Other Earth Stories: The Return of Zenith

[dans]

Part 1: American Odyssey

Chapter 1

‘Well, that was predictable, if anti-climactic,’ Victoria Waltyngfeld thought to herself with mixed emotions - though mostly, she realized, relief. ‘And not the barney I’d expected it to be. I’m glad it went that way.’ It had started with a few simple, triumphant words from Bill, her fiancé (‘Oops – ex-fiancé,’ she reminded herself).

“Honey, they’ve asked me to lead an expedition – and when I get back, they’ll offer me tenure!”

“Smashing! When do we leave?” she’d asked eagerly. She’d been at the end of her tether with the boring life in the academic community at Smallton State University, Smallton, Indiana. Even being Lady Waltyngfeld back at Silverhall Manor, her father’s ancestral home in North York, England, hadn’t been this dull.

Like her father, Lord H. Alton Waltyngfeld, Baron Silverhall, her (ex) fiancé Bill was a professor of archaeology. Unlike H. Alton, who had retired a few years ago as the Dunsworth Lecturer on Vedic Civilizations at Oxford University, Bill was still a tenure-track adjunct. When Vicki had been growing up, Lord Waltyngfeld’s life had been a constant string of archaeological expeditions covering 6 continents and more than 20 different foreign countries, always accompanied by Victoria (and Saroop, her mother, until her mother had died of a rare disease released from a sealed tomb). In fact, she’d met Bill, who had been doing his graduate work at Oxford, on one of Alton’s expeditions, and he’d proposed to her among the ancient ruins of a Vedic temple on another. And, when Alton had retired, the engaged couple had moved to the States, to Smallton, where Bill had accepted his adjunct professorship.

‘Gads, but life here has been dull as ditchwater!’ she thought with disgust. ‘The most exciting event in years was the night I popped round the pub on euchre night and taught the lads…’ (the adjunct professors) ‘to play craps instead. And we all ended up in the clink! That was a right royal time, it was!’

Vicki’s education was eclectic, to say the least – Alton and Saroop had always retained superb tutors for her, and she had the equivalent of a good British education in the classics, and she knew more about several different ancient civilizations than all but a handful of experts in the world. And she knew all the routines and procedures of planning and conducting an archaeological expedition – and staples of an expedition always including drinking and shooting craps.

But a single young woman spending almost the entire night with a half dozen young men, drinking heavily and playing craps, had offended the strait-laced academic community, and she and her new mates had been rounded up and spent over a day doing porridge in the clink. Even before that incident, everyone had assumed that she wasn’t really Bill’s fiancé at all but instead his kept mistress, since he was 15 years older than she.

Now they all assumed she was nothing better than a working tart, paid entertainment for the college staff for anyone who could afford her, even if they had to pool their money. Almost nobody dared to associate with her, as her reputation could only taint theirs as well. The only jobs she could get were nothing but noddy work. She’d started having doubts about her future life with Bill that night, doubts which had only grown over time.

Being able to accompany Bill on a few expeditions might have assuaged these doubts, but his next words were the spanner in the works: “I’m really sorry, but the sponsors won’t allow me bring you along.”

They’d presented Bill with a list of reasons, and though he said he’d argued, in the end, he’d agreed to leave her behind. Vicki didn’t care what those reasons were. In the end, the important things were: Bill was going, and she wasn’t, and Bill had once again put his job ahead of their engagement.

Like a super-saturated chemical solution, everything crystallized in her mind at that instant. She’d been pretending she wasn’t miserable, and had long since fallen out of love with Bill – and she’d been riding on inertia since then. Enough was finally enough. She’d asked him to leave, and he’d gone meekly, and they both knew Vicki would be somewhere else when he got back. It was time to get on with her life!

Vicki felt much lighter, as if an elephant sitting on her shoulders had just climbed off. If she’d made other choices 5 years ago, her life would have been vastly different – now she hoped fervently that it wasn’t too late!

In a small park near her flat, surrounded by some well-tended hedges, she looked around to make sure she was alone. Then, as she’d done thousands of times in the last 5 years, she lifted her hand to her forehead and flipped her hair back. But this time was different. Before she rubbed her hand across the invisible, intangible gem set into her forehead, she hesitated – she could tell the gem was still there, but would it still work? There was only one way to find out.

“Tally ho!” she said aloud. “Yoiks and away!” She rubbed the intangible gem and put every bit of confidence and pride she could into her next phrase: “I become perfection!”

Something like a miniature comet materialized in the air above her head, and moved around her in a spiral, descending to her feet. It moved too fast for the eye to follow, and left behind it, for a fleeting instant, a glowing tail that encompassed all the colors of the rainbow, almost as if painting the air. In another fleeting instant, the rainbow cocoon was gone - and Victoria was gone, replaced by the majestic figure of Zenith!

Over 6’6” tall, wearing a red and black Shalwar kameez, with long, straight hair swept back from her face revealing the mystic third eye in her forehead, a gray, blue and black dupatta in her hand. Nearby, four silken scarves, two red and two black, floated in the air and swirled sinuously around her as she moved. She distractedly wished all the writhing scarves would stop distracting her… and they vanished.

“It worked,” she sighed happily. She’d only made the change to Zenith a couple of times, over five years ago, and then she'd decided against a life as a super powered mystery hero with all that implied. Of course, she’d expected a continuation of the exciting expedition life she was used to, not kicking her heels in the bland, barely tolerable existence she’d settled into. Well, that boring life was over forever!

She spent some time thinking – she’d dreamed for years of Zenith, imagining all sorts of fantastic powers and abilities her alter ego might have. And she’d always sighed and gone on with Victoria’s life instead. Now was the time to see which of her dreams was real, and which only wishes. Some were easy, the powers she’d exhibited before: “Up!” she thought, and up she went, lifting easily away from the ground. “Down” and she was back. She lifted a cement bench with no problems. She experimented cautiously and discovered that she was invulnerable, as far as she cared to test. She closed her normal eyes and concentrated on her forehead, and the world came back into view – with some interesting changes. She could see through the hedges nearby, and through the walls of her building. She could still see 'that which was hidden' – though she was going to test the limits of that vision later!

Now, some of the wishes: “Take me home!” she commanded, while picturing Silverhall Manor in her mind. Nothing. She concentrated harder, and just in case, she clicked her heels together: “I want to go home!” Still nothing, but... wait! Through her third eye, she could SEE Silverhall Manor. She seemed to be high in the sky, a mile or so away, and as she continued to concentrate, her view zoomed closer. It was late at night in North Yorkshire, and most of the lights were out. Her point of view drifted through the front door; there was a fire in the big fireplace in the main hall. Could this be a memory, or was she actually seeing her home as it was right now? She guessed the latter – she didn’t recognize the carpet. When her concentration wavered, the vision vanished, and she was back in the park. This must be another manifestation of her ability to ‘see that which is hidden’ – in this case, hidden by distance.

She catalogued some of her other wishes: Turn things to gold – No. Diamonds – likewise, No. Lightning or Energy beams – No. Lift and move things with her thoughts – No. Read minds – she wasn’t sure. She thought she could maybe ‘hear’ thoughts from the nearby building, but they were faint. Maybe if she got closer, but she’d experiment with this one again later.

She couldn’t grow or shrink or change her shape – ‘Looks like I’m stuck being the tallest girl around,’ she thought ruefully. Predict the future? She saw some vague shadows in her mind – ‘I’ll get back to this one, too.’

She couldn’t get the vision of Silverhall Manor out of her head. She’d always been treated like a princess at home, by her parents and the servants, and the people in Droverham, the town where Silverhall was located, and on an expedition, and at first, by Bill. She didn’t mind (much) being ‘just another girl’, but she did miss the special treatment she’d grown up with. A few days at home would be just the thing!

‘Right lucky for me they don’t allow pets or plants in the apartments,’ she thought to herself. ‘I can pay the rent for a month, and just take off!’

Tomorrow, after she’d studied the atlas and notified her landlady, she’d find out just how fast she could fly.

Chapter 2

Vicki had discovered that whatever she was wearing or carrying when she changed to her heroic form, she was wearing or carrying when she changed back. So, well before dawn, she put on her best outfit, dropped her passport and some cash in a small purse, said her magic words, and willed herself to fly as fast as possible. She left behind a small sonic boom and a finger of vapor pointing to the northeast. She figured a few hours of flight time and she’d reach Lake Erie, and then she’d follow the southern shoreline to Buffalo, then break due East until she spotted the Atlantic Coast, then turn left until she reached Boston. Where she had already made reservations in a fancy hotel. Tomorrow, she’d figure out the rest of her path across the Atlantic.

She flew higher and faster than she’d ever done before - and at her altitude, it didn’t take a long time long before she spotted the lake. Turning east, she was on her way! Shortly afterward, she spotted something unusual.

The River is on Fire?!

As she approached a city that must be Cleveland, she saw a thick column of black, oily smoke, rising from a pool of flame which seemed to originate from… a river? As weird as it seemed, a small patch of the river was on fire! And that small patch was growing rapidly!

'As good a time as any to start Lady Zenith's heroic career,' she thought excitedly and swooped downward. She could now see that the surface of the river was covered in an ugly, grundgy sludge, and the sludge was what was really on fire.

When she was young, Vicki had always followed the news about mystery heroes closely, and after she had first changed to Zenith, it had become almost a minor obsession – almost as if in the back of her mind, she knew that someday, she would unleash her own inner mystery hero. 'Flux is famous for using vortexes to douse oil well fires...' She was currently flying faster than sound – ‘Can I create my own vortex to snuff this fire? Might as well give it a go!’ she told herself – and away she went!

It took a little experimentation to learn to fly fast in a curved path, but in only seconds she was racing in a giant circle across the face of the river, having isolated the fire inside her circle. She made the circle smaller, squeezing the sludge floating on the river into the shrinking noose. The fire burned brighter and hotter, and for several seconds, the vortex acted like the nozzle of the jet engine of the First Creator’s own Stratofortress, producing a geyser of flame a mile high, and a thunderous roar that rattled windows throughout the city, and then the fire was gone. And there was a big circle of water, now rapidly shrinking, clear of sludge…

By now, the city’s emergency responders were in action, converging on what could have been the site of a major disaster – but which now only required some minor cleanup. Satisfied that these everyday heroes could now handle the situation, Zenith continued on her way, rocketing east above the shoreline of the lake.

Rocky Reception

It wasn’t long before the shore of Lake Erie started curving to the north. Soon she could see Buffalo, and not far past the city, the gigantic cloud of mist that the Native Americans of this region had considered to be magical, visible for many miles on a clear day, created as millions of tonnes of water thundered over Niagara Falls every second. At the speed she was traveling, it was only a short detour to Niagara – why not do some sightseeing, to go along with her heroics? As she sped closer, a faint dim background rumble grew into the thunderous roaring voice of Niagara Falls.

In legend, this roar had been believed to be the voice of Hinon, the God of Thunder who lived ‘behind the falls’. She slowed as she approached, and soon was hovering over one of the most spectacular natural wonders of North America.

Zenith felt a special affinity for waterfalls. The mystical Temple of the First Creator where she’d been given her mighty abilities was only accessible from the ‘real world’ through the mist created by a part-time waterfall in the north of India. Those falls only ran after storms in the rainy season, which had helped keep the Temple concealed for thousands of years. ‘I wonder if these mists conceal anything magical?’ she asked herself whimsically, with a self-conscious chuckle. After all, Hinon was only a legend. ‘Silly lass, wasn’t the Temple of the First Creator only a legend, too, until you discovered it? Maybe Hinon actually does have a house somewhere behind the Falls!’

Zenith concentrated on the view through her third eye. As her ‘normal’ eyes closed, the mists cleared and she began to make out things that were hidden in the physical world. Water streamed over cliffs, in clear sheets near the top, separating into strands like thousands of giant twisting cables, then becoming even more jumbled and foamy before finally exploding on the rocks and the surface of the river below. Her gaze started to slip from the physical plane into the ‘metaphysical’ plane where the Temple of the First Creator existed, and she was excited that she could see something that looked like it might resolve into a structure with closer examination. But then her mystical vision picked up something much more urgent – signs of an imminent disaster on the physical plane!

Suddenly she was watching thousands of tons of rubble collapsing from the face of the gorge onto a powerplant below. What she saw wasn’t really there in front of her – and yet, she knew where it was. Without a nanosecond’s hesitation, she was flashing along the southern, American wall of the gorge, and almost instantly she was directly in front of the giant electrical generating plant built into the cliff side. Slabs of rock were just starting to split from the wall and fall toward the river, starting an avalanche that would crush the generating plant and probably kill everyone inside.

A super speed approach and some mighty blows, and the falling slabs were transformed into a rain of much smaller rocks, gravel and dust. Her enhanced vision showed trouble in the giant turbine room on the lowest level of the plant, as sections of the ceiling were caving, and water was already rushing through a growing split in the rear wall, which had been carved from native rock. A dozen men stood in the rising water, and nearby were some of the largest electrical generating turbines in the world, pumping out enough electricity to light much of New York State. If that current were somehow shunted into the rising water, it would be like they had been struck by super-powerful lightning!

Before an outside observer could have blinked, Zenith burst through the river-facing wall of the turbine room, creating a channel for the rising waters to rush out into the river. She then flashed through the room at super speed, gathering the workers and depositing them in the elevator car. Finally, she broke through the top of the car, grabbed the cable, and carried the elevator to the top of the shaft, where she released the cable. The automated brake stopped the car from falling. She had been moving too fast for the workers to focus on, and without really knowing that they had been rescued, the dazed men stumbled out into the plant grounds on top the gorge wall.

Meanwhile, Zenith figured she had one more task to accomplish. Each row of turbines was fed rushing water through a conduit from a reservoir at the top of the gorge, and one of these conduits had broken in the split and was now pouring water through the turbine room. Each individual conduit had a gate, and those three gates needed to be closed. She dove into the reservoir and forced closed the gate to the broken conduit. In the turbine room below, a row of giant turbines quickly spun down, and the output of the plant was cut by a third. There were electrical ‘brownouts’ throughout lower New York State and New York City, but once the conduit was repaired, those turbines could quickly be put back online – much sooner than if the whole plant had been destroyed in a catastrophic collapse of the cliff!

Satisfied that this situation was now controllable by the power company, she resumed her interrupted flight home.

‘That’s really enough excitement for one day. I’ll come back and check out Hinon’s home later,’ she thought. The glimpses she’d seen had been a bit dodgy – to her skilled eye, they looked more like metaphysical archaeological ruins than a current metaphysical residence. ‘I hope the rest of the flight to Boston is uneventful!’

Twistin' the Flight Away

“I wonder what people will make of my anonymous rescues?” she rhetorically asked a passing cloud. “And why didn’t I reveal myself?” she suddenly wondered. She hadn’t even thought of hanging around to introduce herself after her two adventures. “It’s not like I’m shy or something!”

As she flew, she mused on her internal mystery. ‘I guess I’m still not sure I want to have adventuring take over my whole life and not leave me any time for myself.’ She chuckled. ‘I’m really looking forward to the news stories, though. It will probably cause an international sensation, as everyone tries to figure out who is the mystery hero who saved Cleveland and Niagara Falls. I wonder who will take credit for it all?’

About an hour almost due East from Buffalo, she was approaching a city she later found out was Worcester, MA, just in time for another disaster!

“Hello, what’s this? I say, is there a disaster _everywhere_ I go?” She had been greatly concerned about accidentally creating a tornado in Cleveland, but here was a natural tornado, the funnel just about to touch down southwest of the city. She flew into the vortex, opposing the natural winds. Opposing a vortex was MUCH harder than creating one. “This must be Billy Wind himself! I’ll need to give it some stick!” Not only was she constantly being buffeted by the tremendous winds, but there was so much dirt and grit slamming into her face that she was blinded!

Still, she had mystical vision. She closed her eyes and concentrated on what was in front of her – that was better! She could see the curve of the wind, and she could sense an instant in advance when a large piece of debris was going to hit her – which allowed her to brace herself and sometimes shatter the large piece into smaller, less dangerous fragments. She could sense that her effort was starting to pay off, and she strained harder. She noticed something strange – the winds that were passing over her were being lifted higher and the winds that were being forced below her were actually being snuffed out when they hit the ground. She angled her path just a little upward, and concentrated on actually lifting the tornado. As she battered through the winds, she could feel them being tattered and broken up. It wasn’t long before she could tell that the tornado was tattered beyond recovery.

Using her mystical vision, Zenith was able to determine that there was nobody who needed her help, so once again she resumed her interrupted flight to the coast. “Smashing that no one was hurt. Even with my new powers, I’m bloody knackered! If every day as a mystery heroine is _anything _like this, maybe I made the right decision 5 years ago!”

[dans]

Part 2: The First Jaguar

Chapter 3

17 years ago, when Vicki was 11, she and her father had come to Boston to join an expedition to Guatemala sponsored by the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. It was their first expedition after Saroop, Vicki’s mother, had died. Baron Victoria Waltyngfeld had splurged for two nights at the Ritz-Carlton, and Vicki still remembered the special treatment she’d received from the staff there. So last night she’d made a reservation for tonight. However, she really didn’t want to arrive like a vagabond with no luggage and only the clothes on her back; she would have to shop for at least one new outfit and a small travel bag before she checked in. This wasn’t a hardship for her – a girl almost constantly on expedition hardly ever had a chance to visit expensive, glamorous stores, and Smallton hadn’t offered much in the way of shopping. She was quite looking forward to running up the bill on the Baron Waltyngfeld of Silverhall charge plate in the expensive shops on Newbury Street!

She found what she wanted in a small boutique. It cost extra to have an outfit tailored while she waited, but she used the time to purchase sundries and a small travel bag. As she was scanning luggage, she saw someone she thought she recognized.

“Dorrie?” she softly asked the air. Then, as she got closer and became more certain: “Dora? Dora Flint?”

“Good day,” the woman replied. Victoria knew that Dora was in her early forties, but long exposure to the weather had given her handsome face lines and creases more common on a woman somewhat older than that. Her shiny shoulder-length night black hair had streaks of gray, and yet she was as trim and fit as Vicki herself. “I’m sorry, you look familiar, but…”

Vicki had met Dora on that 1938 Guatemalan expedition. During that adventure, Vicki had come to think of Dora as a big sister, but she’d been only 12 the last time she’d seen her friend. She wasn’t surprised that her name didn’t jump immediately to Dora’s memory.

“Vicki Waltyngfeld,” she prompted. “We met in the Kaminaljuyú ruins in 1938.”

“Vicki! How wonderful to see you!” The two women rushed together for a happy hug. Dora had to bend down originally; Vicki was over half a foot shorter than the older woman. But though Dora was weathered, she lived an active outdoor life, and she easily lifted her young friend from the floor in a bear hug and spun her around once.

There was more to catch up on than they could get through in the luggage section of this expensive boutique. They chatted while Vicki’s outfit was tailored, then Dora joined her on her cab ride to the Ritz-Carlton to check in. During the ride, Dora revealed that she was now a Professor at Tulane University, and was back in the Boston area to receive an honorary Doctorate of Archaeology from Harvard University for her contributions to the Peabody Museum and the field of Mesoamerican archaeology. Dora told much of her own story, leaving out all references to Zenith, of course. She didn’t say specifically how she’d reached Boston or how she planned to cross the Atlantic, though her conversation might have led one to believe she’d arrived earlier today at South Station by overnight train, and planned to catch a flight to London from Boston Airport tomorrow.

Dora decided on a restaurant in Scollay Square, a place she and her schoolmates had frequented when she had been an undergrad at Radcliffe. She didn’t count on how the neighborhood had changed in the last 25 years. Of course, what Scollay Square didn’t know was how much Dora had changed in that same period! Their cab driver tried to talk them out of it, telling them it wasn’t a good area for women to go, and that increased their determination. Timid women are not successful as field archaeologists.

Still, the look of the joint was intimidating. It had the same name as she’d known it by, but it must have changed hands since then. The former owners had kept the place immaculately clean, even as the neighborhood became increasingly family-unfriendly. But when those owners had retired, the restautant seemed to have turned into just another bar.

The ladies went in anyway, checked out the place, and then turned and left. A number of denizens of the bar had noticed them come in, look around in disgust, and leave, and some of them were offended – and determined that they were going to let these hoity-toity ladies know about it. A group followed the women out the door of the bar, loudly swearing at them and even making threats. It wasn’t long before the ladies were backed up against a wall confronted by a group of men, now determined to teach these girls a lesson. They were more than stunned when Dora pulled a pistol.

“Say, you wouldn’t happen to have another one on you?” Vicki wondered. She wasn’t surprised – she also had learned how to shoot early in life, and on expedition she would never be without her own pistol – but she hadn’t carried it in Smallton, and hadn’t thought to bring it with her on this trip. Dorrie reluctantly shook her head, no.

A voice in the back of the group urged them to rush the girls – “She’s only got one pistol, she can’t shoot us all.”

“The coward in back is pretty brave with your lives,” Dora sneered. “Yeah, you with the cowboy shirt! Watch this,” she ordered, and before any one of them could respond, she shifted her aim and fired a single shot into the wall of the building across the street. “That’s to prove I’ll shoot,” she told them loudly. Again there was a blur of motion, a shot, and a streetlight a block away shattered. “That’s to prove I always hit what I shoot at. Now, I’ve only got 5 round left, but I guarantee I’ll get all 5 shots off before you reach me – and the first one will go through whoever Mr. Cowboy is hiding behind. There’s what, eight of you big brave heroes? How do you like your chances?” Nobody said anything for a second. “Suddenly, you guys seem very quiet.”

“Hey, lady, we don’t want no trouble!” someone in front said nervously.

“Yeah, you crazy $!^@#, we was just havin’ some fun, nothing to pull a gun about,” someone else snarled, then jumped frantically as Dora spun and pointed the gun directly at his head.

“Not what you said a few seconds ago,” she snarled in return. “When you thought we were just a couple of helpless girls. What you had in mind wasn’t going to be much fun for us.” Another one of them started to protest. “Shut up!” She waved the pistol in his direction and he sputtered to a stop. “Back inside, the bunch of you!”

As the cowed posse slunk back into the bar, the two women could see people cautiously peeking out the doors of other places, warily checking to see what the shots were about.

“Sorry for the trouble, Vicki,” Dora said cheerfully to her friend – and she didn’t sound sorry at all. “We really ought to leave. No telling how many scumbags there are on this block, and they might still be serious trouble. I doubt if anyone is going to call the police. And if they do, it will probably be US that gets in trouble.”

“I was wondering if I should tell someone – I guess it’s going to be you,” Vicki replied mysteriously. She dragged her friend into an alley. As soon as they were fairly hidden in the dark, she flicked back her hair while rubbing the invisible gem in her forehead. “I become perfection!” She was surrounded by a dazzling burst of rainbow hues, and when the swirling colors faded, she had been replaced by Zenith.

“You remember the Temple of the First Creator my pater was always talking about? Well, a few years ago, I found it, and its magic lets me turn into… Zenith!” she told her friend in her deep, melodic voice. Somehow, Dorrie didn’t seem as stunned as Vicki had expected. Hoping to get a stronger reaction, she picked up a car from the curb. “Maybe I ought to trounce them all thoroughly and teach them a lesson about harassing women?”

“Put that down, carefully,” Dorrie insisted. “Even if you trounce them all, you can’t be here every time a woman appears on the street. And they’ll take out their anger on those others. We should just leave.” She turned and started walking back towards the Common. “The restaurant at the Ritz is supposed to be the best in Boston.”

Zenith quickly thought over what her friend had said and decided she was right. “Well, I can get us back to the hotel much more quickly.” She was still trying to impress her friend. “I’ll need to carry you.” When Dorrie nodded, Zenith picked her up and leaped into the air. Though she flew slowly to protect her friend from the wind her speed could generate, it only took a few minutes to get back to the hotel.

Zenith was still miffed that Dora had barely reacted to her transformation. “I’m as strong as Major Power, I can fly, bullets can’t hurt me, and I’m faster than a DC4. Couldn’t you be the least bit impressed?”

“Oh, dear,” her friend chuckled. “We can exchange stories during dinner.”

Chapter 4

The two women shared their stories over dinner. We already know Vicki’s story, though Dora was, finally, gratifyingly fascinated. Eventually, Vicki reached today. “OK, now it’s your turn!” she prodded her friend.

“Do you remember the temple to the Mayan Hero Twins in Kaminaljuyú and the Ōllamaliztli court next to it?” Dora began.

Vicki nodded – she remembered it well. It was somewhat larger than a basketball court, and she and some of her expedition colleagues had sometimes used it for ball games of their own devising, trying to imagine the rules the ancient Mayans had used. There was a present-day game called ulama that was played on a similar court, but no one was sure exactly what the rules of Ōllamaliztli were.

Flashback

Dora Zelazny (sometimes called Zaz) and Itzamna Tayute (Zam) were up early, doing setting up exercises on the Ōllamaliztli court, next to the Temple of the Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, who, after performing many legendary feats on Earth, had been elevated into the Mayan pantheon as the Sun and the Moon. The Hero Twins had been avid Ōllamaliztli players, and practically every town and village in the Mayan Empire had included an Ōllamaliztli court in their honor. This particular court was a bit larger than a professional hockey rink, set deep into the earth, the floor almost 3 stories below the surface. The walls and floor were lined with cut stone, the floor worn as smooth as glass from continuous use over almost 2000 years. Set high out of opposite walls were two vertical rings, oriented like a basketball hoop rotated 90 degrees. Legend had it that the Hero Twins had built this very court themselves shortly after they had been elevated to godhood.

The couple were soon joined by the rest of the younger members of the expedition. It was an off day for the graduate students in the 1933 Peabody Museum expedition to Kaminaljuyú. It seemed fitting that, after the team had spent all of yesterday working in the Temple of the Sun and the Moon, that both the Sun and the Moon were visible high in the cloudless blue sky. Dora and Zam took a lot of good-natured ribbing; their tent mates had noticed that neither of them had slept in their own bunks last night.

Zam was a grad student at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico in Mexico City and a full-blooded Mayan descendant. He’d grown up in the area and always been fascinated by the ruins of the ancient city, and now he was thrilled to be part of an expedition virtually in his back yard. His greatest desire in life was to become the world’s greatest expert on the Mayan civilization, and he already had a half dozen papers published in well-respected journals. Though he wasn’t what was conventionally considered handsome, he was cheerful, friendly, and always ready to contribute a joke or a helping hand, whatever a situation required. Most of the women in the expedition found him engaging, and Dora was drawing some jealous looks after her nocturnal adventures. Of course, some of the guys were jealous of Zam’s relationship with Dora, too…

During the exercise period, the group decided to follow up their exercises with a game of their own devising on the Ōllamaliztli court, as nobody was quite sure what the original rules had been. Today’s game resembled a cross between handball (the full court kind), basquette (6 on 6 women’s basketball), and soccer, using a soccer ball. Dora and Zam were on opposite teams, and the competition grew rather spirited.

Zam was teasing Dora by keeping the ball away from her using his soccer skills, when she grew frustrated and added an element of American football to the game – she lowered her head and charged him, dove and wrapped her arms around his legs in a perfect open-field tackle. Given their ‘field’, this was a bad idea. Both players got some bruises and when they got to their feet, they realized that they had some scrapes which were bleeding. Nothing serious, but there were some blood smears where they had skidded across the cut stone.

A few minute break was welcomed. Their scrapes were washed and their friends pretended not to hear their screams when colloidal silver was painted over their wounds, and the game resumed. Finally someone yelled “Next goal wins!”, the words they had all been waiting for but also had been reluctant to say. Zan got by Dora, leaving him a clear shot on goal. Dora didn’t even think – she whirled and kicked at the ball. Later her reasoning was that if she managed to take a weak, off balance shot at her own goal, her goalie would have a much better chance of stopping it than his much more powerful shot. His kick drove into the back of her ankle, her foot slipped under the ball, and it was driven into the air by the combined force of their kicks.

The ball flew high and the players watched in awe as it floated towards one of the rings… and passed cleanly through the small hole in the center. They had often spent hours kicking the ball at those rings, and it was rare that even one shot in fifty struck the ring, much less flew through the hole.

For Dora and Zam, the world seemed to vanish at the instant the ball passed through the ring, and they found themselves in new surroundings. Far below they could see the Earth. They appeared to be directly above Central America. They were floating, and in front of them they could see an image of the Temple of the Hero Twins, as it was in its prime. They were overlooking the Ōllamaliztli court, where two teams of 12 men each competed in a game in which the rules were not immediately apparent. It was a very rough game, and every few minutes, one of the players was carried off bloodied and battered, to be instantly replaced by another eager athlete. At the opposite ends of the court, high above the playing field, were two stupendous thrones, which were simultaneously the Sun and the Moon. Seated on the thrones were two human males, who were also, simultaneously, the Sun and the Moon. They were observing the game closely, and seemed to be especially appreciative whenever the play got roughest.

The Sun, who Zan and Dora knew was Hunahpu, the slight elder of the Hero Twins, raised his hand to stop the ball game, and the Sun and the Moon turned their attention to Zan. The group of three had an animated conversation in Mayan, totally ignoring Dora. Finally, just has she had had enough of this, and determined to interrupt, even if it was two gods she was about to interrupt, the conversation ended. Xbalanque the Moon raised his hand to wave the game back into action, and Hanahpu the Sun gestured Earthward.

And just as suddenly as they had vanished, they were back. Apparently no time had passed on Earth; they were still tangled together on the ground, and their friends were just turning to them.

“What the hell was that? Was it real?” Dora whispered crossly. She was still peeved about being ignored.

“Yes, it was,” Zan agreed. “I’ll tell you more later.”

And then they were surrounded by a cluster of their friends. All the women were interested in offering sympathy to Zan and the guys were intent on congratulating him for the fantastic ‘shot on ring’ and Dora was being ignored again. She disengaged from the cluster and stomped off, headed back for camp.

“Dora! Wait up!” a male voice called, and when she turned, she was a bit surprised to see that Roger Flint was following her. But not a bit displeased.

***~~~***

Dora spent the rest of the morning and the early afternoon working on her thesis. She was attempting to delineate the interrelationships between the various civilizations in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, which had been more complex and robust than most people believed. Roger was fascinated by the topic, and the two had engaged in long discussions regarding Dora’s theories, and he had suggested several additional topics and channels of information that she noted for future investigation.

She didn’t think about Zan and his gaggle of admirers until he sought her out at siesta time. By now, everyone in the expedition knew the best, coolest places to pass the hot afternoons, and Dora and Zan retired to one of the more secluded locations. Zan wasn’t interested in snoozing, but was eager and excited to discuss their experience during the ball game on the Ōllamaliztli court. A quick review showed that both had experienced the same event; Zan seemed oblivious to Dora’s anger at being ignored. Sill, Dora wasn’t convinced that it was anything more than a dream.

“If it was a dream, where did your new ring come from?” Zan asked.

Dora was stunned to realize she was indeed wearing a new ring – it must have fit so well, she hadn’t noticed. But that couldn’t be the case, she would certainly have noticed this ring, which had two bands of intricately worked silver and a turquoise stone the size of a cashew nut, when she’d been using her typewriter. She later found that it wasn’t actually ‘there’ unless she was thinking about it, and it then magically materialized.

This forced Dora to agree that it had been more than a dream, and she listened intently to Zan’s story.

“We attracted the attention of the Hero Twins last night with what they termed ‘our celebration’ on the court,” he began, and Dora chuckled, as their celebration had been quite exuberant. They’d chosen the court for a little privacy, as it was well away from the expedition’s camp, but who could have guessed that two Mayan gods would be watching them?

“It was just a coincidence that both Sun and Moon were in the sky on our off day, but a two-orb day is special to them, if not quite a holy day. On this special day, we played a ball game on the Ōllamaliztli court. Even though we followed our own rules, the Twins found it an interesting game, and a good diversion from the eternal game they stage with spirit players in their own domain. When you and I made them a sacred offering, by bleeding on the court, they were pleased, and when we kicked the ball through the ring, they decided we deserved a reward. No one has pleased them as much since the pre-Columbian era!”

‘At least 446 years,’ Dora recalled. She was very familiar with the before Columbus/after Columbus demarcation which had marked the beginning of the tragic decline of several Mesoamerican civilizations. ‘A long time, even for a god,’ she deduced. ‘Hunahpu and Xbalanque have been worshiped as gods for at least 2000 years. Is it strange that they might be bored?’

“So,” Zan continued, “they decided to give us a gift. They would have preferred to give this gift to a pair of twin brothers, but Xbalanque convinced Hunahpu that it might be thousands more years before a twin managed to put a ball through the ring on a two orb day, which was what finally triggered them to take action.”

“So they gave you a gift. What was it?” Dora was remembering how angry she’d been about being ignored earlier.

“No, they gave US a gift. Hold out your hand,” he insisted.

As she did, Zan touched his ring to hers, and spoke a short phrase in Mayan, and Dora vanished. Well, not really. Suddenly she was elsewhere, and she realized she was seeing the world through Zan’s eyes. Again, not really. She realized that she was seeing much more than she ever had before – she could see everything around her, and she could even see the body she knew contained her consciousness – from somewhere outside the body!

Where she and Zan had been resting, there now stood a single magnificent male. Easily 7 feet tall, superbly muscled, with typical Mayan coloration and features, dressed scantily in what she thought of as the traditional Ōllamaliztli outfit– a wide breech-clout of heavy, colorful material, sandals, leather bracers and anklets, long hair in a topknot threaded through a complex headdress.

She tried to move – nothing happened. She could sense Zan sharing the body with her, so she tried to speak to him. The body didn’t speak, but she could hear her voice in her mind, and when Zan replied, she could ‘hear’ his voice in the same way. In the back of her mind, she was amazed at how calm she was.

“Zan! What the hell has happened to us?!?!” she screamed at the top of her metaphysical lungs. “Where are we now?!?!”

“When we touch our rings together and speak the spell, the magic of the Hero Twins allows us to join together to become Hun-Xbalan, the mightiest being on earth, with god-like powers!” Dora translated this to mean roughly “First Jaguar”.

Back to the Present

Back in the present, Vicki was fascinated. “That was years before the appearance of Major Power! You were the first mystery hero!” Then she paused, and a look of mystification crossed her face. “Or were you? Nobody ever heard of the First Jaguar.” She shook her head as another, more unpleasant thought occurred to her. “Or maybe we’ve never heard of you because you guys chose to be a villain?” Her hand drifted to her forehead, and she prepared to say her own magic phrase.

“Heavens, No!!!” Dora laughed. “We kept the change secret while we experimented with our new abilities. First Jaguar had some powers totally unlike those of any mystery hero or villain I’ve ever heard of. And then, I chose never to become First Jaguar again. And Zan can’t change without me.”

Vicki was incredulous. “You CHOSE not to be the most powerful being on Earth?” Then another thought struck her. “You’re not just putting me on, are you?”

Dora put her right hand on the middle of the table and commanded “Watch!”

As Vicki watched, a large ornate ring with a turquoise stone faded into view. Vicki reached out to touch it, then hesitated and looked at her friend. Dora nodded, and Vicki touched the ring. She could feel a slight tingling as her own ancient magic reacted to the ancient Mayan magic.

“It’s real, alright! So you DID give up being the First Jaguar. Why?”

“When we changed, it was Zan who had to speak the spell,” Dora started, but Vicki interrupted her.

“Hold on a second, what did the magic words mean?”

“Hero Twin Powers: Activate!” Dora laughed. “That’s just a rough translation, it meant more exactly: ‘Let the pair us become a worthy vessel in which the Hero Twins invoke the mighty mystical powers of the Sun and the Moon.’ Quite a mouthful.”

“I guess I’d like the short form better, too!” Vicki agreed “Go ahead.”

“OK, so Zan had to speak the invocation to initiate the change. Oh, and I couldn’t resist the change, either. Touch the rings together, Zan speaks, and First Jaguar appears, whether I wanted to or not. And we remained as First Jaguar until Zan decided to change back, or the change expired. First Jaguar did what Zan wanted to do. I couldn’t change us back, and I couldn’t stop First Jaguar from doing anything if I didn’t like it. I was just a helpless spectator, a nagging conscience, or maybe a living TV camera, able to view the world but not change it. That wasn’t for me.”

“But think of the good you could have done!” Vicki admonished her friend.

“I think of it every day, my friend,” Dora said sadly. “But you know the saying about absolute power? As Zan gradually realized what First Jaguar was capable of, he started thinking of ways to use the power of First Jaguar to gather even more power to him. He wanted to revenge the wrongs done to the Maya by Europeans, and restore the Mayan civilization – with First Jaguar as the all-powerful leader. I couldn’t be part of that.”

She stopped for a sip of water, and Vicki could tell that she was extremely sad, but also determined to live her own life.

“I learned how to vanish the ring at will, and I refused to allow him to touch rings with me. Eventually, Zan accepted that, and we went our separate ways. He became an advocate for the indigenous peoples of the Americas, and he was one of the driving forces behind The Congress of Inter-American Indigenismo in Mexico in 1940. So he continues to fight for what he believes is right. I guess we are still partners in a way even though I rarely see him any more: I’m uncovering the past of the indigenous people of Mesoamerica, and he is working to improve their future.”

The conversation drifted to other topics, but Vicki noticed that the ring remained visible, and Dora seemed a touch more thoughtful, a touch less animated, than before. She couldn’t help but wonder - suppose her friend had been the one in control of the Firstr Jaguar? How might the world have changed?