The Crystal Whistle

In the heart of his Seattle studio, Raul Gomez Hernandez dripped sweat under industrial lights. On his paint covered workbench lay a jagged shard of crystal about the size of a grapefruit that shimmered with a rainbow sheen. It wasn't of this earth but a fragment of a meteorite purchased at an auction that had emptied his bank account. As an artist Raul knew that unique art needed rare elements. This was his most ambitious endeavor. 

Raul adjusted his webcam to face the crystal, now in the desk mounted clamp. "Tonight," he whispered to the twenty three thousand viewers watching the livestream, "we honor my ancestors.” 

He picked up the drill bit and clicked it into the tool. “I have said this before, this project was inspired by my heritage from the Mixtec people in Oaxaca. The Cloud People, Masters of wind and sky. Historically, these whistles were used during conflicts and rituals to unnerve enemies or guide the dead.” 

With a diamond tipped burr and heavy eye protection, Raul began to carve. Behind him a Mexican flag shifted in the breeze. The crystal was unnervingly dense, humming against the tool. He ran water slowly over the stone, helpfully cooling as he shaped the exterior into a grinning skull. 

The secret of the ehecachichtli is in the construction. Following the blueprints of these “Aztec death whistles” he hollowed out two distinct chambers inside the skull. The first was a small, precise cavity with a singular, sharp opening. The second was a larger, cavernous "resonator" designed to catch the air and distort it. In theory, when the air from the small chamber collided with the walls of the large one, the turbulence would create a sound indistinguishable from a human scream.

Hours blurred with periodic camera shifts, lighting changes and several caffeine breaks. The rainbow dust coated Raul’s bronze skin and glittered like the night sky. He cleaned the object of his obsession with no regard to himself.

At 3:00 AM, he finally held the finished piece up to the camera, a semi-translucent yet multi-colored skull that shimmered like radiant jewelry. The macabre whistle beckoned him with glints in its hollowed eyes. He slowly rotated the smiling skull for the camera, mesmerized by the rainbow effects. There were only thirty viewers but he was eager too.  

"Now, let's hear the stars scream," Raul told the camera and removed his goggles. Sparkly flecks of meteor dust clung to him everywhere but where the goggles had been. He pressed the crystal whistle to his lips and blew.

The sound wasn't instant, it took a moment and then the scream pierced the air. It was not just a scream, it was the guttural cry for help before inevitable death. It was also a physical tear in the atmosphere. The whistle stopped when he stopped blowing but all around him a persistent low moan escalated into a shriek that caused the livestream feed to glitch into darkness. His viewers never saw what happened next. 

As the vibration hit its peak, the air in front of Raul became an opaque fog. The studio walls disappeared around him. Raul gasped, the whistle still clutched in his hands, as he stepped forward into the land beyond the veil.

He felt the air dampen with humidity, the fog dispersed and he suddenly stood looking up a mountain with a gargantuan, sprawling labyrinth and at the center was a square pyramid. The walls seemed to be made of polished amber and woven rods of sunshine stretching infinitely into a bruised purple sky. Was it morning?

Far in the distance, in an open temple sat a figure both terrifying and majestic. Raul recognized Ehecatl, the God of the Aztec pantheon from his red bird-like face. He was supposed to be an aspect of the deity Quetzalcoatl who ruled the wind. The ehecachichtli was his tool. 

The god stood in his temple to look down on Raul. The god didn't speak, but a breeze swept through the labyrinth, carrying with it a gentle plea to enter. His intentions were clear. Come. 

Raul looked down at the crystal whistle, catching the magnificent sparkle in its empty eye and realized then that this creation wasn't a musical instrument, it was a key. He had played the frequency of the gateway and the Lord of the Night Winds was waiting on him.