“Though I got in with a different command,” he continues, “Jump'éel sacrificio utia'al jóok'sik a wi'ij”
“A sacrifice to get out of your hunger,” You translate roughly, still staring at the pair of eyes on his chest.
“To sate your hunger,” he corrects, ever the teacher, “That was before I realized it took only a few drops of blood to open the door,” He laughs.
The implication leaves you cold.
“So you’re the stem?”
“I prefer Collective, but it doesn’t matter. Everything will be clear after the ritual.” He advances.
You back away, mind whirring, trying to think of something, anything to keep him talking.
“What about the feather?” An academic question. He had the find of his life and was never able to share it with anyone.
“The Serpent’s Crest? He glances toward the shelf in the back then back, still advancing. “Magic is gone, the sword went with it.”
You back to the shelf quickly, asking several questions to continue the conversation. He lets you. There’s nowhere to hide.
“If magic is dead then how did you make yours work?”
“Same way the mayans did,” he answers, grinning like a shark.
The handkerchief is soaked so you remove it behind your back, blood dripping down your hand, allowing a sanguine pool to fill the rough surface. You put pressure on the wound as it comes faster and faster, suddenly scared you’ll bleed out.
The Collective laughs and you look down at the streams of red dripping down the wall, obvious even in the flickering torchlight.
“I must have killed fifteen men,” He says, halfway to you now, “Not a flicker of life came from that pedestal.”
“Eaters.” He shrugs almost helplessly, “What can you do?
He strips off his shirt and you see that the eyes on its chest were just the beginning. Scores of eyes cover his skin. It reminds you of the images of Argus you’ve seen in several manuscripts. Argus never had such coldness in his eyes, never looked quite as condescending.
Argus’s eyes never wept blood.
Desperate Mayan words form on your lips, but they die there. You should demand that the gods give you something, you have sacrificed and they owe you. That is the way with Mayan magic, needing the power of humans to make things happen. You understand it now. These gods are harsh, brutal, animalistic.
But you aren’t. You’re just a mild professor that flows with the river, standing strong only when people disrespect the lessons and worlds of the past. You won’t demand that the gods save your life here, they don’t owe you that. You’re an outsider, they don’t owe you anything.
The collective advances slowly, taking a melon baller from it’s bag, the edges sharpened like a knife. It puts it to its forearm now and takes two chunks of flesh out, its expression unchanging.
There is no blood, but you can see the tendon in the arm, flexing in time with its fingers. The Collective drops the pink balls to the floor and keeps coming.
Fear makes you reach for the dagger in your bag, deciding that it’s the best solution. It’s a shame that the temple has to be destroyed. It’s such an old monument, it deserves to slowly retire under the weight of the earth changing, not at the hands of man. You don’t want to be the one that makes it all come crashing down. There is no choice.
“Béet. Please”
The word slips from your lips unconsciously. It is a request that the gods would have never heard before and you make it now, not for yourself, but for the ruin here. Sacrificing a part to protect the whole is the Mayan way.
The cut on your thumb burns with a new intensity. You spin around and the shelf is completely clean, not even a fleck of blood in the rough corners. Floating in front of you is a white feather.
You expected something larger, but this feather is four inches long, a translucent veinlike shaft runs through the middle. It’s attached to an old handle, splintery, but usable. You grip it before your brain can catch up. Before the Collective recovers from its shock.
In handling all the artifacts over the past day, you began to feel the magic in them. A sort of warm glow that is less temperature, more attitude. This one whispers to you, strong but whimsical, like if hercules were a poet.
> I see a path before my eyes
>
> Naught but famine behind me
>
> For those that follow paths of mine
>
> Cannot their faith retreat
The words burn in your mind and you work through them, trying to find meaning.
There is a noise behind you that snaps you out of your head. You pivot and see the collective almost on top of you. The melon baller’s edge inches away from your throat.
The handle in your hand suddenly feels molten hot and a stone blade snaps out opposite the feather. It pulls you forward and you duck under the Collective’s arm, dagger flashing toward it’s throat before you can think.
No.
You will not follow the path of this dagger. You’re a professor, not a killer. There are other options now.
It takes effort, stopping the dagger, but you do it, turning the momentum into a lunge away. Time crashes back to normal, your arms and legs now syrupy slow.
The husk is still by the entrance, so you run toward it, only concerned with getting out of here, getting into public where you can’t be killed and forgotten. The husk draws a knife.
You need to get around him so you swing the dagger, testing a theory that your brain is rapidly putting together. Your arms quicken, speed making up for your lack of fighting knowledge.
Again the blade leaps for blood and again you turn it away.
You hear it in your head, begging, as you fly through the ruin, moving toward the exit as fast as you can.
> Let me free, tear out these chains
>
> The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
>
> Stay your fears ere long;
>
> Armored flesh repels a stain,
>
> As one, we do no wrong
You appeal to its wistful nature, answering with a few scraps of poetry, trying to convince it to keep going as it tries to convince you to kill, to do the thing it was made for.
There are more husks here, they sprint towards you, true form hidden behind mirrored glasses. Each time, you move to attack, using the burst of speed the dagger grants to dodge then sprint away. The handle gets warmer and warmer in your hands at every untaken kill. Why are you stopping it?
You burst out of the entrance and into a grey drizzle, water flattening your hair. There are more husks here, dozens of them ringing the structure, too many to dodge. You are afraid if you try, the blade in your hand will revolt and you will have accomplished nothing but wearing yourself out. You move up the stairs instead.
You make your way to the peak, backing carefully up wet, crumbling stairs using the rope you disdained earlier. The dagger hisses back against each drop.
The Collective appears at the entrance, moving angrily to the bottom of the stairs, blinking droplets from its eyes. It calls out to you.
“Give up the blade, Professor,” It’s voice is loud and clear even through the hush of rain.
“I never took you for a grave robber”
“I was after knowledge,” It responds, stung. You smile a little internally, there is still an archaeologist underneath. Archaeologists hate being called thieves.
“My family suffers from retinitis pigmentosa,” it says suddenly, “Do you know what that is?”
You shake your head. It climbs a few stairs and stops, looking at the ground.
“My vision got smaller and smaller.
It turns toward the town in the distance. The sunglasses on the back of its head slip, revealing an angry set of eyes.
“Science was useless, it so often is with rare conditions and ordinary people. Until a celebrity got it, my family line was doomed. So when I saw the word all seeing in this ruin at twenty, I had hope for the first time.”
“Twenty years I spent poring over every inch of that ruin, but I found it. Found it with field of vision the size of a dime”
“There was a cost, but I paid it. Josue here was a murderer.” He indicates the tour guide husk to his left without turning his head. It nods.
The feather in your hand cries for blood, whispering sadly when you push it aside.
> Refused, I sit in fields of grey
>
> Beside two brittle stalk;
>
> To ponder paths of darkened red
>
> That I could never walk
The blade fades to a mere outline, like the ghost of a forgotten memory. Raindrops fall straight through it now.
You cannot believe that this thing is trying to appeal to your better nature. Like killing people so it could see and then continue living in any way makes sense. No matter how dark the hands of its victims, its hands are that much worse.
“How many?” you ask.
“Excuse me?”
“How many have you killed?”
“Only enough to keep me alive and well.”
You look out over the ruin, a ruin that is swarming with husks, several dozen at least. The eyes on his chest stare at you with blind rage, the same expression mirrored by each husk.
Liar.
You look at his arm, its arm, at the two round holes carved out where your eyes were meant to go. You think of the village, defenseless with a parasite crouched under it, sucking its life force. A husk catches your eye, a young boy perhaps eighteen.
He deserves to die.
Is this offense? You ask yourself. Sacrifice is the language of the Mayans, but it is not just the sacrifice of the body, but of the principles. One breaking immortal laws to protect the many. You are defending them.
Like the dagger said, “Armored flesh repels a stain”
There is a flare by your side and the dagger ignites back into solid form. As one, you move.
Husks throw themselves at you, hoping to overwhelm you with numbers but you are too fast, blade no longer held back by the fears of man. It bites deep and passes through, on to the next husk. Like a sickle cutting grain, your dagger reaps the husks as they come.
You are not the pilot. You arm darts forward, feet somehow finding purchase on wet stone. You snap out, slicing a throat then ducking under an arm. The dagger wants to cleanse this place and you let it. It takes more and more control until your whole body has ceased taking commands from you. It is a rush like no other. There is no doubt, no fear, just movement and violence. Then we stop.
You stumble drunkenly, no longer guided by such power. Around you are the deflated bodies of the husks. There is no blood. It is as if they are truly hollow. You look around.
It is just the collective left.
The eyes all over its bodies are mostly milky white. The few that stare at you, do nothing but inform you there are more husks to kill.
You once read that predator species have eyes in the front of their head for better depth perception and prey have eyes on the side for a wider field of vision. The Collective is all seeing.
That means it’s prey.
You step forward and it does too, then it pauses about twenty steps down.
It pulls out a gun.
You panic. But perched on the top of the stairs as you are, there is nowhere to take cover. It pulls the trigger and you cower behind the blade.
There is this tearing, ripping sound and you open your eyes to a completely different picture.
You are much further down the stairs, staring into the forest. The Collective is behind you, holding a piece of the gun, sliced clean in half. The path of the blade extended through, carving through several sets of eyes, tears dripping down its arm.
It snarls and lunges at you. You both go over, rolling down the ancient monument, stone corners bruising muscles. You reach the bottom and sit up, blinking as if you were just thrown out of heaven.
It rolls to its feet and attacks, quick as a whip. You slide away, dexterously, not at all the agility of a mid-forties professor. You trade blows; it, ducking and weaving, you, lunging and slashing.
It speeds up, fists moving as a blur, but you match it. The dagger is no longer in one place, but several as the Collective tries to avoid it. You are faster. We are faster.
Then it is done, the collective slips up and we move over its eyes, cutting them both out neatly. It falls.
White retinal fluid, not blood leaks from its body. It looks up at us from the floor, muscles in the eyes directing their ruined contents to where we stand.
But we are not ready to part yet, there is still more to do. The husks are gone, the Collective is gone but there must be more. We can kill anything. We will start with the heretics in the town. They are weak, we are strong.
No. Again that deep voice from your core speaks for you when there is nothing else. When your entire body is consumed, there is one voice, an indomitable voice that steps in. No.
The dagger falls out of your hand with a clang and you sit heavily, suddenly nauseous. It is not you, you are not one. It is a weapon and its purpose is done.
The collective laughs wetly, blood soaking into the stones like centuries haven’t passed, like the Mayans are still sacrificing.
“It feels good,” it wheezes, “doesn’t it?”
You try to lie to yourself, but it’s right. It felt good to be in control, to not have to worry about anyone else, to not care about the consequences. You know you could live with yourself if you continued. Which is why you can’t.
You pick up the dagger next to you, using your handkerchief and finish the job, piercing the heart in a slow push. This is you, not the dagger. You want to remember. You cannot forget this later or hide behind excuses.
You killed this man. You, a professor of archaeology, who would rather be doing research in a library or studying a crumbling wall somewhere, killed a man.
It will stay with you forever.
You take the dagger back to the hidden room and put it on its stand. The blade retracts and it is once again a feather. You notice that the feather is red now, its thirst quenched.
It whispers to you still, even no longer connected by flesh. A single couplet.
> Mourn these not, my modest friend;
>
> Hands unsullied make no amend
You put a hand on the wall in support, resting for a moment. When you straighten up, you see bloody fingerprints driven into the rock.
You leave the town immediately, getting on the next bus out of the town. There is an airport close by. It will be harder for Dr. Caville to track you internationally, but word will reach him eventually.
Even so, you don’t care. You need to get away from this place. You need to leave the past behind. But you know it will always be there. It will live in your memories and nightmares for the rest of your life.
But it had to be done.