The Legacy

Gradually I came to understand that I was bound in this cavern by some sort of magic beyond my capability or experience. I deduced before sleep on my first entombed day that no longer requiring sustenance or water must be the work of an otherworldly influence. I am embarrassed that certain other realizations took weeks, or months, to arrive (this was before time had died). To give an example, three quarters of a moon passed before I came to appreciate that no longer urinating or moving my bowels was also a change that could not have occurred without the intercession of some great power.

I speak of time but there is never light, not a single ray. To ease the uncertainty this blindness places on my speech, I establish every moment after waking as day (and every moment after sleeping as night). I can no longer spit, though my mouth is seldom dry. Each day I rend at my flesh with my teeth to find that I cannot bleed- I have been robbed of all that is sacred. A mere cupful would be enough to draw the circle and call the god; I tear meat from my fingers and chunks of muscle from my arms and am not even given a drop!

The walls are smoothed rock. Were they once jagged? Did the pressure of my searching fingertips alone wear them to this state, or am I only the most recent prisoner here?

I dream that my enclosure has black ceilings but the darkness of waking gives me doubt. The walls taste unlike any stone that my tongue had touched in my life before the cavern. If only this cell were made of obsidian! I would utter several secret words and press my palms against the holy rock, feel the veins of the earth coursing through my forehead and the walls will crumble and I will call forth fire and ash from the mountains on all those who worship the false and demonic god-who-was-tortured…Oh. I was lost for a moment, believing I was still a High Priest. Such daydreams become more difficult to evade as my stay lengthens. For a time I held to hopes of rescue or escape; now I settle for fantasies of killing men that are already dead.

Who has placed me here? It cannot be the god: I know his punishments and rewards, and not once since my imprisonment began have I smelled his hot breath or heard his claws upon this nameless floor.

There have been many visions, but I can only recall seeing the fate of my son repeated endlessly. It may be that many or all of the lost memories are repetitious as well, but I suspect that each unremembered moment is a new loss. Waking after a lost vision gives my mind the sensation I encountered when my twin girls were stillborn- not at all like the images of my son and his mother that make my ears pound like avalanches, that flush my cheeks with blood. Inaccessible, useless blood!

A vision comes.

The stream ripples around a black-robed man. He is quite young. A circle on the dome of his head is shaved to the skin. He nods. At this gesture a ragged line of women and children pushes itself forward to avoid a prodding spear; the borders of the line are enforced by men riding atop immense beasts. Taking the captives one at a time, the robed man leads them thigh deep in the water, quotes an incantation in a bored manner, and immerses them for a moment. He takes the sacrifice from the water and moves his hand from head to navel, then from one shoulder to the other.

At this signal, two men in shimmering armor each grip a wetted arm and march the woman or child to a large pile of tree trunks. One man takes a knife from his belt; the blade shimmers like their apparel and is sharper than the hallowed daggers held during the mysteries of the god. He cuts both legs very low, severing the tendon that runs between calf and heel. The men lift their load and throw the offering onto the logs. They return to the riverbank and wait to be called again.

Last to enter the river is my son: his left elbow is severely bruised, his eye is darkened from recent blows, his back is naked and shows the marks of a whip. Brave from his seven springs, he claws at his captors. He curses their god and his priests. He calls upon the god and my boy’s eyes change from brown to amber. A vertical slit begins in the center of his pupil and extends to each eyelid.

The aspect of the divine jaguar speaks.

“May your people be fertile as the hare!

May you conquer the land, sky, and water!

I tell you now, cowards that hold my arms,

Never marry nor lay with a woman.

The god is patient, he waits at windows,

You will find no rest if you sire children.

Hear me! The god will corrupt your cruel priests;

Many will seek to prey on boys and girls.

The injuries these holy men create

Will make your acts today seem a kindness.”

The warrior holding my son’s right arm cuffs him viciously on the temple. His eyes flit like hummingbird wings for a moment, then shut. The priest takes him and pulls him across the water. With anger and confusion plain on his face, he yells “Get thee hence, foul demon!” He pushes the unconscious body beneath the water. He pulls the boy away from drowning and signals the soldiers. It is as before. His legs are cut and he is thrown. His neck falls on a trunk and snaps.

The priest walks to the writhing pile of wood and flesh and says, “Better that they burn today than burn forever.” He takes a torch from one of his men and drops it. Grey smoke rises high, carried higher by screams.

The vision ends in the manner I remember. Suddenly the sounds cease, though flames still climb and cast flickering shadows. A man with a bloody belt knife reflects sunlight from his chest, coughs for a moment, and quirks the left corner of his mouth. He walks close to one of his companions and whispers into his ear, “Soon, perhaps tomorrow morning, I will kill that pious toad. When we return home I’ll bring the bad news to his family, and fuck his sisters.”

The sounds of fire and death resume, but quickly become impossible to hear over the pair’s coarse laughter as it echoes through this endless hall.