Distant Worlds Volume 2 Page 20

  “You’re already too late.”

  Tenoch snarled and punched the priest in the stomach. As Koyotl doubled over, Tenoch readied his maquahuitl, which he had wrapped in a blanket and slung across his back for the duration of the journey. The obsidian blades lining each side of the wooden sword were still freshly sharpened. They would cleave through flesh, muscle, and bone with frightening ease.

  Koyotl coughed as he stood up, but he fell silent when he caught a glint of moonlight reflecting off the maquahuitl’s blade.

  “So now you will kill me?” he asked.

  Tenoch sneered. As much as he would have liked to leave his captive’s headless corpse to rot on the edge of the marsh, he knew that the priest might still prove useful to him. He looped the cord affixed to the maquahuitl’s handle around his arm and slung the weapon across his back.

  “We waste time here. Take me to the entrance.”

  Koyotl limped into the marsh and guided Tenoch towards the foul temple. There were several strips of dry ground cutting through the marsh and the priest was careful to keep his feet clear of the stagnant water. The temple loomed higher with every step, its craggy peak standing taller than even the great pyramids of Tenochtitlan. Their chosen route led them along a winding, crooked pathway; the steady, shrieking sound grew ever louder as they drew steadily nearer to its source.

  The base of the temple was nestled in the center of a reed-filled pond. Koyotl led Tenoch around the shoreline until they finally reached the opposite side of the pyramid. There was a large entryway as tall as five men carved into the face of the temple’s smooth wall about a third of the way towards the top. A wide set of steps fashioned from stone blocks cascaded down the side of the pyramid and joined with a single, narrow causeway that traversed the still, reedy waters of the pond. Unlike the smooth surface of the temple, the steps and the causeway were crude, ugly things that were obviously fashioned by the imperfect hands of men.

  As the stepped onto the causeway, Koyotl fell to his knees and cowered before the dark silhouette of the pyramid. He wept, sputtering an improvised prayer that begged for forgiveness.

  Tenoch yanked the rope leash tight.

  “Get up,” he said. “You’re coming inside with me.”

  Koyotl’s eyes widened and he pulled feebly against the rope.

  “No! It…it is forbidden for me to enter! I am not among the chosen!”

  Tenoch jerked the priest to his feet.

  “Coward! You have no wish to look upon the face of your false goddess?”

  The priest shook his head gravely.

  “You are a fool, Tenoch. What do you think you will accomplish here? Can you not hear the sound of the summoning? There is no stopping it once it has begun; no escape for those taken inside to stand before the holy mother.”

  Somewhere in Tenoch’s heart, he feared that the priest could be right. There was no telling how many families had been ripped from their homes by vile creatures like Koyotl and his ilk, and there were precious few stories of any that managed to escape from them. If the rotting evil that lurked within that ghoulish place had truly been awakened, then continuing the journey might well doom his soul to a fate more loathsome than the blackest of hells.

  But Tenoch refused to despair. Surely, he thought, it was the favor of the gods that brought Koyotl into his keeping so that he might find his way to this abominable place of unholy worship. In spite of the vile forces arrayed against him, the gods had seen him through to the very threshold of his desire.

  Even if the capricious gods chose to abandon him now to death and damnation, he would not turn back. Not when the one he loved so dearly was counting on him.

  Tenoch yanked the rope to turn Koyotl towards the hideous pyramid and shoved him forward.

  “Move!”

  The priest stumbled across the causeway, whimpering loudly as he went. Tenoch followed close behind him, his hand still gripping the rope to keep Koyotl leashed. He held his maquahuitl at the ready as they ascended the black steps that led up to the temple’s entrance.

  A foul odor slithered out from the gaping passageway that was carved into of pyramid’s side. The smell was wretched; a strange mixture of rotten vegetables crossed with overripe fruit. Tenoch winced as he drew breath, but he pressed his terrified guide upward.

  He had come too far to turn back now.

  When they reached the top of the stairs, Tenoch peered cautiously through the cavern-like entrance. A tunnel sloped gently downward towards the heart of the pyramid. It was dark inside, but he could see faint, flickering light about fifty feet ahead where the tunnel seemed to join a room of some kind.

  The screaming continued unabated. It seemed to ooze from the black, glassy walls all around them.

  “Inside,” he said, giving Koyotl another shove. Sobbing now, his head bowed down as he uttered something unintelligible, the priest led Tenoch inside the Temple of the Shrieking God.

  It was hot inside, the air thick and heavy with moisture. The faint light below them glinted off the roughly hewn obsidian walls as they drew closer to its source. With every step, the horrible shrieking grew slightly louder, echoing through the passageway and bludgeoning their ears. Tenoch felt the beginnings of a headache at the base of his skull and wondered if exposure to the sound might eventually drive a man to madness.

  They soon reached a large, circular chamber. A round pool filled with some kind of burning liquid stood in the center of the room and provided the light that bounced off the curving obsidian wall. At least a dozen smaller entryways were carved the wall, each one likely leading deeper into the temple.

  A tall figure swathed in a gray robe stood next to the fire holding a long staff. The staff was curved at one end and a small, black box dangled from a cord attached to the tip. Faint wisps of smoke drifted out of the box and a dim, reddish light peeked out through the small openings on its sides. Although the man stood only a few feet from the flame, the light seemed to pass around him without illuminating the features within the folds of his robe.

  Tenoch could not tell if the man saw them or not. If he did, he did not react to their presence. Koyotl dropped to his knees and, for a brief moment, Tenoch’s gaze followed the priest as he prostrated himself before the figure.

  When Tenoch looked up again, he only narrowly avoided death.

  The figure had turned towards them and thrown back his robe. But the gray folds were not made of fabric at all; they were affixed to his back and flapped open to reveal the inhuman form underneath. The creature extended its folded legs to rise to its full height, towering at least two heads taller than Tenoch. Its dusky body was covered with hard, chitinous plates and a second set of arms sprang out from its sides, each one tipped with a sharp, curved talon rather than a hand. The face was only vaguely manlike, with the flesh around the mouth distended and torn by the mandibles that clattered hungrily as the thing lurched forward. Several extra sets of eyes had sprouted above the swollen, bloodshot orbs that bulged out of the sockets so far that the lids could no longer cover them.

  Tenoch ducked aside just before the creature could stave in his skull with its staff. The smoldering stone box hanging from the staff’s tip glanced off the snout of his jaguar hood and he fell awkwardly. He lost his grip on the maquahuitl as he hit the ground and rolled out of the way to avoid the monstrous thing’s stamping foot.

  Koyotl fell onto his back and clambered towards the passage. The motion briefly caught the creature’s attention, giving Tenoch a chance to recover. By the time it decided that the priest represented no threat, Tenoch had sprung to his feet and grabbed the thing by one of its massive, fluttering wings. He yanked with all his might, but he could not pull the creature off its feet. One of the small, talon-tipped arms slashed at him and he felt it cut partway through his leather armor.

  The creature tried to wheel around on him, but Tenoch was quick-footed and he managed to keep just out of its reach. He refused to relinquish his grip on the thing’s wing and the two combatants
spun around one another in a deadly, if clumsy, dance.

  Tenoch felt his hold slipping away as the struggle went on and he found himself fighting just to keep on his feet as the thing yanked back and forth in an effort to shake him loose. Summoning all the strength he could muster, Tenoch braced himself and tried to use his attacker’s momentum against it.

  As it spun around, one of its taloned arms stabbing down at his chest, he flung the creature towards the burning pool and let go of it as his fell. It splashed into the pool and let out a piercing cry that carried over the temple’s incessant screaming. Tenoch covered his ears as the thing thrashed about in the burning liquid, screaming. It finally managed to scramble out of the pool, but its chitinous body was already covered in flame. The wings burned up within seconds and flesh between its armored segments blistered and peeled as the fire burned itself out.

  The creature writhed on the ground until the flames finally died and then it fell still, a thin, noxious cloud of smoke hanging over its charred and ruined form.

  Tenoch took a moment to catch his breath before he walked over to inspect the smoldering body.

  It was still breathing.

  He retrieved the thing’s staff and hoisted it over his head. A powerful blow brought the stone box crashing down upon its skull. The creature shuddered violently with a choked cry and then fell still.

  Tenoch dropped the staff and strode over to Koyotl.

  “What was that?” he asked, hoisting the priest off the ground.

  “The b…bearer,” Koyotl said. “The bearer of the flame.”

  He pointed to the box that was affixed to the staff.

  “The cinders within the box are from beyond this world,” he said. “They light the way so that our holy mistress and her children can find their way.”

  Tenoch shook the box, which caused a grout of smoke to puff out from the slits cut into its sides. The red, glowing core seemed to be brighter now that it was not next to the pool’s firelight. He considered trying to smash it, but if it hadn’t broken against the monster’s thick skull, he doubted that slamming it against the stone floor would be enough to do so. If it truly contained some relic of whatever wretched place had given birth to its bearer, however, it might be better off safely contained inside the box of black stone.

  In the meantime, it looked as if it would give off just enough light to illuminate their way through the tunnels that led deeper into the temple. Tenoch decided to keep it as he retrieved his maquahuitl.

  He glanced around the room, his gaze lingering on each of the passages that were cut into the obsidian around them. They all looked the same to him. There was nothing to indicate where any of them might lead.

  His headache was getting worse.

  Koyotl called out to him, but Tenoch could barely hear his voice over the shrieking walls of the temple.

  “You are mad to go on! How long do you think your fortune will hold?”

  Tenoch jabbed at him with the blunt tip of the maquahuitl.

  “Long enough to see you dead, you wretch,” he said. “Where do they keep the prisoners that you and your thugs bring to them?”

  The priest shook his head.

  “They receive them outside. We are not permitted to enter.”

  Tenoch snarled and turned back to the wall of passageways.

  Any one of them could lead him to a swift, bloody death.

  Any one of them might also lead to her.

  He shoved Koyotl towards one of the tunnels to his right.

  “That one,” he said. “You go first.”

  The path led downward, spiraling deeper into the bowels of the unclean temple. Koyotl stumbled occasionally on the slick, uneven floor, but the surefooted Tenoch steadied him every time he seemed ready to fall. The crimson light from the bearer’s staff flooded the tunnel and the air grew denser with each step until they seemed to be wading through a cloud of blood.

  Tenoch clenched his teeth tightly in an effort to block out the piercing shrieks echoing through the tunnel, but nothing could take his thoughts off the dreadful sound. Twice he thought of turning back, of dropping his weapon and fleeing back to the surface and the refuge of the open sky. He bit his tongue until he felt a warm gush of blood fill his mouth. The horrid noise receded slightly before the urgency of the pain. It was a brief respite, but enough to strengthen his resolve.

  Koyotl stopped suddenly. Tenoch looked over the priest’s shoulder to find that their way was blocked by a wall constructed of a slimy, rough material that was different from the smooth stone around them.

  The priest said something, but Tenoch could no longer hear him over the din. He pushed past Koyotl and inspected the barrier. Its surface was porous and brittle. Tenoch threw his shoulder against it with all his strength. The barrier gave slightly, small cracks radiating out from the point of impact.

  He took a step back and smashed into it again.

  The wall shattered under the weight the blow and his momentum carried him over the ledge on the other side.

  He fell only a few feet before he hit the ground, but the floor was steeply inclined and he tumbled downward for several dozen yards before finally coming to a halt. The bearer’s staff and his maquahuitl flew from his hands and razor sharp spurs of rock cut through his armor as he rolled deeper into the pit.

  Although the shrieking, which seemed to be amplified by the walls around him, now threatened to burst his skull, Tenoch managed to force his battered body off the ground. The bearer’s staff was still the only source of light, its crimson glare providing a small pocket of illumination several yards away from him. Moving as quickly as he aching muscles would allow, Tenoch made his way towards the light.

  He fumbled hesitantly through the darkness, his hands occasionally brushing against something that retreated from his touch. Mostly blind and unable to hear anything other than the wretched wailing that strangled his eardrums, Tenoch had no sense of what might be around him. His only hope was to reach the bearer’s staff.

  When he at last reached the staff, he plucked it up from the ground and swung it around to look behind him.

  Although he could not hear the sound of his own voice, Tenoch reflexively invoked Tezcatlipoca, as if the god of the night sky could offer him any aid there in the hollow of the blackened earth.

  The crimson light revealed only a small glimpse of what was clearly a vast subterranean chamber. Several dozen people were gathered there, stripped of their clothing and scattered together in small clusters. A group of six-limbed creatures scuttled excitedly over their naked bodies. About the size of a man, their thin frames were covered with segments of chitin and coarse, black hair. Each limb ended in a hand that sprouted three long, hooked digits. Their faces were vaguely human shaped, but the mouth was framed by a massive set of jagged mandibles and their black, shiny eyes glinted in the light like tiny balls of broken glass. A swollen abdomen tipped with a long spike sprouted between their lowest set of limbs.

  Tenoch watched in horror as one of the creatures climbed atop an unconscious victim and thrust the abdominal spike through her stomach. Its entire body trembled as the bulging abdomen pumped its contents into the helpless woman. When it was finished, it retracted the tip and moved on to the man lying next to her. It mounted him and repeated the same foul process.

  The creatures ignored Tenoch as they clambered over their prisoners, though they occasionally took to scuffling with one another for the right to violate one of the poor souls. They seemed to pass over anyone that had already been impaled and injected; the competition over the remaining victims grew increasingly fierce as the number available diminished.

  Slowly, careful not to disturb any of the foul things, Tenoch made his way towards what he judged to be the center of the cavern. He swept the light over every unconscious body he passed, but he was no longer sure if he wanted to find any familiar faces among them. The creatures lurched away from the light whenever he drew close; some even seemed to drop down to the ground at its passing.
Each step extended the light a bit farther into the black cavern, revealing more and more naked bodies awaiting the attentions of their monstrous captors.

  The shrieking was causing him intense pain now. His ringing ears were going numb. The pain in his head had radiated down to his shoulders and it stabbed deeper into the upper regions of his chest and spine with each step he took forward.

  Then, suddenly, he found her.

  Izel, his beloved sister, lay atop a heap of bodies, her mouth agape and her vacant eyes staring towards the light of his staff.

  He called out to her even though his voice was drowned out by the temple’s screams.

  Tenoch dropped the staff and pulled her limp body away from the other nude forms. She was still warm and her lungs yet drew breath. He hugged her, shook her, even struck her, but nothing made her blank face take note of her surroundings. She simply stared dumbly ahead, a bit of drool running from the corner of her mouth. He feared that too much exposure to the wretched cries of that foul place had done something to her mind, left her a mere husk of the loving girl that he had grown up alongside.

  But even if she had been dead, Tenoch would not have left her there. He hoisted Izel onto his shoulder and picked up the staff, but when he moved to retrace his steps, he found his way blocked. The multi-armed creatures had gathered in a large group before him, their mandibles snapping together excitedly.

  He braced himself for them to set upon him, prepared to die defending his cherished sibling, but the creatures did not attack. One by one, they dropped to their knees and prostrated themselves. Tenoch took a step forward, ready to burst into a full sprint to get clear of them, but something made him pause, a strange shift in the air and in the tone of the shrieking that assaulted his every sense.

  Slowly, and for the first time, fearfully, Tenoch turned.

  She loomed over him and her brood of misshapen followers like a cold, moonless night. Several feet taller than Tenoch, most of her clawed limbs were clutched tightly against her long, segmented body save for the massive sickles that protruded from beneath her thick shoulder plates. Dozens of glimmering eyes of all colors—black, green, blue, red, white—bored down onto Tenoch with cold, alien malevolence. Venom dripped from the points of her long, needlelike teeth and two sets of serrated mandibles snapped open and closed as her upper body swayed from side to side. Shining, translucent wings extended from the back of each of her armored body segments, each set fluttering quickly enough to generate a high pitched shriek that rebounded off the stone walls of the cavern.