If I had more than my usual share of luck I might live to see the end of the cycle. It was two handspans of fingers and a finger away. Not the Great Cycle, when the Universe is recreated, but the smallest of the great cycles, the Baktun, or 394 and a half English years. Baktun 13, the Grass Baktun. A time when the world, or man’s part of it, was traditionally broken apart and remade new. I was no student of religion, much less of ephemeral cults, but I couldn’t ever remember one that tied the huetlacoatls to the end of the cycle before.
Every cycle’s end brought with it prophecies of doom of one sort or another. In the time of the Emperor Montezuma they had seemed fulfilled when the first English had landed and stirred rebellion among the subject tribes. But the English had succumbed to the Empire’s might and when the English came again years later it was the English English, not the Spanish English, and they built English Town as traders rather than conquerors. Eventually Montezuma’s successor, Montezuma V, the Emperor Montezuma of popular legend, had welded the empire together even more firmly than it had been before the coming of the English.
Aside from that, the end of cycles had passed with only the usual quota of wars, plagues, and rebellions to mark them. Or so they taught in the schools of the nobles. Each time, the new cycle began with the lighting of the sacred fire atop the Grand Pyramid at the Great Plaza on the shores of the Lakes of Mexico. The Emperor was reconfirmed and life continued, largely unchanged from one cycle to the next. Only the unofficial cults changed as the old ones were discredited when the predicted miracles and wonders didn’t appear.
Since leaving my old life I found the common folk saw matters differently. To them the end of a cycle marked a profound change, a chance to strike the world’s balance anew—and by implication to ease the lot of the commoners.
But only by implication. Even here in the tolerant South, the priests would not countenance a cult that spread unrest or criticized the divinely inspired order of things. Still, was it such an odd notion that the world as we knew it was coming to an end? Was the Empire as strong or the Emperor as vigilant as he had been? Was there more unrest, more muttering in the cities and banditry in the countryside? Was there more injustice and less punishment for it? Was it really such a strange notion that Reeds and Frogs, nobles and commoners, and yes, even huetlacoatls, might somehow be combined into something new and better for the next cycle?
That thought was still with me when I hailed a water taxi to take me back through the increasingly noisome canals to the English Quarter.
Uncle Tlaloc kept me waiting for nearly four hours at the Hummingbird’s Palace before he heard my report. Not that there was anything to report, but I didn’t want Uncle getting ideas about my meeting with Toltectecuhtli.
When he finally got around to me he heard me out with a bored expression and waved me away without a word, a sign he wasn’t pleased. I didn’t bother to finish my last drink and headed for home. It was raining again, and I felt as if all three worlds were pissing on me.
The hall was dark when I reached my apartment building. Not terribly unusual. The gas torch at the end was old and cranky and so was the porter who was supposed to see to it. But tonight it struck me wrong. I pressed myself against the wall and drew my sword. Then I sidled down the corridor with my back to the wall, silently testing every door behind me as I went.
They were all securely locked, but mine wasn’t. I pressed flatter against the wall beside the door and reached out with my sword to work the latch. The door swung open noiselessly. Which meant something was really wrong. I deliberately left the hinges unoiled.
The apartment was dimly lit by the gas lamp at its lowest setting. I wasn’t about to go stumbling about in the semi-dark, so I reached over and turned the light full on.
Shit. The apartment was a mess. The cushions had been slit, items pulled off shelves and scattered on the floor, the shelves themselves had been moved. A low table was upended, as if someone had searched the base.
I made straight for the bedroom. Everything there was in disarray, except the box at the foot of the bed. It was sitting just as I had left it—almost.
I’m very particular about that box. It is arranged just so with a hair clasped in the front corner between the lid and the box. Whoever had searched it had got it almost right. The box was within a finger-breadth of where I had left it, the angle was almost right. The hair was missing, having fallen out unnoticed when the box was opened.
I turned away, damning myself for keeping such a thing in the first place. Then I realized I hadn’t seen my servant Uo, or his body, anywhere. With my sword still drawn, I went looking.
I found him on his pallet by the kitchen fire, alive, amazingly enough. He barely stirred when I kicked him and a brief examination showed he was drugged. From the looks of it there’d be no information to be had out of him before morning.
I went back to the front room, turned the table right side up, pulled up one of the least-damaged cushions, and got out the tequila jug. I needed to settle my nerves, but most of all I needed to think.
Whoever did this wasn’t a personal enemy. That the skin was still in its box told me that. No, this was business, and obviously that business involved something I was supposed to have. It wasn’t the skin and it wasn’t money—although my strongbox had been cleaned out. So what was it?
I thought back to the priest’s words. That my part in the changing of the cycles was ignorance. That I was to cling to ignorance, profess ignorance and cherish it. Screw that! I was sure as hell ignorant, but this kind of ignorance was likely to get me killed. The obvious conclusion for whoever searched my apartment was that I’d been clever about hiding whatever it was. Their next obvious action was to grab me and question me. I doubted very seriously they’d take “I don’t know” for an answer—not unless I said it with my dying breath.
By this time the tequila was half gone and so was I. I braced a chair against the door to prevent unwelcome night visitors, kicked Uo again to see if he was any closer to waking, and when he obviously wasn’t, I staggered off to bed.
Sleep ended abruptly. I felt the presence of someone’s eyes and breath on me. It was not my servant. “Smoke?” I mumbled. There was no answer. A stranger had been in my room, over my bed, like a disease-ridden spirit coming in an open window. I was not in the mood for another nightmare.
My spine from neck to tailbone became unnaturally cold. I did not move.
Dawn was breaking. The light of fallen warriors accompanying the Sun on today’s arc through the sky filtered in weakly through the mosquito netting. After some intense staring into empty space, my eyes adjusted to the half-light.
Then some of the neighbourhood roosters crowed inharmoniously. My nerves were scrambled, but I was wide awake.
Carefully, I let my eye dart about the room. No one was there. Nothing lurking in the corners or shadows.
I felt that something was near. It had to be almost touching me.
There is a time-honoured method of revenge in which poisonous insects or reptiles are placed inside a person’s body through the sorcerer’s art. If skill at sorcery is lacking, the cruder method of simply putting a small deadly creature in a person’s bed will do. In these times, among those who deal in not-so-flowery wars between clans, the later, cruder method is preferred.
My sleep was deep, but restless. I was tangled in my sheet. With a slow, deep breath I tried to relax all my muscles without moving them too much, raised my head, looked with my eyes, felt with the entire surface of my skin.
I saw and felt nothing, and almost breathed a hearty sigh of relief. Then something glinted in light that grew slowly brighter. Something shiny sparkled. It was close to me. Near my face. Close to my heart.
There, precariously balanced on the knot of sheets under my chin was a delicate work of the carver’s art that horrified me. It was a butterfly, masterfully carved of black volcanic glass. A real obsidian butterfly, a manifestation of the goddess of nocturnal visions. The Emperor’s Shadow, in the tradition of
the poet-emperors of old, used this fragile, razor-sharp metaphor as a warning.
Popular knowledge says that if you are careful and take the obsidian butterfly off your body, pick it up and set it aside without breaking it or cutting yourself, you are destined to live. To cut yourself or to break the delicate symbol meant you are doomed.
I remembered how my mother was always telling me to be careful, and how my carelessness finally disappointed her for good. With an agonizing effort, I pulled a hand free of the sheets. The butterfly teetered and slipped between a fold of cloth. I carefully reached for it, aiming my fingers at the flat surface of the wings.
“Holy Shit!” I screamed as the edge of one of those black, transparent wings bit into a fingertip. Instinctively, I jerked back my hand. As if alive, the butterfly soared across the room, to shatter into spray of black crystal against the wall.
I sprang from bed, sucked the blood from my finger like a thirsty god, and thought, they may call me Lucky, but there’s no question that I was born on the second day of the Rabbit.
Uncle Tlaloc wasn’t drinking when he summoned me into his presence. That was a very bad sign.
As I knelt before him I felt his eyes boring into the back of my head. He didn’t bid me to rise and sit as usual. He just kept looking at me like an ocelot looks at a baby bird—it can’t decide whether to play with or just eat right away.
“I understand there was some excitement at your quarters last night,” he said at last.
His face didn’t change while I told him the story.
“It sounds as if someone wants something you have,” Uncle Tlaloc said mildly.
“So it would seem, Uncle-tzin.”
“What?” His voice had the sting of a cracking whip. “What is it they seek?”
“On my grave, Uncle, I do not… “
“What did you take from the huetlacoatl?” he roared. I flinched from the sound.
“Nothing, Uncle. I swear it. Ask Ninedeer, if you do not believe me.”
“Others are already asking,” Uncle said slowly. “Your cousin Ninedeer was taken yesterday. By the Emperor’s Shadow, apparently. It seems His Imperial Majesty has decided to interest himself in the matter of the huetlacoatl’s death after all.”
I realized I was sweating in spite of the air-conditioning. Sweat had already soaked the armpits of my cotton tunic and was starting to trickle down my chest and back. This could probably get worse, but right now I couldn’t imagine how.
He looked at me again in a way that wasn’t at all settling. “It is not unknown,” he said softly, “for someone to try to keep something back if the prize is rich enough.”
I remembered what had happened to those people—the ones Uncle Tlaloc had chosen to make an example of—and shuddered. There are worse fates than being slowly flayed alive.
“Uncle-tzin, I swear to you that I hold nothing back. On my own grave I swear it.”
Uncle was looking at me in a way that indicated that might not just be a metaphor. Then he leaned back, rested one hand on Death and the other on the Earth Monster and smiled in a way that was totally unsettling.
“And I believe you, my boy. You swear you do not have this thing, whatever it is, and of course you would never lie to me.”
“Of course not, Uncle,” I croaked.
“So the matter is closed,” he said with the same terrifying geniality. “But, nephew… “
“Yes, Uncle?”
“If you do find this thing, you will tell your old uncle, will you not?”
“Of course, Uncle. Absolutely.” He gestured at me and I backed away, still on my knees.
I wandered the streets, examining the gathering clouds and play of light on the waters of the bay. There wasn’t any place I was going. There also wasn’t anybody I could talk to. People who seem to know anything about this mess keep ending up dead.
On a busy corner an old man with the matted hair of a traditional priest was holding out a limp, obviously drugged, rattlesnake. When he saw me, lie practically shoved it in my face.
“For only one small gold coin,” he said in a voice that had been destroyed by years of exposure to sacred smokes, “I will let you pet the noble serpent who warns before striking, the brother to the Feathered Serpent who gave us our law and culture. It will bring you good luck.”
The snake’s face was close to mine. Its mouth opened, and its fangs slipped out of their sheaths. All the while, its tail and rattle hung limp, probably because of the drug.
“I don’t know, unwashed one,” I replied without slowing down. “Your friend looks like he may make an exception and rattle after he bites me.”
“Blasphemer!” the old man screamed as walked away. “The Gods will punish you!”
“I know, I know,” I said and turned away.
The problem was, that I didn’t know. At least about just what it was that everyone seemed to think I had. I’m an axe, a sweeper, not a sneak-thief. And what is it that I could have slipped under my cloak and smuggled out of the Death Master’s, and to my apartment or some secret location? What could be that important? And why would it be on the body of a dead huetlacoatl?
Or maybe it was in the body…
The thought was too disgusting to pursue. Besides, the hairs standing on the back of my neck told me that I was being pursued. The old geezer with groggy rattlesnake was still glaring at me. And his weren’t the only eyes on me. People on the street looked away when I looked at them, but I could tell that they were aware of me. Every window and corner made me nervous.
I put my hand on the hilt of my sword. Somehow it did not make me feel secure.
Suddenly, I felt the need to flee. There were too many people. I couldn’t sort out who—if anybody—I should be looking out for. I walked faster, until I was just short of a run.
I glanced into some deserted alleys. Unfortunately, they were too deserted. Someone could be cornered, killed, left in a pile of garbage, and not be found for days, flayed by the rats and scavengers that feed off corpses.
Then someone grabbed my sword arm. Something else struck the back of my head. Everything went white hot, then dead black.
The sound of conch trumpets filled the air. It was the long, deep tone that announces the approach of a hurricane. Near the English Docks, the great statue of the Storm Goddess looked at me and licked her ragged, stone lips with a pink, fleshy tongue. The water withdrew, back towards the southern continent, leaving ships to sink into the muck on the sea floor. I ran towards higher ground.
The city was deserted. The only signs of life were cages containing parrots that had been reduced to skeletons, and the ants that were picking away at the last remaining bits of meat. Was I asleep when the city was evacuated? No one was in the streets. Nothing moved except for the debris that flew about in the winds.
The clouds boiled. There was a rumbling deep in the earth that echoed through my bones and across the sky. The wind grew stronger, making a noise like the mother of all disease spirits.
Then it rained. The things that pelted me and the empty streets were not raindrops, but eggs. When they hit the ground, they cracked open, leaking a steaming purple fluid and revealing the tiny bodies of creatures that looked almost human.
“Earthmonster, devour me!” I screamed.
“Be calm, Lucky.” It was Mother Jaguar. “Things will be all right. Look.” She held out a polished obsidian mirror.
I looked into it, and saw myself. My skin hung loosely around my face. Grabbing a handful, I tore it away. Underneath I had a huetlacoatl snout.
“Face your destiny, Tworabbit,” said Toltectecuhtli, who was suddenly holding the mirror. As I looked into the mirror I was plunged into darkness. Pungent smoke curled up and I coughed at the vile snake scent.
“He wakens,” came a voice from far, far away.
Then the world reeled, the hood was yanked from my head, and I was blinking in the light.
My first thought was that this wasn’t the doing of Threeflower’s husband.
Then where I was actually sank in.
The room was low, gloomy and damp. The gas torches were turned too low for me to see the extent. The furniture was uncomfortably low as well. Uncomfortable for humans, at least. There were three men standing before me and one more crouched down in the background. Correction: There was one more something crouched down behind them, but it wasn’t human. It was a huetlacoatl, the first intelligent one I had ever seen—alive, that is.
“We want the body,” one of the Speakers said abruptly.
“What?”
“The body of the slain one. We want the rest of it. Come. Do not waste the Great One’s time. Give it to us.” One of the other three had turned to the huetlacoatl and croaked and squeaked at it as if translating. I couldn’t see the huetlacoatl well enough to make out its expression and that was probably just as well.
“You have the body,” I said.
This was translated and produced a roar from the huetlacoatl.
“All of it,” the Speaker cried. “We must have all of it.”
“But it wasn’t sacrificed. It was all there.”
“Lies!” the Speaker screamed. “You think you can lie to us because we do not torture like animals. But we will have the truth and we will have the treasures of the line, the rest of the Great One’s body.”
I thought fast. Ninedeer had said that all the parts of the body were there. They must mean something else, something that was on the body. An insignia of rank perhaps. That made sense in light of Uncle Tlaloc’s comment about something being taken from the body. Some priests referred to the sacred objects they wore as part of themselves. And there were stories that the huetlacoatls adorned themselves with rare and costly jewels—as well as less pleasant things. The Speakers were notoriously hard to communicate with, but it made sense.
“Describe this thing to me. The thing that was missing from the Great One’s body.”
The translation produced another roar from the huetlacoatl and I thought the Speaker would explode, the way he turned red and puffed up. “The treasures of the line,” he screamed. “The things that make the Great Ones. We must have them now!”
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