by Vic Connor
Skill Unlocked!
Taunts: Cabin Boy
We keep at it, Abe slashing, me hurling curses and taunts at the trees. Uitzli smiles coyly as she grabs my left arm, Juanita’s bees buzz back and forth as they report to the witch about our surroundings, and the samurai watches our backs while, bit by bit, bite after bite, the pirate’s cutlass chews through the jungle.
Of the four miles to the hills, only the first one passes through truly thick forest. Trunks and branches become thinner and sparser as the muddy soil gives way to increasingly rocky ground; there’s a gentle upward slope, too, and the air becomes drier and cooler. During the last couple of miles, the vegetation grows straggly enough that we can push forward at a good pace.
The sun is still high in the afternoon sky when we reach the foot of a knoll that, like a guardian or a sentinel, stands on the outer perimeter of the clump of hills.
“So, my child … what are we looking for?”
“To be honest, I have no clue.” I struggle to a sitting position on the rocky ground, where I can stretch out my bound legs and unfold Father’s map. “We left the Northern road more or less here,” I point out, my finger tracing the journey we’ve made over the last few hours. “And, assuming the map is accurate—” I put my finger on the northernmost knoll “—this is where we are now. And all I can remember is that there’s something here.” I tap on the sawed-off hill which, according to the map, should be to our south. “I don’t think Father ever told me what, exactly, only where.” I look up at Abe. “He was murdered in cold blood before he could share anything else with me.”
The pirate looks away.
Juanita closes her eyes, as if striving to discern some faraway sound, and mumbles a few words in the ancient language she shares with Uitzli. Our little sister loosens the cloths that shield her pearly skin from the sun and listens intently, too.
“Faint, subtle traces of ancient power come from that direction,” Juanita tells us, eyes closed, a finger raised in the direction the map says the sawed-off hill should be. “The muffled sighs and whispers of ghosts and foreign gods who were ancient before Smoking Mirror was young. Barely, but I can hear them myself, and so does Uitzli.” She opens her eyes. “I have never heard whispers such as these before, young Jake. They are not from this land, I believe. But there is something in that direction, I have no doubt.”
I fold the map, grab my clutches, and climb to my bound feet. “What be yer nose sayin’, Abe?”
Air rushes into the pirate’s lungs. He waves in the same direction as Juanita. “Thems dark storm clouds be that way, lad,” he confirms, a grim frown on his brow. “Dark as ‘em seven deadly sins, thems be.”
I glance at the Noh mask. It tilts forward as Miyu brings the naginata to a horizontal position and holds it with both hands.
I make sure my own weapons are ready. “Looks like yer cutlass ain’t havin’ no rest just yet, Abe me mate. Juanita, tell your bees to see what kind of flowers bloom to the south, please.”
I feel a soft, pleasant tingle on my left arm: Uitzli’s hands irradiate a soothing, reassuring warmth as she flashes her pearly smile at me.
We circle the first knoll and make our way southward. The rocky ground, all loose stones and pebbles, isn’t easy to navigate for my crutches or for Uitzli’s short-sighted eyes, but we soon leave the first line of hills behind and follow the narrow valley between them.
“They grow louder,” Juanita announces, stopping to listen with her eyes closed. “Still faint, still distant…” She opens her eyes. “From across uncountable lifetimes.”
Uitzli, staring at an invisible spot somewhere before us, sputters a handful of words in her ancient speech.
I look at Juanita.
“I am afraid I cannot understand,” admits the witch. “This tongue was old even before Smoking Mirror was unborn.”
Abe’s spit hits the ground. “Ain’t no speech bein’ older than Lord’s Word,” he says. “But what t’ witch hears louder, me nose smells stronger.” The tip of his cutlass points toward the next bend in the narrow valley. “Jus’ round there, me nose says.”
With a rustle of silks, Miyu floats toward the front of our group, taking the left as Abe moves to the right.
Juanita blows into her cupped hands to send a small swarm of buzzing dots forward. I sigh, frustrated by my inability to walk while holding a gun in my hand. Instead, I have to resign myself to waiting until trouble finds us before I can drop my crutches and draw my pistols.
Samurai and pirate walking ahead, we turn the valley’s corner.
There it is. Looking as though a savage giant has sawed its peak off, a rocky hill stands a few hundred paces in front of us. No trees or bushes grow on its steep, barren slopes. Except for its odd peak, the hill looks no different from all the others.
Scanning left and right and up and down, we draw closer. When we finally approach it, Uitzli gestures at its base.
“Whatever we are looking for,” Juanita explains, “I believe she says it is inside, my child.”
Memory Unlocked:
Sawed Off Peak (3 of 3)
I cover my mouth, laughing at the dirty thing Father has just said.
He smiles and winks in complicity. “Now you say it,” he instructs.
“Look inside the crevice—”
“In the afternoon,” he interrupts me, always smiling. “Don’t forget this part, son. It’s important.”
I nod. “In the afternoon, look inside the crevice…” I stop, giggling.
He offers me an encouraging nod.
“…look inside the crevice,” I continue, “where the sun does not shine.”
We both burst out laughing and, again, I feel very, very proud.
I chuckle to myself.
“What be so funny, lad?”
“Methinks our witch be right, Abe me mate,” I say. “Methinks there be somethin’ inside this here hill in front of our noses, and we need to find a crevice t’ get in.”
“Find what now, me lad?”
“A crevice,” Juanita repeats. “A crack, pirate.”
“Then ya shoulda say ‘crack’ t’ first time, by the horns of Nick. No need t’ talk all fancy if ya wants old dogs t’ follow, what say ya?”
Juanita rolls her eyes. “And where should we look for this crevice, young Jake?”
I can’t help laughing.
It takes me a while to convince our witch I’m not being an idiot; Abe’s roaring guffaws, echoing across the narrow valleys, don’t exactly help. “I swear, Juanita; that’s what Father said. That’s what I remember, at least.”
“I very much doubt your father would want you to come here for no reason,” she says scornfully. “Even less so for a juvenile prank.”
“Still, that’s what he said: Look inside the crevice where the sun doesn’t shine. I think he was being literal. There’s a crack somewhere on this hill that we should look for. I guess the ‘sun doesn’t shine’ means it’s deep and dark.”
Juanita studies the steep slope. “That is a lot of ground to cover, young Jake.”
“At least it’s the right time,” I offer. “He told me to look for the crevice during the afternoon.”
“Did he tell you why?”
“No. Not that I can remember, at least. ‘In the afternoon, look for a crevice where the sun doesn’t shine.’ That’s all I remember.”
Miyu lowers her blade and aims it left. “Asoko,” she hisses.
Confused, I glance toward where she’s pointing: The hill’s eastern side, now covered in lengthening shadows…
Ah. Not a dumb joke, then.
“She’s right,” I say. “In the afternoon, the sun shines from the west; there’s no sun on the eastern side of the hill.”
It doesn’t take us long to find it, now that we have an idea of what and where. Partially hidden among the rocks, but visible if one is looking for it, there’s a gap in the hill’s side. Wide enough for a scrawny adult like me to fit, although maneuvering with my c
rutches in such a narrow space proves to be a challenge, and Abe needs to squirm his massive frame to worm in. About ten paces from the entrance, the rocky gap widens and becomes a corridor.
“This is man-made.” I study the smooth walls under the flickering light of the makeshift torches we’ve hastily constructed with a few branches and ribbons of cloth. “Someone carved these walls from the rock. There must have been an avalanche or a cave-in of some sort at the entrance, that’s why it’s so narrow.”
“Or it was made that way on purpose,” suggests Juanita, “to make it harder to find.” She peers ahead into the tunnel. “Should it not be pitch-dark in here?”
I squint into the darkness before us. She’s right. It’s hard to notice it with our torches crackling and sputtering, but there is a faint light coming from ahead.
We follow the corridor, now wide enough for two of us to walk side by side. Abe and Miyu, torches high and blades ready, lead the way.
Soon, I know there’s light ahead.
It seems daylight, even…
…I nearly smash my nose against Abe’s back when he stops dead in his tracks.
“Beelzebub be damned,” he says in an awed tone. “Yarr pa’s map be right, lad.”
The corridor leads into an enormous chamber, at least as big as a football stadium, that looks like someone has hollowed the hill and carved out its interiors. Above our heads, we can see the open sky: The hill’s peak, it turns out, has been sawed off, and the light we’ve been seeing ahead of us in the tunnel is indeed daylight entering the wide circle above our heads.
And in the center of this stony football stadium, about fifty steps away from us, stands a step pyramid almost as high as the hill itself.
32
Ancient Foes
It doesn’t look Aztec. I don’t know exactly why, but there’s something in the shape and angles that makes this pyramid stand out from any other Aztec building I’ve ever seen. The steps are of a smooth white stone unlike anything the Mesoamerican cultures would have had access to, and there are no stairs leading to the top; just the large steps of the pyramid itself, each about two feet thick.
As if thinking the same thing, Juanita says, “These stones are older. Much, much older than Tenochtitlán. They were already covered in dust long before the Aztecs arrived at the Texcoco Lake to build their capital.”
“How can you tell?”
“I can…” She frowns, like she’s unsure of what she’s trying to say. “I can hear the weight of countless years, whispering through untold eons…”
Raising his torch high, Abe strolls toward the pyramid. “A better question: where be t’ gold?”
Juanita sneers. “This is not a treasure room, sunrise man.”
“What else could it be, witch?” he argues. He signals with his torch all around us. “This be a lot o’ pain ‘n’ trouble t’ hide this ‘ere pyramid. Why, if not to guard some treasure?”
“Of all precious things, pirate, gold is the least valuable.”
“Precious ‘nuff for Ol’ Abe, witch.”
Uitzli tugs on my left arm. She looks distressed, her eyes glued to the top of the pyramid. Illuminated by the sunlight entering from the sawed-off peak of the hill, the pyramid’s apex is also flat. If there’s something up there, we can’t see it from down here.
And there’s this … this something in the air, like a subtle, cool draft against my skin, even though there’s no wind inside the hill’s bowels. A sensation like faint traces of static electricity brushes against the hairs on my arms and neck.
“Can you feel it, young Jake?” Juanita blows into her cupped hands. Rather than the usual fistful, a large swarm of buzzing bees emerges, as if the witch has kicked a huge hive. “In the air, all around us. There is a great power in here; a power left untapped for too long, eager and impatient to burst free.”
Abe spits on the ground. “Ya never been inside a big ol’ storm, if ya thinks a bit o’ charged air be a great power.” He approaches the pyramid, greedy eyes glinting as though he’s looking for treasure.
But he’s right: the air inside the cavern reminds me of those times after a heat wave, when a huge electric storm brews and is about to break.
A subtle warmth pulses just above my heart. I search inside my breast pocket and take out the golden bracelet that Quetzalli—the old Aztec healer who helped me improve my Tepatiki skills back in Tepetlacotli—gifted after imparting her lessons. Quetzalli’s bracelet, too, feels connected to a faintest electric current. It’s gently pulling me, like a magnet, toward the pyramid.
“It’s not electric,” I say, “but magnetic, I think. Although gold should be magnetic only on nano-scale, not in the shape of a bracelet…”
Juanita seems to have no clue what I’m talking about, which makes sense: these terms won’t become common for some time yet.
The Noh mask scans the dark corners of the cave, where thick pools of shadows stand unmolested by the sunlight from above or the tiny specks of light that Miyu’s and Abe’s flickering torches provide.
Uitzli yanks my arm again with a pleading look in her mis-aligned eyes; her tugging becomes urgent like she wants us to hurry and go to the top of the pyramid.
Like Quetzalli’s bracelet wants us to.
I drop the golden trinket back into my chest pocket and swing on my crutches toward the ancient pyramid, Uitzli by my side. “Abe,” I say, “forget the gold for a minute, mate. What does your nose say?”
His expression shifts as he inhales. He turns around, the pyramid at his back, his torch drawing a wide arc against the shadows lurking near the walls. “Ya be right, lad … there be a whiff o’ trouble in here.”
Juanita’s swarm buzzes nervously, forming a loose cloud around the witch. “There is nothing alive in this chamber except us,” she says. Her voice sounds falsely reassuring, like an adult telling scared children not to be afraid. Just like the pirate, she turns around to face the shadows encircling us, her back to the pyramid.
Miyu follows the witch’s lead, torch pointing to one side and the naginata’s tip aimed at the other, ready to face a threat coming from either left or right. I feel Uitzli’s tight hug against my arm.
We hold positions for a minute, scanning the shadows…
Appraising Gaze
…but neither our eyes, noses, or bees can detect any danger.
My thumping heart counts several beats of nothing moving, nothing stirring, no sound at all except the sputter of the torches.
A gob of Abe’s phlegm hits the floor. “Shadows be empty, lad. An’ t’ gold be at t’ top o’ this ‘ere pyramid, methinks. Let’s get goin’!” He turns around.
“Wait a sec, Abe me mate…”
He doesn’t listen and puts his boot on the first step of the pyramid.
A long, guttural groan comes from our right.
“Get ready!” I yell, peering into the darkness. Abe swings around. He and the samurai wave their waning torches, unable to pierce the shadows and reveal our foes.
A similar gruff growl comes from our left, as if the first had echoed against the walls…
…a hissy snarl answers from near the cavern’s entrance, like air struggling through a strangled throat…
“Beelzebub damn yarr black hearts, cowards!” roars Abe. “Show yarrselves!” His taunt booms and reverberates across the hill’s inside.
At last, the shadows oblige. Rasping growls echo from left and right in response to the pirate’s challenge. Following the grunts and howls, tall humanoid shapes shamble forth from the darkness, coming at us.
They’re too tall to be human, and skeleton-thin. On bony legs, they take slow, steady steps toward us.
“What in Devil’s nine hells be thems things?”
Appraising Gaze
…Damn it. All the figures flash with yellow-orange hues. Two of them come from the left. Two more approach from the right, and three others cut our escape by blocking the exit passage. “Mummies,” I tell the group. “They’re ancient mum
mies; seven of them.”
“Ya be mad, lad!? If those things be mothers, thems be mothers t’ nothin’ but demons an’ hellspawns!”
“Not mommies, you dumb oaf!” I yell. “Undead creatures!” I drop my right crutch and reach for Hendricks’ gun.
Unflinching Calm
Our foes’ sluggish shamble becomes even slower as my gaze shifts and the shadows gain sharper focus.
Their circle tightens around us, like a noose on a throat, coming from all sides. They’re about nine feet tall, with disproportionally long arms and foreheads twice larger than human.
Miyu’s kiai bounces against the walls, but the samurai seems uncertain whether to charge forward or to remain in position.
“Juanita! Swarm that one!” I wave at the closest mummy to our left, and her bees buzz angrily as they speed toward their target. “Abe, Miyu, hold your position! We’re cornered here, but with the pyramid at our back, at least they can’t surround us.”
The witch’s swarm engulfs the mummy, but the furious stinging doesn’t slow it down.
I raise Hendricks’ pistol toward the swarmed mummy…
Careful Aim
…the dry snap of my gunshot is all that happens. I’m sure my bullet pierced the creature’s chest, but it keeps shambling forward.
“How do we fight ’em, lad!?”
Good question.
How?
I don’t like the look of this.
“Fire?” Sveta suggested. “Worked for Sally O’Brian in The Curse…”
“Yeah. With a military-grade flamethrower. I don’t think our two makeshift torches are up to snuff.” I checked the bird’s-eye view, realizing how dumb I was not to do so during the previous fights: A top-down layout of the battlefield was handy. “And praying to their gods to lift the curses upon their souls won’t help, either. We don’t have a clue which gods are those.”