by Clare Bell
Nothing. The gathering crowd stood as a barrier between her and the man she trailed. Soon he would finish his conversation and leave. She would be stuck here until the crowd broke up and by then the servant would be long gone.
Gnawing her lip, she stood just inside the doorway, wondering what had drawn all these people into the courtyard and hoping that they would soon disperse. Then, as she stared harder, she saw that the focus of attention was a cloth spread on the ground. Near it sat a merchant dressed more elegantly than the vendors she had seen in the open-air market. In between the black-painted legs of the priests gathered around, she caught a glimpse of the merchandise.
The goods appeared to be religious or ceremonial items. Necklaces made of animal claws, feathers and glazed clay beads strung onto leather things lay beside carved statuettes and bone flutes. As she watched, she felt the ghost of a tingle. It reminded her of the sensation she had felt in the House of Scribes, when she had been drawn by the presence of a jaguar skin and had stumbled into its wearer. She closed her eyes, letting the cat within her search for remnants of its kin, but she found nothing.
She searched the assembled priests and officials who might be wearing jaguar regalia, but found nothing she could identify. Again the sensation touched her. Was someone perhaps wearing a small belt or wristlet? No. The feeling came from the items in the display.
No one was glancing her way. They were all absorbed by the merchant’s patter. Quickly she slipped from the doorway into the courtyard and hid behind a large pot containing an agave plant. Just in time. Two priests were detaching themselves from the group and walking back toward the door through which she had come. From the way one glared and turned his back on the merchant and his customers, she could see that he resented the use of the courtyard as a marketplace. He spoke to his companion as the two passed Mixcatl’s agave and their voices drifted back to her.
“I do not care if he brought the items for our convenience,” the angered cleric said to his fellow priest.
“Trade belongs in the outdoor market, not the sacred precinct!”
“But our superior gave his approval,” said the other.
“That does not make it acceptable in my eyes,” retorted the first. “I will buy nothing—things sold in such a sinful way are likely to be cursed.”
The voices faded as they moved beyond Mixcatl and disappeared into the shadowed doorway. She used the opportunity to flit to another hiding place behind a bush. The strange tingle was definitely stronger. It must be coming from the items laid out on the cloth.
Mixcatl felt her power stir and cautiously sent it into the claws on the necklace. When she felt them tremble, she knew that they had been stripped from a dead jaguar. At the thought, she felt a sudden surge of anger and outrage that made the claws jerk. What right had the Aztecs to slay the magnificent cats of the jungle so that nobles might adorn themselves with claws, teeth and skins?
The anger strengthened the beast and she felt it struggle to break free. Again transformation threatened, and with it, discovery and capture. She knew that she was losing the struggle to keep the beast contained.
Somehow she had to tap off the wild energy that fed her jaguar spirit. Perhaps she could redirect it into something else. She let more of her power into the claws, firmly holding the rest back, and sidled around the bush so that she could see the effect on the necklace. The rigid material was much harder to manipulate than the softer skin and fur of a pelt. She had to concentrate harder, use her ability more precisely.
So he thinks that the merchandise might be cursed, she thought. If it was, the courtyard would clear out in a hurry and I could get through.
She made one claw move forward on its string, then hook into the display cloth, pulling the rest along. The neighboring claw moved past the first, slowly, like the leg of an insect. Soon she was able to control all the claws on the necklace. It began to creep along the table, dragging its thong.
The customers and the vendor were so busy in another transaction that they did not notice. The seated merchant glanced down briefly, saw the necklace was out of place and brusquely swept it back into position before resuming his haggling with the two would-be purchasers.
Carefully Mixcatl made the necklace creep again while she considered what she could do with the other items laid out in the display. Funneling the power of the jaguar into the necklace was helping; she felt less pressure from the threatening change, but she knew she would have to do more. She was close enough to see the flutes and whistles, and sense that they were made of jaguar bone. They felt quite light and she found that she could manipulate them easily.
Continuing to animate the necklace, she began to play with the other items. Moving several objects at once was tricky. At first she could only give them light “taps” that rocked them slightly, then a steady push that made them move.
The merchant did notice when a little carved whistle mysteriously rolled to the end of the table, but he only muttered under his breath and replaced it beside its fellows. When a bone flute gave a sharp jerk and skittered sideways, everyone, startled, stared down at the display.
“The wind,” said the vendor impatiently, grabbing at the flute, but he froze and snatched back his hand when he saw the claw necklace moving like a scorpion across the display cloth. With growing glee, Mixcatl made two whistles stand up and twirl on their ends.
Now the merchant and his customers stared in horrified fascination at the sudden and unexpected behavior of the goods. Mixcatl grinned to herself as two more little whistles stood up to join the dance. They fell over as she lost control from trying to handle too many different objects, but she was learning rapidly. The whistles soon obeyed her command. What else could she do?
She spared a glance beyond the table to the temple servant. He was still by the opposite door, so absorbed in his discussion with another man that he had not yet noticed.
Controlling multiple objects was becoming easier. She decided to get creative. Four additional bone instruments hopped up and sprang atop the first ones, forming four bending dancing legs without a body. Once she had them operating, she decided that the lack could easily be remedied and quickly rounded up some bone seal-cylinders, arranging them in a line as a backbone and neck. Bone stickpins formed a lashing tail while a small carved cup formed the head and a U-shaped hairpin fastener formed the lower jaw. It took fierce concentration to keep everything together and moving, but as she gained experience, the task became easier. A stack of bone bracelets did nicely for the ribs and then Mixcatl had the entire skeleton of a miniature jaguar marionette bouncing and jumping around on the display cloth as if it were a tiny stage.
“Witchcraft! Sorcery!” bellowed the vendor, trying to swat down his gleefully rebellious merchandise/The cry was taken up by others and quickly spread. Some people shoved their way out of the crowd to flee, others edged close to peer at the uncanny show. The jaguar skeleton continued its dance, sometimes leaping up to bite the nose of a fascinated official who got too close, or the merchant’s finger when he tried to grab the crawling necklace.
Mixcatl concentrated harder. She sent her power into every jaguar-bone item until combs, pins and statuettes were rioting around with the rest.
“Witchcraft!” shrieked the merchant again. “Make it stopl I refuse to have my goods meddled with. I refuse, do you hear?”
The young priest who had been Mixcatl’s escort stepped up and slashed his palm deliberately with an obsidian chip, calling upon Hummingbird to give him power against evil. Blood dripped onto the display cloth, but the objects only increased the frenzy of their dance.
A collective moan broke from the crowd as the merchant fled. A clatter of sandals sounded as other people lost their nerve and ran from the courtyard.
The priest’s voice sounded above the crowd. “It is the doing of the sorcerer imprisoned here! Drag him out and sacrifice him now!”
The temple servant, startled from his conversation, stood and stared, frozen by disbelief a
s panicked priests and officials poured around him. The young priest, his palm still bleeding, pulled a knife from his loincloth, grabbed the temple servant and said, “I have seen you carrying food to the prisoner. Lead me to him and I will put an end to this witchery.”
He forced the protesting man through the opposite door as everyone else scattered. The courtyard was empty.
Mixcatl broke from her hiding place, letting all the bone articles fall in a heap. She ran to the door where the priest had gone with the temple servant. Nine-Lizard was here after all, and with luck she would be led right to him. If he wasn’t killed first.
She found herself in another sandstone hall. Far ahead, the knife-wielding priest was forcing the temple servant to lead him. Stealthily, Mixcatl followed.
She heard sounds of a scuffle, then a sharp cry as the terrified temple servant broke away from the priest and scurried away down the torchlit corridor. With a curse, the priest went after him. Mixcatl saw her chance. They had been moving toward a door flap that covered a smaller passageway and, she guessed, one that led to Nine-lizard. She dashed toward it, threw the flap aside and nearly fell down a steep flight of steps that descended abruptly.
A hoarse yell from behind told her that the young priest had spotted her and the drumming of footsteps confirmed the fear. She ran down a dank narrow corridor, fighting off the fear that she might be seized or stabbed from behind. Where was Nine-Lizard? Was he guarded?
Her answer came in the sound of footsteps ahead of her. She halted, listened carefully. One man. Good.
In the clammy wind blowing down the passageway, she caught the scent of the old scribe that she was seeking. It was sharpened and distorted by his fear and pain.
The footsteps grew louder and she could see the figure of an Aztec warrior backlit by distant torchlight.
Shrinking back against the wall, she inched along it, begging silently for some sort of refuge. To her astonishment, she spotted a small niche, where she could crouch just out of the way. There she waited, feeling her heart thud, as the warrior stalked down the hallway, peering suspiciously about him. He stumbled, cursing the poor light and rough floor of the passageway.
Mixcatl was puzzled by the guard’s difficulty. There was plenty of light for her. Then she realized that she could see much better than he could. She felt a stab of relief, then alarm. If her vision was starting to shift, the transformation was again creeping up on her. She had relieved its pressure by animating the bone articles, but it was building again. Once her skin began to loosen, the jaguar would be free.
No. She had to reach Nine-Lizard first. She could not retreat either, for she could hear the sound of sandals clattering on the stair. The priest was still chasing her.
The warrior-guard blocked the way.
She felt her body sink into a crouch, ready to attack. Even as her muscles tensed, she could envision herself leaping, striking, seizing the throat with a sharp twist of her head. She trembled, feeling the skin on both hands loosen and slip off as her fingers shortened and her nails narrowed into claws.
Time seemed to slow as the change accelerated. The footfalls of the priest grew louder, but the interval between them seemed to stretch. She focused on the man ahead. She could smell his weapons, but they did not matter. She would move faster than he could react.
The man would fall before her…the way Huetzin had fallen. He would bleed…as Huetzin had bled. And he would die…the way that Huetzin had not, for there was no one to fend her off.
The jaguar within her knew only the needs of survival, of hunt and defense. The human knew that and more; outrage at the cruelty of those who served Hummingbird, fear for one she loved, revenge for the hurt already done, and hatred for what she felt was evil.
It would be easy for both the human and the jaguar to take the warrior’s life.
But the blood that pooled on the passage floor would be the same blood that spilled down from Hummingbird’s altar. In her mind she saw again the grim pyramid that overshadowed the plaza and the city, but the figure enthroned at the top was no longer Hummingbird. It was herself.
The guard had become the sacrifice, bent back over the altar to stare helplessly at the sky. No longer was he an impersonal barrier between her and Nine-lizard. He had become a man who cried out in terror and pain. And he was no longer alone but surrounded by his children, his parents, his wife, his brothers and his friends who all mourned.
As she had wept for a life that she had nearly taken and certainly had destroyed. Huetzin’s.
The trembling of the beast eager for the hunt mingled with shivers of revulsion. Even as her teeth sharpened, her face shifted, her legs started to change in proportion, she forced herself back against the wall, back into the niche. Mentally she pulled the jaguar back, putting forth as much effort as if she were actually dragging a struggling animal.
Sweating, trying not to pant, she forced herself into the niche, hoping desperately that the warrior-guard would go by without seeing her. If he found her, she knew that her self-control would not hold. The beast, cornered, would kill.
Then it would turn and rend the priest whose perception-slowed footsteps were slowly getting louder.
Mixcatl made herself wait until the warrior-guard had gone several paces past, then, as quietly as she could, crept from the niche. Fighting hard not to fall on all fours, she stole along the passage. That door flap. It must be the chamber.
Throwing the curtain aside, she dashed through. A single torch mounted low on the wall shone on a bearded figure in a ragged loincloth, his neck yoked and tethered to the wall.
His head jerked up as Mixcatl entered and the torchlight fell on a familiar ugly face. She wanted to fall on his neck and embrace him in a flood of joy and tears, but she had no time. He looked frightened. She knew he could not see her well enough to tell how far she was into the change, or if she recognized him.
Nine-lizard cried out in alarm as she felt the thong that tethered him. She had no knife; she would have to bite through it. Hampered by the clumsiness of her paw-hands, she used the back of her wrists to lift the tether to her mouth. Taking advantage of her sharpening back teeth, she sheared through the heavy leather and snapped the thong apart.
The thudding of footsteps outside, a crash and two startled yells told her that the priest who pursued her had run into the guard.
“The side gate at the House of Scribes is unguarded. Run!” Mixcatl shouted, her voice growing hoarse. She did not know how much longer she would be able to speak. Nine-Lizard needed no further urging. Though shaking with age and weakness, he lunged for the door flap and ducked through it. She came after him, struggling to keep to a two-legged run.
The clatter of sandals told her that the two men had regained their feet and resumed the pursuit. She had the animal swiftness that could outdistance the men, but Nine-Lizard’s weakness and the narrow hall hampered her. She was also still fighting her transformation and the changing proportions of her legs.
As she stumbled around a corner after the old man, she caught a glimpse of a square of light far down the passageway. Her heart leaped. A way of escape.
Just as they seemed only strides from the escape route, her legs betrayed her. She crashed down on the floor, losing her breath. She felt Nine-Lizard’s fingers wrap about her wrist, trying to help her to her feet, but she could no longer stand.
Knowing that she could not go on, she tried to shake free of the old man so that he would have a chance. His grip only tightened. With an upsurge of relief and dismay, she realized that he would not abandon her.
“No!” she rasped and pushed him away, but he would not run. Instead, he crouched down, wrapping her in his bony arms.
She struggled to make the now-alien flesh of her face and her lips form words. Her voice wavered, running away into a strange nasal whine and then dropping into a harsh rumble. “The two men…if I change, I…will kill them. I…do not want to…but I will. For you…Nine-Lizard, to…save you…
“No,” s
aid the old man softly. He clutched the back of her head, pushing her face against his chest. She knew that he was trying to hide the strange sight of her half-animal face. “I know why you do not want to.”
Huddling in Nine-Lizard’s arms and seized by the immediacy and intensity of the transformation, she only dimly heard the clatter of sandals slow as the two men reached them.
“Gods! The sorcerer has conjured up a demon to aid him,” said the breathless voice of the warrior. Nine-lizard’s grip hardened on her and the emerging beast struggled wildly, expecting the agonizing thrust of the spear.
“Use caution,” she heard the priest say. “Take the elder alive, if possible. Hummingbird will be angered if such powerful sacrifices are wasted.” In a stronger voice, he said, “Sorcerer, cast that demon back into the foul air it came from. If you give yourself into our hands, you will live until the day of sacrifice.”
“‘It’ is ‘she’ and she is one of my own kind, not a demon,” Nine-lizard answered quietly. “I cannot banish her with a wave of my hand.”
“You did not conjure her up to free you?” the priest asked.
“I have no such powers, as I have told you before.” Nine-Lizard’s voice was patient.
“But she has,” said the warrior. “Or do you now embrace a beast?”
“I can keep her harmless so that she cannot attack you. But I suggest you both back away.”
Both men laughed scornfully and the warrior-guard said, “You must think us fools! You would escape.”
“Guard, step past the two and take up a stand between them and the exit,” the priest ordered. There was a pause and he added, “Old man, if either you or she makes any move, you are dead.”
There was the sound of someone sliding against the wall and a shadow crossed Mixcatl’s face as the warrior sidled gingerly past them.
