When the Gods Aren't Gods: Book Two of The Theogony (20 page)

“They are not gods,” Steropes replied calmly, “just far more powerful than you. Put down your weapons and let us by.”

“We can’t,” the leader
said. “They will certainly kill us and eat the hearts of our wives and children.” With a quick jab, he tried to impale Steropes. The Psiclops was faster, though, and swept the spear to the side with force that Calvin would not have believed if he hadn’t seen it. The local man had a good grip on the spear, and the entire spear point snapped off as the obsidian head hit the wall, leaving the Mayan holding a staff rather than a spear. He looked at the point in disbelief for a fraction of a second, which was all Steropes needed.

Spinning forward, he took hold of the staff and chopped the man across the wrists. The staff fell from his suddenly numb hands
, and Steropes continued his spin, bringing the end of the staff crashing down onto his right temple as it came around. Unconscious, the man began to fall as Steropes reversed his stroke, taking the other front row man in his left temple. Spinning back to his left, Steropes used the staff to slap the spear of one of the second row men out of the way. He brought the other end of the staff back up in an uppercut that terminated on the man’s chin. As the man’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, the staff was in motion again, sweeping around behind the last man to strike him low in the legs. With an explosive breath, Steropes channeled all of his energy into the stroke and swept the man’s legs out from under him. He hit the stone of the passageway hard on his shoulders and the back of his head. Momentarily stunned, he watched the staff sweep down on his head, only to stop one centimeter from his temple. Steropes paused and then moved the staff to his throat, not crushing him, but effectively pinning him to the floor like a mounted butterfly. It had taken 1.3 seconds to put the four men out of action.

Steropes turned his head slightly to look back at the rest of the squad
. “Do you have any questions you want to ask him?” he asked. All of the Terrans stood staring, mouths agape, except for Wraith. She bowed and said, “Master.”

Calvin closed his mouth with an audible snap and walked down the hall to where Steropes kept th
e man under control. Any time the warrior started to look like he was going to try something, Steropes just increased the pressure on his throat until he ceased struggling again. After a brief hesitation, the rest of the squad started moving again.

“What are you all looking at?” Master Chief
asked, the first to regain his composure. “You’ve seen martial arts before. We’re in enemy territory! Be on your fucking guard! Scouts out, front and back. Let’s go! Get a perimeter set up so the skipper can interrogate the prisoner!”

The soldiers
came back to their senses and went back to doing their jobs.

“
Their leader may be a bit more damaged than I intended,” Steropes commented as Calvin and Master Chief approached. “Whoever fashioned this spear did a poor job of it. It is not well balanced, even when the spear head was on it. I hit him a little harder than intended.” He sighed. “I miss the Ruyi Jingu Bang. Now
that
was a fine weapon.” He shook his head. “I also must confess to being out of practice.”

“If that is out of practice,
Master, then I would much like to see you when you were in practice,” Wraith said. Interesting, thought Calvin. He had never seen her intimidated by anyone or anything; Steropes must be even better than Calvin realized. “You really saw the Ruyi Jingu Bang?” she asked.

“What is a Ruby Jujube Bean?”
Calvin asked.

“
Please do not joke about the Ruyi Jingu Bang,” Wraith warned. “It was thought to be a mythical weapon of Sun Wukong, from the undersea palace of the Dragon King of the East Sea,” she continued in awe, “not a real weapon. It was said to be able to change its color, size or shape at its master’s will. The stories say that it could even fight by itself, according to the will of its master.”

“
That last one was just a story told by the less able,” Steropes replied. “It couldn’t fight by itself any more than this staff can. It was only as good as the person wielding it.” He smiled in memory. “Being able to shrink it to the size of a toothpick was very handy, because then I could carry it behind my ear.”

Calvin
shook his head at the strange talk as he looked down at the man, whose face was bright red from lack of breath. “I think you can let him go, Steropes,” commented Calvin, looking back up at the Psiclops, “I don’t think he’s going to give us any more difficulty.” He looked back down at the man and asked, “Are you?” The man shook his head as vigorously as he could with the staff pushing down on his throat.

“What?” asked
Steropes, having gotten lost in the memory. He looked down at the man under his staff. “Oh, yes, sorry about that.”

He
removed the staff, and Calvin helped the man up. “What can you tell us about the pyramid from this point further?” Calvin asked.

“Nothing,”
the man said, rubbing his throat. “Only the priests are allowed beyond this point. To go past here is to die most horribly.”

“Do you know how many priests and snakes there are?” Master Chief
asked.

“I don’t know,” the man
said. “There are probably at least 10 priests, and then another 30 of their assistants and acolytes. I don’t know how many of the gods there are.”

“They are
not
gods,” Steropes repeated. Calvin could tell that Steropes must have had some past history with the coatls to be so vehement about it.

“I don’t know how many there are,” the man said again. “There are probably at least five
although I have a hard time telling them apart. Most of them look the same, except for Him.”

“Who is ‘him’?”
Calvin asked.

“
Quetzalcoatl,” both the man and Steropes replied simultaneously.

Calvin looked at Steropes. “How did you know?”

“Easy,” Steropes said. “He is a telepath. He knows we are here. We should be going; every minute we linger is a minute he can use to prepare.”

“Master Chief, you heard the man,”
Calvin directed, “move ‘em out!” He looked at the man, shivering in fear. He had failed the coatls; he knew his life and the lives of those he loved were now forfeit. “Go that way,” Calvin said, pointing in the direction they had come. “You will probably want to be a long way from this pyramid very soon.” The man left at a run.

The squad moved slowly down the passageway, watching for traps.

Wraith moved up to walk alongside Steropes. “It is obvious that you are a master
of both the open hand and the staff. Do you know all of the forms?”

“
Yes,” Steropes replied, putting his suit back on. “I spent about two centuries learning all five of the traditional family styles. I also know the spear, sword and saber, as well, although I could never quite master the spear as well as I would have liked, due to my size.” His eyes took on a faraway look. “I once had the most beautiful spear in the world, but I gave it to King Fuchai of Wu to use in his war against King Goujian of Yue. Fuchai should have listened to me and killed Goujian when he won, rather than leaving him behind while Fuchai continued to advance. Goujian sacked Wu, and Fuchai was forced to commit suicide,” he said distantly, lost in thought. “It was very sad.”

Steropes
shook himself. “We can talk about it more later. We need to focus on what we’re doing.” Looking up, he saw that several of the soldiers had gone further up the hall. “
Please let me lead,
” he commed, snapping on his helmet. “
I know what to look for.
” The soldiers in the front slowed and allowed him to overtake them slightly. While they had a new-found respect for Steropes as a hand-to-hand fighter, he didn’t have a rifle and had no way of hitting a target outside his reach. They stayed close in order to protect him.

The squad turned another corner
, and the passageway began to slope up. “
We will start finding traps and snakes soon,
” he advised. He stopped suddenly, looking at an inscription on the wall.

“What does that say?” Calvin
asked.

“Basically, it says that if you go any further, you will be cursed
by a jinni and will die a slow, painful death,” Steropes replied.

“A
jinni?” Master Chief asked. “C’mon now, you don’t really believe in jinn do you?”

“What are jinn?” Calvin asked.

“Jinn are supernatural creatures that exist in the galaxy,” Steropes replied. “They are spoken about in Islamic lore on Earth. There are many kinds of jinn, with various powers. One literary example of a jinni is Aladdin’s genie in the bottle.”

“So, you’re saying that these things really exist?” Calvin asked. “And they grant wishes?”

“They certainly do exist,” said Vice Sergeant Ismail Al-Sabani. “Getting a wish from one is a very dangerous thing, as they will usually try to turn it around on the person asking for the wish.” He nodded to the inscription. “Curses and witchcraft are bad enough on their own,” he added, “but if they have jinn, we must be
very
careful.”

“Not all witches are bad,”
remarked Sergeant Margaret Andrews. A Jamaican by birth, Calvin knew that she was a believer in many forms of witchcraft. The rumor in the platoon was that she was also a practitioner. Wondering what the chaplain thought about this topic, Calvin looked over to find the priest following the conversation intently. Making good on his vow not to cause problems within the squad, he didn’t participate in the discussion, although Calvin could tell that he had strong feelings about it.

“No
t all jinn are bad either,” answered Al-Sabani. “They are one of the three sapient creations of God, along with humans and angels. They have free will, so they can be good or bad. If the snake creatures are controlling a jinni or jinn, we must be careful. They are made from the smokeless fire by Allah, and some are very powerful. If they have enslaved one of these, its anger will be immense. It will do everything it can to kill us.”

“
Surely you don’t believe in these spirits?” asked Petty Officer David Levine. “I have never seen one. Have you?”

“
Most of the time they are invisible,” Al-Sabani replied, “but the Prophet saw them; therefore, they exist.” His tone indicated that there was no doubt in his mind.

“OK,” Master Chief
interrupted, “I’m sure this will be a fun topic of conversation when we get back to the ship. We can all sit around with a nice tea in the comfort of the squad bay and discuss religion all day. At the moment, though,
there are things that are trying to kill us
. How about we focus on them now and worry about that later?” The way he said it made it a command, not a question.

“
What I was going to say,
” Steropes commed so that everyone could hear him, “
is that we may be exposed to a variety of poisons past this point. It would be prudent to ensure your helmet seals and go to recycled air.
”

“
Got it,
” Calvin commed. He looked up the ramp. “
Do we continue up?
”

“
Not unless you want to be doused in poisonous chemicals,
” Steropes answered. “
That is a dead end passageway. Once you go a little further, a powder will dump out a number of holes. If you take even one breath of it, you actually
will
be cursed with a slow, painful death. That warning isn’t just for people that don’t belong here; it’s also a reminder to the new acolytes and priests not to go any further up this passageway.
”

Steropes looked closely at the left wall. Finding what he wanted, he pushed in one of the
stones. There was a ‘click,’ and a five feet square section of the wall rotated in on oiled hinges. “
This is where we want to go,
” he said. He turned on his helmet light. “
We’ll need lights from here. This portion won’t be lit. If anyone sees writing on the walls, please let me know.
”

Steropes walked into the dark passageway and turned left to follow it, going back in the direction they had just been coming from. He walked along the right side of the passageway, scanning the wall as he slowly made his way along it. Vice Sergeant Ismail
 Al-Sabani moved up to walk next to him. Although Al-Sabani didn’t transmit, Steropes could hear him saying something inside his suit. Finally Steropes stopped and looked at him, “
Do you know something that I don’t?
”

“
Do you have a qarin?
” Al-Sabani asked.

“
If I do,
” Steropes replied, “
I am unacquainted with him or her.”

Al-Sabani nodded.
“
I have had my qarin since I was a little child. When I was five, I became very sick, nearly unto death. I had a fever that nothing could cure. As I lay there on my bedroll, I could feel two qarin wrestling over me. One was evil, the other benevolent. They fought over me for two days. All the while, I lay in a coma at death’s doorway. Finally, the benevolent spirit was victorious and threw down the evil one. Ever since that day he has guided me, speaking to me when needed. I am the one most acquainted with the jinn. It is best for me to accompany you.
”