Warren Murphy - Unite and Conquer

The Jaguars came back hauling trembling Zapotecs.

"Release them, for these are my people."

Going among them, Lujan blessed them with his hands upon their trembling heads, saying, "Welcome to your new life. For as long as you serve Our Mother, you will eat meat and live in splendor."

Then, lifting his voice in joy and triumph, Lujan called, "Come out, my people. Join the ranks of the new lords of Oaxaca. Come, come, do not be afraid. The world has turned upside down, and you have happily landed on the correct side. Come, step forth."

Slowly they came. Carefully. Zapotecs were in the majority, but a sprinkling of others showed their faces, as well. Mixtec, mostly. Lujan did not bless them. Mixtec invaders had usurped the old capital of Monte Alban, casting down the Zapotecs who had built it. That was many centuries ago, true, but in his heart Lujan decided these latter-day stragglers would not enjoy the best of the new Zapotec order. After all, someone had to take out the garbage.

In the middle of this rumination, a priest emerged from Santo Domingo Church.

He approached with a trembling certitude. His white cassock with the barbarian purple cross on its front swayed with each step. He walked behind a heavy gold crucifix, which he carried aloft before him.

Lujan welcomed him. "Padre! Come. Approach."

"I do not know from what hell you have emerged, Coatlicue, but in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, I banish you. Viva Cristo Rey !"

"You play your role well, Padre," Lujan called out. "You remind me of the padre who is in all the old monster movies. He comes full of faith and fear, just as you do. He is brave. He is true. Despite the awful power of El Enormo-or whatever the monster is called-he believes his faith will shield him from the demons from hell."

"I banish you, creature of superstition."

"Do you hear, my people? This padre calls us superstitious. Us! We who stand in the protecting shadow of Our Living Mother. You, priest. Where is your god? Have him appear."

"His spirit is in us all. It permeates the air."

"Look above you. The air is dark and roiled. Terrible powers are abroad. A dark new day has dawned. Your crosses of gold will be melted down and reshaped into braziers and idols. No more confessions. No more commandments. Coatlicue rules now."

The priest stood still, his arm lifted as high as humanly possible. It shook and shook in his great, satisfying fear.

"No," Lujan called. "Do not stop. Approach. Coatlicue will not eat you. For she has had her fill. Is that not right, Coatlicue?"

Coatlicue said nothing. Her armored serpent heads separated and homed in on the priest, very much like the cobralike death-ray dealer in the movie called The War of the Worlds.

The priest was speaking Latin now, his words coming faster and faster, the vowels and consonants blended together.

"What is the matter, priest? Your white magic does not work. Coatlicue stands supreme, despite your useless prayers."

When the priest ran out of prayers and strength, he dropped to his knees sobbing. Then his head tipped forward and struck the stone flags of the Zocalo. High Priest Rodrigo Lujan ordered his Eagles to seize him.

They laid him at the feet of the unmoving and unmoved Coatlicue, and as an obsidian dagger was banded to Lujan, the Jaguar soldiers stripped apart the cassock to bare the heaving, helpless chest.

The heart of the priest seemed to beat through his ribs and skin. It called to Rodrigo Lujan, asking, pleading, begging for release.

And with swift, sure movements of the wickedly sharp black blade, Rodrigo Lujan released the pounding heart and held it up to the brownish sky, his blood-spattered face beaming.

Coatlicue looked down through her armored eye slits and boomed, "No, thank you. I am full."

Chapter 40

The word came down from the north.

"There is terrible news, Lord Kukulcan!"

Alirio Antonio Arcila stood up in his jungle encampment. He had expected bad news. They were in Oaxaca State now. They had passed from Chiapas without challenge or incident. It was suspicious. Almost as if the army had let them pass this far. A trap was likely. And so he asked, "The army is massing now?"

"Yes! No!"

"Speak, faithful Kix."

"The army is massing, yes. But that is not the terrible news, no."

"What is it, then?"

"Coatlicue walks the earth again."

Antonio frowned under his ski mask. "What is this you say?"

"The mother god of the rude Aztecs has returned to life. She walks, twenty or thirty feet tall, and hurls back the army like wooden toys."

This time Antonio glowered under his ski mask. Was this indio baboso drunk on pulque? "Where do you hear this?" he demanded.

"In the village of my people. It is all over the television. It has even preempted the telenovelas. "

Antonio's masked mouth dropped open. This was serious if Television Azteca preempted the soap operas. They did not do that even for national catastrophes, of which this past day was the greatest since the conquistadors came ashore.

"I must see this for myself."

Going to a pack mule, he unearthed his chief intelligence-gathering device. A portable battery-powered TV.

"Coatlicue is on Television Azteca," Kix panted. "That is Channel Cinco."

The set took a moment to warm up, during which Antonio fiddled with the rabbit ears. The mountains were a problem, but if he pointed the antenna correctly most of the snow went away.

On Television Azteca he saw the shifting images of destruction.

"This is a monster movie!" he objected, derision in his voice.

"No, this is real. Coatlicue walks."

It was true, he saw after careful study. This was live coverage. The creature was the familiar one from the National Museum of Anthropology. It was easily thirty feet tall.

The army had barricaded the road before it. The statue, somehow animate, stony yet flexible at the same time, crushed the armored vehicles under her remorseless golem tread.

"See! She is invincible!"

"Where is this coming from?" Antonio demanded.

"Ciudad Oaxaca, Lord."

"Oaxaca city means nothing to me. Let Coatlicue have all of Oaxaca State. It will be a buffer state for Chiapas."

"No, no. Do you not see, Lord? If Coatlicue is back, can Tezcatlipoca and Huitzilopochtli be far behind? He is your mortal enemy."

"Tezcatlipoca is the mortal enemy of Quetzalcoatl."

"But you are Quetzalcoatl. The Aztecs call you this in their attempt to steal you from us. They cannot, for we have prior claim, but they have tried."

"I do not care about this," Antonio said impatiently.

"But the television says that all indios follow Coatlicue."

"What is this?"

"It is true. Aztec. Mixtec. Even some Maya."

This, Antonio cared about. He came to his feet trembling. "That lumbering rock is usurping my revolution! "

"You must wage counterrevolution."

"Mexico City can wait. We're going to the city of Oaxaca."

"These Aztecs will rue the day they stole our religions, our gods and our women!" Kix swore.

Antonio assembled an advance unit of twenty men to go ahead of the main group.

"This way we will travel faster," he told them. "I, of course shall lead."

If anyone would have told Alirio Antonio Arcila only a day ago that he would willingly lead men in combat against a thirty-foot foe, he would have scoffed.

He was not the first revolutionary to be seduced into madness by his own press.

Chapter 41

Dawn broke over the Lacandon jungle. The sky was clearing. A few stars still hung in the bluing sky.

"See that star?" said Assumpta, pointing.

"That is no star," Chiun said. "That is Venus. A mere planet."

"That star is the heart and soul of Kukulcan in whose name we fight."