A Secret Atlas

by Michael A. Stackpole

  The Amentzutl began to chant. Jorim could make no sense of what they were saying, as the dialects all blended, but the warriors seemed to draw strength from the words. Other warriors as big as Tzihua led their companies into the fray. The battle turned to slaughter, and the Amentzutl engaged in it with zeal Jorim had never seen before and hoped he would never see again.

  Faster than Jorim thought possible, but not nearly soon enough, the battle ended. The ground nearest the escarpment lay covered two or three feet deep with grey bodies. Some Naleni and Amentzutl warriors had fallen, and more were wounded, some very seriously. But their casualties were insignificant compared to the enemy’s losses, which were beyond numbering.

  He shook his head. “I wonder how many of them there were.”

  Nauana looked at him. “You must surely know, my Lord.”

  “I do not. I wish we could have a head count.”

  “As Lord Tetcomchoa desires.”

  Nauana moved to the edge of the pyramid, caressed her throat with her hand, then spoke in a voice that easily filled the valley. Jorim could not catch all of the words, for she spoke in the most common of the caste dialects. But those below understood and the chanting stopped. What seemed to be the whole of the populace began to move down the causeway to the battlefield.

  As they descended, the Amentzutl warriors again withdrew behind the breastworks and formed up in their ranks. They lay their dead and wounded before them, then raised their faces and voices toward the rest of the people. They uttered a ritual chant in one voice, repeating over and over again, “Our time is finished, yours has just begun.”

  The people reached the battlefield and began to spread out in groups. The laborers and slaves began to collect bodies and shift them around, not shrinking from such a grisly duty. Many paused to paint their faces or slick their hair with the blood of the enemy. That struck Jorim as odd, not only because he found it barbaric, but because their work soon had them covered in gore regardless.

  They moved the bodies to areas where members of the artisan and merchant classes began to butcher them. With incredible efficiency, they stripped the skin away and piled it in one place. Others cut flesh from bone. Bones were cracked open, but were devoid of marrow, so ended up being hauled to vast piles. The viscera likewise were sorted and piled, sloshing into trenches from which the bodies and stakes had been cleared.

  Most curious of all, however, was the duty performed by the politicians. At the base of the escarpment, in a huge area that slaves cleared as quickly as possible, they began to pile the heads. In no time a great pyramid of skulls appeared, and he had no doubt that a careful accounting was being made of the construction materials.

  He would have his head count.

  Weapons got sorted out as well. The Amentzutl recovered their own weapons, then retreated to clean and repair them. The rudimentary weapons the Mozoyan had borne were tossed into a pile, but the Amentzutl refused to touch the arrows and lances of Naleni origin. It took Jorim a moment to figure it out, but then he realized only warriors would be allowed to touch weapons. He relayed a message to Captain Gryst, and she gave orders for her people to gather up their arms and clean them as the Amentzutl were.

  The cavalry and chariots had withdrawn to the northwest and stood ready to react if the Mozoyan returned, but there seemed little chance of that. By midafternoon the Amentzutlian warriors organized themselves into patrols and entered the jungle. The Naleni troops used that opportunity to return to the ships and care for their animals. By nightfall, the first of the patrols returned and reported that the Mozoyan had disappeared, which began a round of chanted prayers of thanks, all of which rose to the heights of the pyramid and the god who peered down.

  Jorim spent a long time watching the Amentzutl deal with the battle’s aftermath. Kettles and smoking racks appeared. Strips of Mozoyan meat were boiled or laid out to be dried. Mozoyan leather was boiled and stretched. The bones, once dried, would be ground up for fertilizer. Even Mozoyan intestines would be dried and used to string peptli—crooked sticks with a net on one end that were used for an odd kind of ball game.

  Nothing, it appeared, would be wasted.

  The Amentzutl laughed and sang as they worked, and treated the butchery as a holiday. Even Nauana descended to the fields of carnage and helped harvest, returning at dusk, bloody and bearing roasted Mozoyan flesh for him to eat.

  Jorim shook his head. “It is not a custom among my people to eat the enemy.”

  She frowned. “We are not cannibals, my Lord. We would not eat manflesh, but to waste Mozoyan or Ansatl flesh would be foolish. You have seen how they laid waste to jungle and fields. They have taken from us that which we need to live. Now what was their strength will be ours.”

  He thought for a moment and found her logic unassailable. He’d not eaten the Viruk he slew, but he knew their meat would make him sick. And the Mozoyan certainly were not men. He’d eaten with countless wild tribes of men in his travels who believed that consuming the heart of a brave animal would transfer that quality to them. While he really wanted nothing he’d seen in the Mozoyan, eating part of one was really the ultimate victory.

  Or perhaps it will prevent me from having nightmares about them tonight.

  He accepted the small skewer from her and nibbled. It wasn’t too bad. It reminded him of frog, snake, and turtle. Remembering that the Mozoyan likely had eaten people they slew did send a ripple through his stomach, but he quelled it. Certainly if he tossed the meat aside and declared it foul, those below would do the same, even if it meant they would go hungry in the future.

  Jorim smiled. “Is this how it is after every battle?”

  “We have few battles. When we fight men, the warriors tend to their own. Twice a year we have migrations of tohcho going north and south. The warriors drive a portion of their herds to the nearest city and slay them. The others come out and harvest them. But the Mozoyan did not require us to drive them here.”

  “You have not dealt with the Mozoyan before, have you?”

  “We have not seen them before this year.” She smiled and a bloody streak on her cheek cracked. “We have remained as you bid us, Lord Tetcomchoa, always vigilant. You gave us victory over the Ansatl, and now over the Mozoyan.”

  “And thus ends centenco.”

  Nauana’s smile died. “No, my Lord, this is how it begins. Our first encounter with the Ansatl was also a great victory, but merely presaged a war. The Mozoyan are the heralds of the seventh god.”

  “What do you know of this seventh god?”

  She squatted next to where he sat, his legs dangling over the edge of the pyramid. Shimik came around and squatted in imitation of her but that did not lighten her expression. “You must understand, Lord Tetcomchoa, that our powers of foretelling are greatly advanced from when you were here before, but the time of centenco brings many visions. There are many things we do not understand and cannot puzzle out.”

  Jorim nodded slowly. “I accept this, and that it is no failing of yours. Centenco complicates everything.”

  “It does. The seventh god has two names. The first is Mozoloa.”

  “Mozochoa I would understand, for it would mean ‘foreign god’ or ‘god of no land.’ Why —loa instead of —choa?”

  She sighed. “—choa does mean god. Omchoa is the jaguar god and you are Tetcomchoa.—loa means the god is dead. Omchoa ate and killed Zochoa, his shadow-twin, so has two aspects. Zochoa is now Zoloa, but is not spoken of since he is contained in Omchoa.”

  “I see. So Mozoloa would be ‘dead god of no land.’ ”

  “Yes. He is a dead god, not a god of death like Omchoa.” Nauana scratched at her cheek, flaking off dried blood. “His other name is Neletzatl. It means he makes things new. It is literally ‘he who names.’ As he names it, thus it becomes.”

  “A homeless god who is dead and a creator. I see the confusion.” Jorim handed the skewer to Shimik to nibble. “What else do you know?”

  “Mozoloa has great hatred, an
d it is through hatred that he gains his power. He has great anger, too. He is dead but hates being dead. He has bided his time to return, and it has not been until centenco that this is possible. His power is growing.”

  Jorim arched an eyebrow. “But he has not returned yet?”

  “No.”

  “Can we stop him?”

  “You tease me now, my Lord. When you departed, you went west, for this is where you said Mozoloa would come from.” She swept her left arm out to point at the lowlands. “You returned to save us from the Mozoyan so we could serve you. If Mozoloa is to be defeated, you will lead us in whatever action that requires. That is why you returned, is it not?”

  Jorim shivered. He found it all too easy to forget she thought him a god, and his questions merely his way of testing her. Her faith in him, and belief in the destiny of her people, especially in the time of centenco, demanded he not try to disabuse her of the notion.

  “Let it be enough, Nauana, that I am here, now.” Jorim drew his legs up and hugged them to his chest. “I know much about the west. If this is where Mozoloa is located, and this is where we have to go to defeat him, I know how to get us there.”

  Nauana bowed low to him. “It is enough, my Lord. The Amentzutl have waited long for your return so we may serve. Lead where you will and we shall follow. We will serve to the last drop of our blood, and will not fail you.”

  Chapter Fifty-nine

  6th day, Month of the Wolf, Year of the Rat

  9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

  163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

  737th year since the Cataclysm

  Moriande, Nalenyr

  Nirati’s resolve to tell Junel Aerynnor that the nature of their relationship had to change died in the heat of his excitement upon his return from the interior. He’d not come to her, but had instead sent a messenger bearing a note that asked her to be at an inn called Kitorun by sundown. She arrived wearing the red cloak he’d told her to wear and was served a goblet of wine—a red of upland vintage. It was not very good, but she also knew it was better than the Kitorun normally served.

  The innkeeper took her cloak when she sat, and when she finished her first goblet, brought her a black cloak with a hood. She started to complain, but the cloak had a small pocket in the interior, and in it she found another note. It contained more instructions, which she followed to the letter, wending her way across the river and toward the east, into some of the older portions of the city. In her red cloak she would have been a target, but the black one let her fit in perfectly.

  As she walked to the appointed rendezvous, Junel came up behind her. He kept his voice low. “Nirati, this is very important. Turn left and left again, circling the block. The third left will be an alley. Enter it and knock on the second door on the right. You will be admitted. Go up the stairs, first door on the left. Do not falter.”

  “Why can I not walk with you?”

  “Hush. I will watch to make certain you are not followed. They would not hesitate to hurt you to get to me.”

  His hoarse whisper sent a thrill through her. She did as he requested, keeping her gait even. She cursed the hood, since it did not permit her much in the way of peripheral vision, and she resisted the temptation to turn around and see if she was being followed. She really had no idea what was going on, but had to assume the they he warned about were Desei agents. Did they get to Majiata, too?

  The prospect of that knotted her stomach. She would have put nothing past the Desei, having heard all the stories of atrocities in Helosunde. Even so, what happened to Majiata was beyond anything she had heard of. Is that my fate?

  Relying on Junel to keep her safe, she walked through the alley, dodging puddles and looking for any sign of his passage before her. She saw none, but in the growing night’s gloom, she had no light to see clearly in any event. She found the door and knocked. It opened and a twisted dwarf of a man admitted her. He said nothing, but pointed her to stairs, which she mounted with trepidation. She felt certain they would collapse with each creaking tread, but she made it to the top and entered the room.

  Nirati had not been expecting much given the surroundings, but the room had been transformed through the legion of candles—thick and thin, tall, short, and scented—that flickered from every flat surface. Two even burned in the sconces on either side of a full-length, standing mirror. The bed had seen far better days, but the linen and bedding were fresh. A pitcher of wine and two goblets, as well as some cheese and bread, waited on a sideboard.

  Nowhere did she see Junel, so she nearly jumped out of her skin as she felt his hands on her elbows. His arms slid around her and hugged her back against him. By reflex she grabbed his arms and squeezed, forgetting for the moment that she needed to have a serious talk with him.

  He turned her about and smiled at her. “Oh, Nirati, I have thought so much of you since I have been gone. You are even more beautiful than I remember. Too beautiful for a place like this, and I apologize for it. But I had to see you, and this was the only way.”

  She frowned, a bit afraid, and more concerned. Junel still was handsome, but he looked almost haggard, with dark circles beneath his eyes. He’d lost some weight during his journey, and he could ill afford it. His eyes had become restless, and the omnipresent hint of a grin had faded.

  “What is it, Junel, what is wrong?”

  “Sit, my darling.” He guided her back to the edge of the bed and fresh straw crunched as she sat. “I’ve been to see the inland lords and there is so much going on. More than I suspected—more than you did, I’m sure. Not because you are stupid—far from it—but because so much does not reach the capital.”

  He crossed to the sideboard and poured her a goblet of wine. He took one himself and brought both to her, offering her the choice. She took the one from his left hand and sniffed before sipping. This wine had come from the interior as well, but south of the Gold River, and was of the finest quality. Best of all, its delicate flavor would not have hidden any tinctures, so she knew he was not drugging her.

  Junel dropped to his knees before her and sat back on his heels. “There is so much I want to share with you.”

  “Share with me first who is after you? Has Prince Pyrust set his agents on you?”

  The Desei exile smiled. “Oh, he has had people watching me since I’ve been here. In Moriande they were hard to detect, but in the interior they were simple to pick out. They are the least of my worries, however. At least, I think they are.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You have seen the lords of the interior courting me. You so delightfully insulated me from them, and I did enjoy that. However, my accepting their invitations to visit was the best thing I have done since leaving my homeland.” His voice dropped into a whisper. “The nobles of the interior are very angry with Prince Cyron. They get no money from foreign trade and are still required to pay taxes. Cyron sends that money back west to fund projects, like the dredging of the river, but they take it and do not spend it on such things. The inland nobles see those projects as things that will continue to enrich Moriande, so they think the Prince should pay for it from trade.”

  Nirati shook her head. “But these projects will make it easier for them to ship goods to the markets our trade makes available to them.”

  “Yes, of course, but they don’t see that, my dear. Greed is driving them blindly.” His eyes blazed as he spoke. “They wanted me to see if I could arrange for them to invest in shipments—shipments that would escape official notice, maximizing their profits. They also dropped not-so-subtle hints that if I were actually a Desei agent, they might look favorably upon an alliance with Pyrust, pitting the interior of Nalenyr and Deseirion against Moriande and the Helosundian exiles.”

  “But that is treason.”

  “Very much so.” Junel sipped his wine. “If they had more forces under arms, or more weapons from Ixyll that would guarantee the superiority of their fighters, they would openly revolt. But as it sta
nds, they need money to procure weapons, and they need a leader. A few even suggested I might fill that role, but it was flattery—and transparent at that. Each of them wishes to be prince of a new dynasty.”

  “That would be horrible.”

  “I agree, my dear.” The Desei noble set his cup down and twisted the gold and jet ring on his right hand. “Prince Cyron is in a very delicate position. Erumvirine is a sleeping giant, with half again the population of Nalenyr. Were their harvest to fail, a hungry horde would pour north, and even all the gold Cyron gains from trade could not supply them rice. While Nalenyr might help Erumvirine’s economy through trade, it is not enough to prevent them from acting in the face of a disaster.

  “Deseirion and Helosunde create another problem. Cyron funds the Helosundian exiles and uses mercenaries to secure his northern border, but if his trade collapses, he will be without enough gold to do that. If Helosunde and Deseirion were to settle their differences and ally, Nalenyr would face an insurmountable threat.”

  He looked up at her, a smile growing on his face. “In fact, it is only your family, Nirati, that keeps Cyron from disaster. Everyone is awaiting the outcome of your brothers’ journeys. If they find new treasures, the attention of the world will be diverted and Nalenyr will have enough gold to buy peace. They could even buy the inland lords, or buy those who would supplant them. Everything is balanced with an almost absurd precision, and all that will upset it is if your brothers fail.”

  She smiled. “But you are forgetting something that will make the balance less delicate, Junel. You know who the inland lords are. If you go to Prince Cyron and give him their names, he can neutralize them. He need no longer fear an alliance between them and Deseirion. This is where they failed. They thought you were a Desei agent and in that error they exposed their folly.”