Seven stood amidst a growing pool of slush, the bright sun of the lengthening days ending the sunless days of another winter. They no longer counted the changing of the seasons; there was no need when each year became the same as the previous. Today, however, they had the need to contemplate the passage of time, the need to probe the future, the need to speak of a today, once again attaching their bodies to the world.
Long had they kept their own thoughts to themselves, letting the years pass as they reflected upon their folly. Finally one spoke, the First, his ancient name no longer known, even to him.
“When Gods are forgotten, all those who were once bound will find themselves unbound,” the First said. “To have tried to hasten their destruction has brought them new hope. The time of their carefully orchestrated Ealder worship is ending, and they will soon rediscover who they once were, what they once had been. Our attack did not destroy them, and we, who had infinite time, now must atone for our haste by acting again.”
“What is to be done?” the Fifth asked, her sonorous voice filling the heads of each.
Her mind was clear, and long ago she had foreseen this day, waiting only for the others to reach the same conclusion, waiting for the First to voice the answer to her question. Only the First carried the power to free her from this place so she could begin the final battle for control over all the lands, lands that must be cleansed of all but their kind.
“They are still sundered,” said the Seventh, his bass-heavy voice slow, unaccustomed as he still was to expressing his thoughts to the others.
The four others who had not yet spoken nodded their heads, their tall slender shoulders bending with the motion, their inner voices still unable to speak.
“No, they are not,” the Fifth said loudly, the strength of her conviction riveting each more acutely to the present. “They have been born anew with their flight to Haud’Ean.”
Even the First remained silent after her words.
“First,” she said, her tone only slightly softer. “The Daysu’Ean will not tarry on our indecision in their ever-green land. You sense their movement, just as I do. I am the purveyor of fear, Essence of Air, Wight of Blood. I am not afraid. My Othar’Ean have long prepared for this day.”
The First’s continued silence brought no protest from the others. What each thought of the Fifth’s words could not be ascertained, those words flirting vaguely against private contemplations, faint impressions of uncertainty still clouding more precise thought. Only she, the Wight of Blood, carried the innate ability of Certitude to push aside the dark misgivings of the unknown. Each of the Seven carried the individual powers required for unity, but only she had the power needed to take this action; and only the First had the power to Command it and unbind her.
“First?” she questioned, prodding.
The First’s unblinking eyes turned toward the Sixth, whose Sight was the keenest, willing him to speak for the others, willing him to see clearly so they all could speak with one voice on this matter. Would that the voice of the Fourth would also speak, the First thought, the voice of Persuasion, the voice that would remove all clouds of doubt from their minds.
It was not measured how long they waited for another to speak, for even the Fifth knew timeless patience. The slush beneath their feet was as it had been when the Fifth had last spoken, but none could tell if minutes or whole seasons had passed while they waited.
Then, in unison, marking a harmony of purpose, the Sixth and the Fourth both spoke.
“The path our Sister, the Fifth of us, has with a certainty revealed, is the one that must be taken,” they said. “We ask the First to Command her release.”
The others nodded their consent, also in unison.
The Fifth stayed silent as her thoughts were transmitted to her Othar’Ean, instructing them to prepare for their unbinding, an unbinding that they had for so long anticipated.
***
Alone, always alone; he did not remember a time when his kind had last brought news to the others in the green land. In fact, he could not remember what ‘others’ really meant or what they looked like. Green was a color that did not exist among the white ice and the blue water of his place, so it was the one thing that always seemed to fade last from his memory. He’d been given him a name in that green land, but now, it too was forgotten, and it required a lot of concentration to even recall what a name was.
He had made the count, watching the endless followers of the Wight of Blood flow across the water, their phylacteries hung reverently around their white necks. What power had been summoned to bestow those amulets to so many at once, he did not know. Never before had the priests of the Khe’kenha Othar’Ean taken so many from the vaults of never-melting snow, allowing so many of his kind to move freely across the water.
He thought he should know why this mattered, but that memory had also vanished long ago. Count the numbers that went across the water; that was all he was required to do. Once done, he was to return to the ever-green land. He could not voice where that land was, but he knew his need would carry him there when it was required. Some things were lost, like a voice, like a touch, but others were gained, like the ability to swiftly move with a thought.
His white hand went to his own phylactery, and the one memory that always remained constant and vivid for his kind was strong. Possess your phylactery and you were free; make the offering of it to the priests and you were not. Never had his phylactery been lost, taken or possessed by another. He could not remember his name, but he always remembered that he was free. This thought was accompanied by another, and he moved like the wind across the icy water, the color green filling his mind.
***
Creopan had known better than to try to get any closer to the ceremony than the outer edges of the hot lush jungle that ringed Dasyu’a’Taxillit. He plowed through the thick growth, often scrambling on all fours to get lower to the ground so he could scurry under much of the choking vines, leaves and branches that blocked his way.
He heard the pursuit as high-pitched cries filled the jungle around him, alerting any to the sides and ahead that he was there. It wasn’t whether he would escape them or not, but how far he would have to run to do it that irritated him now.
This had not been smart, he thought again. Now he would have to slowly and meticulously spend the next few hours weaving his way back, and the sacrifices would likely be done by the time he did so.
All he had been required to do was to get close enough to the grand pyramid of Dasyu’a’Taxillit so that he could count the numbers that gathered at its base to receive the blood. Now the ceremony will have been completed, and the hordes will have melted back into the jungle before he got close enough to make that count. He still wouldn’t know if she were there, although even if she was, he wasn’t sure he could have borne the sight had he gotten close enough to see the faces of the captives; what would have been left of their faces, anyway, he thought with a shudder.
Prior to being led naked up the one hundred steps to the lower altar, the captives would have had their ears, noses and lips cut off. Supposedly, that ritual was meant to enhance the remaining senses of touch and sight so they could more exquisitely experience the final sequence of their sacrifice; however, he knew few were actually conscious of that pain at that point of the long two-day Dasyu ritual.
Once he had escaped immediate capture and heard the pursuit grow a little fainter, he slowed and started moving in and out of the deep shadows of the dense foliage. As he set his mind to first finding those hidden spots before becoming one himself, he knew his trail would be quickly lost.
He wondered if he had caused enough alarm to interrupt the ceremony. He shook his head, knowing that was wishful thinking. It wasn’t like his kind were going to make an assault on the pyramid, and there were likely ten thousand Dasyu starting to come out of the jungle to witness the giving of the blood vials. He was just another skinny white man to be caught and killed by them, and they had chased him more out of habit than any real need to catch him.
He stopped, and when he was certain all signs of pursuit had vanished, he turned around and started the trek back. He made it all the way to the large bowl-shaped clearing around the front base of Dasyu’a’Taxillit, but even from this distance, he could tell the ceremony was almost over. He climbed partway up the trunk of a tree to see over the heads of the throng standing tightly packed in the amphitheater, cognizant that he either needed to flee or completely climb the tree to hide when that mass broke into the jungle after the ceremony.
No more Dasyu were climbing the stairs to receive the blood, and the three Teopixqui had walked to the edge of the terrace and were performing the final imprecation. He couldn’t make out their chants over the humming buzz of the crowd, but he could see their arms rising as they each alternated speaking the lines. As usual, the black priest was on the right, and the white priest was on the left, and the mulatto took the center spot. Each wore the blood red sarongs of their order, ornamented with golden belts and sandals.
His head turned upward to the top altar of the pyramid along with those of the crowd as the steady vibrating hum from thousands of throats filled the jungle. He was nearly as mesmerized as the rest of the onlookers as he watched the thick black smoke start to billow and coalesce around the Teotl of Blood.
***
Creopan moved away from the burned jungle. The controlled fires had scorched the undergrowth and lower branches of the trees for miles along the sandy beach. Already black bodies were moving around the edges of the burn, and the first of the trees were falling from dozens of axe blows. The entire beach was being prepared to begin another round of shipbuilding, and this was the largest burning of the jungle he had ever seen.
He had no idea where the thousands of ships from the last such camp had gone when he had counted their numbers a dozen moons ago, but the black horde always built more. Soon, the blue waters would be darkened with their boats, and fierce black warriors would stream out of the jungle and board those vessels.
Thankfully, they were always leaving and never returning. Not that it ever seemed to diminish their numbers in the jungle. One thing he knew for sure was that the Dasyu never lacked for warriors to carry their short spears and long knives onto the longships they built in a never-ending cycle.
It was time to start heading back to report the location of the new burn sight. He might be asked to return after the jungle was cleared to count the number of ships that the Dasyu would build, but it would be many moons before they finished cutting down the jungle in this spot.
He crawled under the vines and tendrils that couldn’t completely block the path, only partially opening his mind to weave through the hidden spots between the beach and the river. He had left a large log at the bank, and would use the river to more quickly cross the island before he was forced to swim the narrow channel to the next one. From there, he would repeat the pattern of island hopping a hundred times until he was home.
The log was where he had left it, and he listened briefly for any sound of the Dasyu in the jungle around him before sliding into the muddy water, wrapping his legs and arms around the log that spun and submerged most of his body. He let the slow flow of the current carry him to the center of the murky water, and started floating to the other side of the island.
He had lazily let his senses dim to the sounds of the jungle before he realized a short spear had hit the log. It took him only a second to realize Dasyu were running along the bank before he let go of the log to drop to the bottom of the muddy river.
He had heard no Dasyu coming. How had they moved to the bank without him hearing them? The Dasyu always made a disturbance in the jungle whenever they walked there, no matter how accustomed their black feet were to soil, the leaves and choking vines. He spun around when his back hit the bottom of the river and started swimming to the opposite bank from where the spear had been thrown. He knew he had plenty of time before his lungs started to burn for air, so he also let himself go downstream a little farther. The blackness of the cloudy water started to lighten slightly, and he knew he was almost to the surface.
Turning, he let a nostril break the surface to refill his lungs, not quite ready to let his eyes pop out of the water. He sunk a little farther, and moved into the thick weeds that grew at the water’s edge. He needed air again, and carefully, without making any disturbance to the surface of the river, he let his nose and eyes come out of the water.
Nothing moved on the bank. The jungle told him that no two-legged creatures walked along the banks of the river. Perhaps Dasyu supervising the cutting of the trees had just been walking here and had spotted him by accident. He hadn’t been paying close attention to the jungle, he realized, so it was possible he had just missed their noise.
He came out of the water without a sound, and with all his senses on edge, he quickly deduced the hidden spots in the jungle that would let him creep to the other side unseen and unheard. He moved away from the water, and was just starting to relax again, thinking of the homeward journey when his foot caught on something.
He yanked his leg without a thought as all of his senses seemed to crawl in slow motion. What was happening to his foot? It was rising above his head. That could not be possible. He hadn’t even started to panic.
There had been no Dasyu, and there were no traps marring the pristine jungle here, none that his expertise wouldn’t have been able to detect anyway. He was hanging upside down, but again, it wasn’t possible, he thought. Then, Dasyu appeared out of thin air, surrounding him; now he began to feel panic.
If he didn’t make it back, no one would know another burn sight had been created. No one would return to count the number of ships the Dasyu would build, and this burn sight, like the last one, was big enough for them to build another temple barge.