Barry Sadler - Casca 02 - God Of Death

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Tezmec stood frozen...

A burning phosphorescence, like the kind seen at sea that hovers over the

masts of ships, enveloped the sacrificial stone. The jade mask glowed and

seemed to throw out rays of emerald light. Tezmec held the still-beating heart

in his hand. It was throbbing, moving. The golden knife dropped from Tezmec's

grasp when another hand covered his.

Casca, his body enveloped in the green fire of the sea, stood holding Tezmec's

hand stationary over the altar fire. And then Casca took his own beating heart

out of the priest's hand.

"It takes a god to kill a god, and my time is not yet come."

"I am Casca. I am the Quetza.

"I am God!"

PROLOGUE

Casca came to the Rhine at the same spot where he had fought his first battle

against the German tribesmen known as the Suevii; the grass always seemed to

be a little richer where blood had been spilled. In his mind he could almost

make out the outlines of the fight, a smaller patch of green a hundred yards

distant where the young men of the cavalry unit assigned to Casca's unit had

been pulled from their horses by long-hooked poles and had their throats slit

with fishknives while they lay on the ground. That barbarian ambush had almost

been successful. Only the legion's automatic response to danger and the

immediate forming of the square had saved them all from being butchered and

having their heads stuck on poles outside the longhouses of the barbaric

tribesmen from across the Rhine.

Casca walked slowly, memories rushing upon him. Stopping, he bent over and

picked up a piece of metal protruding from the earth. It was the handie of a

knife, a knife stuck in something. Tugging gently, Casca freed it. The rusty

blade came forth, almost completely eaten away but still strong enough to hold

the piece of human skull it had penetrated so many years ago. Ours? Or theirs?

Casca mused. He hooked his pack up higher and looked in the direction of the

river. He walked toward it, his footsteps taking him back to that first battle

when he was young and the copper taste of piss-blinding fear was in his mouth.

He knew that beneath his feet were the bones of men whom he had known and

served with, some friends, some not, but all comrades. The legion ... the

legion ... my only true .... . my father and my mother.. .. Here is where I

killed my first man over a hundred and fifty years ago. The wheel turns. As I

told the leader of the caravan out of Anatolia before we headed for Damascus,

the wheels of the gods grind slow, yet they grind exceedingly fine.

Every-thing is as it was and will be. The only exception is me. I am what I

was and apparently always will be until the Jew comes again. I am the

continuation of myself. Shit, where the hell did I learn to talk like that?

Continuation my ass. I am what I am, and perhaps I get a little maudlin now

and then. But life is still interesting. There are yet places to go, people to

meet, women to love

and .........

Casca drew himself erect, his hand on his belt. He looked across the river.

The Jew said it: What I am, that I shall be. Cood enough. I am Casca, soldier

of the legions, part-time slave-but I exist. Cogito, ergo sum. I will beat the

Jew yet. My fortuees lie in' front of me... in life and adventure.

CASCA

GOD OF DEATH

Certainly I get feelings of sympathy for myself now and then, but, as He said,

I am what I am. Therefore I shall live the life that my destiny demands. But

as my Own man.

Absorbed in his interior monologue, Casca had reached the river.

The Rhine, dark and swift, flowed before him. He knelt at the same spot where

he had slaked his thirst in the then bloody waters of that battle so long ago

. . . his battle thirst after the Suevii had broken and run, and the

legionnaires had slaughtered them all the way to the river and even in it. The

passing face of a young German boy ran before Casca's eyes . . . and faded.

One he had killed? It grew hard to recall them all after a while. Casca sat by

the bank of the great river looking across to where no Roman in his right mind

would want to be. Germania. Terra incognita. The unknown lands of the fiercest

tribesmen on earth. The Germans and the Parthians were the only peoples to

stand against the might of Imperial Rome. But the Parthians were cultured and

rich, with not only the heritage of the great Persian Empire, but with the

sophistication of their first conquerors, the Greeks, under the young warrior,

Alexander. The Germans were something else. Casca had the feeling they would

always be a pain in the ass to the rest of the world no matter how civilized

they might eventually become on the surface. They had born in them, and

nurtured by the first taste of their mothers' milk, a lust for life that

fulfilled itself only in battle.

By all the demon: of whatever reality there are, it seems as if the sage Shiu

Lao Tze was right.

Everything is a great circle qnd repeats itself like that endless line of

slaves in the mines of Greece, never ending, always coming back to the

beginning. Or is it the end? Perhaps beginning and ending are both the same.

The night was close upon him, and the water looked too damned cold for

swimming across in the dark. Tomorrow is time enough. Building a small fire,

Casca waited, letting the warmth of the red embers reach deep within him. The

piece of donkey meat he was cooking crackled and sizzled. The rich smell of

the roasting meat made his mouth salivate. In anticipation, he smacked his

lips. Ahh~ There's nothing like a nice hot piece of young ass to set a mans

mouth watering....

As the meat turned crisp and juicy, Casca reached over and cut off a slice and

filled his mouth with the strong taste of young ass. He gulped the meat down,

pulled his cloak around him, rolled over, and went to sleep facing the fire.

Tomorrow, Germany...

When the dawn came and Casca awoke, there was the same type fog rolling across

the river as had surrounded the ghost like images of the Suevii floating

across the Rhine on logs so many years ago. But this time it was Casca's turn

to enter the whirling waters.

The coals of his fire had long since died. Grumbling as he rose, he walked to

the water's edge, scratching his ass. He farted and joined his stream with

that of the mighty river. Goingback to his campsite, he stirred the dead coals

hopefully and looked questioningly at a piece of the donkey flesh that

remained, but it was now black and charred. Restraining a belch, he mumbled,

"No way. There's no way I'm going to eat a piece of cold burned ass this early

in the morning."

The ground fog swirled around him and the trees. The dawn became day. The

rising sun burned off the mist, a few rays breaking through the surrounding

trees to give a sense of impending warmth.

"Well, shit," he said aloud, looking at the river, "I might as well get it

over with. The sooner I get across, the sooner I can dry off." He dragged a

log to the river's edge, tied his gear, a chunk of donkey meat, and his pack

to it, and shoved off into the frigid, dark waters, gingerly at first as he

waded in, cursing at the icy cold. "Ooh! Ah! Damn, that's cold!" As the Rhine

slowly advanced up his legs, his scrotum tried to climb up even higher to

avoid the chilling advance, but, as nature wills it, his balls could only go

up so far. Then he was in, and the coldness became warm as he struck off and

began paddling across, letting the current take him. It really didn't make a

damn where he landed, so he let the river do the work.

The waters finally took him to where his feet could touch bottom. Groaning, he

pushed the log to the edge of the bank and began to take his gear from it

before leaving the water himself.

"Ho, little man! What do you here?"

The speaker, unexpected as he was, seemed to exemplify that popular image of

German barbarism. He stood six-foot-three, and he was two hundred and fifty

pounds of meat-stuffed flesh if he was an ounce. He wore a horned helmet, and

his sweeping mustache would have made a walrus proud.

"Ho, little man!" he repeated, his voice the thundering bellow of an oversize

Germanic ox. "Do you ashore come? I can see that you are not of the tribes, so

therefore you must pay before entering this land. As I am a reasonable man, I

will take only your pack and weapons, leaving you your clothes. They would not

fit anyway. Fair enough? Or do you wish to dispute me over the matter?" With

this he drew a monstrous long sword that must have weighed forty pounds and

swung it easily through the air, the slicing blade whistling. He used just one

hand and then brought the sword down, resting the point at his loong-wrapped

feet.

"Well, what will it be, my wet little titmouse? Though you are larger than

most of your sickly ilk, I can see by your rags that you are a Latin. May

Wotan piss in your soup.

Oh, no, thought Casca. This is all I need to start the day off. Getting a firm

footing on the slippery bottom, he raised himself up to a full height of

five-foot-ten-which still seemed small, woefully small, in comparison to the

huge barbarian.

"Now, listen to me, lard guts," he said in German. "I have had just about

enough of your mouth and this river. Take your large, overstuffed carcass away

and leave me in peace, or I'll ruin your love life by braiding your legs.

Verstand, sheiss kopf?"

"Shit head you dare call me? Glam Tyrsbjdrn a shit head? Come out of the

water, you dago mouse, and I'll teach you some manners.

"Piss on your fur mouth. I'm no dummy. If you want a piece of my ass let's

make it even. Either you back off and let me out of the river, or come in and

get your feet wet, turnip dick."

"Turnip dick!" Glam turned first red, then white, then purple with rage.

Stamping his fur-wrapped feet like a human version of the old forest ox of the

Auroebs, he bellowed, "I would come in after you, but I am no fish and cannot

swim. So come out where I can put my hands on you. I am going to shove my

right fist up your ass so far that I will grab you by the jawbone and pull you

inside out."

"Big deal, big mouth," Casca scoffed. "Sure you're tough with that oversize

meat cleaver. If you didn't have that, you'd be like a castratto-which you may

be anyway. I keep hearing your whimpering turn into a falsetto, you

louse-ridden eunuch."

"By the bones of Ymir from which Odin and his brothers created the world, I

will show you that I need nothing but my own hands to complete your education,

Roman boy!" With that, Glam threw his monstrous long sword from him with such

force that it almost severed a two-foot pine, the point burying itself in the

wood. "There, you lousy dago! Now will you come out and fight?"

"You got it, sausage breath." Casca splashed his way out of the river while

Glam stomped and waited, chewing his mustache in anticipation of settling the

afront made to his honor. Turnip dick indeed!

As Casca came out, Glam turned and threw a long, looping punch that Casca

easily dodged. Using the art of the yellow sage Shlu Tze, Casca blocked with

his right arm and gave a quick, inside snap kick to the balls. Glam, between

clenched teeth, tried with both hands to comfort his bruised groin. While he

was involved with coddling himself, Casca went into a reverse roundhouse kick

with his heel that knocked the big German into the Rhine unconscious, face

down. Bubbles of air started welling up as the German drowned. Casca watched

for a second, then, grumbling about being a sucker, he waded out into the

river and grabbed the soggy tribesman by the hair and raised his face out of

the water. Holding Glam by the hair of the head with one hand, Casca began a

firm cracking slap across the face with the other. Glam sputtered, spitting

out a quantity of the sacred Rhine.

I'm nought" he burbled. "Enough! I surrender. your slave. Just get me out of

the water."

I"All right, but one wrong twitch and I'll do what said about your legs."

"No, master. I, Glam, son of Halfdan the Ganger, may be many things, but I

keep my word. You win. Just remove me from this miserable river and set my

feet on solid earth."

The Norseman's helmet had gone to the bottom, so Casca got a firmer grip on

the shoulder-length hair and hauled Glam to where he could pull himself out of

the river to the edge of the bank and lie down. This the German did, his lungs

trying to turn themselves inside out. While he finished this process, Casca

returned and hauled his gear out. Sitting on a moss-covered log, he took a dry

rag and began to wipe down his short sword, for he was a warrior, and a

warrior takes care of his weapons.

By the time Casca had finished cleaning his gear and drying himself off as

best he could, the sun was giving indication that the day would be bright and

warm. Glam drew himself erect and strode to stand in front of Casca. Tensing,

Casca took a firmer grip on his blade, but Glam suddenly dropped to his face

and lay down in front of Casca. Taking Casca's right foot, he set it on top of

his head. "I swear by the Aesir and Odin Ailfather that I am your man in all

things until you release me from my pledge."

Tossing Casca's foot off, Glam jumped back. "Well, now that that is over,

where do we go from here, master?"

Casca looked up at the fur-draped and water-dripping giant. He grumbled, but

there was a laugh behind his voice trying to break through. "For someone who's

just made himsell a slave, you're not very damn humble."

"Humble?" Glam asked in surprise. "Why in the name of the sacred oak should I

be humble? I am the finest fighter and bravest man in the northlands from

Scandia to the Danube. Sure, I'm your slave. But who said anything about being

humble?" He beckoned to Casca. "Come by the fire, little master, and take the

chill of the river off your bones. We'll take a bite of your smoked ass, and

you will learn how fortunate you are to have a man like myself as a friend and

companion."

"Friend and companion? What the Hades happened to your being my slave?"

Nonplussed, Glam continued somewhat testily, "Well, if you want to be rigid in

your thinking, that's so. But I thought we might modify our relationship a

little bit. It is only because I find myself liking you in spite of your

parentage that I would be willing to make such an offer, because, knowing

myself, I know that I would be an unhappy slave and as such would most likely

cause you a great deal of trouble and concern. But as a friend and

companion...

-Ahh!-that's something else. In that happy condition I would put all my

intelligence and resources at your disposal; Now, wouldn't that be better than

having an unhappy slave that you couldn't trust?"

By the time the big Cerman had ended his monologue Casca was desperately

trying to control a fit of laughter. Choking it back, he cleared his throat.

"Good enough, my monstrous friend. We will be comrades until the time when our

roads must part. Until then, we will be true to one another in our actions and

trust. Is it agreed?" He held out his hand.

Glam nodded his head vigorously up and down. "Ay~ Roman, that it is. And think

not that I am ungratefuI for your releasing me from my bonds on slavery, for

certainly I was miserable all the time of my servitude."

Casca laughed out loud in spite of himself. "By Mithra, man, you were a slave

for only less than an hour. How much misery could you acquire in that short a

time?"

Glam responded in wounded tones, his mustache starting to bristle up. "It is

not the length of bond-age. It is the emotional pain of the condition that

counts. And I-" he visibly swelled "-I have soul of a poet. The soul,

if-regrettably-not the words."

"Stop. Enough already, you great barbarian. I accept your reasoning. Just

spare me the story." Glam nodded in agreement, and Casca went on. It was best

to get their relationship straight from the begininng. "Firstthings first," he

said. "My name is Casca. And I'm no ones dummy. I've been around a long

time-longer than you might think. I know most of the tricks of the trade. In

fact, I've invented a few of them. I have been a soldier in the legions, and I

have hired out my sword as a mercenary to those who could pay the price. The

only thing I won't do is fight a fight I don't believe in. There is enough

action around, that I don't think we have to sell our souls to the

shitmongers. So, if you want to come with me, let's understand things. I am

the boss, and we play by my rules." He locked eyes with the big German. The

intent with which he spoke allowed for no smart answers. His tone was

absolutely serious.

Uneasily, Glam looked away for a moment. There was something about this

stranger that was disturbing, something for which there was no ready answer. A

power? What could it be? But he looked back full in Casca's eyes and said,

"Good enough. You are the leader until our road ends."

The road Casca and Glam took was, for the most part, a good one. The two

rapidly found a fondness for each other that went far beyond the relationship

of master and servant. Glam, with his boisterous humor, was almost as good as

he thought he was-though he never got used to the idea that the smaller Roman

had whipped him without even using weapons. That summer of A.D. 210 they

walked through the great dank forests of Germania. Casca kept his Roman armor

out of sight in his kit bag. The sight of the hated Roman cuirass might lead

to more trouble than they wanted. The trail through the woods had the rich

smell of life, of green and growing things. The sun broke through the treetops

with shining, hazy blades of light and hsalf~ the floor of the forest so that

it glowed with green fire. The feel of such spots was most welcome for in the

morning and in the afternoon a chill would come.

Glam taught Casca the way of the Norsemen. Here were few towns in the style of

those found in the lands and provinces of Imperial Rome. But there was no

shortage of people; they merely chose not to live one on top of the other.

Glam rambled through these woods resembling in his fur robes and shuffling

gaiit one of the brown bears that inhabited these regions. He was a strange

partner for Casca the~~jn an, this northern barbarian, but they heeme> friends

and comrades. Their lives were intertwined and their loyalties tested by

battles and time. Glam told Casca of immense lands that ran from the frozen

sea to the mountains that held up the sky. Here the tribes roamed at will, and

those with great chieftains had tens of thousands of warriors at their call.

To Glam this was the best of all lands, the women more beautiful, the men

braver, the beer stronger. The two wound their way slowly, bearing north, ever

northward.

Glam grumbled about the way the tribes on the Roman sides of the Rhine, the

Danube, and the Elbe had become but pale shadows of their former glory when

they had been worthy foes.. Now they aped the Roman in all things and were, to

Glam's thinking, little better than falsetto-voz'ced castratti like all those

from Italia, present company exeluded, of course, he hastily added as he

caught Casca-- thoughtfully eyeing his crotch. Glam instantly recalled Casca's

threat to braid his legs and thus end his sex life ... to the detriment of

untapped legions of fair maids..

Glam changed the subject and went more into a travelogue. Indicating the

general area to the east with a broad sweep of his hand, he said in his most

officious voice: "There. Over there are trackless lands that have never seen

the foot of man. Others where only the wildest savages live, half man, half

horse, great hordes of them ... Small gnomes whose legs are bent so badly they

can hardly walk on the ground because they've spent so much time on horseback

that their legs have grown crooked. And there are others almost as bad.

Hundreds of thousands of them. Still they are only specks on the great steppes

of Scythia and the even more desolate region that runs untold leagues beyond.

Mark my words, Casca. One day we will have more than our share of trouble

coming out of the east. If those devils ever start to move, they won't leave

enough grass behind them to feed a family of grasshoppers.

"You have seen these people you talk of, Glam?"

"Aye, Lord Casca, I have. Several came as emissaries once to the king of the

Alani when I was renting him the use of my sword as a bodyguard for a while.

He was having family problems at the time and didn't trust his own men too

closely. Yes, these ugly bowlegged little bastards even conducted their

treaties from horseback. I got one stewed on fermented mare's milk, which they

drink, and learned a little from him. They are indeed going to be moving west

sometime. Now there is only a trickle this way, but, from the little bastard I

talked to, I learned that they have their problems, too. Even greater and more

terrible tribes are pushing them out of the lands they inhabit on the endless

prairies near the wall, 'The Wall That Goes on Forever'-at least that's what

he called it, though I am sure he is a bit of a liar. A wall that goes on

forever! Indeed!" Glam snorted through his mustache at the ideia "From what I

saw of those beasts they would be extremely unpleasant to have as neighbors.

They have absolutely no sense of appreciation for the finer things of life as

we of the northlands do."

Glam squashed a particularly fat louse and blinked as the body popped between

his thick nails. He ambled on, unaware that Casca was sore put to keep from

breaking out in laughter at Glam's wounded sense of propriety and sensitivity.

He was the mainstay when Casca met Lida at Ragnar's Hold.

Lida.

Now there was something strange.

Glam knew all about women-as women. And he expected Casca to be like himself.

But the thing between Casca and Lida, golden-haired, lovely, beautiful young

Lida, daughter of Ragnar the Brutal One, was like one of those romances the

poets sang about. From the moment their eyes touched, something passed between

them that was above and beyond the normal way of man and maid. Old Ragnar

found out, of course. Old Ragnar, to whom even a daughter was only property

that no man dared touch. In his insane rage when Lida had the temerity to

stand up to him and say, "I have eyes only for Casca," he had blinded her with

a torch jerked from the wall, crying, "Then, by Thor, you'll have no eyes!"

And when he ordered Casca tossed into a dungeon to starve to death, even his

hardened warriors were so frightened by Ragnar's enormous rage and brutal act

toward his own daughter that they carried out his orders, smothering Casca by

sheer weight of numbers before the Roman could find out what had occurred in

Ragnar's rooms-for they sensed that if he knew, even the force of the Aesir

would not hold him back.

Once secured in the dungeon, though, Casca had been told-by Ragnar himself

whose sense of vengeance was as strong as his hate. Casca raged, but. even his

great strength was of no avail against such great stones as enclosed the

dungeon.

Old Ragnar was a mean old shit, so used to having his way that he never

doubted he would always have it. Casca stayed in the dungeon for six months

until one day Ragnar, sure that Casca was long dead, gave orders for a new

prisoner to be lodged there. But when the door opened, Casca came out, naked

as a jaybird, nothing but bones and skin. He had eaten all his clothing-even

the lacings on his leggings-along with every insect, bug, and rat that dared

showed itself in the black cell. Water he licked from the walls where it

condensed in drops. Surely there was not enough to keep any man alive two

weeks, much less six months, but Casca lived.

He snapped the jailer's neck with one of his strange blows, took the man's

weapon, and like some weird nightmare of a man, wild beard falling from his

chin, he sought out and killed old Ragnar at his own table where the brutal

old bastard was entertaining guests. Glam had been there, having found himself

local employment in order to keep an eye on Lida. Casca had told him to wait,

no matter how long, and from the things Glam had seen on the trail, he

believed the strange Roman. Joyfully, Glam shouted and reached for his sword

when this filthy, starved, weird-looking wretch leaped into the middle of

Ragnar's tabel with an axe in one hand and a leg of mutton in the other. He

scared the crap out of everyone there, sending all but the sturdiest warriors

running for their lives. They thought he must surely be some demon out of the

netherworid sent by Loki. Glam roared with amusement as he watched Casca

bashing out the brains of old Ragnar with the leg of meat while whacking two

of the household bodyguards with the axe-and never missing a bite. Glam's own

joyful efforts to assist Casca helped speed up the demise of the few who dared

resist them. For the rest, the sight of the lord being debrained by a hairy,

filthy skeleton of a demon wielding a leg of mutton and a battleaxe was too

much. They fled the house, leaving Ragnar's Hold to the madman. They were

afraid of nothing human. But this was too much....

Forty years ago Lida was a golden-haired thing of light and silver. She moved

like a summer breeze....

Old Glam snuffled in his beard. Even sightless she knew every inch of the Hold

that was then heb~ and Casca's. Casca became the Lord of the Hold, and none

disputed it-and lived....

Wiping a tear from his eyes, Glam thought, I Lted her, too, Casca. And she was

beautifial to the end. A lovely lady with a heart for everyone and everything.

Especially you, you lousy dago." This had been a good place for them. It took

only a few fights around the neighborhood to show that this was no place to

muck about with.

Glam shivered as he, saw again those clear white sightless eyes of Lady Lida.

Forty years and she never knew Casca's secret.. .. That's the greatest miracle

of all. I never saw a man love anyone as much as he did her. When she died, I

thought for a moment he was going to have himself buried with her. But then

he's a strange little bastard. Those touched by the gods always are. He has

his fate to sodw, and personally I don't envy him. But the years have been

good....

Laughing in his mead, Glam chuckled and muttered softly: "What was it he first

called me? Turnip dick? Ha!"

ONE

Dr. Julius Goldman entered the magnificent doors leading into the sacrosanct

interior of the Boston Museum of History. He was late. His footsteps clattered

over the polished marble floor, his own sense of urgency seeming to precede

him with the echoing sound as he passed the priceless relics of antiquity, the

emblems of vanished civilizations. Vases from China. Amphorae from Greece.

Each a lonely and mute survivor of its past. Ancient weapons. Time-forgotten

ornaments. Each seemed ready to speak, to tell some dark secret of the ages.

Despite his haste, Goldman felt the atmosphere of the museum seeping into his

brain.

He turned left down an exhibit hall leading toward his destination, the newly

acquired exhibit of Mesoame rican art from Mexico. On the way, though, he

approached a well-used and exquisitely preserved set of Roman gladiatorial

armor, its great helmet and famed Roman short sword hanging expectantly in the

silent museum as though suspended in time. Involuntarily his steps slowed, and

he stopped in front of the carefully mounted pieces. A gash ran along the

belly of the armor, exposing the leather wrappings beneath. Goldman wondered

how the man who had been wearing it had come out. As he stood before the

armor, images flashed in his brain, and a feeling of second sight came over

him, a tumbling of memories lost and found and then gone again before

awareness. He saw in his mind's eye a massive stadium filled with people

crying for blood. He saw men wearing the armor of the Secutor and the Mirimill

one locked in mortal combat, straining to let the lifeblood out of their

opponents, and not with any reluctance for they were glorying in their

strength. Goldman felt himself part of the Roman games. The smell of the

blood-soaked sand stank in his nostrils.

He turned from the armor and entered the Aztec exhibit. The museum had just

opened and was practically empty, but Goldman had been here the previous week

and he recalled with particular distaste seeing two aficionados of this

pre-Columbian culture standing before these exhibits, indulging themselves in

a form of controlled, vicarious, mental masturbation... as if by touching and

looking at these relics they could claim some kinship with the ones who had

actually worn and used the items. Their attitude had been not dissimilar from

the motorcycle gangs who wore the swastikas and emblems of Nazi Germany-the

iron crosses and German helmets-and somehow felt that owning and wearing such

items imparted the strength and ability to inflict their will on others

through terror.

Yet Goldman, too, felt a strange fascination emaflahng from the exhibits. The

artistic level achieved in many of the items was astounding in its detail

work. One item particularly arrested Goldman: a feathered shield of cobalt

blue feathers with the emblem of the Jaguar god superimposed in tiny gold

feathers. It must have taken over a thousand birds to make this one shield for

some unknown noble.

Representations of the gods of the Aztecs stood in their cases, imperturbable,

the countenance and dress showing the overwhelming Aztec fascination with

death. Most horrible of all was Coatlicue, the mother of the Aztec pantheon.

Her image towered over the others by the sheer force of her accouterments. Her

dress was made of serpents woven together as if they were reeds. She wore a

crown of two snake heads. This was set off by a necklace of chopped-off hands

and hearts, while monstrous claws took the place of human feet. She and her

children seemed to wait patiently for the time when they could again feed on

the living hearts and blood of sacrificial victims. In their time, blood had

fed them-and the Aztecs made sure the gods never hungered for long.

One god, a powerful priest-king, was the most powerful figure in their

mythology. Quetzalcoatl-and his symbol, the feathered serpent-was honored in

almost all of ancient Mexico's panoply of gods. Even the Toltec and the Maya

knew of him. The Maya honored him under the name of the Kukulcan and told of

his coming.

Perhaps because this god was so different from the others, Goldman lingered

before his emblem. The fascination of the museum had gripped him.

Part of his mind told him to hurry toward his appointment. Part held him here,

immersed in the aura of the land of the feathered serpent.

The Aztecs had inherited Quetzalcoatl along with several other gods when they

conquered the Valley of Mexico and its inhabitants. There, at the ruined city

they called "The City of the Gods," Teotihuacan, they had found the great

temple of the feathered serpent and of TIaloc, the rain god. Goldman

considered the irony of the Aztec inheritance. Many of their names for the

gods, many of their words for daily terms came from a bastardization of the

captured people's tongue-and with the words had come a fateful legend-that of

the return of Quetzalcoatl. From the conquered people the Aztecs had learned

of the great metropohs that had once stood there and how it had fallen to

disease and curse when the inhabitants had lost faith with Quetzalcoatl. Their

shamans had then foretold that Quetzalcoatl would return in "one reed," which

occurred every fifty-two years. And the Aztecs, taking over the calendar of

their predecessors from the few remaining survivors, had also taken over not

only the legend, but the predicted time of Quetzalcoatl's return "from the

sea."

So it was in the year of Our Lord, 1519, on Good Friday-or one reed, as the

Aztecs reckoned-that a fair-haired man set foot on the shores of Mexico.

Hernan Cortez had arrived with his men, in suits of shining armor, with

horses, with weapons of steel. To the Aztec king, Moctezuma, it was the

fulfillment of the ancient legends, for the original priest-king had been fair

of hair and had come from the sea. The legends had said that he would return

in the same manner as his first appearance.

Moctezuma, believing that Cortez really was the returning Quetzalcoatl, waited

too long to resist the Spaniards. It was his belief, not his lack of power,

that caused his defeat, for when he had ascended to the throne he had ordered

30,000 people sacrificed to celebrate his becoming emperor. There were only

several hundred Spaniards, and Moctezuma could have destroyed them easily. The

legend's power was fatal; not until Moctezuma's own son, Qualtemoc, ordered

his father killed, was the power of the Aztecs used. They promptly drove the

Spaniards from the Aztec capital city, Ten ochtitlan. Though many Spaniards

escaped, not all did, and for the next several weeks the terrible gods of the

Aztecs fed on the blood and beating hearts of Europeans.

But the Aztec triumph was short-lived. The gold of Moctezuma was an

irresistible lure, and the doom of the proud Aztec nation was inevitable.

Greed-coupled with the religious fanaticism of the Spanish Jesuits, those

devoted followers of the Inquisition as ordained by the pious

Torquemada-conquered. Goldman pondered the paradox of the Jesuits. Here were

men who felt themselvesto be soldiers of their crucified God, Jesus, and in

His name, and in the name of pity and love and mercy, they did not hesitate in

their holy duty. In a religious fervor that approached ecstasy they were able

to burn thousands of heathen sinners alive at the stake. This was done, of

course, in order to save the: heathens' immortal souls-to open the way to the

glories of heaven for these heathen. By no means did the Jesuits consider

their acts to be acts of cruelty. On the contrary, what they did was done from

love. Ironic, Goldman thought, that the Spaniards convved themselvsesn so

different from the Aztecs. For, of course, the heathen Indians had sent their

sacrificial victims to their gods in order to deliver their prayers...

And while the priests of the gentle Jesus had burned the unredeemed alive, the

soldiers of Cortez had raped and looted-and destroyed the remnants of a great

people, all in the name of glory: glory and loot for themselves and for the

King of Spain. The story was an old one, and a common one, and for a moment

Goldman, thinking of it, lost the sense of mystery that had engulfed him in

the museum. He turned away from Quetzalcoatl and walked past other relics and

art objects, and then he saw the one for whom he had cancelled his day's

appointments and had rushed through the packed, hornhonking, morning traffic

of Boston.

The man's back was to Goldman, and he was leaning over a glass display case,

but there was no mistaking who it was. The back was broad, and the muscles

beneath the conservatively cut suit seemed almost ready to burst through.

Making his way past several other display cases and standing slightly behind

the man, Goldman started to clear his throat in order to announce his

presence, but, before he could, the man at the display case spoke, his voice

deep and steady:

"Welcome, Dr. Goldman. It is good of you to come at such short notice." And

with that he straightened from the display case and turned to face Goldman.

Goldman was speechless.

The stocky man locked his gray-blue eyes on Goldman and scanned the doctor up

and down. "You're looking well, Doctor," he said. "The years have obviously

been good to you. I'm glad you were able to come. For some reason we seem to

have our lives involved with each other-ever since that night in the Eighth

Field Hospital in Nha Trang."

Goldman's mind did a quick retake, an instant replay of that astounding night

in the hospital ward, when, after removing a piece of shrapnel from the brain

of the man now confronting him, an unbelievable story had

unfolded-unbelievable except for the living proof of it, which was a man known

then as Sgt. Casey Romain. At least that was what his dogtags and personnel

records said he was called....

"Casca," Goldman said. "Is that what I should call you?" He shifted

uncomfortably, but the steel-colored eyes of the man he called Casca held an

amused glint.

"It's good enough, Doctor. I will answer to that

-or to any one of a number of others." Extending his right hand to the doctor,

he said easily, "Here. This is for your collection. I should have left it with

you when last we met, but after carrying it around in my leg for the last two

thousand years I grew kind of attached to it." He dropped into Goldman's palm

a shining bronze arrowhead. "You deserve it, Doctor. After all, you're the one

who removed it from my leg."

Casca smiled and looked the doctor over carefully. "Yes, you are looking

prosperous. The hair is a little thinner, and the extra pounds look good on

you. In Nam you had that half-starved look that people who have either

religious or work fetishes get, along with hot eyes and thin bodies. But, yes,

now you do look well." Abruptly he took the doctor's elbow with a grip that

had the feel of cold steel in it and directed Goldman's attention to the

object in the case over which he had been bending when Goldman arrived. The

object, the case placard said, was one of the rarest and most priceless of its

kind, one of the prizes the museum was able to get the Mexican government to

lend for this exhibit.

Casca pointed at the object.

"Beautiful, isn't it ?"

It was beautiful, this life mask of deep sea green Mexican jade, full human

size, looking as though it had been worn by a living man only yesterday. The

workmanship, the artistry, was superb; the mask was detailed to the last

degree. The only thing out of place were the eyes. They were a peculiar

gray-blue turquoise. There was something strange about the mask, and, had

Goldman still been in the awed mood that had first overtaken him in the

museum, he might have reacted differently. As it was, he was a little puzzled

by Casca's interest. He said, impatiently, "Yes, it is beautiful. But it's

just a turquoise mask of some ancient king or priest from one of the Mexican

empires. Perhaps Toltec. Or even Maya."

Casca smiled, an odd, tolerant-Goldman would have sworn ironic-twist to his

lips . . . as though he knew a secret the doctor did not.

"No, Doctor, that is not where the mask is from. It's from the city of

Teotihuac~n in the Valley of Mexico, hundreds of years before the Toltecs.

There, when the shamans sacrificed special victims on the most holy of days, a

mask was made in the likeness of the victim's face, and the victims would wear

these masks when they were brought up to the altar on the pyramid and had

their hearts cut out with flint or obsidian daggers. The mask was then taken

and placed in a shrine along with all the others that were worn on similar

occasions. Actually, only seven were ever made, but they were held as holy

objects-something like the relics of the saints that the Europeans worshipped

and thought had mystic powers." Casca's smile tightened, became even more

ironic. 'But, look closer at the mask, Doctor. Look closer. What do you See?"

Goldman let his eyes run over the sea green surface of the mask, examining it

millimeter by millimeter. At first he was puzzled by Casca's insistence, for

he saw nothing unusual.

And then it hit him.

On the left side of the mask, almost invisible; was what appeared to be a thin

line where the jade pieces were joined, but on closer inspection, Goldman saw

that the thin line was not a break in the jade, but that it had been

intentionally carved-to represent a thin hairline scar running from the eye to

the corner of the mouth.

Goldman turned back to Casca, and his mouth dropped open in shock.

The same scar was on Casca's living face: the thin hairline scar that left

Casca with a permanent smile or grin or, as some called it, leer. The

correspondence leaped out at the doctor. He looked quickly back at the mask.

The rest of the features pended in time. involuntarily his steps slowed, and