#Altecayotl

[spookyspaghettisundae]

A Pact and an Awakening

The wizard fell to his knees in the dark hall. Tapayaxi prostrated himself before the imposing stone skull that represented the immortal “Architect” who gave counsel to their god-emperor.

He remained there for so long that his knees went numb and his mind spiraled through all the memories and thoughts he had pooled. Memories of his encounters with the outsiders who had taught him so much of what he now wielded, of the rush of power he felt when he held the glowing gem that thrummed with the shreds of torn souls amassed within its mirroring confines. Thoughts that cut through a mist of secrets and occult mysteries.

In a world where the sun never set and night never arrived, only the wandering of floating islands in the sky could tell how many hours had passed as Tapayaxi knelt there, lost in confused meditation. Light poured in from the entrance to the skull-shaped edifice, blending with the glow from eternal flames that flickered in their braziers.

With no sense of time and reality slipping away, it took far too long for him to notice the footsteps of a man walking into this solemn sanctuary. The Architect known as the Altecayotl had arrived.

He stood in silence behind Tapayaxi, awaiting for him to rise.

And rise, the wizard did. He stood before the Architect and bowed to him in deference. The Altecayotl exuded a majestic presence as he stood there completely still, clad in black cloth with gilded threads, and a dress of iridescent feathers that fanned out from a hawk-like mask.

Although Tapayaxi was sore from awaiting the Architect’s return from the capitol, and he had always lived his life in reverence to this ageless, undying man, his blood now bubbled with envy. It boiled with the fire of ambition.

“The god-emperor has spoken after hearing me report to him. He heard of all that you experienced and all that you learned in the borderlands,” spoke the Altecayotl. His voice echoed through the yawning emptiness of the hall, magnifying the imposing and commanding tone in his words. “As I was impressed with the creature you created, so was he.”

Silence draped over them as the Architect stopped speaking to the wizard. Tapayaxi remained silent, unsure of whether the Altecayotl expected him to reply to that in any form, or if he had more to say.

He failed to see any further instruction in those words.

The Architect tilted his head and his piercing gaze wandered all over Tapayaxi’s face, studying his features closely in an eerie fashion, reminding the wizard of his experience with some of the stone-cold killers he called his bodyguards.

“Your next task comes with a simple order, but it is one of monumental scale,” continued the Altecayotl, letting his soft words slice through the silence. “You are to find more of these radiant pools of power, drain them as you have done with the one above the confluence of waterfalls—and return the resulting soul gems to me.”

The ambition that burned within the wizard flared up, and the envy turned to greed.

He knew he could do things with those gems—things undreamed of. With the souls of the sacrifices contained within them, saturated with the blue-glowing energies that they had drained from the “pool of power.” Creating a giant made of flesh and bone that obeyed his every command was just the beginning. He could do so much more.

He could rule this world.

“Perish such thoughts, Tapayaxi,” the Altecayotl said.

He wanted to protest, but then realized that the Architect had read his mind. As he searched his senses, he felt something invading his being, like needles piercing the cloud of his thoughts. The more he tried to focus on it, to perhaps push back this invisible presence in his mind, the more it strained him and sapped him of his strength.

He wiped under his nose and found blood on his hands upon doing so. The wizard’s eyes went wide with surprise as he glared at the Architect.

How had he done that? There had been no sign of him casting any such spell.

“Just like your captives, slaves, and soldiers who sacrificed themselves for your cause, you too, are expected to make your own sacrifices to the god-emperor. And to me,” said the Altecayotl. The tone made his words roll out as smoothly as molten butter, dripping from a ladle, yet they were as venomous as a deadly snake’s bite.

Tapayaxi’s hands balled into fists by his side but he found himself impotent in his anger. He dared not explore any thoughts of rebellion in the Architect’s presence now. He also decided that he was right. Yet—

“Sacrifice is not giving up that which you do not want,” said the Architect.

“But surrendering that which you cannot do without,” the wizard ended, completing the second half of their creed.

The Architect surprised the wizard with an emotional response he had never witnessed from him before: he chortled.

“We all make our sacrifices for the empire, for it is the best for our people. I trust you will make your own, in kind,” he said. And before the wizard could process these words fully, the Altecayotl added, “Travel north. Cross the mountains with your wardens. You may take your creation for protection. Find the floating isle upon which the northerners have built a brass sanctuary, where they practice alchemy and idle indulgences with spirits of the air. There, you will find another pool of power. There, you will fill more gems.”

Tapayaxi awaited more instructions, but when no more came, he bowed in reverence once again. It was time for him to leave. He felt that the Altecayotl had nothing more to say to him for now. He felt it in the back of his mind, because the presence that had drilled through his thoughts now withdrew.

The Architect walked past him, standing before the giant skull in which braziers illuminated its huge eye sockets.

Tapayaxi left, and days later, he was wandering north, just as instructed. Breathtaking vistas from the heights, overlooking his homelands, occupied his mind, distracting him from the unease that continued to haunt him.

The wizard had focused on his task, preparing meticulously both in the form of engraving stone tablets with magick symbols that he had studied, as well as with reagents that he would use for such spellcraft. A dozen of his most loyal warriors accompanied him, followed by a veritable army of indentured servants. And that giant made of the bones of many.

A whole boneyard of remains, held together by bronze fittings. It thundered with every step that it took while it marched along this company. No beast they encountered was ever a match for his warriors and this magicked death-machine.

But with the passage of days, the distractions turned monotonous and could distract him no longer. He contemplated the Architect’s power and concluded that it was something that his wizardry could never attain. Yet he needed not emulate it, nor mimic it—within means of his own, he needed only to rival it.

Eclipse it.

He shielded his eyes with a hand as he stared at the sun one day. It hurt, and he cringed, but continued to stare.

The pain cut deep into his mind and suffused his thoughts. It made the envy bubble up; his blood boiled once more.

If he could use such soul gems to create the boneyard giant, he could make other magick permanent, binding it into objects of his own making. What powers could the Altecayotl possibly possess to rival a man who could see through every illusion? Mold shadows and stone just by willing it so? Control human beings with a thought, rendering them into fleshy puppets?

Such thoughts occupied his mind throughout the days, as well as when they rested and he stared into the glow of the campfires by which they warmed themselves in the cold mountains. Staring into the fire reminded him of staring into the sun, only it hurt less. He dwelt upon those thoughts, those ambitions.

One night, when he slept, he awoke with the sensation of jumping out of a nightmare.

Or had one just begun?

The world burned. Wherever Tapayaxi looked, he stood upon a sliver of land, surrounded by a sea of fire. The horizon had turned a blood-red hue that reckoned back to all the blood he had shed, to that festering pile of corpses upon which his servants dumped each once-living sacrifice. Severed limbs, wriggling with swarms of maggots surfaced on the burning lake around him, reminding him of his deeds and his sins.

In that crimson sky, a burning sphere hung low, a sun far more ominous and threatening than the one Tapayaxi had known all his life.

Screams reached his ears, always ringing from a direction to which he turned and found himself incapable of locating the source. Twisting and turning to determine where the screams came from, it took him forever to understand that they were his own.

His skin rippled and crawled with the fire of a thousand ants crawling underneath it, biting at his flesh from within.

Beyond the lake of fire, the silhouette of a winged monstrosity loomed on one side of the horizon, watching him with sadistic glee. Whatever looked like mountains in the distance around it—were not. It was a moving edge, like jagged black teeth churning and threatening to devour the skies.

Tapayaxi turned and turned until this hellish world spun around him ever faster, and dizziness made his knees buckle with weakness. His screams made way to the laughter that only insanity can bear, and his mad dance came to an abrupt halt when he stared into a steel mask, engulfed in a pillar of fire.

A giant of steel, with claws shaped like daggers. He felt that it was empty—empty of all charity, void of any benevolence. In the hollow sockets of that steel mask, pure malevolence burned in a pitch-black fire.

The sensation of insects crawling underneath his skin intensified, and Tapayaxi laughed in this entity’s face until he understood that this was no mere dream. It felt all too lucid—too real.

“The unseelie lurks in the shadows, protecting your precious pool of power. Kill it swiftly, or it will take your face and end your path right there,” the steel mask whispered. And shouted. It reached him through many voices, some of them screaming in pain, others luring him in with seductively dulcet undertones.

“Who are you?” screamed the wizard at this apparition.

It stood motionless, not like it was undisturbed by the inferno engulfing it, but as if it was one with the evil flames.

“There will be many perils on your path beyond the creature,” whispered the entity, ignoring his question. “Of shadows made flesh, seas of spears and blades, and of dragon’s fire.”

“What do you want?” Tapayaxi screamed in agony at it.

He scratched at his wrists, and the length of his arms. He scratched until they bled. He bled black tar, oozing from the wounds, and something—some things—with thousands of legs that crawled forth, but he dared not look upon it.

“If your wisdom guides your decisions, then you may gain power far greater than the one you call the Altecayotl. You may rule these lands one day,” the entity spoke in sixty different voices, blending together all manner of ages and genders, still shrugging off the wizard’s questions.

Tapayaxi’s eyes teared up, but with thick, viscous matter, like blood. He dared not pose any more questions, he only hoped this would end soon. That this was all but a vivid nightmare. That he would wake up.

But like the dagger piercing the back of his mind that had been the Altecayotl reading this thoughts, this too felt like the invasion of an alien consciousness. All too sinister, and all too real.

“You must only surrender your soul to me—and the key will be yours. The key to the world of your desire.”

Tapayaxi’s whole body trembled. It quaked. He finally dared to look upon himself. Only with delay did his screams of terror reach his own ears. His comprehension shut down at the sight of whatever was crawling from his self-inflicted wounds. The things that dripped from the scratches wriggled and lived and they glistened with shiny surfaces, reflecting the glow of the flames.

The hollow masked entity stretched out an arm, with a steel palm turned skywards and blade-like fingers splayed. Like an open hand, offering aid and succor.

Driven not by despair—for he knew deep down that this would not end his suffering—driven by that voracious greed that festered in his essence, Tapayaxi reached out and took that hand.

He took the offer. The blade-like fingers clamped down around his hand, piercing skin and drawing blood and digging into his flesh.

“Swear it. Surrender your soul to me, and you shall have everything,” it whispered in a seductive voice. Smoky, gravelly, and honest. Like a silky forked tongue touching against rows of tiny sharp teeth.

Tapayaxi awoke, covered in a sheen of sweat. His disheveled hair clung to his forehead. He had jolted into sitting up upon his bedding by the campfire, in the shade of his tent. Some of the wardens kept watch on the perimeter of their camp, some of the servants were still awake, while most others rested in their own sleep.

Disoriented, the wizard examined his wrists. They were reddened, as if he had scratched them in his sleep. They still itched, though with nothing unnatural about them.

The dream—the nightmare—lingered in his thoughts, hauntingly real and still hauntingly present. The whispers echoed, fusing with his memories of real experiences. But this nightmare, too, had been real. Too real.

He had made up his mind. This was his awakening.

He echoed those whispers with his own, “I swear it. My soul is yours, for the key to the crowns of this world to be mine.”

The campfire flared up.

Nobody else had seen it.

At first, Tapayaxi felt no different in that moment but he knew that everything would change from here on out. Once that realization set in, he felt a tingling in his fingertips. It traveled from his digits through his limbs and reached his heart. At first, it reminded him of that wriggling, sickening sensation from the nightmare, of the things gnawing at his flesh from underneath the skin.

He fought it back, resisting that knotting in his stomach, and dispelled the horrid memory as best he could manage. It made way for a dark fire, now enkindled in his beating heart.

In there, he knew: the world would be his.

—Submitted by Wratts