Beautiful Sacrifice

take artisans of enormous sophistication a very long time to complete. No matter where you find those people, they will have friends, associates, competitors, whatever. Over time, that number of people can’t keep a secret. If the piece is machined, rather than handmade, the ‘secret’ is out as soon as someone who knows what they’re doing examines it under a microscope.”
    “In other words, why bother?” Hunter said.
    “Exactly. To me, that mask looks even more sophisticatedthan Aztec mask work, which is considered by many to be the zenith of the art.”
    “Anything else?” Hunter asked.
    “Your mask glowed and reflected like a smoking mirror, which is one interpretation of glyphs associated with priests of Kawa’il.”
    Hunter whistled tunelessly. “And Kawa’il is a god of death. Then and now.”
    “It makes a whacked sort of sense,” Jase said. “Cartels are always looking for an edge in the fear department. Living human sacrifices made to a god of death are scarier than the narco’s Santa Muerte cult with its ghosts and groans.”
    “That’s a travesty of the original intention of sacrifice, literally to be made holy,” she said. “In the past, the ritual was an act of awe and reverence, a way to communicate with the gods, with the very structure of the Maya universe. Look at this piece of wood. Look with your mind and emotions as well as your eyes and experience.”
    Jase and Hunter leaned closer, but it was Hunter’s warmth she felt.
    “This”—Lina traced the glyphs in the wood, not quite touching the case itself—“is the radiance of the gods and their wisdom shared, brought to the Maya by a priest-king-god who climbed up from the earth wearing a mask like a smoking mirror, his very breath the exhalation of gods.”
    Hunter’s eyes narrowed. He followed her words, her finger, her voice describing a sacrament rather than the barbarism of the basement in a crumbling stucco house.
    “The carving is of dream serpents,” Lina said. “See the delicate tracery of individual feathers on the mouths of the beasts? The carver didn’t see these creatures as monsters in the modern sense of the word. They were guardians, keepersof knowledge that was sometimes bestowed upon the wise, the brave, the worthy.”
    Jase grunted. “I’ll take your word for it.”
    Hunter didn’t look up from the case. Lina’s voice curled around him, sank into him like smoke, like dreams.
    “The central image,” Lina said softly, almost reverently, “shows a human figure emerging from the fanged mouth of a huge serpent. The man is astride its jaws, forcing it open from within. Instead of being consumed by the knowledge, he is escaping with it, returning to his people to share the teachings of the gods.”
    Hunter unfocused his eyes just slightly, imagined light from fire rather than electricity…and felt his skin ripple in primal response.
    “Now look below the escaping man,” she said, her voice low. “Look where his face is watching. His mouth is open and he’s speaking.”
    With a frown, Jase tried to see Lina’s words in the artifact. He looked sideways at Hunter. His friend was rapt, intent, a predator scenting game.
    “See the masked figure?” she asked, tapping lightly on the case over the glyph. “He is himself emerging from the ground like a flower, legs as roots in the soil below. He seems to be looking up. His face is covered in an elaborate and—to modern eyes—terrifying mask, with something like wings flaring out from the sides, displaying fantastic feathers. There is even a marking that seems to indicate light coming from this mask, subtle rays, almost like a reflection.”
    “Is it the mask shining?” Hunter asked. “Or is something shining on him?”
    “Professionally, I can’t be certain.”
    “What about your instincts?”
    She hesitated, then said, “I think the mask is made of something reflective.”
    “Gold?” Jase asked instantly.
    “Not even silver,” she said. “Wrong time, wrong place, wrong material. In fact, the more I look at it, the more I believe it represents something translucent enough to be shining from within.” She laughed. “Never mind. That’s my fancy, not my training. The point is, I think the wood might have originally been carved in Tulum, near our estates. There’s something about the style of the glyphs.”
    “Where did you get it?” Jase asked.
    “On loan from Mexico’s Museum of Anthropology. We’re dating it.”
    Silently