Casca laughed bitterly. 'Dignity, old man? What dignity is there in death like this? Death, when it serves no purpose, is not dignity. It is useless.'
Abruptly the darkness was upon them, as if a curtain had been drawn suddenly. A murmur ran through the waiting thousands. The thunder rumbled, and the ground quivered.
Tezmec took the helmet from Casca's head and freed the bindings of the feathered robe.
'It is time, my son. The gods are impatient. The signs and portents of this day are great.'
The two lesser priests reached to take Casca by the shoulders and lay him on the altar.
'No!'
Casca pushed them away. 'First I must speak,' He turned from the stone and faced out to the masses below.
Filling his lungs to fight against the thunder and wind, he cried:
'I am the Quetza.
'The one whose coming was foretold.
'In this body is the living spirit of the Feathered Serpent.
'The wish of the Quetza is that there shall be no more sacrifices. With me it ends, and I shall place the mask of jade in the great hall with my own hands, for it is not yet time for me to die.'
He turned to Tezmec, and his voice thundered: 'Priest of the Teotoc! You cannot take that which is not yours. It is not for mortals to take my life. Only a god can kill a god. But try if you must.'
The wind screamed mindlessly. Raindrops, fat and heavy, made puffs of dust jump around the stone upon which so many living hearts had been cut out.
They were like that at the foot of the Cross…
The ground trembled.
Is this my crucifixion?
Ignoring the hands of the priests, Casca lay himself upon the stone. The feel of the well-used granite was cool against his back.
Is it time for me to die?
Are you coming again, Jew?
Is it now that I shall be set free?
The darkness was upon them, and in that darkness Tezmec raised the shining blade of golden flint. The beat of the drums was a distant memory. The knife flashed, and, as it did, lightning burst from the heavens, sending blinding streaks of light breaking through the darkness.
Is it time to set me free?
Pain.
Burning.
Cold.
The shining knife struck deep.
Behind the jade mask Casca bit through his lower lip, his teeth grinding against each other. A coldness like nothing he had ever felt or imagined ran over him.
Is this death? Are you here, Jew?
A greater pain… and a tugging deep inside… and a sudden feeling of emptiness.
Tezmec held the beating heart of Casca in his hand, blood spurting from the severed aorta. The organ emptied itself on the altar.
Jew, came Casca's unspoken pleading, now I can die. The coldness reached to the ends of his fingers and feet, his body chilling in the death spasms. The storm raged, and the darkness was a blanket of black nothingness. The wind screamed as if in some terrible pain of its own.
The people covered their heads and faces. Clearly this was the work of the gods. Tezmec stood, confused, as the wind tried to tear his robes from him.
Lightning reached from the heavens and struck the base of the pyramid, then walked its way up to the altar on which Casca lay, his chest open to the skies. It struck again, enveloping the top of the pyramid and all upon it in a crackling green inferno, the main bolt centering on Casca's body, the electric shocks sending his flesh into uncontrolled fits of jerking. The last remnants of his life force and consciousness asked once more the question: Jew, can I die now?
With that terrible voice that had sent Casca upon his wanderings came the words of the crucified Yeshua:
'As you are, so you shall remain.'
Lightning flashed continually, the thunder echoing and echoing, reverberating over the land. The wind was as nothing he ever felt.
Tezmec stood frozen.
A burning phosphorescence like the kind seen at sea that hovers over the masts of ships and travels along the decks enveloped the sacrificial stone. The jade mask glowed and seemed to throw out rays of emerald light. Tezmec held the still-beating heart in his hand. It was throbbing and moving as if trying to get away, twisting in his grip, slippery and bloody. The golden knife dropped from Tezmec's grasp when another hand covered his.
Casca, his body enveloped in the green fire of the sea, stood holding Tezmec's hand stationary over the altar fire in which the heart was to have been burned. And then Casca took his own beating heart out of the priest's hand.
'I told you I was a god. It takes a god to kill a god, and my time is not yet come.'
Tezmec was paralyzed with fear. Then, like a puppet with its strings cut, he fell on his face in front of Casca.
Casca turned to the terrified masses below, his chest cavity agape and bleeding from the ragged, serrated edges of the golden knife. Holding his beating heart in his hand above his head, he cried out:
'Look and see that which none has seen before!'
The multitude trembled as they obeyed, as they watched Casca take his own heart and put it back into his chest.
'I am the Quetzal' he screamed.
He put his hands on either side of his open chest and pushed the edges together, sealing them. His heart back where it belonged, still beating, the terrible pain seemed to be a distant echo. Raising his arms to the raging sky, he cried out in Latin. The rain beat on his face and washed rivulets of blood down through the hairs of his chest and onto his legs, until the life essence of Casca ran red on the floor of the pyramid. Rage filled his words:
'You win again, Jew, and I am what you made of me. I am Casca. I am the Quetza.'
His voice rose to compete with and to beat down the screaming of the storm, and in Teotoc he thundered:
'I am God!'
TEN
The pain was terrible.
Step by step Casca made his way back down the long flight of steps, past the intertwined carvings of serpents, past the goggle-eyed rain god Tlaloc.
No chanting.
No ceremony.
This time the only sound was that of the storm raging around the temple and the pyramid. The people and the priests were silent. Motionless. Stunned. Less lifelike than the stone carvings.
As though time had stopped for them.
As though they were frozen in a nightmare.
And only Casca moved.
Casca and the storm.
He and the storm were one.
