Serpent and Storm (4 page)

“Very impressive.”

Sky Knife looked over to Lily-on-the-Water in her bloodstained white dress. He did not want to make an enemy of the goddess' High Priestess. “I did what I could to help,” he said. “If there is any other service I can render, you have only to ask.”

“Be sure I will ask if I require your help in the future,” said Lily-on-the-Water. Her voice was low, and she had a lilting tone to her speech that reminded Sky Knife of the bubbling song of the stream. Her tone told him she would rather die than ask for his help, but she was too polite to say so in public.

Sky Knife bowed to her. “I am at your service, High Priestess.”

Lily-on-the-Water turned and swept out of the arena.

“If there's any good to come out of this, it was the look on her face when you handled the mob,” said a nasally male voice.

Sky Knife turned to face yet another tall Teotihuacano. The man resembled the dead king a bit, but his features were rounded, more smoothed-out than Tattooed Serpent's own chiseled features. One eyelid drooped slightly, and the man's nose was crooked. The man bowed. “I am Grasping Fire,” he said. “Brother to the king. I am the Chief Minister of Construction in the city. And you?”

“Sky Knife, Chief Priest of Itzamna at Tikal. I was sent here by your brother Storm Cloud, ah, that is, Cloudy Sky, to … well, to talk with your king. He wanted to establish a stronger link between our cities. But I suppose I must wait to tell the full story at a later time. Your family has other concerns now.”

Grasping Fire nodded sadly. His long hair wafted around his face and he brushed it away absently. “You have arrived on an unlucky day, Sky Knife. Your errand will have to wait until the new king is installed.”

“Who will be your new king?”

“You will meet him later. Come. I'll take you to the palace where you can pay your respects to the rest of the king's family.”

Grasping Fire didn't wait for Sky Knife's assent; he simply walked away. Sky Knife followed, skirting around a lone beaded sandal left by some panicked game patron.

The main street of the city was wider than the Great Plaza back home in Tikal. Sky Knife tried to keep one eye on Grasping Fire and take in the sights with the other.

New construction was taking place on each side of the street. Sky Knife had listened to Storm Cloud's description of the building styles of his homeland, but he had not pictured anything quite like this. The temples along the street did not slope steeply or ascend in step fashion like those at home in Tikal. Instead, the slope of the outer wall was interrupted by large sections of vertical wall, on which were carved fantastic creatures and scenes. Butterflies, serpents, and jaguars were common figures, as were seashells. An odd often-repeated motif looked like a disembodied eye floating in water.

In front of each building hung masks. Some were life-sized, but most were only a few inches wide. They were jade and ceramic, stone, and wood. Many of them had eyes and teeth of inlaid shell. The masks hung by strings run through holes in the ears or at the top. They swayed back and forth in the wind, surveying the street. Sky Knife shuddered. Between the masks and the disembodied eyes in the murals, he had the impression that his every move was being watched. Studied. Judged.

Sky Knife hurried to catch up to Grasping Fire and walk beside him. At Tikal, only the High Priest had rank enough to walk even with the king or his family, but in Tikal, everyone would have made way for the king or his family, too—and no one paid attention to Grasping Fire on the street. Perhaps a foreign priest could walk beside the king's brother in the street in Teotihuacan.

Grasping Fire didn't even look concerned that Sky Knife walked beside him.

“Excuse me,” said Sky Knife, “but you said you were Chief Minister of Construction, right?”

“Yes.” Grasping Fire veered right to avoid an old woman walking with the aid of a stick.

“But didn't Amaranth bet a year of labor from five hundred construction workers? I thought she was in charge of construction.”

“Yes, well, she's the Chief Minister of
Planning,
” said Grasping Fire. “But our respective bureaucracies work closely together.”

Grasping Fire's tone was flat. Sky Knife could not tell what the other man thought of Amaranth's bet.

“She would have had to have your permission, then, to make a bet like that with the king?” asked Sky Knife.

Grasping Fire shook his head. “No. I told you, our offices work together.” Grasping Fire hesitated slightly before the word
work
and walked faster so that Sky Knife was left behind. Sky Knife let the matter go. He would ask Amaranth about it later.

The king's palace sat toward the north end of the street, near the smaller of the great pyramids. Grasping Fire passed through the outer gate without even glancing toward Sky Knife or the two frowning guards outside. Sky Knife took that to mean he should just follow the other man in.

The guards did not object. Sky Knife breathed a small sigh of relief. He followed Grasping Fire across the patio and into a large front room of the palace.

Sky Knife stopped short. He'd never been in a room like it. Instead of a familiar long, narrow, high-vaulted shape, the room was square and the ceiling flat. Beams of wood had been laid across the tops of the walls at intervals and planks on top of that.

A wooden ceiling in a palace. It was a fine idea, and probably easier to construct than the corbelled vaults used back home. But it was still alien. Sky Knife felt as though the ceiling were pressing down on him. He took a deep breath and stepped farther into the room.

“Is this him?” asked a woman. She stepped into the room carrying an oil lamp. It was the woman who had screamed at the king's death.

“Mistress,” said Sky Knife.

“This is him,” said Amaranth. She stepped into the room from a doorway to Sky Knife's left. “Sky Knife, this is Jaguar's Daughter. Wife of Tattooed Serpent.”

Sky Knife bowed to the woman. She approached him slowly, her hands still trembling. Although her hair was barely touched with gray and her face unlined, she moved as sluggishly as an old grandmother. Jaguar's Daughter reached out and touched Sky Knife lightly on the shoulder. Amaranth bowed to them both and left with Grasping Fire.

“Yes, he is the one,” she said. Her lips trembled and she closed her eyes a moment, no doubt fighting back her grief.

Jaguar's Daughter took a deep breath and opened her eyes. “Please, enter my house,” she said. “Please.” Jaguar's Daughter turned and led Sky Knife deeper into the palace.

The walls of the hallway had been painted in brilliant reds and oranges and blues. Scenes of trees flowering next to flowing streams of water ran along both walls of the corridor. Animals and people danced in the fields under the trees. The strange disembodied-eye motif was repeated many times, always in the water.

Jaguar's Daughter walked to a room even larger than the front room. Her full skirts, weighted on the hem by heavy beads, swirled around her ankles and sandaled feet.

Lamps set in alcoves in the walls lit the room brightly. Jaguar's Daughter gave her lamp to a servant standing quietly to the side of the doorway. She walked to a bench at the far end of the room. On the bench was a mat and on the mat lay the body of the king.

Sky Knife followed Jaguar's Daughter across the room and looked down at the body. The king's eyes had been closed and his hands clasped across his ample belly.

“He was a good man. Do you believe that?” asked Jaguar's Daughter.

“Yes,” said Sky Knife.

“I feel the Spotted Jaguar has brought you here as an omen,” said Jaguar's Daughter softly. “You were sent from Cloudy Sky to meet my husband.”

It took a moment for Storm Cloud's Teotihuacano name to sink into Sky Knife's mind. “Um, yes,” he said at last. “That's right.”

“And now my husband is dead.” Jaguar's Daughter turned to Sky Knife. No tears marred her face, but her eyes were red with sorrow. “I ask you … no, I
beg
you—find out why this happened. My husband was not old or sick. He was a strong man, a healthy man. Someone did this to him. Find that person. Bring him to me. I ask you in his name.”

Sky Knife hesitated. He had searched out human murderers before for Storm Cloud. He had not necessarily enjoyed the experience, but he had come to understand the truth behind Jaguar's Daughter's words. Sometimes, when unlucky events happened, they were the result of planning by men, not divine intervention.

Jaguar's Daughter leaned closer to him. “I can ask no one else,” she said. “They all have their petty jealousies and rivalries. I have to know who wanted my husband dead, not just for justice's sake, but for my son's sake. He will be our new king. I must know if his life is in danger.”

Sky Knife nodded reluctantly. He had barely set foot in this city, and now he was supposed to find a murderer and protect the new king! But he couldn't refuse such a heartfelt call for help. “I'll do my best,” he said. “I swear it in the name of Itzamna.”

“Now I know why Cloudy Sky sent you to us,” said Jaguar's Daughter. “The gods must have told him what to do.”

Sky Knife said nothing, but he doubted the gods had anything to do with the entire business.

4

Jaguar's Daughter led Sky Knife from the room where the king's body lay to a smaller room that opened onto a courtyard. Sunlight streamed into the room, temporarily blinding Sky Knife after the darkness of the palace's corridors.

“My son will join us shortly,” said Jaguar's Daughter. “I told him of his father's death and left him with the Corn Priest to prepare him for this evening's ceremony.”

A man clad only in a ballplayer's uniform strode in. Sweat streaked his face and chest. The man was tall but stockier than most Teotihuacano men. His hair was pulled together into a knot on top of his head. “I came as soon as I could,” he said. “What happened?” The man glanced briefly toward Sky Knife, but his gaze flicked away, dismissing the Mayan priest.

“He's dead. What else is there to say?” asked Jaguar's Daughter sharply. “Really, brother, your manners leave something to be desired. This man has traveled all the way from Tikal, from Cloudy Sky, to visit us.” Jaguar's Daughter leaned apologetically toward Sky Knife. “This is Dark Lightning, my younger brother.”

Sky Knife nodded politely, but Dark Lightning refused to look at him.

“But the king … dead,” said Dark Lightning. His distress clouded his voice, and tears rolled down his cheeks and mingled with his sweat. “What will we do?”

Sky Knife could not stay silent in the face of such fear. “Your city and your people will go on,” he said. “You will have a new king. The gods have not abandoned you. They have not abandoned this city.”

“It is so,” said a deep voice. An old man in a long embroidered robe limped into the room. The man was tall and thin, so thin that he seemed stretched out, taller than he was. Even his arms and fingers were long and incredibly thin. His ample white hair had been fixed in two braids that started behind his ears and lay on his chest, each ending in a small knot of beads at the man's stomach. “I am the Corn Priest, and I say to you, the mantle of godhood that sat upon our dead king will sit upon the new. Thus it has always been. Thus it will always be.”

“But there is little time,” said Dark Lightning. “So little time. How can the gods be properly honored and the new king ascend the mat of rulership in only five days?”

“A lifetime can happen in five days,” said Sky Knife. “Ask the butterfly.”

“Five days is more than enough time to honor the gods,” said the Corn Priest. “I have already begun the preparations. The twin has been chosen.”

Dark Lightning seemed about to protest, but he merely shook his head.

“Twin?” asked Sky Knife, damning himself for parroting others again so soon after he told himself he wouldn't.

“The king must have a twin to stand for him in the ceremony,” said Jaguar's Daughter. She sat down wearily on a stone bench against the wall. “The king is the mouthpiece of the gods, but he must also ascend to the gods. He must become as they are.”

Talk of the gods and their rituals relieved Sky Knife slightly—at least these topics were known to him. Even if the Teotihuacano gods were different from his, still, all the gods had to be brothers to each other. Their rituals must be similar.

For Sky Knife, the chief god of heaven was Itzamna, the world lizard, the iguana who carried the world on his back. His wife, Ix Chel, lived in her glowing sky palace, the moon, from which she dispensed healing and solace. Yet she could also dispense sickness as she traveled through the forests of the world. On those nights, her palace refused to shine and no moon hung in the sky.

Sky Knife knew in his bones that the gods had created mankind and watched over all men. The gods were both merciful and terrible. With the same breath they could bless and curse. They were powerful and required constant supplication and placation. Sky Knife felt sure the Teotihuacano gods were much the same.

“You mean a sacrifice,” said Sky Knife. “The king's twin must be sacrificed in his place.”

“Of course,” said the Corn Priest. “Do you not have a similar custom, lizard priest?”

“Not exactly,” said Sky Knife.

The Corn Priest shrugged. “Of course not,” said the Corn Priest. “Who could expect civilized ways in the realm of your iguana god?” The Corn Priest turned his back on Sky Knife.

Anger warmed Sky Knife's cheeks. Just because he was from far away did not mean his beliefs and his gods counted for nothing.

“I would be interested in hearing of your ways and discussing our separate traditions sometime,” said Sky Knife, bowing to the Corn Priest.

The Corn Priest glanced over his shoulder, apparently not expecting courtesy from a foreign priest. “Perhaps,” he said. “Perhaps we may have time to talk. But nothing is certain in this life.” The Corn Priest turned back around, but looked just over Sky Knife's shoulder rather than directly at him.