EHYEH-ASHER-EHYEH (I AM THAT I AM): An Elena Duran/Corazon Negro
Vi Moreau (vmoreau@directvinternet.com)
Mon, 23 Sep 2002 10:22:14 -0400
Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh (I am that I am) 22/34
Island of Nod
Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean
March 30, 2013
In her cave, Lilitu gathered strength. Soon enough, Corazon Negro would
enter the Dream to try to cast her away. The Dreamer would die inside her
darkness.
She closed her eyes. Her mind collected those memories that would allow her
soul to fly inside the other world.
Once upon a time in a country long forgotten, where the river of life ran
toward the final shore-that rocky beach from which there was no return-a
girl-child had been born in the crook of a willow tree.
Dark as a battle raven she had been and straight as a pin. In her mouth was
the language of beasts and she could talk before ever she learned to cry.
Her eyes were green with the witch-sight and in her thumbs she had
wisdom-wisdom enough to know that a willow tree was no proper place for a
young Goddess of promise and ambition.
That had been where they found her and after the infant sat up and greeted
them so civilly, they could hardly leave her there-complaining to the very
beasts of the field of the cruel turn they had played on her-so they took
her home. They called her Naamah-Zmargad-Aisling-Lillake, for it seemed to
them that she must be of the fair folk.
How much trouble, after all, could one small girl-child be? To her credit,
she did not pine away for her home under the hills until there was nothing
left of her but bared knucklebones. Yes, she did run a bit toward the puny
side, but that wasn't likely to last long enough to prove much of a bother.
But on the day of Naamah-Zmargad-Aisling-Lillake's birth, a ringing began in
the realms of hell that would give the world no peace.
Emerging from her memories, Lilitu opened her eyes in the cave. Around her,
the Dream began to manifest itself. The blackest darkness started to fill
the cavern, joining the reds and blues of the energy. Lilitu watched in
wonderment. It was almost time for the world to change. Almost time for her
world to begin.
========
Cabin on the Pampa on the Duran Estancia, near Las Flores, Argentina
March 30, 2013
At dawn, the sky was almost dark except for a few distinct and brightly
white clouds. The stars were small but, looking out through the hole Corazon
Negro had chopped in the roof of the abandoned barn, Elena could see them,
faint comfort that they were. The air itself was not too humid. It was
delightfully warm.
Elena sighed. Today was the day. Time was upon them. The Endgame was at
hand.
All around the large barn they had lit torches. In the center was the great
altar with all its tall Aztec Gods, their spectacular rocky faces and their
colorful garb. Duncan was standing at one of the windows on the far end, a
shadowy figure whose attention was on the outside. Connor had gone to the
loft, to get a better view from the other side of their
soon-to-be-approaching enemies.
The strong scent of incense was delicious to Elena's nostrils, and she
breathed it in deeply, letting it fill her mind and body with peace. At one
end of the edifice, where the wood from the stalls had been torn down to
nail over the windows was the unusual bonfire, the coals in it already
glowing. On either side were long wooden, rectangular tables on which many
different objects had been laid out with obvious care.
The complexity of the whole display amazed Elena faintly-then suddenly she
saw Corazon Negro, standing in the shadows of the loft. The Aztec stood, his
face covered by the green-jade mask of Quetzalcohuatl's, his body dressed in
jaguar's skin. He looked like an ancient God himself, and a shock went
through her system. The eyeholes and mouth opening of the mask appeared
empty; only the brilliant green-jade was filled with reflected light.
Corazon Negro's shadowy hair and body were scarcely visible, though Elena
saw his hand when he lifted it and beckoned for her to come close.
"Black Flower of the Mapuche people," Corazon Negro said, his voice slightly
muffled by the mask as he spoke. "If I die, you will be the next Dreamer to
humankind."
Elena's only eye opened wide-she could feel wonder, and yes, fear, coursing
through her at his ominous words. "What are you saying? What do you mean?"
"If I die, you will be the next Dreamer, the new Dancer. Remember, one heart
and one soul, forever," Corazon Negro's voice responded.
Elena stepped backwards. Even at this closeness, the mask was inherently
frightening and appeared to float before its lost countenance, perhaps its
lost soul.
"What do you mean?" Elena asked again, thought it seemed a terrible
irreverence, in the midst of this spectacle which had taken on a high
beauty, with the Aztec Gods, the stone walls of the old barn rising around
them, and the stars shining above through the hole in the roof.
"Just what I told you," Corazon Negro said in a low voice. "You are the next
Dreamer if something happens to me while I'm inside the other world. No
matter what you see or think you may see." He gestured before him. "There,
the Dream will come if it is meant to come, but you must not go to it, you
must not engage in any struggle with it, unless something happens to me. Do
I have your word?"
She looked away and shook her head, she wouldn't look at him. It was
terribly disturbing, what Corazon Negro was saying, though she couldn't
imagine why. It was nonsense, of course, that was why. To call her the next
Dreamer for the world if he should die-why, it was absurd! Upsetting enough
to think about Corazon Negro dying, but even more absurd to think about
herself being the Dreamer. Both thoughts were out of the question. She moved
away, to deny his words; at least to give them distance, to let her breathe.
Flashes of Corazon Negro came, in this breathing space. Embraces, flesh upon
flesh. So much love for so many centuries!
"Don't talk that way! You have to survive. I'll do what I can-we all will,
that's why we're all here, the MacLeods and I, to protect you-but I'm
personally of no importance. Without you ... I can do nothing. It's you, my
love. I've seen it. You are the last Dreamer, not me!" Elena said in
despair.
"You are wrong, Black Flower. We are the same. You are a Mapuche, the Dream
is with you too."
She shook her head again. She wouldn't listen to this. He was lying. She had
no power, the power was elsewhere, she could only help and succor and
support. What was he saying? Was it possible? She looked at him.
Corazon Negro stepped closer. Somehow, he seemed so tender now, so giving,
even under the mask. She could feel it. Was he giving her the power? Could
she truly hold it? What was he saying?
"What can I say?" she demanded. "How can I give my inner feelings to this
thing? Isn't enough that I stand here?" Elena said crossly.
"Black Flower, trust in me," he said. "The Dream needs our magic. Now we
must give it what it asked for. Trust that it will be for the good of us.
Trust that I can control what I must do."
"But--"
"Govern your heart, please, Black Flower. Believe it. Pray about it if you
must. But know this: If something happens to me inside the Dream, then you
must take my place as the next Dreamer."
Elena closed her eye tightly against his words, against her tears, to no
avail. It all washed over her, now, and through her. "I have prayed about
it," she admitted. "I know who I am, what I have to do," she nodded. Openly
she wept. "Very well, Dreamer," she finally said, defeated.
He wouldn't touch her-he simply walked back to the tables, and now Elena was
free to inspect the objects covering them. Ancient sculptures of Gods. A
stone chalice, beautifully ornamented and rimmed with jewels. There was a
tall wooden container filled with what appeared to be clear yellow oil. She
saw Corazon Negro's weapon, his deadly Maquahuitl, a wicked and awful thing
in her sight, sharp and dangerous, lying close to the bonfire. The weapon
was a flat stave of the very hardest wood, a man's-arm long a man's-hand
wide, with sharp flakes of obsidian imbedded all around it. Its handle was
long enough for two-handed wielding, and it was carefully carved to fit the
grip of Corazon Negro. Elena knew that the obsidian chips were not merely
wedged into the wood; so much had depended on that sword that even sorcery
had been added to it. The flakes were cemented solidly with charmed glue
made from precious perfumed resin and fresh blood donated by the priests of
the war God of the Aztecs a thousand years before.
Her gaze continued around the offerings. There was a human skull. Quickly,
she considered the contents of the other table, and saw there a rib bone
covered with markings, and a loathsome old shriveled hand. There were other
items-a fine golden pitcher of honey, which she could smell in its
sweetness, another silver pitcher of pure white milk, and a bronze bowl of
shining salt. And for the incense, Elena realized it had all been
distributed and was already burning before the distant unsuspecting Gods.
That's what she'd been smelling, and close up the aroma was almost cloying
in its strength.
Much more of the incense, very black and only faintly aglow as its smoke
raised circle in the darkness, had been poured out to make a great circle on
the soft ground before her, a circle that she was just noticing.
A dreadful thought occurred to Elena and she tried to banish it. She looked
at the skull again and saw it was covered with incised writing. It was lurid
and awful, and the beauty embracing all of this was seductive, potent, and
obscene.
"The Dream will appear in it," she murmured, "and you think the incense will
contain it."
"If I must, I will tell it the incense contains it," Corazon Negro said
coldly. "Offer prayers, I am ready for this to begin."
"What if there isn't enough incense!" Elena demanded in a whisper.
"There is plenty of it to burn for hours."
Elena resigned herself. She couldn't stop this. And only now did she feel in
her resignation a certain attraction to the entire process as Corazon Negro
began.
>From beneath his skin's robes, he lifted a small snakeskin and fed it
quickly to the coals in the bonfire.
"Make this fire hot for my purposes," he whispered. "May all the Gods
witness, may the glorious Spiral of Time witness, make this fire burn for
me."
"Oh my God," Elena murmured before she could stop herself.
But Corazon Negro continued intently, poking at the fire until its flames
licked the sides of the tables. Then he lifted the bottle of oil and emptied
its contents into the bonfire.
"Spiral of Time," Corazon Negro called out as the smoke rose before him. "I
can begin nothing without your intercession. Look here at your servant
Corazon Negro, listen to his voice as he calls you, and unlock the doors to
the world of mysteries, that Corazon Negro may have what he desires."
The dark perfume of the heated concoction overcame Elena as it rose from the
fire. She felt as if she ought to be drunk, when she wasn't, and it seemed
her balance had been affected, though why she couldn't know.
"Spiral of Time!" Corazon Negro yelled. "Open the way! You have chosen me to
be your warrior! Make me worthy! If I am to die in battle, let my war-song
be sung in the hearts of my brothers! Let the war-cry sound... It is a good
day to die! My war-cry is the song of my people, the Immortals! We are one!
It is the song of the earth! It is the song of the wind! Free! We are one!
Together! We are one!"
Elena's eye shot to the distant statue of Quetzalcohuatl, and only then she
realized it stood in the center of the altar, a fine effigy of a wooden
feathered-snake, its jade eyes glaring back at her, its dark feathers
wrapped about its fangs. It seemed to Elena that the air changed suddenly
about her, but she told herself it was only her raw nerves. The walls seemed
to shift slightly, and dust rose from the dirt floor of the barn in small
eddies, reminiscent of the tiny blue tornadoes of light that signaled
Immortal healing. The quiet intensified.
"Open the gates, Spiral of Time," Corazon Negro called out, as his hands
moved atop the flames. "Let the other world hear me; let the Dream be unable
to turn away its ears."
Elena watched the ritual in ecstasy.
Corazon Negro's voice was low yet full of certainty. "Hear me, Dream," he
declared. "I'm the Son of the Wolf, I cannot be denied! You are the Great
Mother and the Great Father. From your womb sprang all things, from your
loins the seed of life! But Lilitu has corrupted what she has touched,
brought things into the world of mortals which should never have been born!
The tree of life has been twisted!"
Elena gave out a faint gasp.
"Behold the new Dreamer," Corazon Negro said, his voice rising with
increasing authority. "I command you, open the way to the eternal darkness,
to the very souls whom you yourself may have driven out of the afterworld;
place your flaming swords at my disposal, for my purpose. I am Corazon
Negro. I command you. I cannot be denied!"
There was a low rumbling from the statues at the altar, a sound very like
the earth made when it was shifting-a sound which no one can imitate, but
which anyone can hear. At his window, Duncan made some sound of surprise.
Then all was silent again, save for the crackling of the bonfire and the
Aztec's voice.
"Drink from my soul, spirits of beyond, and allow my words and my sacrifice
rise to the Gods. Hear my voice," Corazon Negro continued.
Elena strained in her focus upon the statues. Was she losing her mind? They
appeared animate and the smoke rising from the incense and candles seemed
thicker. Indeed the whole spectacle intensified, colors became richer, and
the distance between the statues and her became smaller, though she had not
moved.
Corazon Negro lifted his Maquahuitl with his left hand. Instantly, he cut
the inside of his right arm. The blood poured down into the bonfire. His
voice rose above it. "You arcane spirits, the first to teach mankind magic,
I call upon you now for my purpose, or those spirits that answer to your
name."
Again he slashed himself with his weapon, the blood sliding down his bare
arm and into the fire. Again there came that sound, as if from the earth
beneath them, a low rumbling that human ears perhaps would disregard. Elena
looked helplessly at her feet and then to the statues. She saw the faint
shiver of the entire altar.
"I give you my own blood as I call you," he said. "Listen to my words. I am
Corazon Negro of the Aztlantaca people, I cannot be denied. Quetzalcohuatl,
powerful teacher of magic to whose who came after you, bearer of the wisdom
of the Gods, I call upon you for my purpose."
Again the Maquahuitl was lifted. Corazon Negro cut his own flesh. A long
gleaming of blood flowed into the aromatic brew. The smoke from the mixture
stung Elena's eye.
"Listen to me, all you have gone before me, I shall cause the Gods to
declare you anathema should you attempt to resist my powers. I shall
withdraw my faith and withdraw my blandishments should you not grant the
wish that comes from my soul. I am Corazon Negro, I command you that I may
achieve what I say."
The altar before Elena was shivering. She could see the skull moving with
the altar. She could not discount what she saw. She could not challenge what
she heard, the low rumbling of the ground beneath her. The dust eddies rose
again, and old, dry hay swirled with it. Now she could hear outside the
movement of the ombu trees swaying, as if in the early breezes of an
approaching storm.
"All you powerful ones, command the Dream to come out of the whirlwind,"
Corazon Negro continued. Then as the blood flowed down over his right hand,
he reached with it for the skull beside the smoking bonfire and lifted it
up.
The smoke from the torches grew dense before the statues. It seemed their
faces were full of movement, their eyes sweeping the scene before them. Even
their limbs appeared alive. The incense burnt bright in the circle, fanned
by the breeze that steadily increased, now felt inside although the doors
and windows were all covered.
Corazon Negro laid aside the skull and his Maquahuitl. From the table he
lifted the gold pitcher of honey, and poured it into the chalice. This he
lifted with his bloody right arm as he went on. Then he lifted the pitcher
of milk. Into the chalice it went, and then he lifted the chalice, gathering
up the deadly Maquahuitl again in his left hand.
"And this, too, I offer you, so delicious to your desperate senses, come
here and breathe this sacrifice, drink of this milk and honey, drink it from
the smoke that rises from my bonfire. Here, it comes to you through this
chalice which once contained the blood of sacrificed ones. Do not refuse
me."
A loud breath came from Elena. In the circle before the statues, something
amorphous and dark had taken shape. She felt her heart skipping as her eyes
strained to make it out. It was like a giant mouth, a hole opened in the
air. It flickered and wavered in the heat as Corazon Negro chanted. "Come,
ancestors, come closer to me." Again he cut his wrist, for his Immortal
flesh was healing just as quickly as he opened it, and he again made the
blood flow.
Elena couldn't take her eye off the smoky darkness. She stepped backwards.
She couldn't stop herself, but the black hole in the air had stopped; it
remained suspended above the ground.
"AS THE WOLF CULLS THE UNFIT FROM THE WILD HERDS, SO SHALL YOU BECOME THE
SON OF THE WOLF... HUNTER... HEALER... KILLER... DREAMER AND DANCER... COME
INSIDE, CORAZON NEGRO... COME AND FIGHT..." a loud voice said before Elena.
"IT IS TIME..."
The voice of the Dream! Elena thought. It was the voice of the Dream itself.
For the very first time in all her life since she had met Corazon Negro, she
understood what her lover had always tried to tell her. For the very first
time, Elena heard the voice of the Dream, a loud sound coming from the other
world.
At that instant, Elena heard other words, a voice, the Voice, coming from
outside. Her blood froze. Their enemies had arrived, and they were stronger
than she'd ever dreamed.
========
Duncan had been positioned at one of the boarded-windows for nearly two
hours, and the waiting was playing on his nerves. He hunched his shoulders,
stretching them-then saw a branch moving below his position, that meant
somebody was moving it. Good, it was starting at last. He felt his blood
cool, the endless waiting over, and raised his rifle into position.
A lone figure moved toward the barn. Duncan had one job-to let no one pass
in either direction, toward or away from the barn. The figure outside was
sneaking away from the shelter. Only the slight creak of the branch had
given him away.
Duncan aimed, exhaled and squeezed the trigger steadily and softly. The man
fell to the ground. Duncan sighed. Since the peace of Glenfinnan had been
broken by the Berserkers' attack, the younger Highlander could no longer
block out what seemed to him a world of violence that faced him from just
beyond the visage in the window. He was accustomed to violence, of course,
and death-at least he had been-but the rituals of the Aztec, Elena's love
for the Dreamer, Lilitu herself and the bodies she left in her wake, even
the idea of Lilitu creating the Game for her advantage and amusement, all
served to disturb him deeply. Perhaps it was the faint but incomprehensible
voice in the back of his mind, droning endlessly, that unsteadied him. Or
perhaps he was not so immune to such atrocities as he had been in the past.
The seconds fused hopelessly together.
More Hunters made themselves visible, and Duncan fired again once, only when
he was sure, not missing his mark. At that moment, a torrent of gunshots
erupted toward him. He ducked for cover as he heard Connor shoot out of his
window. They were coming from all sides.
Duncan's eyes narrowed and he looked back toward Corazon Negro. The Aztec
was standing. Duncan trusted his friend completely, but he wasn't used to
thinking of Corazon Negro as the Dreamer. What did that mean, anyway, the
younger Highlander wondered, and what was going on in that ancient, complex
mind?
Suddenly Duncan heard something from outside that left him breathless with
dread.
"God, no!" he exclaimed, then rushed to protect Corazon Negro from the enemy
within, from Connor, knowing, fearing he, Duncan, would be the next danger
to the Aztec.
========