EHYEH-ASHER-EHYEH (I AM THAT I AM): An Elena Duran/Corazon Negro
Vi Moreau (vmoreau@directvinternet.com)
Sat, 21 Sep 2002 13:29:22 -0400
Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh (I am that I am) 12.0/34
Julio Cesar divad72@prodigy.net.mx
Vi Moreau vmoreau@directvinternet.com
Rasputin thought for a moment. "We don't know where the real enemy-the
Ancient Gathering-will be deployed, Prince. Why don't we wait until my
contact tells us?" This time his voice was weary; maybe he regretted
agreeing to be part of this alliance. "And we must be careful of the
mortal's forces as well."
"Our foe is the Ancient Gathering! All we need to do is set a few fires and
endanger their precious mortals and they will come running to us." Vlad
tapped his finger on the map, twice.
"They disappeared after Mother sent the Berserkers against them in Scotland.
The Ancient Gathering killed those warriors effortlessly," Gaius stated.
"Of course they did," Livia spoke. "Those were babies with swords they were
facing. We are different. We are the ones who could treat mortals like
slaves, like animals."
If Vlad thought it was arrogant of Livia, who was unable to fight, to talk
about sword work, he didn't say. "Besides, the Ancient Gathering doesn't
know the place we are going to attack," the Voivode spoke again. "I like the
notion, now that I think about it. If we make them assault our position,
they lose whatever benefit preparing defenses might have given them. It
works well. Now, on to the timing of the affair..."
Cartiphilus simply tuned Vlad out, and considered ways in which he could
hustle Vlad or Rasputin out of danger when things began to degenerate. The
plan was passable but clumsy, failing to take into account any number of
possibilities. The worries were endless: The subject of the new Dreamer-the
Aztec Lilitu feared-was studiously avoided in discussion. Cartiphilus had
tried to bring the point up several times, but the others had taken turns
changing the subject; Livia might have decided to teach Vlad a lesson by
supporting him as the leader of the attack and letting the Voivode's
offensive run straight into an Ancient Gathering-shaped buzz saw; Rasputin's
involvement in the affair, as well as Torquemada's convenient absence, was
still troubling. And so it
went.
But the Headless Children, deafened by their own arrogance and sense of
superiority, did not seem inclined to listen to Cartiphilus. No, the best
thing to do, he decided, would be to wait until things looked dangerous and
then remove the targets from the scene if the Ancient Gathering showed
up-'when' the Ancient Gathering showed up. The rest of the attack could
succeed or fail on its own merits. The former centurion decided that their
plan better work, or it was going to be the biggest fucking disaster since
the Bay of Pigs.
Cartiphilus closed his eyes. Basic decency was too much to ask for; it was
too lofty a goal: Mutual self-interest, if he was lucky, was the closest he
was going to get. That was the way of the world, mortal or Immortal. The
best he could do was to stake his own thoughts and objectives, draw that
line in the sand, and then fucking bust the head of anybody who stepped over
it.
"Don't you agree, Cartiphilus?" Gaius asked.
Cartiphilus emerged from his reverie to find all the eyes looking at him
quizzically, though perhaps for different reasons. "Of course I agree, in
this case."
Rasputin looked mildly surprised. Vlad seemed smug. Livia and Torquemada
smiled.
And Cartiphilus just wished the fighting would start so he wouldn't have to
listen to this posturing crap any longer.
========
Mexico
March 29, 2013
Elena and Corazon Negro left the next morning at sunrise and managed an hour
in the Jeep before the narrow road gave out. Then, with light backpacks and
canteens, bringing their weapons tied over their shoulders and hefting
machetes to cut through the brush if needed, they followed the trail on
foot.
There was little conversation between them, all of their energy being given
to the difficult and steady ascent. But again that sense of bliss descended
upon Elena. The jungle seemed impenetrable, and because of the altitude, the
clouds with their wondrous sweetness and dampness invaded everything.
Elena had her eye out all the time for ruins of any sort, and indeed she saw
them on both sides, but Corazon Negro dismissed them out of hand and
insisted that they press doggedly on. The heat ate through Elena's clothing.
Her left arm arched from the weight of her machete. Repellent kept most of
the insects from biting, but not from swarming in such numbers that Elena
had to keep her teeth closed to keep from swallowing them by the mouthful.
Settling on the two travelers, obscuring their vision, and keeping up an
incessant chorus of humming, the insects became an unendurable nuisance, but
she would not have been in any other place just then for anything in the
world.
Corazon Negro stopped ahead of her so suddenly, she almost walked into him.
He motioned for her to come to his side. They had come upon a clearing of
sorts, and she saw decayed plaster hovels where there had once been houses,
and one or two shelters, which still maintained their old wooden roofs.
"This place has been abandoned from centuries," Corazon Negro said as he
surveyed the place. He stood for a long moment staring into the remnants of
the place and then he spoke in a secretive voice. "Do you feel anything?"
Elena had not felt anything until he asked her, but no sooner did she hear
the question than she was aware of something spiritually turbulent in the
air. She resolved to apply all her senses to it. The sensation was quite
strong. She cannot say she felt personalities or an attitude. She felt a
commotion. For one moment she felt menace, and then nothing at all.
"What do you make of it?" she asked him. His very stillness made her uneasy.
"It's not the spirits of this village," he answered. "And I'll bet you
anything that whatever we're feeling is precisely what caused the villagers
to move on." Corazon Negro started off again, and Elena, almost as obsessed
as him, followed.
Once they had crossed through the entangled village ruins, the trail
appeared again. However, the jungle soon became denser. They had to hack
their way all the more fiercely, and at times Elena felt a dreadful pain in
her chest.
Suddenly, as if it had appeared by magic, Elena saw the huge bulk of a pale
stone temple looming before them, its steep flight of steps covered by scrub
growth and dense vine. Looking closely, they could make out much of its
strange carvings.
"Is this Mayan?" Elena asked him.
Corazon Negro didn't answer her. He seemed to be listening for an important
sound. Elena, too, listened and there came again that awareness that they
were not alone. Something moved in the atmosphere, something pushed against
them, something sought with great determination to move against gravity and
affect her body where she stood.
"What's this?" Elena asked, her voice trembling.
"The Dream," Corazon Negro replied and suddenly veered to the left, and
began hacking his way around the side of the temple and onward in the same
direction that they'd taken before.
The Dream, Elena thought, shuddering in spite of the heat. So far the Dream
had just been a concept, unreachable to her. But maybe now, in this lonely,
ancient, forgotten place...
There was no trail now. There was nothing but the jungle, growing noisily on
all sides of them, pressing down on them. But the incessant sounds of
jungle life were dimmer now, replaced by the sound and feel of another
presence. Shaking her head, Elena soon realized that another temple loomed
to their left, and that it was much higher than the building to their right.
They were in a small alleyway before the two immense monuments, and they had
to make their way through cumbersome rubble.
"We are the first to come here in thousands of years," Corazon Negro said as
if reading her thoughts. "No thieves, no scholars. No one. The Dream has
been protecting this holy place for centuries."
"How old is this place?" Elena asked as she followed him.
"There are no indications," Corazon Negro answered. "These temples might
have been built before the birth of Christ or a thousand years earlier. Only
Quetzalcohuatl knew. He built them."
As they talked, the spiritual tumult continued. It was wondrously
intriguing. It was as if the spirits whipped the air, reminding Elena of the
insects again, which were much less present. But the spirits were not
something she could touch or swat or wipe off her arms-and unlike the bugs,
they held a strong sense of menace.
"!Dios mio!-My God! They're trying to stop us!" Elena realized, whispering.
The jungle gave forth its chorus of cries, as if answering her. Something
moved in the brush.
But Corazon Negro, after stopping for only few moments, pressed on. "The
spirits will 'not' stop us," he said in a dull flat voice. "I have to find
the cave." On he went, the jungle closing all too readily behind him.
"Yes, that's it!" Elena cried out, unable to keep her voice low. "It's not
one soul, it's many. They don't want us near these temples!"
"It's not the temples," Corazon Negro insisted, chopping at the vines and
pushing through the undergrowth. "It's the cave. They know we are going to
the cave."
A few kilometers ago Elena had suggested taking the lead, giving him a break
from the hard work of clearing their path, but he'd refused, so she'd given
up trying to aid him and now walked just behind him, cutting away more of
the path to make it easier on their return. She felt claustrophobic with the
trees on all sides of her and with the Aztec's bulk right in front of her.
They had gone some meters when it seemed the jungle grew impossibly thick
and that the light was suddenly altered. By peering through the trees, Elena
realized they had walked inside the blackened doorway of an immense edifice,
which spread its sloping walls to their right and their left. It was a
temple, and she could see the impressive carvings on either side of the
entrance, and also above as the wall rose to a great apron of stone with
intricate carvings visible in the scarce high rays of the desperate sun, and
the jungle died out almost abruptly without the sun to nourish the plant
growth.
"!Madre de Dios!-Mother of God!" Elena called out, but not because of the
temple itself. The airy turbulence grew extremely intense. She felt
something similar to the light tap of fingers against her eyelid and her
cheeks. It was altogether different from the constant barrage of the insect
world. She felt something touch the back of her hands, and it seemed that
she almost lost her grip on the machete. "For incorporeal spirits, they're
awfully strong," she whispered into the darkness, then put her machete in
her belt.
Unencumbered by jungle growth, she came to stand by Corazon Negro's side as
he seemed to use all his senses, his eyes peering into the darkness of the
passage ahead, his head tilted as he listened. He even seemed to be
'tasting' the air. Finally, he whispered, "They're much stronger than they
were before. They don't want us to go inside."
"And why would we do that?" Elena asked quickly. "We're searching for a
cave."
"They know that's what we're doing," he commented. "The cave is on the other
side of the temple. The simplest way is straight through."
"This is the way you dreamt of? You're Quetzalcohuatl's son. Why are the
spirits trying to stop you? Or perhaps it's my presence that's disturbing
them?" she wondered out loud.
"No," Corazon Negro answered. "This is the way I dreamt it should be. No one
before has made it as far as we have. The spirits don't care about my
lineage, or about you. They are here to protect. We continue onwards,
through there."
"And what if the ceiling of this passage collapses on us?" Now that they
were in an open area, Elena felt even more claustrophobic. Trees around you
were one thing, but you could cut your way out. Unyielding stone, however...
"It won't. The temple's built of solid limestone." Corazon Negro turned and
looked at Elena, a strange fire burning in his leopard eyes. "I'm the new
Dreamer. I will protect you. Nothing's changed, and nothing will."