods from off the earth. To destroy the children of Light, and Light himself if I can. No one man can stop us, I have seen it in my seer stone.” He pulled out the crystal skull. “We will be a flood of blood and fire and we will destroy the Northmen in due time. The gods of earth are stronger than the gods of the heavens. See how each moves men to do their own will and it is obvious whose followers are more dedicated. You are both strong and unusual, but how much greater could you be if you were on the winning side? I have not lost here today, I have only been set back a little. The flood of fire is coming, it will be.”
“You devil,” whispered Gathelaus.
“Oh yea, I am, now!” The Sorcerer thrust Tazcara from his arm with terrific force toward Gathelaus’s sword point. But the Northman was quick and turned the blade downward to avoid impaling the wicked woman. Mixamaxtla caught her and looked up just in time to see the Sorcerer disappear into the black temple.
“Master, why?” screamed Tazcara.
“I will return for you,” came the Sorcerer’s cavernous voice from the back of the temple. A heavy stone slammed down and all was silent again. A score of the Alux were now beside them.
“He is gone, he is gone,” wailed Tazcara.
“Hold her, careful she is a viper, she is dangerous,” said Gathelaus to the Alux. Venturing into the doorway, Mixamaxtla and Gathelaus looked into the heavy darkness. “Where could he have gone to?”
“There is a tunnel, stairs inside, he is gone,” she wept.
“We will see,” said Gathelaus. “Can any of you help me find the door?” One of the Alux nodded and, inside, felt for a draft near where the floor met the walls.
“It’s there, but too heavy, too heavy” said the little man, indicating a wide section of wall in the rear.
“Show me.”
“But it is too big, you will never open it without being on the other side, such things are always made for escape and cannot be opened on outside.”
Gathelaus and Mixamaxtla followed the little man past gruesome torture devices and dusty codexes of times past.
“Here,” said the Alux.
A slanted stone doorway held fast with a slightly different colored block of basalt stone. It was ornately carved with reliefs of serpents and jaguars in strange convoluted, impossible positions, juxtaposed with constellations and a man’s face with his tongue sticking out at them.
“Door swing up, not down or to the side, counterweight is inside, there is no way you can move it,” said the Alux.
“Ironic,” mused Mixamaxtla.
“No, it is a handhold.” Gathelaus grasped it in his left hand and strained mightily to pick the door up. “Mixamaxtla, help me.” The big Tultecacan threw his back into it and, hefting together, the massive stone door began to inch upwards. Once the door was a foot or more up Gathelaus called to the Alux, “Lem, get in there and see if you can find the counterweight.” The diminutive warrior held his spear at the ready and entered.
“I have it,” said Lem. The dwarf pulled the counterweight and the door swung the rest of the way up on its own. Gathelaus stepped past the doorway.
The gaping black tunnel defied them to enter. A foul reek blew into their faces. The pungent scent worse than anything Gathelaus had experienced in his time in the caverns previously. The Alux beside him suddenly cowered and made as if to flee.
“What is it?”
“We know that scent. It is Kama-Zotz.”
“Who the devil is that?”
“Not who,” answered Lem.
“What?”
“The Old Black God.”
Gathelaus rubbed at his chin. “That’s the one.”
“Who?” asked Niels.
“The final one we have to kill.”
The Old Black God
Gathelaus looked to Mixamaxtla who gritted his teeth and swallowed his fear. “I am with you even unto death. Let us pursue the sorcerer king and slay him, even if we die in the teeth of the old black god.”
“Someone tell me what this old black god is,” grated Gathelaus.
“Kama-Zotz,” answered Lem with a shaking of his head. “He has always ruled the dark and always will. He has no beginning and knows no end. He rules the realm of death and night.”
“And Cuauhtémoc?”
“He is but a servant beneath the great wings of Kama-Zotz.”
Gathelaus looked to Mixamaxtla, who simply nodded in agreement with the grim description.
“Let’s go kill him too.”
“I do not think we can slay the god of death. Perhaps we can slay his servant, Cuauhtémoc, but the old black god? Never.”
“I’ve already fought and slain several of the gods of this land. What’s one more?”
“Kama-Zotz is not like the others. He is eternal. He sleeps for years at a time, but when he comes forth the very sky quakes from the beat of his wings and the land is left desolate if his blood sacrifices are not met,” explained Mixamaxtla.
“So it has to have blood to live?”
“Of course.”
“If it needs blood to live, we can kill it.”
Mixmaxtla and Lem looked at him with mouths agape. He may as well have said he could pluck the sun from the sky and the moon from the heavens. Their eyes met before centering back upon Gathelaus.
“We will die with you in honor. For if this be our destiny, we will not run from it,” said Mixamaxtla somberly.
Gathelaus chewed his lip. “I’ve overcome everything this land has thrown at me. We’ll take down this thing too.”
They didn’t appear convinced, but neither did they flee, screaming from the gaping tunnel
“We all owe you our lives. We have lived upon borrowed time these last few days, thanks be to you. We shall now repay that debt with our blood, if this is what you choose, for you are our war -chief and have decided that we should meet our fate as brothers in the dark realm,” said Lem.
Gathelaus shook his head. “You guys have got to laugh sometimes. Let’s go,” he ordered, as he stalked into the cavern with his dripping red sword in one hand and a blazing hot torch in the other.
Winding steps led downward in an angle almost as steep as those that led to the top of the pyramid. But these twisted, serpentine, round about each other in a much more compact space. He was sure they had met ground level and had gone on lower, for soon the space about them bled moisture, similar enough
to the other underground caverns below the jungle surface.
Then they reached the bottom. A long tunnel loomed away from them with an arched roof, made by human hands.
“Who made this?” asked Gathelaus.
“My people, many moons ago, for the sorcerer kings of Tula,” said Lem.
“Do you know where it leads and what we shall find there?”
Lem shook his head. “I know my people made it, but none that went farther beyond these initial tunnel passages ever returned from their labors. It was believed that they became a sacrifice for Kama-Zotz.”
Gathelaus snarled an oath and started down the passage. The stone was worked and close fit, but roots and water had punctured the stone skin and worried at the uniformity. Here and there a small serpent or half-blind insect fled from their torchlight.
“Is there any other passage that Cuauhtémoc might have used to escape our pursuit?”
“None that I know of, for this passage was always said to be the road to the Old Black God and naught else. Only the sorcerer kings would use it and gain sacred knowledge and power in deference to the god.”
A league on down the passage, a dull roar met their ears and the men halted in terror.
“It is water, not a god,” said Gathelaus.
Soon they reached a spot where water fell in a torrent, disappearing into the stones beneath.
“Underground river?” asked Niels.
“It is impassable. We cannot go on to where we cannot see. What if we are to fall to our deaths into a watery abyss?” remarked Lem.
“If Cuauhtémoc is not here, he must have been able to pass through to the other side, so can we,” said Gathelaus. He gave his torch to Mixmaxtla and reached forth with his sword, testing the curtain of falling water. A great crack in the earth created the wall and Gathelaus, poking his head through, saw that it was only a pace wide. But for the dull glow of their torches on the other side of the waterfall he could see no more of the continuing tunnel. He leapt across and scanned the gloom. A foul reek hidden by the waterfall now filled his nostrils and he gagged. It was the pungent scent of rodents. He glanced about the dark and saw no sign of carrion or beast, but the scent was unmistakable.
Breaching the waterfall, he said, “Come on then, there are new obstacles to overcome.”
Lem shielded a torch with his poncho and light made its way through the cascading water and illuminated the far side. The three of them held their noses and blanched at the acrid smell.
“The legends say that Kama-Zotz is insatiable and foul. But I have never beheld such as this,” said Mixamaxtla.
“Has anyone ever seen Kama-Zotz?” Gathelaus asked.
“I did once when I was a boy,” said Mixamaxtla. “It was twilight, and a shape darker than the moonless night swept over the skies, blotting out the stars in his passage.”
Gathelaus snorted. “How do you know it was this old black god then?”
“If you were to see even his shadow, you would know. I felt the fear wash over me and I knew, like the spirits of my fathers whispered it to me and told me to stay indoors that night. We heard men scream the next farmstead over and the next day all of them were just gone, and their tapirs too. Just gone.”
Gathelaus frowned. “How big was it?”
“I don’t know. Very big.”
“As large as a horse?” asked Niels, trying to follow half of the conversation that he could understand.
“You have used that word several times. I don’t know what that is,” said Mixamaxtla.
“As large as a Coatl?”
Mixamaxtla shook his head. “Much bigger than that. Much bigger.” He looked at the tunnel passage, wide enough for five men to walk abreast of each other. “Perhaps this tunnel was made small enough so that if necessary the old black god could not follow the sorcerer kings of Tula back down it and they would be safe from his wrath.”
It seemed an awfully large tunnel to Gathelaus to be something made small enough to be safe from a godlike monster, but then much of the cultural ways of the Tultecacans were still lost on his own northern sensibilities. Their ideas of inexorable fate were as foreign to him as their tongue and their food. He would never worry over what the gods thought of him or what was required of him, he would make his own way, gods be damned.
“I respect the gods, but I don’t count on their help.”
“Maybe you should sometime,” lamented Mixamaxtla.
“Anything that breathes can be slain one way or another.”
Mixamaxtla seemed dubious of that but he followed as Gathelaus swung the torch about, taking in more of the gloomy scenery. The passage soon opened up into a great vaulted gallery. The ceiling of which was nearly lost to their weak torchlight. As big as an arena, the gallery echoed their footsteps. It was circular with only a few pillars of stone here and there to support the great roof above. A ring-like path as wide as the hallway ran around the full area, and here and there a dozen steps let down to a musty floor of pale earth. Bones were scattered about, but nothing looked fresh, all was ancient as dust. The walls themselves were an intricate work of art for the ages. Many men had spent years carving the walls herein, for the faces of an ancient people and of terrible beasts of gigantic stature covered the walls, though here and there where water had found its way in, there were stalactites and stalagmites meeting in pointed embrace and reflection. Dull moss and fungus covered sections of broken flagstones. A handful of pottery was scattered about, the ancient remains of grim offerings.
“We are within his sacred hall,” whispered Lem.
“I see nothing to denote a creature dwells here,” rebuked Gathelaus.
“A god,” corrected Lem.
“And where would a sorcerer hide?”
“There are many tunnels and hidden rooms from here on,” Mixamaxtla said with reservation.
“Then let us find and slay him, should an old black god get in my way, he will die too!”
This brought a murmur or trepidation from his companions, but Gathelaus wanted to steel them to the final conflict. He believed he would face and fight this black monstrosity, for Cuauhtémoc must have thought he could find refuge with such a being here.
“Face me, old black god, if you dare!” shouted Gathelaus, as he scanned the far dark reaches.
A tsking from beyond the shadows answered him. “You do not realize the folly of what you ask,” came Cuauhtémoc’s voice.
“Show yourself, dog, and I’ll end your treachery forever!”
A great rustling of leather wings and a vibrant screech answered before the sorcerer could reply. It echoed off the walls, thoroughly disorienting to all who heard it. The sound bounced back and forth, and none could tell from which direction it had originated.
Lem and the other Alux fell to their knees in petrified terror. Mixamaxtla wheeled, scanning the roof of the cavern.
“I said I would die with you brother, but if we run back to the tunnel, maybe we can escape this fate,” Mixamaxtla urged.
“No fate but what we make,” growled Gathelaus, turning about and watching for an attack.
“We are making this.”
“The old black god will finish you, and then I will open his doorway and he will devour your traitorous friends outside in my city as well. But I will let him sup upon you first!” cried Cuauhtémoc, his voice echoing, yet his presence still hidden in the vast darkness.
A great wind blasted from high above and Lem screamed in horror as it snuffed out three of their four torches.
Shining black claws swept from above and Gathelaus swung his sword, batting aside the powerful clutch. Beating wings struck Mixamaxtla and sent him reeling away.
The last flickering torch illuminated a nightmare—the matted black fur and the long whipping tail of a hideously gigantic bat. It was bigger than a coatl, bigger than an ox, and its flapping wingspan might have stretched out as long as a galleon’s length. Its mouth, bristling with needle sharp teeth, snapped ravenously at him. Vile ichor from thos
e jaws slapped across his bare thigh and burned like acid. Pale white eyes caught the dim light of the torch but seemed unimpeded by either the dark, light, or any quick movement Gathelaus made. Perhaps it was blind?
It was nimble though. A clawed foot reached, and he barely slashed it away with his sword before its jaws snapped forward. Gathelaus batted its snout away with his pommel, drawing blood from the nose. It cried out, the winds roared, and it quickly rose back into the air and vanished into the unseen heights. The last torch sputtered as the flames barely clung to the resin-soaked wood.
“We’re doomed,” wailed Lem.
Mixamaxtla lay unconscious where he’d been knocked aside.
“Shake him,” Gathelaus said, as he scanned the gloom.
A raucous screech sounded from the depths and echoed across the gallery.
Mixamaxtla groggily got to his knees and stumbled forward.
Another piercing cry enveloped them.
The party froze, glancing each way for the looming threat. A gust of wind gave grim warning and they dropped and rolled to the edge of the circular pavilion just as grasping claws scraped the ground and caught the Alux beside Lem. The little man screamed for half a second, the old black god’s mouth snapped over his head, silencing him forever.
“Put out the torch. It signals where we are,” said Mixamaxtla.
“No, then we would be as blind as it is. It only sees with its ears,” said Gathelaus. “We have to blind it that way.”
Another deafening shriek of the bat god thundered over the grand gallery.
“How can we do that?”
“We make as much damn noise as we can,” ordered Gathelaus. He took a stone at his feet and cast it far to bounce off the carved limestone walls and roll even farther. As it cracked loudly against the walls and rolled, the great dark shadow of the black god whisked downward and snatched at nothing. It screeched in rage and lifted back up into the gloom above.
“For an alien, you have good ideas,” grumbled Mixamaxtla, taking a handful of stones and tossing them in opposite directions. Lem did the same, though he could not throw nearly as far.
FIERCE: A Heroic Fantasy Adventure (BRUTAL TRILOGY Book 2) Page 29