"We serve the Lord of the Keep. My father served him, as did yours. Never did he fail them, and he shall not fail us or we him. Norak, when last we saw the lord as the heathen warriors swarmed over him, did he not cry out for us to wait for him? That he would return?"
Norak voiced his assertion that what was said was correct.
"Then," Olaf continued, "we wait. Remember that Casca is not as other men. He is the Unchanging One. He is the Walker. And though these strange people cut his very heart out of him, I know he will return. He is Casca, Lord of the Keep, and our lord. Who would dare to face his wrath if we left without him and he should come upon us in the future?"
Olaf's crystal blue eyes searched the faces of his warriors for a dissenting answer.
There was none.
"Then we wait. Though it take the time for all of us to become graybeards, we wait."
NINE
The jade mask stifled Casca. It seemed to imprison his brain in a green dungeon. He walked slowly to the beat of the drums. The heat of the day was overpowering. Trickles of sweat ran down Casca's back, and his armpits felt as though they were filled with wet mud. Through the eyeholes in the mask he looked through waves of shimmering air that distorted anything over a hundred feet away. Through the shimmering heat waves the distant pyramid of the Quetza, two miles away, seemed floating above the earth, suspended as in a dream… or nightmare.
Step, step, step to the sacrifice. The throbbing of the drums beat in rhythm with his own pulse, step by step, each step a beat of the skin-covered drums. The reed pipes shrilled; the flutes cried. Every sound seemed doubled, repeated, doubled again. He imagined he could hear the beating of his own heart, in monstrous rhythm with the obscene drums. In the shimmering heat waves the brilliant emerald green robe of feathers that covered his shoulders and reached to his knees reflected thousands of pinpoints where the sun hit them.
The great Serpent headdress was amazingly light.
Step. Step. Step. Everything had an endless repetition… step, shimmer, beat… beat, step, shimmer… through the endless crowd that lined the way to the pyramid. As he passed, all would fall and bow their faces before him… endlessly repeating…
The taste of the coca distillation was bitter in his mouth. His senses seemed to be far apart from his consciousness… as though he were two separate persons, but each a not-quite-complete entity.
Only Tezmec was in front of him; to the side walked an honor guard of lesser priests and soldiers. The heaviness of the day was like nothing he had ever known… or had he? That day in Judea had been oppressive, too. The image of that day flickered in his brain, brought back the feelings, the taste, the sight… the menacing heaviness of the hot air.
Brrrum, brrum… Over and over the drums pounded their way into his brain. With each beat and step, time assumed a kind of distorted reality, as though time were itself a thing, heavy, dark, and solid.
Then he was there.
The foot of the pyramid.
Chanting broke its way to the forefront of his awareness. When had it begun? It engulfed him in a molten wave of sound. He made the first step up the pyramid. Then another. And another. Focusing his attention on the old high priest's back, he climbed, the chanting growing distant as they neared the top.
The thongs holding the mask to his face felt as if they were cutting into his skin, but the sensation of pain was oddly removed from him. It was as though it were happening to someone else…
They were there.
The top of the pyramid.
The stone, black with the blood of thousands of victims, was before him. The chanting of the priests continued, seeming now to be flowing up the sides of the pyramid and louder here at the top.
At that moment a beginning wind tugged gently at Casca's feathered cloak and caused him to look at the sky. It was even darker, more oppressive than on the long walk. To the west great clouds were gathering, and even from this distance they appeared to be like great cumulus stallions racing through the heavens on some never-ending odyssey that mortal man had no share in. Over the palace, a bank of lightning suddenly flickered. The wind freshened, bringing a smell of salt from the sea.
Storm.
Coming.
Tezmec stood, arms raised to the skies, his old voice growing in strength as he called to his gods to accept this token of their worshippers' devotion and love.
The measured beat of the drums that had never ceased was now echoed by the approaching wall of dark clouds. The first distinct gusts of the rising wind would be whipping around the base of the pyramid, blending with the sudden uneasiness of the hundred thousand waiting worshipers, an uneasiness so strong it seemed to rise with the beat of the drums and be felt here on the top of the pyramid.
Casca looked back to the city below, The eyeholes in the jade mask seemed to take him to the very place; he was seeing it as though he were down there. The great square was a solid mass of humanity in all its varied forms, rich and poor, thin and fat, weak and strong. Every square foot as far as the eye could see was covered with waiting, expectant humanity. Even the rooftops looked as though colonies of ants were covering them.
The first of the dark clouds reached them. Shadows raced across the land. The sky grew still darker. The wind strengthened again.
Storm.
Lightning.
Thunder.
"It's like the day of the Jew, Yeshua," Casca said in the Latin of the Caesars, the Latin of his youth, the Latin of That Day…
Tezmec paused in his oration, the approaching thunder having drowned out some of his words as though the onrushing storm was a sign.
Casca raised his face to the increasing darkness, the wind rustling in the feathers of his brilliant robe and headdress.
The mask seemed to be growing into his face.
Casca felt strange forces pulling at him.
Stop it, Jew! his silent thoughts seemed to scream in his mind. This is my day. Leave me alone. I am a better man than you, and what I will endure this day is greater than the pain you felt on the Cross. And then thoughts and words melded, and he was shouting into the wind: "I am Casca, son of Rome, soldier of the legions, and I will beat you! I will endure more than you and triumph. Leave me alone!"
Tezmec touched his shoulder.
"What are you screaming, my son? In what strange tongue do you speak? Please do not spoil this great day with unseemly behavior. Remember your dignity!" His voice cracked as he chastised Casca, "Remember your dignity!"
Casca laughed bitterly. "Dignity, old man? What dignity is there in death like this? Death, when it serves no purpose, is not dignity. It is useless."
Abruptly the darkness was upon them, as if a curtain had been drawn suddenly. A murmur ran through the waiting thousands. The thunder rumbled, and the ground quivered.
Tezmec took the helmet from Casca's head and freed the bindings of the feathered robe.
"It is time, my son. The gods are impatient. The signs and portents of this day are great."
The two lesser priests reached to take Casca by the shoulders and lay him on the altar.
"No!"
Casca pushed them away. "First I must speak," He turned from the stone and faced out to the masses below.
Filling his lungs to fight against the thunder and wind, he cried:
"I am the Quetza.