by Stargate
Merry Christmas.
A plume of gray ash boiled out of Popocatepetl. Moments later, the noise reached them and a deep shudder rolled underfoot. Then a light peppering hit their canopy. Tiny pebbles fell to the ground, joining others already there. A disturbing moan flowed across the crowd. Sam wanted to ask Dabruzzi what the spongy-looking stones were, but he was staring at his instrument. The volcanologist was still an unhealthy shade of porcelain. Sam wasn't sure if it was because of the readings he was getting, the blinding sense of panic set up by the subliminal harmonics, or the gothic horror they had walked into.
Teal'c called out in the powerful voice of an orator, "Quetzalcoatl has come to lead those who would follow him to Omeyocan!"
The crowd shifted slightly, collectively indecisive.
"Raise your eyes so that you may see." Daniel pointed to Popocatepetl, and then gestured to the mountains surrounding the valley. Despite the haze there was no mistaking it; at least three more mountains were belching thick smoke. "Oc ye nechca," Daniel continued. "Once upon a time, Tlaloc, the god of rain, sent to you the gift of life. But the tlaloque spirits have become angered. Two weeks ago they sent fire sticks to burst open the floating water skins in the First Heaven. Then Tonatui in his rage turned his face from the world and the tlaloque spirits made the water hard and cold, like rocks. Now Mictlantecuhtli, god of the Underworld, sends his spirits to rain fire-rocks upon you, as he shakes in anger beneath your feet, tearing the world asunder. Meztli, the great world in the sky, has cast you from his breast. This time, he will not call you back!"
Popocatepetl chose that moment to belch another cloud of ash into the churning sky. "No amount of blood," Daniel continued. "Not the hearts of a million xochimiqui will change the tonali, the fate of this world, for the gods will do battle one last time, and only those amongst you who renounce them will know the promise of Quetzalcoatl!"
Daniel began to walk, a signal for them to move out. The crowds parted and the noise of conversation, desperate and argumentative, increased in tempo. The Marines dressed as eagle warriors climbed the steps out of the Citadel, leading them on the long walk up the Avenue of the Dead. The fire priests scurried ahead and took up point. They were not about to pass up an opportunity for self-aggrandizement.
Word spread quickly. Quetzalcoatl's arrival confirmed that this indeed was the end of the fifth and final world. Each man must now choose his tonali, his fate in the world of the dead. Until Quetzalcoatl confronted Tzcatlipoca, many would rush to the pyramids dedicated to the hundred other gods. Here they would demand to die at the hands of the fire priests, their hearts offered to a lesser god as payment so that they might enter one of the lower realms of Omeyocan. Even more would beg to be sacrificed on the apexes of the Pyramid of the Moon and the Pyramid of the Sun. They believed this would ensure their entry to Tezcatlipoca's or Tonatui's Omeyocan - conditional on one of them winning the coming battle. Or they could heed Daniel's words; that only those who forswore all other gods but Quetzalcoatl and abandoned the bloody rituals of sacrifice, would be saved.
Long lines of men, barefoot and dressed in simple white maxtlatls, stood on the steps of the smaller ziggurats like kids waiting for a carnival ride. They weren't going to risk their modest place in a lower heaven by gambling with their soul and backing one of the bigger gods.
Down in the Avenue, thousands of men and women, peasants and nobles alike, laughed and danced, intoxicated by religious ecstasy. Lines of people churned in and out, moving to the sounds of some unheard rhythm. Sam felt like she'd been thrust into a nightmare Mardi Gras. "Why aren't women queuing to be sacrificed?" she whispered to Daniel.
"Women can't enter Omeyocan unless they die in childbirth."
An absurdly relieved anger rippled through Sam. That cruel chauvinism might keep the women alive long enough to be evacuated to the new world; one where any new belief structure would include a Heaven open to all.
It also made her promise to Two-water seem that much more poignant.
The rain of spongy pebbles increased. "What is that stuff?" the Colonel asked Dabruzzi.
The volcanologist's frown deepened. "It's pumice, a frothy dacite rock. Imagine shaking a soda bottle then freezing the bubbles as they shoot out. It's small stuff, but along with this ash," he motioned to the soft rain of gray flakes, "enough of it can bury a city."
Sam looked up at Popocatepetl. Her instincts demanded that she turn and run from its brooding, malignant presence, but she stared at it determinedly. Fear had never interfered with her reasoning before; she wasn't about to let it do so now.
Beside her, O'Neill's face bore an intense look of concentration, and his nostrils quivered. "Son of a..." His fractured voice was a warning. Above the stench of hydrogen sulfide gas and coppery blood was an enticing smell, like roasting flesh. But according to Daniel, these people didn't have cows or pigs and rarely ate meat. Instead they harvested frogs and tadpoles, and snacked on cicadas. Which meant they were cooking and eating...
Teal'c's back stiffened. The Marines gripped the frame of the canopy until their knuckles where white. Dabruzzi moaned softly and Daniel suppressed a gag. The festive images fell away, exposing the true horror beneath. "Oh, God," Sam whispered. Chaotic ill-formed memories surfaced. The desire of the Hunt, the madness of Artemis, flooded her senses.
The Colonel's voice pulled her back from the waking nightmare. Again. "Carter."
"I'm fine, sir." Her voice was soft and sibilant, like the delicate rain of ash and cinders.
"I'm not," Daniel whispered.
"Me neither." Dabruzzi sounded ill.
There were squabbles in the sacrificial lines, people pushing and shoving, anxious to enter Omeyocan before the gods did battle, or before the world ended - soon, if the increasing intensity of quakes was any indication.
Concentrate on the plan. Sure, she could do that. Find Wodeski; publicly depose him and then they could put a halt to this dark rapture of a world gone horribly insane.
"This is just day three," Daniel reminded them. "They did this every fifty-two years for six straight days."
"And they all..." Sam stopped. She knew the answer. They all ate, even children like Two-water. For a brief, manic moment she wanted to abandon the Xalotcans to their fate. But they were just as much victims as any others that the Goa'uld had enslaved. She clung to her sanity by focusing solely on the job at hand. Right now, that meant constantly reevaluating their position, noting the regularity of the intersections, examining the side roads and taller buildings for possible strategic withdrawal and defensible locations. Daniel's observations were different but equally important; they focused on people.
"The fire priests are each dedicated to a particular god. These guys," Daniel eyed the priests in front, "the ones in the temple when we arrived, are Tzcatlipoca's, dressed up in their Nemontemi finest."
"And that means?" O'Neill demanded softly.
"Sunday best."
"And that means?" the Colonel repeated.
"The bodies in the cavern were priests dedicated to Quetzalcoatl. They probably tried to stop these fire priests from sacrificing anyone to...you." Daniel lowered his voice. "Remember how Sergeant Welch thought Quetzalcoatl's return caused the end of the world? Coatlicue encouraged these people to think the same thing. That's why the fire priests loyal to Tzcatlipoca sent sacrifices to the `gate for Quetzalcoatl. They hoped it would stop you from coming."
"But they told everyone to bow to Quetzalcoatl," said Sam.
"Doesn't mean squat." The Colonel's eyes scoured the buildings lining the streets, alert for an ambush. "Obsequiousness is a survival trait."
The crowds wove around them like flocks of noisy parrots - or perhaps, vultures. Daniel glanced back and said, "On Earth, on the last night of Nemontemi, after the mortal form of Tzcatlipoca had a fire kindled in his chest, the priests waited until they could see the Pleiades before declaring their world safe for another fiftytwo years. Then everyone returned to their villages with the new fire, a
nd the cycle of birth and death began again. Here, the fire priests most likely deduce Xalotcan's position relative to their orbit around Meztli."
Sam looked up. "By tomorrow night they'll see that it's continuing to decay."
They passed another intersection, one hundred and eighty seven feet after the previous one, exactly the same distance from the intersection prior to that; another reminder of the meticulous town planning. But not by these people, who had slaughtered the original inhabitants in the name of their Goa'uld gods.
"By tomorrow they won't be seeing anything," said Dabruzzi. "These ash clouds are going to get a whole lot worse."
Perhaps it was her imagination, but the putrid gasses and sense of malevolence coming from the volcano seemed to grow worse. A pack of Chihuahuas snarled at one another like angry rats, not because of the lack of food, but because of the thing that tore at the edges of their psyches, demanding that they run howling in mindless terror from this ineluctable reality.
Dabruzzi made some morbidly flippant comment, and O'Neill said, "That was in bad taste."
Daniel's nose wrinkled. "That was in bad taste, Jack."
"That's what I said!"
The Colonel and Daniel continued one of their unique and seemingly pointless word plays, but Sam was oddly grateful; it distracted her from things that pounded at the edges of her memory, demanding to run free, as Artemis had demanded she run free.
"How long are these soundless sound waves going to keep transmitting the heebie jeebies?" the Colonel asked Dabruzzi.
"Not long, now."
"Good." Daniel's voice was stiff; he was rigidly fighting to maintain control. Sam wondered if he was beset by the same memories that plagued her.
"Not good. The seismic waves are intensifying, and the frequency is increasing." Dabruzzi's eyes were glued to his sensor, focused on events that could be measured and understood.
O'Neill's eyes flickered. "And that's bad because...?"
"Popo is about to erupt."
"About? Can you be a little more specific?"
"An hour, a day, but when she goes we should be safe, at least for a while." Dabruzzi gestured to the hills behind the Temple of the Moon. "There's a series of ridge lines and the Stargate valley between us and the volcano."
"I feel so much better," O'Neill said under his breath.
They arrived at the base of the Pyramid of the Sun. Two rows of men, all young and fit, stood either side of the river of blood that oozed down the steps. Daniel tried to keep walking, but the crowds closed in ahead of them, expectant. The fire priests stopped and looked up. "Tzcatlipoca!" they called in unison, pointing to the top.
"Cat Lips?" said the Colonel, following their gaze. "I thought this was Tonto's place?"
"You mean Tonatui."
"That's what I said."
Sam looked up. It was hard to see around the quetzal canopy over their heads, to the top of the Pyramid of the Sun. "The Goa'uld Tzcatlipoca, or Wodeski?"
Daniel's expression soured. "The fire priests have already identified Wodeski as Tzcatlipoca. The professor doesn't know the Goa'uld are real, so he must be claiming dominion over both the sun - Tonatui - and Meztli."
"So what?" prompted the Colonel.
"Deposing Wodeski will give you immediate dominion over both Tonatui and Tzcatlipoca's followers. That will convert the rest of the population."
Daniel began to climb the pyramid, seemingly oblivious to the foul puddles that sucked at his sandaled feet. Clouds of displaced flies buzzed in the air. "This is it," he added in a low voice. "It's a one-way journey up here for all but the guards and fire priests."
Eagle warriors stood in clusters on the steps, making no move to stop them. In the near distance on the Pyramid of the Moon, they could see jaguar warriors guarding more queues of sacrificial victims.
Leaving the noise of the crowded streets behind, they climbed the over-large steps. At each level the silence grew more telling until the entire world seemed to be holding its collective breath. Even Popocatepetl had gone ominously quiet.
It would have been hard going in the ratified atmosphere, but Daniel had warned them to take their time. Their slow progress meant that people throughout the city would continue to die at the hands of the fire priests, but it was imperative that they maintained the illusion of confidence and regality.
When they neared the apex, a lone voice called from the top, ` Ayya pocheoa!"
"Wodeski." Daniel's voice was flat with anger.
"What did he say?" O'Neill asked.
"Fart."
"As in...?"
"Flatulence."
"Well, that's not...nice." The Colonel's fingers slowly curled into a fist.
From above, Wodeski screamed, "Kill them. Kill them all!"
Sam tensed. Nobody moved except them. Even the flies had stopped buzzing them.
Daniel reached the last step. "Don't be a fool, Professor. Everyone knows this is between you and Quetzalcoatl."
His eyes red with gloating and madness, Wodeski's screeched, "Mine! It's mine, not yours!
"Your what?" Daniel walked onto the tennis-court sized apex of the Pyramid of the Sun.
At the rear of the platform was an elaborate wooden temple. Fire priests stood at the entrance, staring at them in hungry anticipation. Sam's eyes were drawn to the globs of blood clustered like sores on Wodeski's unshaven cheeks.
"You're insane," Daniel whispered. The Colonel stepped up beside him.
Wodeski laughed shrilly. Behind her, Sam heard Dabruzzi's muffled grunt. The professor's gums and lips were also bloodied. Her vision tunneled and she began to sway. Artemis had tried to twist her mind the same way. She remembered, felt the desire to eat -
Far below, the tiny dogs cut through the silence with shrill howls of terror.
Then all at once, it stopped. And something in her mind snapped.
The veil of madness that had tried to claim her, vanished, and a calming boost of adrenaline washed away the strange fugue. She noticed the same subtle alteration in the others. The weird seismic waves must have stopped. That meant -
"Professor," Daniel's voice was deceptively composed.
"Tzcatlipocaf' Wodeski's eyes bugged in rage.
O'Neill's face said it all. This was bullshit, and they were wasting time. He rotated slightly, to maximize the momentum behind his punch. When his fist hit Wodeski's jaw, blood sprayed out of the professor's mouth and his head snapped around hard enough to send him staggering backwards into the temple wall. He collapsed against it in a heap.
"Right, Daniel. Caves?" The Colonel dropped his hand and flexed his fingers.
From the fire priests came a desolate keening that extended across the Avenue. They raised their obsidian and chalcedony knives and then threw themselves at the Colonel. The madness in them obviously was a little more deep-seated.
Daniel fielded the first priest, losing his sunshade in the process. The Colonel took out a second with a simple parry followed by a solid, fleshy punch. Teal'c ducked and turned, tossing a third over the side of the Pyramid. The fire priest's cry was cut off as he hit head first, his neck audibly cracking. The last one made the mistake of going for Sam, who disarmed him and shoved him face down into the sticky pool at her feet. The Marines secured the rest of the platform by firing a couple of short bursts from their P90s into the stone steps. Fragmented chips of rock scattered the sacrificial wannabes and eagle warriors.
Daniel looked out across the vast city. "Oh, my..."
Sam's eyes followed. "Wow." Now that her senses belonged exclusively to her again, she could appreciate the scale of Teotihuacan. Daniel had shown them artist's impressions of this, the City of the Gods, in its halcyon days. Except for the low, glowering sky, the reality was more detailed and less perfect, and infinitely more magnificent.
Beyond the city, the valley spread for miles in every direction. To the east was the capital city, Xalo, where she and the Colonel had taken the children just days before. It wasn't visible through the
ash-filled air, but she could just make out the lake and causeway. Sam had to remind herself that both cities sat within a caldera. The explosion that had formed the crater must have been on the same scale as the eruptions that had ripped Netu apart.
A commotion below caught her attention. Hundreds of thousands of people lined the Avenue and side streets and swarmed over the smaller pyramids. The largest gathering, Quetzalcoatl's followers, were directly below them at the base of the Pyramid of the Sun. A procession of people, mostly well dressed but many in simple peasant's clothes, emerged from beneath the Pyramid of the Moon. Leading them was a particularly magnificent jaguar warrior. "Sir?" said Sam.
"Quetz, Carter."
"It's Atlatl and the children!"
The Colonel turned around to look. A brief smile crept across his face.
Daniel called out loudly, "Tzcatlipoca is vanquished. Let Quetzalcoatl lead you to Omeyocan!"
Sam wasn't sure how far Daniel's voice carried, but a ripple went through the crowd. Then it became a visible wave as people down the length of the Avenue turned to face the Pyramid of the Sun. The cry went up across the city; Tzcatlipoca had been vanquished.
"Daniel!" the Colonel reminded him. "The cave out of here?"
"Oh...right. What about the professor, we can't just leave him here?"
"More's the pity," muttered Dabruzzi.
"I will carry him," Teal'c said.
He hoisted the professor onto his shoulder like a trophy. The fire priest whom Sam had been restraining curled into a fetal ball and began to weep. He was no longer a danger to anyone; his world had ended with the victory of Quetzalcoatl over Tzcatlipoca.
They reached the bottom of the Pyramid of the Sun the same time as Atlatl's army of children and warriors arrived. Around them, the crowds were crouched in supplication, chanting, "Quetzalcoatl, Quetzalcoatl!"
Atlatl met them with a deep bow. His smile faltered when the ground beneath their feet began to tremble. Then everything began shaking violently. A ringing and wrenching sound filled the air. This time, there was nothing subliminal about it. Dabruzzi scrambled for his sensor.