Age of Aztec by James Lovegrove

Author:James Lovegrove
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Science Fiction
Published: 2012-03-26T05:00:00+00:00

NO SOONER WAS Stuart out of the hatch than it disappeared. Or rather, a section of forest floor reappeared where the hatch had been. There was undergrowth, ferns, leaf mould. Nothing indicated the presence of a doorway or, for that matter, a massive building buried beneath the soil. Stuart trod on the spot where the hatch was, probing with his foot. Through a layer of mossy, spongy earth he could just detect the hardness of metal, but if he hadn’t known it was there he would never have thought to look for it. Whatever else these bogus gods might be, they were bloody ingenious, he had to give them that.

Xolotl let out an impatient growl.

“Yeah, yeah. ‘Take Stuart back.’ Coming.”

Stuart followed the lolloping one-eyed dog through the forest. Xolotl had a powerful but ungainly stride. He moved as though going on all fours was as unnatural to him as walking on its hindlegs was to an ordinary canine. Holy lore stated that Xolotl was Quetzalcoatl’s deformed twin, a constant reminder to the god that his own brilliant perfection should not be taken for granted. The absent eye, which had burst out of Xolotl’s head of its own accord, was the most obvious manifestation of this, a disfigurement that literally stared you in the face.

Soon Stuart began to hear distant voices – the sounds of the Xibalba camp. He was still no nearer a decision as to what to say to Chel. What could he tell him? That he’d just met a bunch of delusional individuals who had got it into their heads that they were gods? That they were evidently powerful, these madmen, and it might be as well to abort the assassination attempt?

Xolotl halted while he and Stuart were still just out of sight of the camp. He gestured with a forepaw.

“Stuart back,” he said, then about-turned and loped off in the direction they had just come.

Okay, Stuart thought. Not ventriloquism. Something else. Maybe some kind of radio transceiver implant? One that was linked to a device which galvanised the dog’s jaw and made it move in synchronisation with the words?

Stuart had to concede that the people in the inverted ziggurat had access to some highly advanced technology.

But gods?

No. Never.

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