SIX
The magnificently garbed Teotec warriors were preparing for the journey to the interior. On one of the hills facing the beach and ocean they had assembled their captives and Casca. By signs they made it known that if the captives made no trouble they would be well treated. Using their fingers they indicated that it would take ten to twelve days to reach the city that was their destination. Casca was impressed. The warriors were handsome in their elaborate feathered robes and weird headdresses of jaguars and other strange beasts and birds. Professionally, he evaluated them as a military force. There seemed to be at least one dominant group in the unit escorting them. These men wore the emblem and likeness of a leopardlike animal, but one with which he was unfamiliar. Some of the men seemed to be of higher rank than the others. He presumed these to be officers. They wore the elaborate costumes of feathers and skins. The common soldiers, however, wore plaited suits of some kind of fiber. Their shields were mostly of wicker-work, though some shields were of animal hides stretched over a wooden hoop. None carried weapons of metal. He would have thought they had no knowledge of metalworking at all had not a few worn ornaments of gold. The most common weapons were spears and clubs edged with stone. Nowhere was a bow or anything like it to be seen.
He concluded that a well-trained Roman legion would have made short shrift of the lot but at the moment he did not have access to a Roman legion. The trip began, the captives led by the ropes of woven leather.
Day after day the party made its way deeper into the interior. They passed many villages, and Casca looked curiously at the inhabitants of this strange land. As a rule they were a handsome and ruddy-colored people, with square features and jaws, but with eyes like pieces of obsidian peeking out from beneath black hair cut shoulder length and with bangs.
During the days of their trek, Casca was introduced to many new foods. One was a yellow grain made into large fat cakes, something like those he had known in the East. There was a particularly tasty tuber plant. But the prize of the lot was a hot spice that burned the inside of the mouth like acid. Something the natives called 'chile' as near as he could make out the word. This the natives used every time they cooked. Surprisingly enough, though, after a couple of days of eating the 'chiles' regularly, he began to develop a taste for them.
On the trail the party was joined for short periods by others carrying market items as Casca decided they do all over the world. There were pelts from the great spotted cat, snakeskins over ten feet long, and birds thousands of brilliantly colored birds. The whole countryside seemed to have a madness for bird feathers.
The trail led up and up. Casca knew they were climbing and he was puzzled by it. Was this strange land that big that the interior should be so high? They left the tropical regions behind and entered a desert landscape where the vegetation was sparse, but cacti of many kinds flourished. Several times he saw the strange snakes with beads on their tails that they would shake at one if excited. Although Casca already knew it, his captors indicated by signs that the bite of the reptiles was poisonous.
He became aware of a certain ceremony, endlessly repeated.
As the war party and its captives approached a village, a deputation consisting of the village leaders would come out and make obeisance to the leader of the Teotecs and offerings of food and drink would be tendered. Before the party continued on its way many of the inhabitants of the village would come to where the prisoners were, bringing their children. They would smile and bob their heads in what was obvious approval. Several of the bolder souls would come close enough to touch a prisoner on the head and then touch their own, grinning all the while, obviously pleased. Casca surprised them the most, held them the most in awe. His paler skin and sun- streaked hair seemed to fascinate them.
There was some kind of meaning to the repeated ceremony, but he could not figure out what it was. The trails they traveled on were well used. Traffic on them was regular, if not heavy. What surprised him was to find that each night, when they stopped on the trail, it would be at already-prepared facilities permanent facilities. Used as he was to the Roman civilization, he was surprised to find in this strange land an equally elaborate organization if not the same, at least along the same lines.
As the party crested a hill on the twelfth day, Casca caught his first look at their destination. Shock and wonder engulfed him. There in the vast bowl of the plateau below them was a city such as might compare in grandeur and size with many Roman and Greek cities he had seen. Yet it was strange also. It resembled what he imagined had been the cities whose ruins he had seen in Mesopotamia. There were straight streets and broad avenues, temples and pyramids. From this distance the pyramids looked like those fellow soldiers in the legion who had served in Egypt had described to him. The walls of the city flashed with color even at this distance. It had the feel of being filled with low, square buildings; it had the look of being clean and of being laid out geometrically. Thousands of the inhabitants were visible. At this distance they looked like ants as they went about their business.
The leader of the Teotec pointed proudly to the scene below.
'Teotah!' he exclaimed, then pointed to the sky and repeated, 'Teotah.'
Teotah… Teotec… City of the gods. Good enough. At least I should be able to find out what's going to happen here, Casca thought. The plain below was shimmering with the heat of midday. Cacti, those long-leafed spiny plants that reached heights of over six feet, were abundant. There were also fields planted with crops of which Casca knew nothing but the fields were obviously well cared for and well tended.
The Jaguar leader sent one of his men ahead as a runner, apparently to announce their arrival. The full party continued at a more leisurely pace. Crowds had already gathered to look at the captives as they entered the city from the south along a broad thoroughfare. Casca was able to get a good look at those looking at him. For the most part, the men he saw wore only a loincloth of white or brown, the women a two-piece dress consisting of a skirt and jacket. Many of these were decorated with geometric patterns. They caught Casca's eye because they resembled the designs he had seen in Greece. But other of the designs were a random blending of colors, no order at all, just colors mixed for the pleasure of it. It was obvious which were the married women; they wore their hair in a bun. The young girls wore their hair loose or in braids wrapped around their heads like crowns. As on the trail to this city, many of the natives would come out and touch the prisoners, making hand signs and smiling. Casca couldn't figure what the hell this was all about; it was a repetition of the ritual that had puzzled him on the journey.
Before the party entered the city proper they passed through the outskirts where merchants hawked their wares and vendors sold the crops of the region. Casca noted that workers and farmers were careful to keep their distance from those of the upper classes at least he thought they were the upper classes since their dress was more elaborate and their manner more authoritative. There were some, whom he took to be the nobles of the city for they were carried in sedan chairs not very different from those of Rome.
As they entered the city proper, Casca could see that the walls were painted in a bright, rich coloring the like of which he had never seen elsewhere in his travels, painted with bold murals, but he was hustled along before he could get a really close look at them. The people lined the avenues leading to what was a great square. They were orderly, mannerly. There was none of the hate and vile behavior that he had witnessed in the Roman mob indulging itself when captives were paraded through the streets. These people were quite well mannered, almost docile, and their deference to the Jaguar men was obvious.
But there was something strange about the whole procedure.
Something that did not quite fit.
It was not too long before he found out what it was…
The Jaguar men stood before the great pyramid.
The priests came forth to look at the captives and determine which would have the honor of being the first to carry their prayers and messages to the gods. The native captives obviously knew their fate and were reconciled to it. The eldest priest, in a great feathered rendition of a monstrous serpent in emerald and cobalt blue feathers, selected one of the brown-skinned captives with a quick motion of his wrist. The man began to sob. Casca guessed that something unpleasant was about to happen. Perhaps they had the same thing here as in the Roman arenas where he had fought. The elderly priest spoke quietly and gently to the man and motioned to the top of the pyramid and to the skies. The man gained control of himself and was led away by two guards. The guards' treatment was firm but full of respect.
A chill ran up Casca's spine, a feeling of premonition…
The priests went one by one until they had faced and spoken with each prisoner. The prisoners were then
