Toltectecuhtli came striding down the corridor, resplendent in a headdress of quetzal plumes and beaten gold. He still wore the lizard-skin stomacher and the gold Quetzalcoatl gorget, but his elaborately embroidered kilt was new. From his belt hung a maquahatl, the flat wooden war club fitted with blades of keen obsidian along the edges. With his sloped head he looked like he had stepped out of a temple wall painting.
What the hell? I followed him. He went to the center of the ground floor, then down a stairway that was framed by the masterfully sculpted gaping jaws of gigantic huetlacoatls. It reminded me of stories of the underworld, the many Hells beneath the earth. An undistinguished soul on his way to oblivion, or one of the Lords of Death?
Down the stairs it grew dark, and the air became clammy. I heard moaning. Horrible moaning. I shuddered. Could the myths be true?
At the end of the narrow stair was a long corridor, with light showing from a side passage far down and off the right. I pressed myself against the wall and glided toward the light. The dank silence was broken only by an occasional moan.
Toltectecuhtli stood in the middle of a wide chamber lit with many lamps. The light flickered and shifted, making it hard to see things. Which was, perhaps, for the best.
The place was a ghastly parody of the Death Master’s laying-out room. Stone tables dotted the room and forms covered with sheets lay on most of them. Toltectecuhtli was bending over one of the tables with his back to the door. He did something, and the thing on the table moaned like one who has been flayed but is not quite dead yet.
As Toltectecuhtli stood up I could see that the person on the table still had her skin, at least from the waist up. The priest strode away from the table to a door in the rear of the room. He unlocked it, passed through, and I heard the lock click as he relocked it from the inside.
I stayed where I was, listening hard. There was no sound through the damp, close air, not even from the tables. But there was a smell: the stink of strong tequila.
I moved carefully into the room and approached the table where Toltectecuhtli had uncovered the woman. She was young, with breasts that were full but had not yet begun to sag. She might have been pretty once, but suffering had drained all the beauty, and most of the humanity, from her.
“Fourflower?” I whispered. She turned drug-dimmed eyes to me. They were like the eyes of a dumb animal. No hope, no pleading.
Then I saw why. There was a gaping red wound from breastbone to groin. The belly skin was pink and healthy with no flush of infection, but the edges of the wound were separated by a hand-breadth and the belly was pushed out, as if bloated.
I looked closer and saw there was something in the wound, inside the woman.
It was grayish, rounded, and netted all over like a melon. I didn’t have Foureagle’s knowledge of human insides, but I knew that this thing didn’t belong in a human belly. I shifted to get a better view and saw it was about twice the size of a large goose egg.
Eggs? Then all the fragments fell together. Like a shattered obsidian butterfly reassembling itself and flying away.
There are priest-surgeons, specialists, who can open a man up without killing him to treat a sickness of the body. They use the finest obsidian blades, take the greatest care not to cut into the bowels and carefully sew the flesh and skin together after dousing the area with the purest double-distilled tequila. Most of the time the patient even recovers.
Toltectecuhtli wanted a blending of huetlacoatl and human. What better way to blend the two essences than incubating huetlacoatl eggs within human bodies?
There was a crash behind me of something shattering on the stone. I whirled and saw Toltectecuhtli standing in the door I had come through. The remains of a jug at his feet and the stronger smell of tequila told me where he’d been. In the semi-darkness with the lamps hitting him from below he looked like a vengeful wall painting come to life. About a ten-foot-tall wall painting.
“Good evening,” I said pleasantly, to distract him while I figured out whether I’d have to take him out or could just run.
If Toltectecuhtli’s eyes were crossed, there was nothing wrong with his hearing.
“You do not belong here, Tworabbit.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more,” I said amiably. “So I’ll just be going.”
“Your part was ignorance! I told you to play your part in the great change.”
“Ignorance is an expensive commodity,” I said, moving sideways toward the main door. “Too expensive for a lowly person such as me.”
He growled in inarticulate fury and leaped to the door, blocking my way out. In a single swirling motion he went for the bladed war club at his belt and launched a furious overhand swipe at my head.
I ducked and barely got my sword up to parry. The force of the blow drove my forearm down onto my forehead and twisted my sword in my grip. But the club went skittering off my sword and missed my body altogether. I tried a fast counterslash to his chest, but the old man twisted away easily and brought his maquahatl up in a disemboweling blow. I parried and gave ground and he came after me swinging left-and-right at my head.
That damn club was heavy, which made it hard to parry, and the obsidian blades set along the edge could open me up as efficiently as any steel sword. In spite of his age this priest was strong as an ox and fast as a teenager. I was neither and I was in a lot of trouble.
I tried to dodge around to his left side, but he spun on his toes before I could complete the move. He aimed another at my head. I raised my sword to parry and with a twist of the wrist he dropped the blow toward my legs. I scrambled back, but the tip raked me across the shins, leaving bright wellings of blood on both legs.
Frantically I dodged around a stone table. He struck at me over it and I flinched back, feeling the air stir as the maquahatl whistled past my face. The person on the table looked at me with dumb, pain-ridden eyes.
As Toltectecuhtli came around the table, I whipped my cloak off and threw it at his face, trying to blind him. While the cloak was still in the air I followed through with a lunging thrust. I missed but his reflexive return stroke didn’t—quite. The club came down on the point of my right shoulder and tore an ugly gaping wound that left my whole arm numb.
He saw what he had done to me and started forward in triumph, his club coming up for an overhand blow.
I tossed the sword to my left hand and parried. This time his eyes widened and he stepped back. “Huitzilopochtli,” he whispered hoarsely. “Lord Left-Handed Hummingbird.”
I don’t know what was going on in that god-ridden, madness-fogged brain, but obviously I had triggered something. I pressed the advantage ruthlessly, striking left and right in my turn before he could recover his composure.
He parried, but more clumsily. Madness aside, fighting a left-handed swordsman is difficult for a right-handed. You have to do some things backward and very few nobles ever train in the art because left-handedness is considered unlucky. Uncle Tlaloc’s retainers are more practical about such things.
Then I remembered there was another difference between a maquahatl and a sword. I faked a downward slash at his belly, which brought his club up in a parry that made my blade slip off. Then instead of continuing with another slash, I brought the point up and lunged toward his belly with my hand low.
I felt a moment’s resistance as the point pierced the lizard-skin stomacher, then a slow, easy slide as I sliced into his bowels. The blow forced him back against the edge of the one of the tables and his eyes widened. I leaned into the sword, putting my weight behind it, forcing the point deeper into his belly and ripping up until it grated on the breastbone. His eyes widened, his mouth moved, but only blood came out to run down the beaten gold gorget of the god Quetzalcoatl. I eased the pressure and he slumped to the floor, my sword still in him.
I leaned back against the wall, my chest heaving. The cuts on my legs were bleeding profusely, my shoulder was still numb with pain, but there was more blood running down my right arm and that si
de of the chest. My left wrist was throbbing as if I had sprained it. All in all, I looked like the victim of a particularly inept sacrificial priest. But I was alive, and right now that felt better than being crowned Emperor Himself.
“Well done, young sir,” came an all-too-familiar voice from the doorway, “well done indeed.”
Foureagle came stumping into the room, accompanied by five or six hard-looking men. “I trust you have recovered the missing items.”
I gestured toward the still figures on the tables. “In there. One in each.”
The old man bent over the nearest table and examined its burden. “Ah, yes. Ingenious and even, perhaps, theologically sound—from Toltectecuhtli’s perspective, of course.”
“What will you do with them?” Not that I really cared.
“Why, return them to the huetlacoatls, of course. Oh, you mean the people? We will save them, if we can.” He gestured to the men behind him and they disappeared down the corridor.
“You look as if you could use some tending to yourself.” He laid his hands, oddly gentle, on my shoulder, testing the wound. “Yes, we must get that attended to. But not here. Can you walk? Ah, excellent. I am afraid this place will shortly suffer an unfortunate accident. A fire, I believe.” He looked around appraisingly, nodded, and stroked his chin. “Yes, I think a fire will do nicely.”
He half-supported me as he guided me toward the door. “But I do hope you will come and visit me. After you have healed, of course. We have so much to discuss. Your future, for example, and perhaps some additional employment. Yes, I think we must discuss that, young sir.”
I thought about how I would explain working for the Emperor’s Shadow to Uncle Tlaloc. Then I thought about Uncle Tlaloc’s probable reaction. Then I thought about what Foureagle certainly would do to me if I refused. Turning of the cycle or not, my luck hadn’t changed.
With that thought, I let them guide me down the corridor and out into the piss-warm rain of night.
Patient Zero
TANANARIVE DUE
Tananarive Due has been making a name for herself as a horror writer in the course of the last few years, but only this year has she begun to venture into science fiction as well, with sales to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and Dark Matter. In the chilling and deceptively quiet story that follows, she paints a heartrending portrait of a life spent in ever-increasing isolation in an ever-darkening world … .
Tananarive Due’s books include the horror novels The Between and My Soul to Keep, which were both finalists for the Bram Stoker Award. Her most recent book is a sequel to My Soul to Keep, called The Living Blood. Upcoming is a memoir about Florida’s civil rights movement, Freedom in the Family, written with her mother, Patricia Stephens Due. She lives in Longview, Washington, with her husband, SF writer Steven Barnes.
September 19
The picture came! Veronica tapped on my glass and woke me up, and she held it up for me to see. It’s autographed and everything! For you, Veronica mouthed at me, and she smiled a really big smile. The autograph says, TO JAY—I’LL THROW A TOUCHDOWN FOR YOU. I couldn’t believe it. Everybody is laughing at me because of the way I yelled and ran in circles around my room until I fell on the floor and scraped my elbow. The janitor, Lou, turned on the intercom box outside my door and said, “Kid, you gone crazier than usual? What you care about that picture for?”
Don’t they know Dan Marino is the greatest quarterback of all time? I taped the picture to the wall over my bed. On the rest of my wall I have maps of the United States, and the world, and the solar system. I can find Corsica on the map, and the Palau Islands, which most people have never heard of, and I know what order all the planets are in. But there’s nothing else on my wall like Dan Marino. That’s the best. The other best thing I have is the cassette tape from that time the President called me on the telephone when I was six. He said, “Hi, is Jay there? This is the President of the United States.” He sounded just like on TV. My heart flipped, because it’s so weird to hear the President say your name. I couldn’t think of anything to say back. He asked me how I was feeling, and I said I was fine. That made him laugh, like he thought I was making a joke. Then his voice got real serious, and he said everyone was praying and thinking about me, and he hung up. When I listen to that tape now, I wish I had thought of something else to say. I used to think he might call me another time, but it only happened once, in the beginning. So I guess I’ll never have a chance to talk to the President again.
After Veronica gave me my picture of Marino, I asked her if she could get somebody to fix my TV so I can see the football games. All my TV can play is videos. Veronica said there aren’t any football games, and I started to get mad because I hate it when they lie. It’s September, I said, and there’s always football games in September. But Veronica told me the NFL people had a meeting and decided not to have football anymore, and maybe it would start again, but she wasn’t sure, because nobody except me was thinking about football. At first, after she said that, it kind of ruined the autograph, because it seemed like Dan Marino must be lying, too. But Veronica said he was most likely talking about throwing a touchdown for me in the future, and I felt better then.
This notebook is from Ms. Manigat, my tutor, who is Haitian. She said I should start writing down my thoughts and everything that happens to me. I said I don’t have any thoughts, but she said that was ridiculous. That is her favorite word, ridiculous.
Oh, I should say I’m ten today. If I were in a regular school, I would be in fifth grade like my brother was. I asked Ms. Manigat what grade I’m in, and she said I don’t have a grade. I read like I’m in seventh grade and I do math like I’m in fourth grade, she says. She says I don’t exactly fit anywhere, but I’m very smart. Ms. Manigat comes every day, except on weekends. She is my best friend, but I have to call her Ms. Manigat instead of using her first name, which is Emmeline, because she is so proper. She is very neat and wears skirts and dresses, and everything about her is very clean except her shoes, which are dirty. Her shoes are supposed to be white, but whenever I see her standing outside of the glass, when she hasn’t put on her plastic suit yet, her shoes look brown and muddy.
Those are my thoughts.
September 20
I had a question today. Veronica never comes on Fridays, and the other nurse, Rene, isn’t as nice as she is, so I waited for Ms. Manigat. She comes at one. I said, “You know how they give sick children their last wish when they’re dying? Well, when Dr. Ben told me to think of the one thing I wanted for my birthday, I said I wanted an autograph from Dan Marino, so does that mean I’m dying and they’re giving me my wish?” I said this really fast.
I thought Ms. Manigat would say I was being ridiculous. But she smiled. She put her hand on top of my head, and her hand felt stiff and heavy inside her big glove. “Listen, little old man,” she said, which is what she calls me because she says I do so much worrying, “You’re a lot of things, but you aren’t dying. When everyone can be as healthy as you, it’ll be a happy day.”
The people here always seems to be waiting, and I don’t know what for. I thought maybe they were waiting for me to die. But I believe Ms. Manigat. If she doesn’t want to tell me something, she just says, “Leave it alone, Jay,” which is her way of letting me know she would rather not say anything at all than ever tell a lie.
October 5
The lights in my room started going on and off again today, and it got so hot I had to leave my shirt off until I went to bed. Ms. Manigat couldn’t do her lessons the way she wanted because of the lights not working right. She said it was the emergency generator. I asked her what the emergency was, and she said something that sounded funny: “Same old same old.” That was all she said. I asked her if the emergency generator was the reason Dr. Ben took the television out of my room, and she said yes. She said everyone is conserving energy, and I have to do my part, too. But I miss my videos. There is nothing at all to do when I can’t watch my videos. I hate it when I’m bo
red. Sometimes I’ll even watch videos I’ve seen a hundred times, really a hundred times. I’ve seen Big with Tom Hanks more times than any other video. I love the part in the toy store with the really big piano keys on the floor. My mom taught me how to play Three Blind Mice on our piano at home, and it reminds me of that. I’ve never seen a toy store like the one in Big. I thought it was just a made-up place, but Ms. Manigat said it was a real toy store in New York.
I miss my videos. When I’m watching them, it’s like I’m inside the movie, too. I hope Dr. Ben will bring my TV back soon.
October 22
I made Veronica cry yesterday. I didn’t mean to. Dr. Ben said he knows it was an accident, but I feel very sorry, so I’ve been crying too. What happened is, I was talking to her, and she was taking some blood out of my arm with a needle like always. I was telling her about how me and my dad used to watch Marino play on television, and then all of a sudden she was crying really hard.
She dropped the needle on the floor and she was holding her wrist like she broke it. She started swearing. She said Goddammit, goddammit, goddammit, over and over, like that. I asked her what happened, and she pushed me away like she wanted to knock me over. Then she went to the door and punched the number code really fast and she pulled on the doorknob, but the door wouldn’t open, and I heard something in her arm snap from yanking so hard. She had to do the code again. She was still crying. I’ve never seen her cry.
I didn’t know what happened. I mashed my finger on the buzzer hard, but everybody ignored me. It reminded me of when I first came here, when I was always pushing the buzzer and crying, and nobody would ever come for a long time, and they were always in a bad mood when they came.
The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighteenth Annual Collection Page 88
