Serpent and Storm

by Marella Sands

  “I look forward to it,” said Rabbit.

  Sky Knife heard footsteps retreating. After a few moments, Rabbit came around the corner, furiously adjusting her tiny dress.

  “Slug,” she whispered under her breath.

  Sky Knife looked away as Rabbit’s dress slipped. “Masked One!” she said. “He didn’t have to tear my dress.”

  Sky Knife jumped as Rabbit touched his elbow. “Come on,” she said. “I’m sorry to keep you on your feet for so long, but I had to distract him. It’s not far. Really.”

  Sky Knife nodded and followed Rabbit down the alley. He limped painfully, the pebbles and shards of pottery that littered the alley biting into the soles of his feet. At last, he stumbled.

  Rabbit came back to him. “Oh, I am sorry,” she said. “But it’s right here—see?”

  Sky Knife looked up into an open doorway and a courtyard beyond.

  “We’ll take care of you here, my friend and I,” said Rabbit. “Come. Come.”

  Rabbit helped Sky Knife stand, though that forced her to forget about the tear in her dress and it flopped down to her waist. Sky Knife looked away.

  “It took you long enough.”

  Sky Knife looked up into the face of Talking Storm.

  24

  “Well, well, you do it next time,” said Rabbit. “I’d like to see what sort of plan you’d have come up with in the alley. But then, I’m sure he wasn’t your type.”

  “What?” asked Talking Storm.

  “Never mind. Come on, we have to get him inside.”

  “Interesting dress,” said Talking Storm. He stepped out and took Sky Knife by the elbow. “I don’t believe I’ve seen that one before.”

  “Nor will you again,” said Rabbit as she took Sky Knife’s other elbow. “It’s had it. That slug had heavy hands.”

  “Tell me about it later,” said Talking Storm.

  Sky Knife allowed himself to be led into the compound.

  “Put him on the bench,” said Talking Storm. “And fetch some water.”

  “I’ll get some bandages, too,” said Rabbit.

  “Fine.”

  The two of them lowered Sky Knife onto a bench that had been covered in layers of blankets. It was soft and warm. Sky Knife relaxed, trembling at the pain in his feet, his leg, and his chest.

  Sky Knife closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Someone opened the robe, exposing his nakedness again. Sky Knife jerked painfully, grabbing at the robe.

  “It’s all right,” said Talking Storm. “I’m just going to clean your wounds. It’s not enough to repay what you did for me, but the Storm God does not give me the power to heal. You’ll have to be satisfied with more mundane aid.”

  Sky Knife nodded. “I don’t have the power to heal, either,” he said, his voice low and hoarse. “I’m only glad that Itzamna answered my plea yesterday. I had no surety that he would.”

  “Rabbit will bring water for you to drink,” said Talking Storm. “And tamales and fruit to feed you. I know the weakness that comes upon me after I do the god’s work. I assume that is part of your problem now.”

  Sky Knife nodded again. “There was … we went … to the Center,” he said. “The Guardian…”

  “Rest,” said Talking Storm. “The story will keep. And you retrieved the king from a place it’s said no man may enter and live. That was no small feat.”

  Sky Knife closed his eyes again. He must have slept briefly because the next thing he was aware of was a wet stinging pain in his chest. He gasped and looked around wildly.

  “Easy,” said Talking Storm. He laid a hand on Sky Knife’s shoulder. “We’re just washing out your wounds with water and pulque. You slept while we took care of your leg. I’m glad of that because the wound is deep. But it is clean now and we have bound your leg. We took care of your feet, too.”

  Sky Knife looked up at the flat wooden ceiling while Talking Storm worked. The pulque stung in his cuts, but the pain wasn’t bad now that he knew what it was. The throbbing in the soles of his feet pounded against the bandages wrapped around them. Sky Knife shifted uncomfortably.

  “Almost through,” said Talking Storm. “Drink some water.”

  Rabbit held out a cup to him and raised his head to it. Sky Knife drank deeply. The water revived him.

  “Why?” he asked. “I thought you didn’t care for me.”

  Talking Storm grunted. “I didn’t,” he said. “But you not only helped me, you saved the king when I couldn’t.”

  “Many men would find that more reason to hate,” said Sky Knife.

  “Many men are fools,” said the priest of the Storm God. “If I am anything, I am loyal to the king. Anyone who aids him merits any help I can give.”

  “But I didn’t help—Deer was taken with me. Dark Lightning has him,” said Sky Knife.

  “I know. But Rabbit found out where he is being kept.”

  “I remember someone saying this morning that he was ill,” said Sky Knife.

  “It would follow,” said Talking Storm. “He and the boy share a soul and they have been kept apart for a night and a morning. I’m sure the boy sickens as well. We must retrieve Deer before they get weaker.”

  “We?”

  “Rabbit and I,” said Talking Storm. “You’ll stay here and rest.”

  “No,” said Sky Knife. “I’m going, too.”

  “You’re too weak,” said Talking Storm. “Stay here and sleep.”

  “No,” said Sky Knife. “Deer’s my friend. I’m going.”

  “I don’t think we’re going to be able to leave him behind,” said Rabbit from across the room. “So let’s get some food into him and get going.”

  “He can barely walk,” protested Talking Storm.

  “Feed him and let him come,” said Rabbit. “Besides, he’s got to return my jewelry and Dark Lightning took it from him.”

  “And my knife,” said Sky Knife. “They took that, too. And I owe Dark Lightning a cut or two.”

  “Fine,” said Talking Storm. “Fine. Eat something so we can go.”

  Talking Storm gestured to a tray of tamales and fruit on the floor next to him. As soon as he saw the food, Sky Knife realized how hungry he was. He ate tamale after tamale and several pieces of fruit as well.

  “You’re too scrawny to eat like that all the time,” said Rabbit.

  “He’s done sorcery,” said Talking Storm. “He has to eat. He should sleep, too, but it doesn’t look like he’s going to.”

  “Not yet,” said Sky Knife. Weariness still leeched into his bones, but it wasn’t as bad as it was before. The water and the food had gone a long way to replenishing his energy, at least for a while. He could push back the sleep for a few more hours.

  “Let’s go,” he said, and finished off the water Rabbit had brought him.

  Talking Storm raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps you’d like to dress first.”

  Sky Knife blushed, appalled he could have forgotten his current state of undress, especially in front of Rabbit. But neither Talking Storm nor Rabbit had behaved awkwardly toward him as the people of his own city would have. Still, it was hard to believe he had relaxed and forgotten all modesty.

  “Now, there’s no need for that,” said Talking Storm. “Forked-Tongue Serpent! You’d think no one in your city had ever seen another person naked before.”

  “We don’t…” began Sky Knife.

  “We may not make a practice of it, either,” said Talking Storm, “but there’s a time for modesty and today isn’t it. Here.” Talking Storm threw a Teotihuacano-style tunic and robe over Sky Knife. “Put these on. I have some large sandals we can put on around the bandages on your feet.”

  Gratefully, Sky Knife put on the clothes. Rabbit handed him a sash and he wrapped it tightly around his waist.

  “Except for the hair and the nose, you could almost pass for one of us,” said Talking Storm.

  Rabbit had changed into a dress that covered her from neck to ankles. It billowed loosely around her slender figure.
If anything, it was even more provocative than the dress she had worn earlier, covering all but revealing the outline of her form. Her hair had been bound up again into a braid coiled over each ear.

  “Let’s go,” said Talking Storm. He handed Sky Knife the sandals. Sky Knife sat down on the bench and put them on.

  “I’m ready,” said Sky Knife.

  Talking Storm nodded. “Deer is being kept in an apartment complex near where Rabbit found you. He is well guarded.”

  “How will we get close to him?” asked Sky Knife.

  “We’ll leave that in the hands of the gods,” said Talking Storm. “The Storm God is with us, and the Masked One. And your gods, too, I believe.”

  “Itzamna guards us,” said Sky Knife, “but that won’t do us any good if we merely walk in and announce our plans.”

  “Then we won’t do that,” said Rabbit. “But whatever we do, it better not mean entertaining any more warriors.”

  “Too poor, my dear?” asked Talking Storm.

  “Too rough,” she countered. “I didn’t get where I am by letting men paw me and abuse me. I’m choosy about my clientele.”

  “The sacrifices one makes for one’s city,” said Talking Storm.

  Rabbit grimaced. “Indeed,” she said.

  Talking Storm laughed, but the sound was bitter and grated unpleasantly in Sky Knife’s ears. Sky Knife got the idea that the other two had had versions of this conversation before.

  Talking Storm walked confidently out of the compound, Rabbit and Sky Knife on his heels.

  Sky Knife’s feet pained him and throbbed incessantly but, cushioned by the bandages and the sandals, he found it fairly easy to ignore that pain. The ache in his heart was something else. Deer needed him and he had left him behind. That betrayal stung him to the quick.

  Talking Storm walked quickly between the compounds. In some doorways, frightened people huddled. The braver ones looked out at Sky Knife and the others. No one seemed to recognize Talking Storm without his ceremonial regalia. Curiosity rather than awe was in their faces. The anonymity was a welcome relief to Sky Knife.

  Warriors rounded a corner up ahead. Talking Storm stopped and turned around. Rabbit behaved as if she didn’t know him and walked on by.

  “Lord!” said a voice in Sky Knife’s own tongue. He looked around. Tree Conch gestured from a wide doorway. “Over here.”

  Sky Knife ducked into the doorway and into the courtyard beyond.

  Corn Husk caught sight of him and sank to her knees.

  “No, no,” said Sky Knife. “There is no time for that today.”

  “I know,” said Tree Conch. He gestured for the oldest child, a boy of about ten years, to watch the street. “There is evil in the city today. They say the new king is dead, eaten by a monster. And that the city will be destroyed before nightfall by the gods.”

  “I don’t know about that,” said Sky Knife, “but the king is not dead. Not yet, anyway. But the holy twin has been taken. I and two others are on our way to free him.”

  Tree Conch shook his head. “I have heard of this twin ceremony, but I don’t understand it.”

  Sky Knife glanced toward the door. The warriors passed by without looking inside the compound. “I’m not sure I do, either. But it is essential for the new king’s twin to be at his ascension ceremony.”

  “Your knife!” said Corn Husk. “Lord—where is the Hand of God?”

  “Taken,” said Sky Knife. “I go to retrieve that as well.”

  Sky Knife went to the doorway and looked down the street. Talking Storm waited at the corner. Rabbit was nowhere in sight.

  “I have to go,” said Sky Knife. “Thank you for your help.”

  “We can never repay the kindness you have given us,” said Tree Conch. “Whatever you need, we will always be happy to provide.”

  Sky Knife nodded to the couple and left. He walked down the street as quickly as he dared. As he passed Talking Storm, the priest nodded to the left. Sky Knife turned left to go behind another compound.

  Rabbit waited at the next corner.

  “Are we close yet?” asked Sky Knife.

  “Yes,” said Talking Storm. “Only six or seven blocks to go. It’s straight ahead now.”

  Sky Knife nodded. As he passed Rabbit, she linked her arm with his. “You’re limping,” she said. “Lean on me. No one will suspect anything of a man walking somewhere with a prostitute.”

  Although Sky Knife was reluctant to remain so close to Rabbit, he was grateful for the support. The wound in his leg, which had been quiet when they had started out, screamed now with each step he took and he was slowing down.

  Several blocks later, Rabbit stopped. “There,” she said.

  In front of them was the fallen-in compound where Sky Knife had been kept. On the far side stood a high-walled apartment identical to the others around it. Two warriors stood at the entrance.

  “Now what?” asked Sky Knife.

  “I don’t know,” said Rabbit. “But we can’t go in the same way I did last night. You’re not their type.”

  “Forked-Tongue Serpent,” whispered Talking Storm from behind Sky Knife. “Look.” The priest pointed up toward the top of the wall.

  Sky Knife glanced up. “Itzamna,” he said.

  The top of the wall was stained with blood. Tied to the top of the wall were two severed hands. Small hands, like a child’s.

  Sky Knife’s heart sank to the pit of his stomach. These were no child’s hands.

  Deer.

  25

  “They can’t kill him or they leave the Corn Priest free to choose another twin,” said Talking Storm bitterly. “So they maim him instead. Serpent and storm!”

  “He can be the sacrifice even if maimed?” asked Sky Knife.

  Talking Storm nodded. “As long as he lives, there will only be one twin. He and Black Coyote share a soul.”

  Sky Knife nodded. “How shall we get in?”

  Talking Storm touched him on the shoulder. “You’re not the only one that can do sorcery,” he said. “I think it’s time for an all-out assault. Do you agree?”

  “Of course,” said Sky Knife. “Anything to help Deer.”

  “And to get my jewelry back,” said Rabbit.

  Sky Knife rounded on her, appalled she would place her wealth before Deer’s well-being, but a mischievous twinkle was in Rabbit’s eyes. Sky Knife realized she was teasing him. He nodded to her. “Of course, your jewelry,” he said. “I had forgotten.”

  Rabbit stuck out her tongue at him, then turned to Talking Storm. “All right. What shall I do?”

  “Do you think the warriors will recognize you as the woman who was here earlier?” asked Sky Knife. “I’m sure they realized you were the one who cut me free.”

  Rabbit shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “But I’m sure they’re willing to let me get close. Few men will suspect a woman like me. Besides, they’ve been standing around all day without a woman in sight, it seems. How can they be happy with that?”

  Sky Knife frowned. “Surely they can stay away from women for a day!”

  “I’m sure they could, and do,” said Rabbit. “But do they want to?”

  “Enough talk,” said Talking Storm. “Rabbit—you distract the warriors in the street. I don’t care what you do. Sky Knife—when she does, you get inside to find Deer. Do you think you can do any sorcery if you need to?”

  Sky Knife nodded. “A bit,” he said. “Probably nothing much.”

  “It will have to do,” said Talking Storm. “I’ll go across the street with you, but once you’re inside, you’re on your own. I’ll take care of the warriors out here and within. So just remember, if you see or hear something strange, it’s my magic. Don’t bolt with the rest of them. All right?”

  Sky Knife nodded. Rabbit winked at Talking Storm and strolled out onto the street. She ambled over the ruins of the compound where Sky Knife had been tied down, as if curious.

  “You there!” called one of the warriors at the do
or of Dark Lightning’s headquarters. “Get away. We’re under orders to kill anyone who gets close to this building. I’m only warning you once.”

  Rabbit sat on a pile of rubble and pulled the hem of her dress over her knee. “I don’t suppose I have to come any closer. I was just wondering what was going on—there are so many rumors in the city. Some people say the city is going to be destroyed tonight. If so, don’t you think we ought to be leaving?”

  The warrior laughed. Neither he nor his companion stopped staring at Rabbit as she inched her dress ever higher. “No, the city’s not going to be destroyed,” he said. “It’s going to be reborn. The Masked One will resume her rightful place as the preeminent god of Teotihuacan—without that Storm God to rival her.”

  Rabbit drooped some of her voluminous skirt between her legs. She spread her legs nonchalantly and rubbed the inside of her thighs with a hand. “Well,” she said. “I’m glad to know I don’t have to worry about packing everything. It’s so hard to find honest people to transport one’s wealth, eh?”

  The mention of wealth brought a renewed gleam to the warriors’ eyes, an even brighter gleam than Rabbit’s immodest performance had generated. One of the warriors stepped forward. “I’m sure we could find someone honest,” he said.

  “Like you?” asked Rabbit. “And your friend?”

  The warriors looked at each other and grinned. “Oh, yes,” said the first one. “We’re honest.”

  “Good,” said Rabbit. “But, uh, if the city’s not going to be destroyed, I don’t need to transport anything, do I?”

  “Oh, well, there might be some unrest,” said one of the warriors. “I’m sure we could find somewhere safe to take your wealth.”

  Rabbit sighed. “You might be right. It might be wise to move everything. But you’re on duty. When can you come?”

  The warriors scanned the area. “If we’re not gone long, who will know?” asked one.

  “It shouldn’t take long,” said the other. “Even if we should, ah, rest long enough to accept your gratitude. I’m sure we could return quickly enough.”

  Rabbit stood and brushed dust off her dress. “Then let’s go,” she said. She winked at the men and let her dress slip off one shoulder. “I know I’d be grateful if you could help me save my belongings from any … unrest.”