Obsidian & Blood (139 page)

 

Everything was silent when I arrived; the air itself seemed to have turned to tar. I struggled to reach the front door.
  Inside, magic filled the courtyard, throbbed to the rhythm of my heart. Magic such as I would never wield. Still I pressed on, although the air burnt my lungs, and raw power quivered on my skin. I was too late.
  Ceyaxochitl lay on her back on the dais of the audience room, blood staining her blouse. Around her lay the remnants of her ritual: the owl with its throat slit, the spider carving on the low table, the jade plate. But the pattern was incomplete: a square filled the plate, and around the fourth corner of the drawing the blood of the owl pooled on the table, slowly dripping to the floor. Ceyaxochitl had not traced the diagonals. She had had no time to complete her summoning.
  And darkness stood over her: the god Tezcatlipoca in all His twisted glory.
  “Stop,” I said. I wanted to scream it, but my tongue stuck to my teeth. “Stop,” I repeated, lifting one of the obsidian knives.
  The god laughed. It wasn't the laughter of an immortal, but that of a madman. He turned to me in a fluid, inhuman movement, and I saw the flash of jade where His throat should have been, submerged in the darkness. I did not need to be closer to see the pattern. Four Jaguar.
  What had those fools done?
  “Priest,” the god said. “You have no place here.” He moved towards me, His power overwhelming me. I fought to raise my hand, and threw the knife at Him. It fell to the ground paces away from Him. He did not slow down.
  “I stand against you,” I said, moving towards the low table and Ceyaxochitl's body. “You are Itlani,” I said. “The first member of the sect to die.”
  “No longer,” the god said. “Itlani is but my vessel. I have returned, priest.” I flung my second knife at Him, but He batted it aside. And then He reached out with hands like claws, and, grabbing me by the shoulders, hoisted me in the air.
  I could not breathe. I could not focus on anything. Everything was folding back on itself, everything blurred. The hands holding me were blades of obsidian, green and throbbing with magic. The god's broken mirror. The shards that killed.
  He flung me against a wall, contemptuously. I slid down, landed hard. Pain flared up in my back. Blood ran on my shoulders where the god had held me, on my arms and legs, which had been grazed by the rough surface of the walls. My ribs ached.
  “It is over, priest,” Tezcatlipoca said, once more coming to lift me. I rolled aside, gritting my teeth not to cry at the pain. His hands found only air. “Why prolong your agony? I kill swiftly.”
  As He had killed Ceyaxochitl. I rolled aside once more, but I was weakening, fast. I had only one knife left in my belt. Think. I had to… think.
  The mirror that gave life and death. The sect had summoned Tezcatlipoca and made a mess of the ritual. They had broken the mirror, and the shards became embedded into Itlani's body. The shards that later enabled him to rise as this twisted shadow. They gave life, and they took life.
  The god was not wholly here, not yet. He inhabited Itlani's body. And that human body, neither dead nor alive, belonged both to the mortal world and to the underworld. The body transgressed.
  I crawled towards Ceyaxochitl's low table, as fast as I could. My body screamed its agony, but I paid it no heed.
My hand closed around Ceyaxochitl's obsidian knife, dipped it into the blood of the owl. I swiftly completed the pattern, tracing the square's diagonals so that they met over the fourth level of the underworld.
  The god lunged for me, and I threw myself aside. Tezcatlipoca's hand stabbed through the place where I had been, and grazed the skin of my arm. I did not care. I needed to speak the words.
  “Jade for safekeeping…” My voice caught on the last word. It was hard to speak.
  The god moved towards me. I left the table's side, but everything was blurred again. I raised shaking hands, but could not maintain them in the air. I was…I had to…
  The words of summoning had been ingrained in me, too deeply to be forgotten. I spoke them, quickly, as the world turned and turned and shrank to darkness around me. “Owl and spider to honour the God of the Dead… I summon you… From the Fourth Level of the underworld I call you… Come.”
  I closed my eyes, knowing I had done all I could. The god was close to me; I could feel His power, straining to fill me. But I was too weary to get up.
  A wind rose, whispering words of mourning in my ear. The air became cold, as cold as morning frost, and my stomach filled with that familiar hollow. I almost welcomed it.
  
Acatl
, a voice said in my mind, a voice like the lament of dead souls.
I am here
.
  When I managed to open my eyes again, the Wind of Knives was fighting Tezcatlipoca. They flowed over the furniture in the room, one darkness lunging at another. Obsidian clashed against obsidian with a sickening sound.
  I crawled back to Ceyaxochitl. I passed over my own trail of blood, ignoring the pain in my body.
  Ceyaxochitl still lay where she had fallen. I laid a shaking hand on her chest, felt the faint heartbeat. Her eyes stared vacantly at the ceiling. Her mouth moved, slowly. “Acatl…”
  “Spare yourself,” I whispered, not feeling stronger than she was.
  “It's… not… enough.”
  The Wind of Knives and Tezcatlipoca were still tearing at one another. The god's body had transgressed, but He remained a god. The Wind of Knives did not kill gods, and in my mind I could feel Him weakening. Not enough. Curse it, not enough. What would be enough?
  Ceyaxochitl's eyes did not look at me. “It's… us… Acatl… We… maintain…”
  Us. Human blood. Well, there was enough of it around, I thought hysterically.
  I called in my mind to the Wind of Knives, as He had done when He had arrived.
You need more
, I said.
  He continued His dance with Tezcatlipoca, stabbing futilely at the darkness.
And you would give it, Acatl?
  Yes.
  
I need more than blood
, the Wind said, barely stepping aside to avoid one of Tezcatlipoca's claw-swipes.
I need us to work together. I need your trust.
  
You have it.
  
No. Those are words, Acatl. Do you trust me?
 
 I
… Payaxin's dead body filled my mind.
You kill for nothing.
 
 I am necessary. Would you rather have gods and monsters walking the world?
  
No
, I cried in my mind.
You are…
 
 I do what I was made for
, the Wind said.
  He had killed Payaxin. He had…
  No. Blame was shared, equally. If I had taught my student better, he would not have rushed into such a foolhardy enterprise. He would have known better. I, too, bore the guilt of Payaxin's death, and it had been gnawing at me all those years, when I had cut myself away from the underworld. I could not go on like that. I could not be ruled by guilt and hatred.
  The Wind of Knives was still moving, but His gestures were more sluggish.
Acatl!
  I closed my eyes.
I trust you
, I said, and opened myself to Him.
  It was as if I were moving through a rush of water; every thought alien to me, every image His mind held too horrible to focus on. Skulls and stains of blood flashed before my eyes, but I held on.
And He showed me, without words, what I needed to know. Human blood. Human blood would dissolve the shards, if it went to the heart, driven by a human hand.
  I rose, slowly. My hand went to my belt, retrieved the last of the obsidian knives I had brought here. Clumsily, I plunged the blade into the wound on my left shoulder, biting my lip not to cry out at the pain. Then, step by step, I moved towards the battling shadows.
  “You are a fool, priest,” Tezcatlipoca said, and His voice rumbled, like the earthquake that would end the world. “A fool.”
  I came, with the blood-stained obsidian knife. I came, and the Wind of Knives redoubled His attacks, until He had Tezcatlipoca pinned against a wall.
  And in that moment I plunged my knife into the shadow god's chest, all the way to the heart. I felt obsidian give way, dissolve under the thrust of the blade. I felt the Wind of Knives seize hold of my mind and push, push deep into the twisted mind of Tezcatlipoca's incarnation. And everything gave way under our attack.
  The god screamed. I had never heard such anguish contained in a voice. “I would have reigned,” He was screaming, even as the shards fell from His hands, from His whole body. Blood welled up from inside His chest, filled Him, until the darkness before me was tinged scarlet. “I would have…”
  And the last shard dropped away, and Itlani's dead body fell at my feet, a grimace of fear on its features.
  It was all I could do to remain standing. Shivering, I kept staring at the corpse, wondering if it was truly over, if the nightmare had ended.
  A hand was laid on my shoulder, and gently turned me round. I found myself staring at planes of obsidian. “Acatl,” the Wind of Knives said. “It is ended.”
  “Will He come back?” I asked, slowly.
  “Perhaps.” The Wind's voice was toneless. Coldness travelled from my shoulder into my heart, until I felt nothing, nothing at all. “Not so easily.”
  “And Ceyaxochitl?”
  His face turned towards the unconscious body of the Guardian. “She may survive.”
  I wanted to rest, to lie down. I wanted the underworld to go away so that the coldness would abate. “It is ended,” I whispered.
  The Wind nodded. “You have no more need of me.”
  I stared, not sure I had heard Him correctly. I had never heard Him speak such words. He seemed to be waiting for some answer for me. “No,” I said, at last, not completely trusting my voice. “I have no more need of you.”
  He had started to fade on the last word; obsidian planes blurred into nothingness.
  By the time Macihuin and his men reached the house, and summoned a physician to take Ceyaxochitl away, He had disappeared.
  But I still could hear His last words to me. “Until next time, Acatl.”
  I stood over Itlani's body, shaking and weak from loss of blood.
  “Acatl,” Macihuin said. “You have some explanations to give.”
  “Yes,” I said. I let the physician bind my wounds, and fuss over them. I let Macihuin ask me questions which I was too weak to answer.
  Evening was falling; darkness filled the house, but it was a darkness that the sun would dispel, come time. The Fifth Age would continue.
  Until next time, Acatl.
  In the end, there were enough things to sort out, and I could tell Macihuin would be very busy in the hours to come. They left me alone, sitting on the dais with the remnants of my summoning, with the memory of the Wind's voice in my mind.
  Payaxin was dead. We both had a share of guilt in that, and perhaps not even one. After all, he had been his own man, and had made his own choices. I could no longer go on, cutting myself off from the underworld and hating the Wind. As He had said, He was necessary.
  I said, quietly, to the silent night, “Until next time.”

First published in
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
, January 2009

 

 

“He's in here,” Huchimitl said.
  I stood in the courtyard of her opulent house, amidst pine and palm trees, breathing in the smell of dust and fallen pine needles. Just outside, a few paces from me, was Moyotlan, one of the busiest districts of Tenochtitlan; but the bustle from the crowded streets and canals was barely audible, cut off by the walls of the courtyard. Around us were several doorways, closed by coloured entrance-curtains; and it was before one of those that Huchimitl and I stood.
  Not for the first time, I wished Huchimitl wasn't wearing that accursed ceramic mask – so I could read her face. Or, failing that, that she'd at least tell me why she was wearing it. The only people in the city I'd seen wearing that kind of mask were disfigured warriors. But I'd asked the question twice on my way there, and been met with silence.
  “I'm not sure I can do anything – “ I started, but Huchimitl cut me off.
  “Please, Acatl. Just take a look at the man. And tell me whether he's cursed.”
  Curses, unless they were from the underworld, weren't really my province. If I'd had any sense, I'd have refused Huchimitl when she'd arrived in my temple.
  But she'd been wearing that mask, hiding her face from me. Surely…
  Surely the girl I remembered from my childhood, the one who'd turned the heads of all the boys in our calpulli clan – including mine – couldn't possibly be injured?
  I couldn't bring myself to believe that. There had to be some other explanation for that mask. And I had to know what it was.
  Huchimitl was still standing before the door, waiting for my answer. “Acatl,” she said, shaking her head in that disturbingly familiar fashion, halfway between exasperation and amusement.
  My heart twisted in my chest. In truth, I'd never had been able to refuse her, and even though it had been years since we'd last seen each other, it still did not change anything. “I can't promise you much,” I said, finally.
  Huchimitl shook her head – sunlight played on her mask as she did so, creating disturbing reflections on the ceramic, like a breath from Mictlan, the underworld. I fought an urge to walk up to her and tear off the mask. “Acatl, please.”
  Gently, I drew aside the hanging mat that closed the door, trying not to disturb the bells sewn into it. I paused halfway through, stared at Huchimitl. She stood unmoving, the mask drinking in the sunlight.
  “I'll wait for you in the reception area,” she said.
  I sighed and entered the room.
  Its walls bore frescoes of Patecatl, God of Medicine, holding a drinking cup and an incense brazier, and of Quetzalcoatl, God of Creation and Knowledge, who stood with the bones of the dead in His outstretched hands. A strong smell of herbs rose from the back of the room, where the sick man lay on a reed mat. His legs were curled in an unnatural position.
  He did not move as I came in, save that his eyes opened and stared straight at me. It was the gaze of a strong, shrewd man.
  Citli, Huchimitl had called him. A warrior captured by her son on the battlefield: a strong, healthy sacrifice who would be offered on the altar, for the glory of the gods – and for that of his captor.
  That was the way it should have worked. Someone, obviously, had had a different idea.
  “A priest. So she's brought you into this, too?” Citli's voice was reedy and thin, on the verge of breaking with every word. But still, the humour came through, a sign that whatever had affected his body had not yet reached his mind.
  “I am Acatl, priest for the Dead,” I told him.
  Citli made a thin, rasping sound, which I realised was laughter. “I'm not yet dead, priest. Save your rituals for those who need them.” He fell silent for a while, and then said, “I am Citli, warrior of Mixteca.”
  I nodded, acknowledging the introduction. I had already gotten a good look at him, and what I had been half-expecting – the green aura that was the mark of the underworld – was not there. But there was something – a shimmering in the air, a hint of a coiled, alien power around him – something that did not belong. Huchimitl had been correct: he was cursed.
  Citli was staring at me. “You're not like the other priests.”
  “You've seen many priests in Coyoacan?” I asked, moving away from the reed mat and searching the room, overturning wicker chests and ceramic pots.
  He laughed again. “Priests are the same everywhere. But you – you don't have dried blood in your hair, or thorns in your earlobes.”
  I shrugged. “I had them, once. But now I only perform sacrifices for the Dead.” My search of the small room had revealed nothing useful. My only recourse lay in speaking to Citli, and hoping he would know something of importance. “How long have you been sick?”
  The humour left his eyes. “Thirteen days. A full week. Why does a priest that sacrifices to the Dead worry about that? They told me I would be healed in time for the ceremony.” There was fear in his voice, now. I knew why: if he did not die a warrior's death on the altar, he would not go to the Sun God's Heaven with his peers, but be condemned to the ignominious underworld.
  “I'm not here for the last rites,” I said. “Huchimitl thought perhaps I could determine was wrong with you. Do you have any idea of what's ailing you?”
  His voice was sullen. “No. All I know is that I want to be healthy for the ceremony. I won't be cheated of my glory.”
  “You don't know why? Huchimitl says her son is not popular among the warriors – “ She hadn't said much in truth, just hinted that Mazahuatl might have made some powerful enemies. And I'd been too busy worrying about the mask to ask the proper questions.
  A mistake. How could I help her, if I couldn't control my own feelings?
  Citli's upper body moved slightly, in what appeared to be an attempt to shrug. “Her son Mazahuatl is young and arrogant, and an upstart. But he is my beloved war-father, the one who captured me on the battlefield, and he will make me ascend to the Sun's Heaven. The rest shouldn't concern me.”
  “Shouldn't it? If Mazahuatl has enemies, they'll want to strike at you as well,” I said. “They might have cursed you, just to make him look like a fool.”
  “Making his beloved war-son unable to walk to his sacrifice?” Citli's voice was bitter. “They're cowards, all of them.”
  “I know. But until we know who they are, they can't be punished.” I paused, then asked, “When did you first notice something was wrong?”
  “It started with my legs. Now I have no feeling anywhere in my body, only above my neck.”
  I was no healer; his affliction, if it had no magical cause, would truly be beyond me.
  “And you have no idea why?” I asked.
  He shook his head, forcefully. “No. Look. I wasn't here a month ago. Whatever is going on, I have no part in it.”
  I could see that; clearly he was not lying, and equally clearly he didn't know anything.
  Which wouldn't get me, or Huchimitl, anywhere.
  Curses.
  “Do you have people who take care of you?” I asked.
  Citli looked at me, almost offended. “Of course,” he said. “Mazahuatl knows the proper care for a prisoner.”
  Warriors. Always quick to take offence. It would have been amusing, had the situation not been so serious. “And they noticed nothing?”
  Citli shook his head. “You might ask them,” he said. “There's an old woman named Xoco. She brings food, and gossip, and whatever I cannot get, lying here.” He was angry again – for a young, energetic man, falling ill and being confined to a bed must have been the worst of fates.
  I finished my examination of him, which didn't yield anything more. He was indeed paralysed; and the curse seemed to spread as time passed. But I couldn't determine its cause – nor reassure myself that whatever had struck Citli down wouldn't strike again within the house.
  I took my leave of him, with no answers, just a growing feeling of unease in my belly.
  What was going on? What was Huchimitl embroiled in?