The Hidden Goddess (2 page)

“Enemies, sir?”

“Captain Caul was not the only opponent of the Temple’s plans for the great remaking,” Blotgate said. “There is also a group of Russian scientists called the Sini Mira. They have created a poison called Volos’ Anodyne. Our intelligence indicates that it is a truly monstrous and inelegant weapon, designed to pollute the global mantic well at its very source, rendering the working of such an immense magic—indeed, of any magic at all—utterly impossible.” The General peered at Utisz through a veil of haze. “I am sure you agree that such arrogant foreign interference in our national destiny, and in the magical destiny of all mankind, must be swiftly and thoroughly curtailed.”

“Yes, sir!”

“I kind of thought you would,” the General said. “And to do that, we have to get the acorn.”

“
Acorn
, sir?”

“Of course it’s not the acorn we want, rather the redskin Witch inside it.” The General leaned back in his chair, savoring the lieutenant’s confusion. “The formula for the poison was hidden long ago, and we believe she knows where it is. But for some blasted reason the stupid squaw shed her human body and transferred her spirit into an acorn. And now she and the acorn are under the protection of the credomancers at their Institute in New York.”

“Credomancers.”
Utisz frowned. “A mongrel horde of Jews and foreigners and other undesirables. Why their tampering with the minds of patriotic Americans continues to be allowed by our elected officials, I shall never understand.” Utisz, realizing suddenly that he had not been given permission to speak freely, reddened slightly. “Sir.”

“Indeed,” Blotgate allowed. “There are many things I do
not understand either, Lieutenant. But as men of magic—and officers of the United States Army—sometimes we must accept what we cannot understand.” General Blotgate rolled the cigar between thumb and forefinger, contemplating it.

“But what I will
not
accept, Lieutenant”—the General released each word as if he were dropping it into a pond, letting it fall to the murky bottom—“is that a project that has the capacity to shift the balance of global power, and thrust this great country into the position of world dominance that it is destined to occupy, should be threatened by an
Indian
in a
nut
.”

He emphatically ground his cigar into a large brass ashtray.

“Before his death, Captain Caul was overseeing a secret project to stockpile huge amounts of chrysohaeme. He had convinced the President that this arsenal of refined magic was necessary to defend the United States against
temamauhti
. Now that the President has come to recognize how he was misguided, he has agreed that the arsenal should be put to a far more important use. It will be delivered to the Temple to aid them in their great work.”

After this, the General did not speak again for a long time. Instead, he rested his elbows on his desk, clasped his hands together, and stared at Utisz. He stared so long that the lieutenant began to feel very uncomfortable. Heat crept up under his collar. He felt, strangely, as if he should fall to his knees and beg for mercy. He did not know why.

“It is my understanding that you have not received a posting yet, Lieutenant,” the General finally said.

“I have not, sir,” Utisz managed, his throat bone dry.

“Then it’s your lucky day,” the General said. “I am appointing you Army liaison to the Temple of Itztlacoliuhqui. You will be given command of a squadron. You and your men will deliver the chrysohaeme Caul stockpiled—as well as the bulk of the Army’s reserves of Black Exunge—to the Temple. Once the delivery has been made, you will stay to serve the Black Glass Goddess in whatever capacity she requires. Do you understand the vital importance of this mission?”

“Yes, sir!”

“And do you accept it?”

“Yes, sir!” Utisz had ignored the soft, predatory tone of the question. He had lifted his chin resolutely. “It will be an honor to serve my country.”

An honor to serve my country
.

Lieutenant Utisz shivered with remembered pride, and from the feather-light touch of the Temple acolyte. He recognized the places where the bitter oil was being touched to his ice-washed skin: The brachial arteries along the inside of his arms. The femoral arteries along the inside of his legs. And finally on his throat, the
carotis communis
. The bleeding places.

“She will receive you now,” the attendant said, after the Temple servant had silently gathered his things and bowed his way backward into the shadows. The doors of bone grated open; there was only gaping blackness beyond.

The attendant escorted Utisz through a close unlit corridor into an enormous room that seemed to expand around them as they entered it. It was like emerging into a winter night of deepest stillness and chill, all the stars blotted out by an angry hand.

The floor was deeply channeled in an intricate circular design that Utisz recognized as the ancient Aztec calendar for which the room was named. Black Exunge ran in these deep channels, outlining the vast pattern in bubbling stink. Mold-frosted leaves of diviners’ sage smoldered over white-glowing charcoal in a hundred brazen tripods, thickening the air with narcotic clouds of smoke. Light from a high aperture in the domed ceiling sliced downward through the blue-silver haze, illuminating a deep, bowl-shaped pit in the calendar’s great center.

The pit was deep and unlined. Thick hairy roots extended from the crumbling soil of its sides, piercing the surface of a whale-size reddish-brown lump that glistened like clotted blood. Half submerged in a bitter soup of Exunge, the thing shuddered and spasmed irregularly, making obscene plopping noises.

Lieutenant Utisz could not take his eyes off it. It was so arresting, indeed, that he hardly noticed the approach of a very fat man, his hands extended in jocular welcome.

“The High Priest of her sacred splendor,” the attendant whispered in Utisz’ ear. Only the hissing sibilance allowed the lieutenant to tear his gaze away from the mound of throbbing flesh. “Her
tonalpoulque
, keeper of her consecrated calendar.”

The High Priest wore a plain, ill-fitting black suit—a shoddy background to the lavish ceremonial torque he wore around his neck. It was an extravagant, gaudy ornament; beads of gold and jade big as walnuts were strung through with brilliant, iridescent plumes. Twelve pendants were spaced along the necklace’s length, each pendant a golden cage—and in each cage, a bit of dried human flesh. Most of the bits were utterly indistinguishable, but Utisz recognized some of them—a shriveled section of leathery intestine, a whole desiccated brain (which rattled in its golden cage like a little nut), and a small, hard heart.

“Thank you for coming, Lieutenant.” The High Priest caught Utisz’ hand, pumping it with gusto. “I am Selig Heusler. I trust your journey was comfortable?”

Utisz appreciated plain speaking and plain dealing. The words, spoken to him rather than above him, made him take an immediate liking to the High Priest, feathers and flesh-bits notwithstanding. “Yes, sir, th-thank you. I would p-present you with my papers, but …” Utisz clenched his teeth to stop their chattering, and spread his hands to highlight his nakedness.

“No need. Your men have already been hard at work unloading your government’s tribute of chrysohaeme and Black Exunge.” Here, Heusler leaned in close to murmur in Utisz’ ear, “They’ll all have to be killed, I’m afraid. They cannot be allowed to leave; with
temamauhti
so close, the Temple’s location must remain a closely guarded secret.”

Utisz blinked once or twice. But before he could even form words of protest, Heusler laid a hand on his arm to guide him toward a pyramid at the far end of the room. It was constructed entirely of human skulls, and blanketed in heavy, sparkling frost. “Come, let us make haste, for she is expecting you …”

As they passed the huge lump of flesh spasming in the pit, Utisz slowed for a closer look.

“The
Liver
,” Heusler said, seeing the direction of the young man’s gaze. “Incredible, isn’t it? That, Lieutenant, is the engine that will power the Remaking. If the Indian in the nut doesn’t stop us first.”

“I have come with a plan,” Lieutenant Utisz said, the words tumbling out on a silvery cloud. “The acorn—I know how we can retrieve it.”

Heusler lifted his eyebrows in astonishment. “Do you? How quickly you work! You shall distinguish yourself in her service, I can see.”

“Dreadnought Stanton is the key,” Utisz said.

“Dreadnought Stanton?” Heusler’s brow knit suspiciously. “Whatever do you mean?”

“Surely you’ve heard he is to be made Sophos—Master of the credomancers’ Institute. He will be Invested on Midsummer’s Eve. Once Stanton assumes formal control of the Institute, the Indian in the nut will be under his protection.”

“Believe me, young man,” the High Priest said with something like relief, “Stanton would
never
help us.”

“Not willingly, perhaps.” Utisz dropped his voice. “But love can encourage a man to compromise. He is engaged to be wed, the poor fool—”

Doest thou know
, tonalpoulque,
that the Chinese believe that the liver contains the ethereal spirit?
The words rang through Utisz’ head with an odd reverberance that made it seem his skull was carved of brass.
And the Egyptians, when someone is greatly beloved of them, say that person has a piece of their liver
.

“Then you must be very greatly loved, Mistress,” Heusler said loudly, his voice ringing against the unseen walls, “for the piece you have is so very large.” Heusler hurried the lieutenant toward the pyramid. “She stirs. It is time. Save your plans for her, my boy. Though I warn you, it has been my experience that the most carefully crafted plans of mortal men are no match for the whims of a goddess.”

The pyramid was surmounted by an altar stone, and on the icy block a woman’s body lay beneath a translucent veil of
white silk. But she was not dead, Utisz saw; her breath made the thin silk tremble, and he could sense a pulse at the wrist of the slender dark-skinned arm. Utisz stared at the mask that had been placed over the woman’s face. It was a hideous contorted sneer of carved ebony, dominated by curving fangs of amber-smoked ivory. Long braids—sliced from the scalps of long-forgotten victims—mixed with the woman’s own glossy black hair, twining down over her smooth bared breasts, brushing caramel-hued nipples.

“Her vessel waits atop the sacred teocalli,” Heusler said. “Just a local girl from one of the villages, but we do try to find the best. Her Divinity burns through a new one every time she awakens, and if we don’t get her a pretty one she pouts.”

“Very … pretty,” Utisz mumbled, trying to imagine how a goddess might pout.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, she must be fed.”

The High Priest scaled the steep teocalli, and was puffing hard by the time he reached the altar stone. He removed his coat and then his shirt, revealing plush rolls of white flesh intricately decorated with writhing black tattoos. The inked designs covered him from throat to wrists to belly, vanishing below his belt like dancing snakes.

Lifting his hands, Heusler began to speak in low, resonant tones:

“Rise, ancient powers of blood.”

The words shuddered off the walls of glass, making the Exunge in its channels vibrate, slicing through the thick smoke like flying knives. Crackling tendrils of chain lightning danced over the surfaces of the room—flashes of brightness, viscid translucent cobwebs of bruise blue and bacterial yellow. The smell of ozone and charred bone layered itself over bitter incense and the reek of bile.

A rising light, cutting through the gloom, caught Utisz’ attention. The Liver, in its pit of Black Exunge, was starting to … 
glow
. It was transforming the slick tarry Exunge around itself into a luminous golden substance—chrysohaeme. The golden blood of the earth, magical power in its rawest form. Utisz could barely breathe for astonishment. This … 
thing
could transform Black Exunge into chrysohaeme? No wonder
Blotgate had wanted to ally with a goddess who had such power. And no wonder Caul had wanted to destroy her.

The glow spread outward from the Liver, and the Black Exunge in the channels that outlined the great calendar luminesced as if it had been touched with a torch. The glowing streams flowed toward the teocalli, snaking up the pyramid of skulls to the altar stone. Like sharp golden needles, they pierced the dusky flesh of the Goddess’ vessel.

“Feed, Blade of Obsidian.”

Far beneath the floor, the rocks of the earth churned. The woman’s body on the altar stone spasmed wildly. The covering of white silk fell aside, revealing the woman’s jerking limbs, bound by twining ropes of chrysohaeme—unwitting prey caught in a nest of vipers.

“Awaken, Dread Mistress.”

At the words, the ropes of power jerked together at once, flaring to a supernatural brilliance. Utisz winced, shielding his eyes. When he brought his arm down, the light was gone utterly, replaced by a blackness as dark as the light had been bright.

The Goddess stood before the altar stone, looking down at him.

She was no longer a woman, that much was clear. All the feminine softness of her vessel was gone. She was a pillar of glossy black hardness, her form molded of smooth black glass, her fingers edged like flint-chipped blades. Utisz watched the High Priest carefully lift the ceremonial torque from around his neck and place it over the Goddess’ head, arranging it around her frosty throat. She tenderly stroked one of the golden cages as she glided down the teocalli, vitrine feet barely brushing the skulls.

Utisz’ legs buckled beneath him. He fell to his knees without conscious thought. He could not take his eyes off her.

In a moment she was standing before him, huge and black, her edges indistinct. Waves of bitterest cold swirled around her, but Utisz could not even summon the will to shiver. She ran long sharp fingers through his dark hair, tilting his head up, seizing his gaze with hers. Her eyes were shifting traps,
ancient abominations, the screams of a thousand generations of massacred innocents.