The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighteenth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  He hesitated, weighed his alternatives, and decided it would be better to give me what I wanted now. He shrugged, gestured, and led me down a short corridor. The room at the end was narrow and low, but cleaner than the main receiving chamber. There were sweet herbs strewn on the floor and the gas torches gave a steady, bright light. Normally a room like this would be used to receive the bodies of high nobles and other important functionaries. What lay on the table now was not a noble, and perhaps not a functionary, but it was clearly important.

  “Make it quick,” he said as we entered the chamber. “They are coming for the body soon.”

  I gestured and Ninedeer flung back the red cotton sheet that draped the corpse.

  The thing on the slab was man-sized and had walked on two legs. Beyond that there was little enough resemblance to a human. The skin was greenish-gray, shading to fishbelly white between the legs. The head had a prominent muzzle filled with sharp teeth made for tearing. The huge middle claw on each foot was drawn back in the rigor of death. The hands were more delicate and supple, but were frozen in a raking gesture. The corpse lay half on its side because its tail would not let it lie on its back.

  Huetlacoatl, the old Serpent Lords, mysterious inhabitants of Viru, the continent to the south. In spite of hundreds of years of trading, raiding, and occasional open warfare, and in spite of the fact that they had a trading post on an island in the bay, I had never seen one in the flesh before.

  “Satisfied?” Ninedeer demanded and made to re-cover the body.

  I frowned and gestured him away. The corpse was split from the crotch almost to the neck. There were other wounds on the body, stab wounds to the upper chest showing how the creature had died, and a dark line around the neck that I took to be the bruise left by a garrotte.

  I pointed to the gaping wound and cocked my eye at Ninedeer. “It was done after he was dead,” he admitted. “At least if the thing works like a human being or an animal. The heart—or whatever kept its soul—had stopped pumping.”

  “Is the heart still there?”

  “Quetzalcoatl, yes!” Ninedeer exclaimed, wide-eyed. “As least as best the Death Master can tell. This one wasn’t sacrificed, if that’s your meaning.”

  I bent down to examine one of the three-fingered hands with its raking talons. “Any blood?”

  “No. Nor on the big claw on the foot, either. Now will you please get out of here?”

  “Shortly. Now what else can you tell me?”

  “Nothing. Go away.” I didn’t need to be a spirit reader to follow his thoughts. As a lesser noble and scion of a Reed clan, I had every right to be here. But my clan membership, and my life, were the only things they had not taken from me when they cast me out. And in spite of a clansman’s theoretical rights, I doubted the authorities would appreciate even a clansman in good standing poking around something as sensitive as a dead huetlacoatl. If I were found here they might not spare my life this time. But whatever they did to me, Ninedeer would be in trouble, and that was all he cared about.

  Since Ninedeer put more value on his record than I did on my life, the rest was easy. “I’ve got all night, you know.”

  Ninedeer ground his teeth. “It was done where it was found, in the alley. At least if these things bleed the way animals do.”

  That made sense. A deserted alley was as good as any other place for such butchery. I reached down and examined the hem of the thing’s drab cotton cloak. “What’s this?”

  He shifted from one foot to the other. “I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t.”

  I held the hem to my nose and sniffed, trying to drown out the snake stink. “Candle grease.” I dropped it and looked the body over. Whoever had done this had stood over the thing for a while.

  Ninedeer was almost dancing with impatience. “The Speakers to the Huetlacoatl will be here any minute to retrieve the body. If they find you here it will be hard on both of us.”

  “No sweet herbs and winding sheet?”

  “We do not know what the huetlacoatls’ customs are on these things. Now go!”

  There wasn’t much else to learn there, so I went. I stood in the shadows across from the Death Master’s temple for a while, under a carved Earth Monster that protected me from most of the rain, while I thought about what my cousin had told me. I wasn’t ready to return to the Hummingbird’s Palace. Uncle Tlaloc likes complete reports, not mysteries.

  The first mystery was how the thing had died. A fight among the huetlacoatl? Possibly. They were supposed to kill by disemboweling with the ripping claws on their feet, but the wound had been made from the bottom up, not the top down. What’s more, the flesh was sliced neatly, not torn as by a claw. And the marks of the garrotte and the stab wounds to the chest suggested human assistance, at least.

  Not for the first time I wondered what Uncle Tlaloc was doing sticking his nose in this business. That in itself suggested human involvement.

  So, assume the huetlacoatl had been killed by men. It had taken several of them, one to hold it by the garrotte around its neck and more to stab it—probably two more, at least, judging from the stab wounds.

  Then why had humans gone to all that trouble to kill a huetlacoatl? True, they were unpopular—so unpopular they seldom left their treaty island in the bay and almost always traveled with an escort of human guards. Yet, there was neither sign nor mention of any guards. Was this one out on privy business?

  The swish of rubber tires on rain-slick pavement made me step back further into the shadows. A land steamer, long, low, and as black as the polished jet in Lady Death’s necklace, pulled up to the entrance to Death Master’s temple. Steam hissed from the beneath the hood as the door swung open. A door too wide and low. Four heavily cloaked and hooded figures emerged silently; the first three as a group, followed after a moment by the fourth.

  The three were human, in spite of their elaborate guise and stiff-legged walk. The fourth was not. It was fluid where the others were stiff, strutting where they were jerky, and completely natural where they were studied. It leaned forward and picked its feet high under the muffling cloak. The portal to the temple swung open and the four vanished silently inside.

  So. Whatever this was, it was important enough to bring out a huetlacoatl in addition to the Speakers. I knew virtually nothing about huetlacoatl clans, but I did know they weren’t noted for family feeling. Clearly it wasn’t sentiment that had brought this one along with its human servants. This was looking more and more interesting.

  Within minutes the portal opened again and the cloaked figures emerged, a human in the lead, then Lord Huetlacoatl; and then the others, carrying a wrapped bundle between them. The huetlacoatl entered the land steamer first, followed by the burden bearers and the third man. As the door silently closed, the land steamer belched once and then swished off into the night.

  I turned and headed back toward the dock area, but not to the Hummingbird’s Palace. The night was young enough. The storm clouds were clearing to reveal the dull, starless night sky over the blackened waters of the bay. The colossal statue of the Storm Goddess on the quay smiled at me with chipped teeth and weathered lips. The city of Atlnahuac provided other avenues to explore.

  The Serpent’s Court was no Hummingbird’s Palace. It was garishly modern where the Palace was determinedly antique. Tinny modern music coming out of a beatup horned machine grated the nerves and set the mood. Its clientele was way down the scale as well, but Uncle Tlaloc’s word carried weight here and some of the clients might prove useful.

  I paused in the entrance alcove and shook the rain off my hat as the blast of the air conditioning chilled me in my rain-soaked cloak. I scanned the room for a useful face.

  There weren’t many possibilities. The watchmen from the evening shift had finished their drinks and had gone home long ago, and the night shift would not end until dawn. The other patrons, criminals, whores, and hangers-on, couldn’t help me. The only one who looked likely was Sevenrain, sitting by himself in the corner. Not m
y first choice, but he would do.

  Sevenrain was well into his fourth decade, with lines on his face, scars cutting through the tattoos on his arms and chest, and the burly, slightly bloated build of a man who likes corn beer too much and exercise too little. A sneer formed on his face as I crossed the room.

  “Well, young lordling,” he said just a little too loudly as I approached. “You honor us with your presence.”

  I gave it back to him with a condescending nod. “The honor is mine entirely, oh estimable hound of men,” I lisped in a parody of a noble accent. “Allow me a small token of my appreciation by purchasing your next pot of beer.”

  He glared at me as I sat down next to him, trying to decide if the game was worth continuing. He apparently remembered what had happened the last time he had pursued it—or who I still worked for—and decided it wasn’t.

  “What in the Nine Hells do you want?” he growled.

  “Just a few minutes conversation, and perhaps a chance to show my gratitude afterward.” Sevenrain knew damn well whose gratitude might be shown; and so, probably, did everyone else in the bar who was at all interested. But better not to mention such things.

  I shifted my stool so no one else could see my lips move. “There was a killing today down in the warehouse district.”

  “Quetzalcoatl’s dick! Do you expect me to remember every miserable person who gets his throat slit in my precinct?”

  “I didn’t say it was a person.” I said softly.

  His face froze. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “There was one of those.”

  “Where exactly?”

  His eyes darted left and right, but his lips hardly moved at all. “Behind the warehouses off the English Docks. Between the third and fourth one.”

  “Time?”

  “Found it an hour before dawn. Not one of our people, a sailor looking for a place to puke.” His face split in a mirthless grin. “Puked his fucking guts out when he saw.”

  “Any leads?”

  A longer pause this time. “No. No one saw anything. No one heard anything. Nothing at the scene but that—and a big puddle of sailor puke.”

  I nodded. “You’ll send word if you learn anything more?”

  “I’ll see it reaches the right ears.” Meaning he wasn’t going to take a chance on me cutting him out of Uncle’s generosity.

  I nodded and rose, flipping a coin down onto the table so that the silver rang loudly on the stone top. “For your refreshment, my good man,” I lisped and swaggered out to the metaphorical sound of grinding teeth behind me.

  The night was heavy with the Storm Goddess’ moist, salty breath. I could feel more than the usual number of disease spirits floating in the air. My sweat soaked my bed. I threw off the blanket. Sleep was impossible on nights like this.

  My eyes caught something. I strained to see it in the darkness. There was a figure at the door, walking toward the foot of my bed.

  I wanted to run. I wanted to reach for the sword by my pillow. But I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even breathe.

  The figure knelt at the foot of my bed. It picked up the box I kept there. When it opened the box, a cold, green light was released that lit up its skinless face.

  Skinless, not fleshless. The eyes, muscles, and other meat of the body were still present. It was a flayed man. Of course, there was only one flayed man of great significance in my life.

  I looked into the lidless eyes, and recognized them. The color of watery chocolate.

  “Smoke?”

  I couldn’t tell if he was smiling. He didn’t have lips.

  “I’ve come to visit my skin,” he said. “A night like this can be cold to one without skin.”

  “How sweet.”

  His teeth glistened in the green light. “I also came to remind you that your life grew in my death as corn grows in the death of the Corn God.”

  “My life. How marvelous.”

  “And to remind you that you could be the one who walks at night without his skin.”

  He snapped the box shut. The light was gone. I was alone.

  Shaking, I crawled to the foot of the bed. I could barely see in the moonlight from the window, but I could feel that the layer of grime on the box had not been disturbed. No one had touched the box. Smoke was not here. It was a dream.

  I had only looked into the box at Smoke’s skin once, when Uncle Tlaloc gave it to me after he had saved what was left of my life. I haven’t been able to make myself open it and look at the dried and neatly folded, tattooed skin since.

  “The thing you desire most,” Uncle had said when he presented me the box with his own hands. And he was right—then. Then I desired nothing more than Smoke’s slow, painful death for leading me into shame and abandoning me to save himself. But like most of Uncle Tlaloc’s gifts, this one had two edges, and a point keener than obsidian. By killing my enemy in such a fashion, he cut me off from any possibility of return to my former life. By presenting the skin to me, he tied me inexorably to the deed. And he reminded me, oh so subtly, who held the power of life and death in English Town.

  Smoke did not return that night, but my dreams were uneasy and peopled with things I would rather forget. I awoke bolt upright, clutching a dagger before I realized that someone had nudged the foot of my bed. It was my man, Uo, standing over me, impassive despite the knife in my hand. “One to see you,” he said as soon as he was sure I was awake.

  “Who?”

  He shrugged. “She is veiled.”

  “Weapons?”

  His flat peasant face didn’t change expression. “A high-born lady.”

  My visitor was standing in the middle of my front room, arms at her sides and rigid, as if to touch anything was to contaminate herself. Her mantle bore a single conservative row of embroidery which proclaimed her status without specifying her clan.

  “My Lady.”

  She turned to face me, cotton mantle still over her head. Her eyes were large and dark, but not crossed enough to be truly beautiful. Like the eyes of another woman, from a long time ago. The memory grabbed at my gut with chilled talons.

  “Are we alone?” she asked when my servant had withdrawn. I nodded and she dropped her mantle, showing her face.

  She was handsome without being beautiful. Her skull was not flattened in the Frog fashion. Her hair was lustrous, her lip plug small like the jade spools in her ears. On her chin were the four lines of a high-class married lady. It took me a second to put the picture together and recognize her.

  “Well, at least you are not drunk,” she remarked.

  “Threeflower?”

  “Lady Threeflower.” Her voice was hard and cold. She would not unbend an inch.

  “And how may I serve the gracious lady?”

  Her eyes flashed. Once, in another life, she was the elder sister of the one I was supposed to marry. Now what was she?

  “Ninedeer told of meeting you.”

  “I am not surprised my cousin could not keep the news to himself. But was that enough to bring you running to me?”

  She snorted. “Let us say he reminded me of your existence.” She stressed the last word as if I were actually dead. Which, I suppose I was, from her viewpoint.

  “Then what brings you to English Town?”

  “A relative. Fourflower.”

  Oh ho. A gambling debt perhaps, and Threeflower using our past connection to charm her way out of it? That didn’t seem right. “I do not know the lady.”

  “She was hardly a child when you left.” Again that emphasis.

  By now I was sick of her attitude, sick of the things she represented, and sick of the skinless face of Smoke floating in my mind. I softened my voice. “My Lady, you obviously want something. Will insulting me help you to gain your end?”

  A pause. “You are correct,” she said, suddenly coldly gracious. “I am trying to find Fourflower. She disappeared three days ago, seemingly kidnapped at the Forest Market.”

  “Seemingly?”

  “Her maid heard a muff
led scream, and when she turned her mistress was gone.”

  I cocked an eyebrow at her and she flushed. “The maid was questioned very thoroughly. She held to her story to the end.”

  “Then Fourflower probably has been kidnapped.”

  Lady Threeflower glared at me. “I wish her return.”

  “Then I would suggest contacting a go-between. I can give you a name …”

  “The go-betweens say they know nothing of the matter,” she cut in.

  That stopped me. Kidnapping was an old, if not honorable, profession, and one of the reasons the nobles kept their women and children close. But there was an order to these things, a procedure. And that called for the approach to be made through a go-between.

  “Three days, you said?”

  “Mid-morning on the day of the Ocelot last.” Plenty of time for a go-between to contact the family.

  Mentally I ran down the list of possibilities. The most obvious one was that the snatch team had bungled the job and the girl was dead. Or perhaps this was an unusually complicated bit of business. Someone had dropped the ball, or the girl’s other relatives had been contacted and were keeping it quiet. Too many things could have happened.

  “Was Fourflower important?”

  “She was of the line of the Emperor Montezuma Himself.”

  Which was a polite way of saying she was very well-born and had nothing else. No position, no title of her own, no fortune, and no prospects. A cousin-companion to Threeflower, perhaps chosen for her name, and ranking little higher than a servant. But a young noblewoman could become attached to such a one. Especially if her blood sister was a beautiful, faithless, empty-headed ninny. I broke that train of thought off sharply.

  “Then there is more to this than you think. Best you go home and await word.”

  “I want her found!”

  “Do you think I can snap my fingers and conjure her here for you?”

  “I think you can contact your friends who kidnap.”

  “They are my associates, not my friends, and they only kidnap for ransom.” A thought came. “Was Fourflower pretty?”