Sarcophagus

The Obsidian Crown

      " What secrets do you hold?" The doctor asked himself.

      The crown started to shimmer and it began to look like clouds were forming in the circlet, billowing clouds. Dr. Capell leaned closer,intrigued. The clouds parted as scenes of war played out, Aztec men fought one another, the captives dragged to ceremonial sacrifice. A wizened old emporerand a  young man argue, the young man storms off and gets in a boat. The young man creates a new kingdom where agricultural crops flourish. The new tribe war with indigenous tribes and make pacts with others. After defeating an enemy tribe, the obsidian crown was a spoil of war; the clouds then moved back and obscured his vision. Then the clouds parted again and a new scene appeared. The young warrior took the crown to a secluded place, in which a shaman lived and a ritual was done. After which the shaman fell over dead, the warrior picked up his crown and placed it on his head. New scenes showed him locked in bloody combat in which the warrior king was slaying many men, while not being touched himself. Several spoils were now his and his fortune and kingdom grew. It then showed the warrior king sleeping in his chambers, his crown laying beside him. Several people rushed him, holding him down they dismembered him and slit his throat. His kingdom was then burned to the ground, and his body was placed in the seal sarcophagus with his weapons and his crown. Then it was buried for all time. The clouds billowed once more, then the crowd regained its dark glassy finish once again.

      Dr. Capell blinked, not sure of what had just happened. It seems like the entire story of Yaotl had just been shown to him. He rubbed his eyes as he took it all in. How is this possible, the crown had revealed it all to him, the entire unknown story. He now had all the pieces, he had the discovery of a new people group that hadn't even thought to have existed. His mind raced with all this information he didn't really know what to do with it all. So the doctor decided to lay down for a short nap to help ease  his troubled mind. As he slept his dreams were filled with visions of war, Aztec warriors brutally attacking their foes and obsidian clubs cutting flesh and breaking bones. Yaotl was there in the midst of the combat, bringing his war club down and crushing his enemies. The bodies of the fallen littered the landscape. Those who hadn't died were dragged up to the ceremonial platform to be human sacrifices. Yaotl looked at Dr. Capell, this one, he said as he pointed his war club at him.

      Two other Aztec men grabbed him by the arms and drug the doctor up the stairs. He fought and tried to break the grasp with his captors, but to no avail. At the top of the stairs, the altar waited. Blood stained the altar from centuries of human sacrifice before. The two men roughly put Capel on the altar and held him down. An Aztec shaman slowly approached the altar, his face lined by the many years of his life. From behind his back he produced a wicked-looking dagger. Speaking a language the doctor didn't understand, the shaman raised the knife high above his head and plunged into the chest of the doctor. He awoke with a start, sweat lined his brow and he looked around gauging his bearings. With his head in his hands, he sat there and tried to make sense of his dream.

      He decided to finish cataloging the war club and the crown. Carefully placing them in their crates, Dr Coppell secured them for safe travel to the museum. Since the find, the crew would be sticking around a little longer to excavate more ground. The rest of the week was uneventful, no other real concrete evidence of the Aztec settlement was found. The dreams however, never stopped. The crown and war club had been shipped off days ago. But the visions persisted, and the sacrifices. Every night he had dreams after finding the crown. Also the urge to have it was getting stronger. The last day of the dig, the crew started to pack up the equipment. Dr Capell looked a mess, the dream had begun to affect his sleep. The violent dreams became so haunting he couldn't sleep after them. With a need to have the crown had reached a maddening level, dominating his thoughts. His crew members had noticed a change, but they started to keep their distance from the doctor, not knowing how to handle his increasingly erratic behavior. That night the dream returned again, the war scene played out before him, the death and agony. This time Yaotl pointed at him, but he wasn't dragged off for sacrifice, instead Yaotl stared at the doctor.