Age of Aztec

THIRTY

Same Day

“Don’t shoot!” Stuart flung his arms up into the air. “Hold your fire. We’re not what you think we are.”

Hutizilopochtli’s stance did not shift.

“Look. I’m going to move my hand now. Easy does it. I’m going to tap the side of my helmet here, like so.”

Stuart didn’t know if any of the gods could hear him through the faceplate. He hoped they could, for his and Vaughn’s sake. At the same time, he was trying to send out all the right signals through posture and attitude alone. We’re no threat. Don’t attack.

“And hey presto,” he said, as his faceplate vanished. “It’s me.”

The three gods looked at one another. Quetzalcoatl’s and Huitzilopochtli’s expressions were flat — hard to interpret. As for Itzpapalotl, her all-covering helmet gave away nothing whatsoever.

“I’m Reston. Stuart Reston. Remember? I know I’m just a human, but surely you remember me, Quetzalcoatl.”

He had no idea how good a god’s memory was when it came to lesser beings. Perhaps mortals were as hard for a deity to distinguish from one another as, say, laboratory mice were for a scientist. Quetzalcoatl had recognised him on the terrace of the Great Speaker’s palace but, it seemed, just barely. He’d offered a passing nod, but that was all. Bigger fish to fry, maybe. Or maybe Stuart’s face had been familiar but one he couldn’t place. He had forgotten the man whom he’d briefly taken under his wing only a few days earlier. Stuart had reverted to being just another anonymous human, one among the billions of such creatures who infested the earth.

“We’re not Serpents,” he said. “We’ve just borrowed these suits to get out of Tenochtitlan. Vaughn? Show them your face too.”

Vaughn’s faceplate winked out of existence.

“See? When you came to visit Tezcatlipoca earlier today, the two of us were there. But we’ve nothing to do with him. Not allies, not anything. The moment you left, as a matter of fact, he tried to have us killed.”

Quetzalcoatl cocked his head. A thin-lipped smile appeared.

“Yes, I know you,” he said. “The Serpent armour threw me off. Huitz? Lower your weapon. These are friends.”

“Fucking phew,” Vaughn said, with feeling, as Huitzilopochtli did as told.

“But you should count yourselves lucky,” Quetzalcoatl said. “We were this close to attacking. The only thing that prevented us was seeing you take down that aerodisc. It made us curious about you. Serpent Warrior versus Serpent Warrior? If not for that…”

“If not for that,” said Huitzilopochtli, “your bodies would be lying beside the gunship on the lakebed even as we speak.”

Itzpapalotl nodded in agreement.

“So it was actually a good thing we got waylaid,” Stuart said to Vaughn.

“Every cloud…” she replied.

He turned back to the three gods. “Well, I must say, Quetzalcoatl, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance again. But now, if you don’t mind, Vaughn and I will be on our way. The more distance we put between us and Tenochtitlan, the better. That place is a deathtrap.”

“Of course,” said the Plumed Serpent. “As you wish.”

As Stuart started to float past, however, Quetzalcoatl held up a hand. “Although, perhaps…”

Stuart’s heart sank. What now? What did this god want with him?

“Perhaps I ought to accompany you, at least part of the way. Huitz? Itzpapalotl? Carry out the next raid without me. Be careful.”

“Really,” Stuart said, “you don’t have to.”

“If I don’t escort you, someone else in the pantheon may mistake you for genuine Serpent Warriors, and this time there might not be anything to give them pause for thought.”

“Ah. Fair point. Wouldn’t want that to happen.”

“I daresay not.”

So, while Huitzilopochtli and Itzpapalotl carried on towards Tenochtitlan to bombard the city yet again, Quetzalcoatl flew in the opposite direction with Stuart and Vaughn. They kept to a moderate pace, so were able to talk without yelling.

“You’re winning, right?” Vaughn asked. “Looks that way to me. Tezcatlipoca’s men are putting up a fight, but really it’s a foregone conclusion.”

“Things are going in our favour, so far,” Quetzalcoatl replied. “But by no means has it been an easy ride. We’ve taken casualties. Mixcoatl, the Hunter God? Serpent Warriors cornered him and overwhelmed him through sheer numbers. I saw it myself but was too late to save him. And Coyolxauhqui — ”

“The Moon Goddess.”

“I sent her in before anyone else, to infiltrate the city and scout out the lie of the land. Her stealth capability should have protected her. Not even Itzpapalotl is her rival when it comes to blending in with her surroundings. However, we haven’t heard back from her, and I fear the worst. She may even have fallen foul of Tezcatlipoca himself. He’s the only one who could have detected her presence. Then again, it’s unclear whether the Smoking Mirror has taken a direct, personal role in proceedings as yet. I’m minded to think that he hasn’t, that he’s still orchestrating from the sidelines, simply because our side still appears to have the upper hand. When he does become fully involved, it could alter everything.”

“He’s that powerful?” said Stuart.

“Oh, yes.” Quetzalcoatl looked grave. “That and more. Tezcatlipoca could singlehandedly turn the tide of this battle.”

“So why hasn’t he tried to yet?”

“Why should he bother, when he has a whole army to fight on his behalf? If I know my brother, he’s using his Serpent Warriors as a shield. We throw ourselves against them and break them, but break ourselves in the process too. They’re there to wear us down. When they’re at their lowest ebb, then and only then will Tezcatlipoca emerge, because then we, his foes, will be at our lowest ebb as well. His reputation for cunning is not undeserved.”

“It sounds to me,” said Vaughn, “like you’re scared of him.”

“I am. I don’t mind admitting it. Any sane being would be.”

“Is that one of the reasons why you left him here on his own? The real reason?”

“It did have some bearing on the decision, yes,” said Quetzalcoatl. His hair flowed in a long dark mane behind him with the passage of flight. “Angry as I was with Tezcatlipoca, I was unwilling to antagonise him too greatly. His rage, when roused to its fullest, is immense. Earth-shattering. It seemed wiser simply to back off and leave him where he was. Giving him dominion over your planet was a way of appeasing him, I suppose. Had we not done that, had he and I continued at loggerheads, there’s no telling how things might have turned out.”

“But you’re happy to run the risk of antagonising him now.”

“I couldn’t, in all conscience, permit his reign to continue. I had to do something.”

“So you might say this is kill or cure.”

“That, unfortunately, is a fair summation of the situation, Miss Vaughn. The game is being played for the very highest of stakes. Should we lose, Tezcatlipoca will not only wipe out all of us, his peers and aggressors, but he may well unleash further calamity on the people of earth. It would not be out of character for him to commit another genocide, as he did in America, purely out of pique. He might go even further than that.”

“You could try negotiating with him again, couldn’t you?”

“You saw how well that went last time.”

“But you’ve had a bit of a barney and now the air’s been cleared. You could both say enough’s enough and call a truce, and everyone will still have their dignity. That’s how it is with boys and their willy-waving, isn’t it? You make your point, then tuck them away again.”

Quetzalcoatl smiled at her turn of phrase. “There is so much ill will between my brother and me. Too much. Our meeting earlier was a formality as much as anything. This — this conflict — it was the inevitable, the only outcome. It had to be. You must appreciate, surely, that I’m not fighting just for myself? This isn’t purely for my own satisfaction, not at all. I’m fighting in order to make amends to you, and all humans, for my intemperate, badly-thought-through decision half a millennium ago. I’m trying to reverse the consequences of a great failure.”

“Better late than never, I suppose,” Vaughn said.

“I like you,” Quetzalcoatl said with a chuckle. “Reston, I like your mate.”

“She’s not my — ”

“I’m not his — ”

“She speaks her mind,” the god went on. “She doesn’t kowtow. She’s precisely the reason the human race appeals to me. You have drive, vigour, a zest to be more than you are. When I first came here, I saw such potential in you all and I knew it was my duty to coax it out of you. I promise you now, if Tezcatlipoca is defeated — when he is — I shall resume exactly where I left off. I’ll help guide you forward to become the very best you can be. Decades from now, you’ll be so transformed, you’ll scarce be able to recognise yourselves. You’ll possess every last scrap of our technology and have the wisdom to use it well, you’ll live longer than you could ever imagine, and, oh, the places you’ll go and the things you’ll see…! Here, right now, is when it could all begin anew for you.”

All at once, Ah Balam Chel’s words returned to Stuart: It’s a period of transition as oneworld age pivots around and becomes the next. Creation begins anew. Life is transformed.

“Seems you might have been right after all, you wily old bastard,” he murmured.

“Didn’t catch that,” said Vaughn. They were approaching the lakeshore — one of its dark, forested, uninhabited reaches, a ragged littoral of swampland and stream inlets.

“I was just remembering Chel. The leader of Xibalba.”

“And he…?”

“…told me not so long ago about the Mayan calendar and how it predicted that the world is about to come to a pivotal moment. A crossroads, I suppose you could say. And here, it seems, we actually are.”

“The end of the fourth world age, the beginning of the fifth,” said Quetzalcoatl. “Yes, I know of this. Why do you think we came back now, of all times?”

“Even you believe there’s something to it?”

“Everything goes in cycles, Stuart. The seasons, the planets. Why not time itself? The Mayan astronomers were clever people. They kept immaculate records, observed the patterns, made the calculations. They knew about wheels within wheels. The earth rotates on its axis but also orbits the sun. A whirlpool turns, and within it are independent eddies. As in nature, so in time, for time is integral to nature.”

“Hold on, what is all this bollocks?” Vaughn demanded. “Can one of you kindly explain what you’re rabbiting on about?”

Stuart paraphrased as best he could what Chel had told him about the Popul Vuh, b’ak’tun s and world ages. “It’s all coming to a head,” he said. “The big day’s arriving. Soon. Very soon. In fact, anyone know today’s date? What with one thing and another, I’ve lost track.”

Vaughn frowned. “Three Rain One Movement One House. But I had to think about it. That’s the kind of day it’s been.”

“Then that means tomorrow’s Four Flower. Tomorrow’s it. When the counter zeroes and resets.”

Quetzalcoatl gave a confirming nod. “No coincidence. I’m not one to ignore the immense pull of time’s tides. The world has reached a crux. Tezcatlipoca knows it too. That’s another reason why he’s holding himself in reserve. He senses that, come tomorrow, he will be in line for either total victory or total catastrophe, and so shall we. All is poised in delicate balance. The fifth age will begin either with the Smoking Mirror more secure than ever on his throne or else cast down and destroyed, and whatever state the earth is in when the new age commences, so will it remain until the age after that. The status quo at tomorrow’s end will be the status quo for the next five thousand solar years. And that is why we must beat him. We are humankind’s one and only chance of being rid of Tezcatlipoca, its one and only chance of a bright new dawn, and so we are acting at the most auspicious time there is for us to act.”

He led Stuart and Vaughn in a decelerating descent towards a patch of rainforest. They threaded through the canopy and between the trees, down to an area Stuart thought he recognised, even in the darkness. The gods’ inverted ziggurat lay belowground here.

“This is where we part company,” Quetzalcoatl announced as they touched down. “You two may carry on to wherever you wish.”

Stuart detected a hidden current in the Plumed Serpent’s voice, a note of invitation.

“Or,” Stuart said, “we can come in with you. Maybe as allies?”

“Yes,” said Quetzalcoatl, casually, as if it hadn’t occurred to him. “If that’s what you’d like.”

“Why?” said Vaughn.

“Why?” The god mused. “Good question. Let me see. Could it be that, as humans, you might have a vested interest in the future of earth? It is, after all, your planet. Your home. And could it be that I would value having the two of you fighting at my side? I saw how well the two of you fared against that gunship, how you prevailed in the teeth of overwhelming odds, the teamwork you showed…”

“Teamwork?” Stuart and Vaughn exclaimed in unison.

“Not to mention your evident resourcefulness — purloining those suits of armour and adapting to their use so swiftly.”

“Let me get this straight,” said Vaughn. “You’re recruiting us?”

“Asking if you’d care to help out, yes,” Quetzalcoatl replied. “The struggle is as much yours as ours.”

“But you don’t need us, surely.”

“Two more assets in the theatre of conflict? Two more arrows in my quiver? Why ever not?”

“We’re not gods.”

“No, but you’re humans and therefore ought to be as keen to fight for your destiny as we are, if not far more so. But if the idea doesn’t appeal…”

At a gesture from Quetzalcoatl, the opening in the undergrowth appeared, just as Stuart remembered it. A pillar of light shone up from below, and through the rectangular hatch the tiers of the upside-down ziggurat could be glimpsed, shelving away deep into the ground.

“Bloody hell,” was Vaughn’s only comment.

Quetzalcoatl made to go down the steps. “I’m glad to have made your acquaintance, both of you. I know now for certain that humankind is worth fighting for and preserving, and indeed worth dying for. Perhaps, if nothing else, you could wish me luck?”

“No,” said Stuart. “Wait.”

Quetzalcoatl halted at the lip of the staircase. Didn’t look round.

“What the hell, I’m in.”

“Reston…” said Vaughn.

“He’s right, Vaughn. This is about us. Our future. It would be wrong not to get involved.”

“Are you nuts?”

“So you keep assuring me. But listen. This is the fight I began as the Conquistador, against the Empire. The same campaign, only taken to the highest level. It’d be a shame to have come so far and not go all the way. Might as well see it through to the end.” He added, “It’s not as if I’ve got much else to do with my life.”

“Don’t,” she said as he moved towards the hole. “Don’t go down in there with him.”

“Why the sudden show of concern?”

“It’s not concern. It’s just… If you do, I’m going to have to go too, you bastard.”

“No, you aren’t.”

“Yes I fucking am, because A, there’s no way I’m going to let you hog all the glory, and B, I’m still itching to have a crack at that wanker Tlanextic.”

“Both of which are sound justifications,” said Stuart. “And is there by any chance a C?”

“Yeah. You’re an idiot, and idiots need other idiots to watch their backs.”