The site was bustling with activity, for quite some time he had searched for the evidence, but now he might have found it. The evidence was years in the making and so many leads had evaporated. The obsidian crown was an artifact lost to time, it wasn't even supposed to exist. Along the Southern United States it was rumored that some Aztecs had left the confines of the Empire and moved north. This faction seemed to have splintered from the main empire and sought their fortunes northward. Warring with the indigenous tribes of North America, yielded some of the evidence that the new tribe had arrived. Tribal artwork had shown men wielding weapons with black stones on them, which was thought to be obsidian, which was used by the Aztec warriors. They soon dominated the landscape, setting up permanent settlements and agriculture, hundreds of years before the Pilgrims showed up. The obsidian had been recorded as being a vicious and effective weapon. The obsidian would chip and fester in the wounds. The leader of the new tribe was an Aztec called Yaotl, and he wore an obsidian crown to mark his reign. The crown is the piece that he sought after.
The crown was the concrete evidence needed to prove the stories were indeed true. He had never felt so close before, all of the meticulous research and data collection had led to this. The shovels clanged on something hard and the crew jumped in with brushes and rakes, and in a few minutes the top of the stone sarcophagus was uncovered. Using the brushes they found the four corners and the pry bars were brought in. The crew struggled to lift the giant stone lid, they pulled against the stone with all their might. A loud hiss escaped as they separated the lid from the sarcophagus. The lid flipped over and landed with a thud in the soft dirt. Encased inside was yaotl, with an obsidian tooth club and his obsidian crown. He held both in his hands as if he should need them in the next world. Dr. Capell stood gazing into the stone coffin, just stuck in the moment, the disbelief of finally finding that which he had searched for. The crown sucked all the light out of the area, giving it an otherworldly look. The crew stood there with the doctor wondering what to do.
"Dr. Capell, what do we do now?" One of the crew members asked him.
"Sorry everyone, it's just hard to explain how I feel at this moment. I've been after this thing for so damn long and now I have it right in front of me, it's very surreal." Dr. Capell explained.
"So let's catalog everything and document our findings." Dr. Capell stated.
A flurry of action followed; pictures were taken, rubs were done, samples were taken, but Dr. Cappell took the club and crown for further examination.
"Let's get any writing on the tomb translated as soon as possible." Capell ordered.
There was an Aztec language specialist he had brought with him, any writings left on the site could prove valuable to piecing together more of the story. Dr. Capell took his new treasures and retired to his trailer. There wasn't anything left for him to do at the site, so he might as well stay out of the way. Documenting the two items of the late King, Dr. Capelll donned rubber gloves and started his close inspection. The wooden club was massive, with sharp obsidian teeth that lined the outside of the club. Obsidian was a particularly nasty customer in his time, for the obsidian would chip and end up in the wounds. It was also rumored that these types of clubs could sever a horse's head in a single blow. The real prize was the crown itself though, proving all this wasn't a fantasy. The crown was an impressive creation to behold, totally flawless in its design. It was all that Dr. Capell hoped it would be when he finally found it. The script on the club proved it belonged to yaotl, another huge piece of the puzzle.
The crown however didn't yield its secrets easily, even though it was clear as glass, no reflection could be seen in it. Dr. Capell put it through a machine that scanned items and even told their composition. When the crown was scanned it came back blank. Dr. Capell have never seen this before, maybe the machine wasn't working properly, so after a diagnostic test he ran the crown through again. Unexplainably it came up blank again. Puzzled, Dr Coppell removed it from the machine and decided to just do a visual inspection. Putting on the special glasses he flipped the light on and started to inspect the obsidian crown. The craftsmanship was impeccable. It looked to be made from a single piece, no seams or tool marks were apparent on the surface. It wasn't meant to be an extravagant piece, no points or other adornments were on the crown. It was simply an obsidian circle, that an ancient warrior king once wore. Moving the crown on his hands, he was amazed by the smoothness of the crown. He finally sat the crown down and took off his glasses.
" 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.
"Why have you let them take my crown?" He said in a booming voice.
"It's on the way to the museum to be displayed."
"A conqueror's Crown is only meant to be displayed on the brow of a warrior. Not to be gawked at in some building."
"It's too late, the pieces left days ago."
"Then Ichcatl, you go and claim it, allow my reign to begin again. So a new world will bow to the whim of a conqueror. Those who are beneath us are just to be squashed and ruled."
"You want me to bring you the crown, so you can rule again?"
"You get the crown Ichcatl and I'll find you." "Now go my patience wanes"
He turned from the doctor, grabbed another victim and began to drag him toward the altar.
"Remember Ichcatl, get me the crown!"
With a start the doctor awoke in bed, sweat dripping out of his every pore. The clock by his bed read three a.m. Knowing he wouldn't sleep anymore the doctor got up and dressed. The words of Yaotl still etched in his mind. It was hard not to feel like a puppet, but the doctor wanted the crown too. The need to have the relic in his hand continued to get harder to deny. Making up his mind, the doctor grabbed a few necessities and crept off in the early morning to begin a journey that would forever change his life. He quietly got in his car, turned over the engine and began his treck towards the crown. The madness had fully taking him now and he seemed less like a man and more like a ravenous beast.
He arrived at the museum some five hours later, frantic to have the crown now. He threw his car in park and hurried up the front steps. The car continued to idle in front of the museum, the driver's door wide open. Entering the front of the museum Dr Capell scan the layout, searching for the crown display. The doctor frantically searched for the section that housed his find. Scrambling through other sections, even knocking over some displays, he was so close he couldn't contain himself. He made so much noise he drew the attention of the security staff. One of the uniformed guards approached the doctor.
"Pardon me sir, are you okay?" The guard asked.
"Cliff, thank God it's you." The doctor explained. His frantic and disheveled look did nothing to decrease the anxiety of the situation.
"Dr. Capell, are you ok?"
"Actually Cliff I need your help, where is the crown that I dug up? I really need to see it."
"Sure, I'll take you there myself."
Cliff talked away as he led the doctor to his destination, but the doctor had stopped listening some time ago, his sole purpose became getting the crown. They rounded a corner and in the middle of the exhibit, sat the obsidian crown.
"There it is Doctor, safe and sound."
The doctor greedily eyed the crown, "Excellent, now Cliff this might sound a bit odd, but I need you to open the case. I need to look at something."
"Now you know I can't do that. That's against protocol."
The doctor put his hand on Cliff's back,"I know Cliff, I had just hoped it wouldn't have to come to this."
With a swift motion the doctor bashed Cliff's head against the case. After three such strikes the doctor let go and Cliff fell limp to the floor. The case of just spiderwebbed, cracked but not broken. Enraged, the doctor looked for something to bash it with. Grabbing a baton off of Cliff's belt, the doctor began beating upon the case. Little did he know that between the noise and the silent alarm, security had shown up on the scene. Dr. Capell was surrounded by three guards.
"Sir put down the Baton now!" The guard behind the doctor said.
Dr. Capell stopped for just a second to look at the guard. He took one step towards them and they all pulled their guns.
"Sir, put on the Baton you're coming with us." He was ordered by the same guard.
"All right gentlemen." The doctor said as he bent to put the Baton down.
" I'm sure we can come to a Peaceable agreement." Dr. Capell smiled at the guards.
As he was bending to put the Baton down, he quickly yanked Cliff's gun out of its holster and brought it to bear. The security guards never gave him a chance; they opened fire immediately and the bullet-riddled body of the doctor fell to the floor. The obsidian crown became cloudy again, "Ichcatl."
It was just a low murmur from the case, probably lost in the noise of the chaos