Vemac called out to his guards, “Kill this sorcerer!”
His soldiers obeyed the Emperor. But the Princess Utsume caught up her tiny husband and thrust him into the bosom of her purple gown, out of harm’s way, the while that Tal-Cavepan was being enthusiastically despatched.
Chapter XXIII. Regrettable Conduct of a Corpse
Now the huge body of Tal-Cavepan lay where it had fallen, and it instantly began to corrupt, and from it arose a most astounding stench. “Take that devil carrion out of my city!” Vemac commanded his guards, “lest it breed a pestilence in Porutsa.”
But when they attempted again to obey the Emperor, they found the body was so heavy that no force could raise it from the ground. So the Taoltecs of necessity left this corpse in their marketplace. And a pestilence, in the form of a small yellow whirlwind, went stealthily about the city; and many hundreds died.
Those who yet remained in life, now that they were not able to help themselves, prayed for help from the Feathered Serpent, and, at each of the seven holy stations, sacrificed to him suckling children decked with bands and streamers of properly colored paper. But the pestilence continued.
The Taoltecs then made a yet handsomer oblation, of plump and really valuable slaves and of captive warriors, each one of whom had been duly painted with blue-and-gilt stripes; and they offered the hearts of all these to their older and somewhat outmoded gods, to the Slayer with the Left Hand and to the Maker of Sprouts. Then, as the pestilence grew worse, they became desperate, and they experimentally decapitated and flayed eight of the lesser nobility in honor of the new god called Yaotl, the Capricious Lord, the Enemy upon Both Sides.
Forthwith the dead Tal-Cavepan raised up what was left of his countenance, and he said: “Fasten to me ropes woven of black and of red cords, you worshipers of the Feathered Serpent! And when fifty of you have done so-and-so,”—he stipulated very exactly what they were to do, each to the other,—“then do you drag my body to the Place of the Dead, which is Yaotl’s place; and there let my body be burned upon his altar. So shall this pestilence be ended.”
The Taoltecs obeyed. Fifty of them, forming a circle, shamefacedly did the abomination which was required, and fifty of them tugged at the particolored ropes: but still the corpse could not be moved. Tal-Cavepan spoke again, saying, “Fetch Vemac, that Emperor who decreed my death!”
Vemac came, and along with him came his daughter.
“Hail, Vemac, son of Imos, of the line of Chan, and of the race of Chivim!” said the corpse. “It appears that these puny sons of nobodies, enfeebled by their long worship of the Feathered Serpent, are not able—after one little act of homage to the Capricious Lord,—to remove me from this city. It is therefore necessary that their broad-shouldered and heavenly descended Emperor draw my body to the Place of the Dead, and there burn my body upon the altar of Yaotl.”
“What will become of me in the Place of the Dead?” Vemac asked.
The corpse smiled. “From that holy place the Emperor will depart on a long journey. His son-in-law will thereafter reign, as was foretold, over all Tollan. For the Emperor Vemac will be traveling afar, he will be journeying between two mountains and beyond the lair of the snake and the crocodile, even to the Nine Waters, which he will cross upon the back of a red dog. Nor will the Emperor Vemac ever return from that journeying.”
Vemac shivered a little. But he said:
“It is right that an emperor should die rather than his people perish. I will not degrade my body, but your body I will draw to the Place of the Dead; and I will abide what follows.”
Now Coth cried out, like the cheeping of a bird, from where he sat in the bosom of his wife’s gown. “This sort of talk is very well, but what assurance have we that this dung-pile is speaking the truth?”
The corpse answered: “To you, Toveyo, I swear that when the Emperor of Tollan has drawn my body to the Place of the Dead, the pestilence will cease: and I swear too that the Emperor will never return. Thus shall his son-in-law reign in his stead, precisely as was foretold.”
“Oho!” said Coth, “so it is as I thought, and nobody guarantees the affair but you! Well, now, upon my word, do you take us for buzzards or for scavengers, that we should in any way be bothering about what emanates from you! By what oath can garbage swear, that anybody should heed it!”
The great corpse stirred restively under the midget’s piping taunts. But the voice of Tal-Cave-pan said only, “I swear by the oath of the Star Warriors, even by the Word of the Tzitzi-Mime.”
“Ah, ah!” said Coth. “Put me down, dear little wife!” Then Coth, the very tiny pink mannikin, strutted toward the evil-smelling black corpse, and brown Utsume followed fondly after him. Coth posed in a majestic attitude, resting one elbow upon his wife’s instep, and twirling at his mustachios. Coth said:
“You have sworn to these things, Yaotl, by that unbreakable oath of yours which first started all this trouble. Very well! I am co-emperor of Tollan. I am as much emperor as Vemac is: and it is I who will draw you to the burning you have richly earned; and it is I whom your oath will prevent from ever returning into this infernal Porutsa, where such uncalled-for liberties are taken with a person’s size, and the people are very much too fond of dancing.”
“But,” said the corpse, “I meant the other emperor!”
Coth answered: “Bosh! Nobody cares what you meant, it matters only what you have sworn.”
“But,” said the corpse, “but, you pernicious pink shrimp—!”
Coth replied, “I do not deny that you spoke lightly: even so, you did swear it, by an unbreakable oath; and the affair is concluded.”
Coth caught at the parti-colored ropes with tiny fingers. But as he tugged, Coth began to grow. The harder he pulled, the greater became his stature, in order that the honor of the Capricious Lord might stay undisgraced, and Yaotl not be evicted from Porutsa by a midget. And now the corpse moved. Now the Taoltecs saw hauling doggedly at those black and red ropes a full-grown if somewhat short-legged champion, with a remarkably large and glistening pink head: before him went a little yellow whirlwind, and behind him dragged a dreadful black corruption. Thus Coth passed through the east gate of their city.
“The will of the gods be done!” said Vemac,—“especially when it is in every way a very good riddance.” Nobody dissented from his pious utterance. “Let the city gates be closed!” said Vemac then. “Put new bolts on them, lest that son-in-law of mine be coming back to us against the will of the gods. And you, my dear Utsume, since you alone are losing anything, howsoever happily, by this business, you shall have another husband, of less desultory dimensions, and, in fact, you may have as many husbands as you like, my darling, to raise up an heir for us in Porutsa and an emperor to come after me and rule over all Tollan.”
Utsume replied: “I have reason to believe, my revered father, that the matter of an heir has been attended to. I shall regret my pink Toveyo and his great natural gifts, which were to me as a tireless fountain of delights. And I shall honor his memory by always marrying somebody as near like him as it may be possible to find in this degenerate country. Meanwhile I quite agree with you that it is becoming for persons of our exalted rank to encourage all true religious sentiment, and generally to consent that the will of the gods be done.”
Chapter XXIV. Economics of Yaotl
In the Place of the Dead, Yaotl sat up and scratched his nose reflectively. The Capricious Lord had put off the putrid appearance of Tal-Cavepan. He now had the seeming which is his in the heaven called Tamo-Anchan: and as he sat opposite the black stone idol there was no difference between Yaotl and the image of Yaotl. At the god’s navel also shone a green jewel, his face was striped with yellow, and from his ears hung rings of gold and silver. Otherwise he wore nothing at all, but in one hand he carried arrows, and in his other hand was the scrying-stone with long feathers of three differing colors set about it.