The Rings of Poseidon

by Mike Crowson

  Chapter 14

  It was a strange feeling, not being able to move. I could see and hear and I was aware. The drug hadn't affected my senses, but muscles were frozen. My reflexes also seemed only partly affected. I had no trouble breathing and I could blink, but my vision was limited by what I could see from where I was lying. I couldn't move my head at all, even when the marble slab beneath me felt hard and hurt the back of my skull.

  I knew, of course, that I was going to die. I knew well enough that was what happened to a sacrifice. The irony of the situation did not escape me - I really did disapprove of human sacrifice before I knew I was going to suffer that fate myself. I think everyone knew that sacrifice had been introduced and become more common in recent years but, until I was sworn into the temple as a novice training for initiation I hadn't realised how widespread and commonplace the ritual slaughter of humans had become.

  I was about ten years old when I entered the temple and became a virgin in the service of Poseidon. My parents brought me to the great gates of the temple of service but were allowed no further. My father was a craftsman, a worker in metals. If he had given money or land to the temple they might have given him the time of day. Even then I'm not sure they would have let him in. As it was, to have his daughter enter was a great honour.

  I don't think I knew at all what I was promising when I took the oath. Loyalty to the cult; obedience to the high priest as representative of the God Poseidon; to remain a virgin and so on. I didn't even know then what a virgin was.

  Training was uninspiring. Much of what was the duty of the girls and women was no more than housekeeping. The older ones muttered that it had not always been so when they thought no one in authority was listening. I gathered that things had once been much more equal and that all had changed in the lifetime of this one high priest. When we did spend some time in religious studies I had more than once objected to the regular throwing of children into the fire-lake of Mount Atlas and I asked why every ceremony for every high festival seemed to need its young woman; every ship or building its young man. I should not have questioned or argued.

  By the time I was fifteen or so I began to feel that the whole thing was getting seriously out of hand and a light of wanton fanaticism was beginning to gleam in the eyes of the priesthood. I said as much on a number of occasions. Unfortunately.

  I knew, as an initiate with more than five years in the service of the God, that all the cycles were going to be complete on the same day at the same time, even the red one and the slow one. We were told, though everybody knew anyway, that the completion of the old age would usher in a new age. The priests had been building a new temple on the centre island, to be dedicated to their god Poseidon on completion of the cycles. A boat would take six priests to rule six other new temples. The first two were over the short crossing, two more were somewhere the other way, across the true ocean, and the remaining two were on the island itself, I know nothing of where.

  The high priest summoned me. A young priest came to the door of my room and told me, curtly, to follow him. His face wore a kind of sneer. I don't know whether it was an expression he couldn't help or one which reflected his nature, but I didn't like it at all. He led me along tiled hallways, plain at first and then delicately decorated and very beautiful. The windows of the room were filled with a fine tracery that looked like stone, with enough open areas to let the light stream in; the walls were tiled lower down and patterned in relief higher up and the ornate carved roof was gilded in orichalcum. The whole effect was of a richness more fitting to a room in the royal palace than a room in a temple. The furnishings were mainly a number of couches around the walls and a chair. All had feet and arms carved from the same dark wood.

  The sneering young priest snapped, "Wait," and swept out of the room without looking back and I stood alone, looking around. I temember thinking it was a beautiful room - I wish I could say the same about the cult.

  The high priest was a little man. He moved soundlessly in white robes and a truly evil aura. I could feel the coldness and heartlessness run over me like a physical chill. This was the first time I had seen him close to and found him a reasonably pleasant looking man of early middle age with very piercing eyes and an immovability of purpose that left me chilled to the core.

  "Ah. I have heard reports about you Chimú. I hear that you feel there are too many human sacrifices." I didn't answer. "There will be many major rituals for the ending of the cycles and I don't entirely like the idea of any discordant voices spreading the idea that the celebrations are too costly." He seemed a little tetchy in his manner.

  I had said nothing about costs. Indeed, I knew nothing about costs. The high priest continued, "No indeed. I don't want to hear insinuations that too many lives are given to our god. One way of being sure that such ideas are not widespread is to give him those who spread such sedition. To die for Poseidon is a great honour, you know. So prepare your soul. We will prepare your body when the time comes."

  He turned and glided soundlessly from the room, dragging his cold, cold aura after him.

  So that was to be my fate. I had to admit there was a logic to his reasoning. If he rid himself of his more outspoken opponents at the coming festival he would be more secure, at least in the short term.

  I stood for a minute alone in the room, then two armed men - they looked like soldiers but only priests were allowed in the temple - entered behind me, seized me by the arms and without a word, led me away. We went back along the passageway, but turned left and went down a spiral staircase. It was too narrow for my guards to walk alongside me, so they walked one in front one behind down the steps. There were no windows but the way was lit by small lamps in niches, copper lamps with tiny wicks burning the oil of some vegetable or fat of some animal. The passage was plain but it was clean and dry. The room they left me in was windowless but it too was clean and dry.

  Except that the door was locked and there were no windows it was a reasonable room. The bed was comfortable, the food and drink were good, and there was a table and a chair. I had what I needed in life, except the prospect of life itself.

  In times past the old priest kings and priestess queens had ruled the island firmly but moderately for eons. The sun's disc had been worshipped as a symbol of light and Mother Earth had been worshipped as a symbol of fertility. The only blood spilled in the name of the goddess was the virgin blood of fertility ceremonies to encourage crops to grow and animals to breed. But I was not destined to be mated in such a ceremony of love and hope. In my case my still beating heart was shortly to be torn from me - and I was supposed to be grateful for the honour.

  It occurred to me that, although I couldn't move to prevent it, I might well feel the moment of sacrifice. I was aware of everything; I could see and hear and feel. I was thirsty and chilly on this stone slab with no clothes on and no source of warmth. I was also a little embarrassed, but there was nothing I could do about of any of these things.

  The hall was large and circular. I couldn't see that from here either, of course, but I had watched it being built, so I knew it was a large building supported by two circles of pillars.

  There was a flourish of wind instruments and the procession began its approach. The floor must have been marked with some sort of mosaic pattern of lines because the procession moved around at the edge of my sight like an elaborate dance. I wished I could see what was going on. I wished I could move and ease the pain in my skull.

  I don't know whether it was the pain in my head or the wishing, but there was a firm 'click' and I was looking down on myself and the proceedings. We'd used drugs to produce out-of-the-body experiences and I'd tried it many times before but this was the first time I'd been able to get out unaided. Or perhaps it was the drug this time too.

  I was right about the mosaic and the appearance of a ritual dance. There were seven enormous concentric circles on the floor, with four lines leading to the centre circle, in which were seven young women to be sacrificed. One o
f the women was me, of course: I wondered what had qualified the other six for this 'honour'. The outline of the temple floor was like a map of the city really, with black mosaic paths representing the canals on a turquoise green mosaic floor. Though my body lay below me, I viewed the whole business with a sort of detached interest at this stage.

  The procession wound round the outer circle and left behind a circle of those dedicated to become priestesses holding lighted candles. The elaborate ritual group went up one of the paths to the second circle, where they left behind a circle of young men, thurifers with incense burners to swing, and little boys to hold the incense. The smoke and scent of copal rose in the air and filled the temple.

  Those who were left behind to form the third circle held banners on spears, each with a design similar to the mosaic on the floor, which seemed again to be a representation of the layout of canals in the city. In the fourth circle stood six priests and in the fifth stood stone altars with burning charcoal but no incense. Past these the high priest went alone to the sixth circle and up to the seventh. There he turned and faced those who watched and waited.

  He was that same tetchy little man with greying hair, a dull, cold and evil aura and a manner that now seemed brusque to the point of arrogance, which it may well have been. He stepped onto the higher level of the seventh circle, turned and spoke in ringing, vibrating, powerful tones.

  "As the cycles of the skies comes to an end and a new age begins, so a new age dawns here below. We will sweep away the cobwebs of the old, the decrepit, the weak and bring in the new, the fresh, the strong. It will be an age of our god, Poseidon, with rituals of power. The days of the Goddess brought life and enabled us to grow and mature, but those days are done now. We will sweep away the old with glory, vitality and strength."

  What he really meant was cruelty, ruthlessness and arrogant thoughtlessness - all the coldness of spirit I had felt in his aura - but I was hardly in a position to say so.

  "I place a ring on each of the victims."

  He went around the six in turn with a carved wooden box from which he took a plain ring and laid it on the chest of each young woman. When it came to me he placed a much more elaborate ring between my breasts, his face expressionless but his eyes smiling evilly. He put the carved box on a small, round, marble altar at the exact middle of the temple and took a talisman from an identical box already there. He positioned the talisman with the seventh ring - on me!

  He ordered in ringing tones, "Each one of you will take your ring when you ascend to power and rule your territory from your temple. I will rule you six from this temple with this seventh ring and this talisman, which I will wear when the sixth ring is adopted. Ux-atl!"

  At his word of command a priest stepped forward and went to the head of the nearest woman. He produced a metal dagger with bronze blade polished to a deadly sharpness and a gold hilt in the shape of a monstrous scaly leg with evil claws which he placed on her stomach, while he took up from beside the stone slab on which the victim lay, a mask of beaten metal in the shape of a sea monster. He put on the mask and then took up the dagger and held it aloft.

  He said, "In the name of the god Poseidon I dedicate this ring to the service of power and the rule of the people," and with the dagger sliced downwards a long cut close to her left breast and then cut left and tore back the flesh.

  I felt his sacrificial victim scream a silent scream of pain and horror as he reached in and took her beating heart. The heart he flung onto one of the altars and sickening smoke arose. His arms still bloody he took up the ring, brought it to the high priest and put it in the box which had been picked up from the altar and was held out to him. Then Ux-atl returned to his place on the fourth circle.

  The ritual was repeated exactly, six times in all, by each priest in turn. The high priest closed the box, picked up the talisman and put it back in its box on the altar.

  "Go to the ship and sail to take up your positions. Rule in the name of Poseidon and in accordance with my instructions. Tagg-Andes!"

  One of the priests stepped forward to the altar and stood before the box. The high priest, who was still facing the other way, continued, "It will be a glorious day when all six temples rule the empire and word of Poseidon rules all,"

  He did not see Tagg-Andes take the talisman from its box and put it with the rings. Nobody saw but me and I wondered why. Tagg-Andes was not an ambitious man, he was too old. Perhaps therein lay a clue. Perhaps he was old enough to remember the old order and oppose the new. In any event he led the five other priests along the mosaic path from the temple, while the high priest waited until they had gone.

  The high priest turned towards me and put on a mask, similar to the ones worn by the other priests but more elaborate and studded with stones. It was an impressive sight, with circles of people, the smoke and scent of incense rising - I was not impressed because the heavy hand of death was imminent but I was more appalled by the words of the high priest and the kind of world he planned.

  It may have been thinking about the imminence of my death that did it, but there was another firm 'click' and I was back in my body again. I could see the high priest in his mask; I couldn't see his face but I could see his eyes, glittering with the fire of fanaticism and I shall never forget those eyes if I live for a million cycles of our sun. But I will never see even a single cycle of our sun. Death awaits me soon. The last thing I will see is those eyes - cold, ruthless, evil and with an icy light: an unconsuming, all consuming fire. Those eyes, glittering. Those eyes. Eyes.