Tezcatlipoca
Tezcatlipoca, the ‘Smoking Mirror’, turned over in his sleep, hearing the restless anguish of his devotees beseeching his attention. However strong the sleeping potion that his brother, Quetzalcoatl, the ‘Feathered Serpent’, had placed within his cup filled with the sacred brew octli, the call of his acolytes was stronger, and Tezcatlipoca roused from slumber, and from Dream.
The long slender fingers of the god reached out from beneath his shroud, searching for his obsidian mirror. Hefting it before his eyes, the Lord of Darkness adjusted his view to see, within the mirror’s dusky reflection, the black and yellow stripe painted across his forehead. Changing the angle of the obsidian mirror, he can now see the priests of his cult arrayed in supplication. In the time that had passed while he lay in a drugged torpor, the regalia of the clergy had changed. Instead of feathered headdresses and jade necklaces, these priests now wore red tight-fitting caps upon their heads, with a duck’s beak protruding. Inscribed upon the front of the skull caps were indecipherable hieroglyphics. Red flags with the sign of the four directions spinning were emblazoned upon the flapping cloths. Draped upon their necks were implements of death, unfamiliar to the God of Death, but recognizable as metallic weapons of death nonetheless. By the intense rage and hatred emanating from the black hearts of these strange appearing members of his death cult, he knew they were invoking his name and evoking his awakening.
Tezcatlipoca lifts himself from out of his Dream, and dons his cloak made of jaguar, strutting out of the cave beneath the Pyramid of the Serpent where he has lain for centuries in the dark cold tomb to which his brother Quetzalcoatl had consigned him. His claw-like fingers feel for, then grasp, the key strung about his neck. Carved of jade, embellished with wrought gold in the form of a striking serpent, the key will open the tomb’s door, enabling Tezcatlipoca to emerge into the World of the Children of Woman once again. Sliding the fitted key into the receptacle the Lord of Death turns the lock, pushes against the door, and steps into the deep velvet of Night, a sliver of Moon dropping over the horizon and into the House of the Sun.
Tezcatlipoca is met with a blinding light that sears the sky above. Quetzalcoatl, his long tail feathers emblazoned across the heavens, has come to challenge his return. Quetzalcoatl, coming from the Dream Above, brings with him the power of justice and knowledge, of compassion and honor. With these, the Lord of Light will seek to vanquish his eternal brother, Tezcatlipoca. Quetzalcoatl brings with him a hermitage of bluebirds who carry in their multitude of beaks a banner depicting an elderly white-haired human man who is pointing the way upon an open roadway. Upon this brick-laid road comes another elderly male, and at his side a brisk walking younger woman the color of frothed cacao. Behind them are throngs of laughing, dancing peoples.
The agile bluebird peoples come to the red skull-cap wearing members of the Cult of Death. However, these laughing playful beings have no weapons! They enter into the midst of the metal-weapon wearing red-cappers and, rather than engaging in battle, wrap their arms around each and everyone, drawing them tight in embrace until the red flag wavers melt into sobs and tears, their hatred washed away as unset dye within cloth left in the rain.
Tezcatlipoca shimmers, fades, his substantiality dissipated in the brilliant light of Quetzalcoatl’s love.
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Read the second installment: All Gods Return
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