Alexander C. Irvine

by A Scattering of Jades

  Why was everything so tangled? She couldn’t even count on bad men to be bad. It was frightening because if bad men weren’t always bad, then good men weren’t always good. Her mind raced ahead with that thought before she could stop it, saying—

  No. Da would come. He was alive, and he would come and rescue her.

  He had to.

  Toxcatl, 8-Skull—march 27, 1843

  The locks at the Falls of the Ohio had just been opened two weeks before, and Louisville’s waterfront had taken on the appearance of a motley marina. Vessels were lined up four deep, sitting idle in a cold rain while their captains argued with port authorities over tolls and bills of lading. On shore, rivermen fresh from New Orleans, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis prowled gambling halls and grogshops, shouldering past farmers come down from the hills to sell pork, tobacco, and whiskey. The entire scene was given an otherworldly aspect by the rain and the fog of smoke billowing from the ragged flotilla; Louisville’s streetlamps diffused into a sickly, mummified luminescence that somehow cast no real light.

  Riley Steen maneuvered his wagon past a throng of waistcoated Southern gentlemen gathered for a slave auction. Dusk was falling, and with it the temperature. He’d been thoroughly soaked by the rain and hadn’t slept in days, but a steady diet of Traphagen’s Balsamic Extract, taken from the box of nostrums in the back of the wagon, had set his brain singing and he didn’t mind the wet chill. Traphagen’s was a marvelous brew for fending off drowsiness, but Steen hadn’t realized its salutary effects on the temperament. He couldn’t help grinning as he wove through traffic until he found Third Street and turned south, away from the river and toward a house he owned on Broadway. Harman Blennerhassett had quitclaimed the property to Steen thirty-five years before, when he’d fled in disgrace to the Louisiana bayous. Steen had been there perhaps a dozen times since then, usually to transact some sort of business that would be compromised by public scrutiny.

  That wasn’t something he would have to worry about if the reenactment of Nanahuatzin’s sacrifice worked. Every failed scheme of the last four decades would be forgotten, or perhaps remembered tolerantly as lessons learned toward the greater goal. No longer would Riley Steen be an itinetant doctor, dentist, purveyor of elixirs and small-town puppeteer; after April the third, he’d have every man, woman and child from Canada to the Isthmus of Panama for a puppet. Alexander had never had such power, nor Genghis Khan nor Motecuhzoma himself. With the chacmool as his high priest, Riley Steen would be absolute ruler of one-quarter of the world.

  And that was just the beginning. Steen’s Traphagen-enhanced good humor threatened to start him actually snickering as he halted the wagon in front of his house. A light burned in the third-floor bedroom window, his caretaker’s signal that guests awaited within. Good. Mr. McDougall should have arrived, and if he had the girl with him, the chacmool certainly wouldn’t be long in joining the party. Steen had given up trying to monitor its day-to-day movements, trusting instead that its nature would impel it to behave as he predicted. As far as the girl was concerned, he had confidence in Lupita’s assessment of the situation. In all likelihood she had followed her father and been captured by Royce exactly as planned.

  It would have been much easier simply to travel together, Steen thought. But the huehueteotl had been especially watchful these past few weeks, its eye like a weight at the base of Steen’s skull. His grin slipped a bit as he looked up into the rain, wishing for clear skies so he could read the signs. The moon would be rising soon.

  Steen searched through a ring of keys and let himself in. He lit a lamp on the front table and closed the door on the early-evening din of West Broadway, then stood dripping on the hall carpet until his caretaker Simon appeared from the rear of the house.

  “I’ll take care of the horses, Mr. Steen,” Simon said, taking Steen’s coat into the parlor to dry by the fire. “Mr. McDougall and an oddly dressed Negro are waiting for you in the upstairs library.”

  “Thank you, Simon, but I may be leaving quickly. Best to leave the horses.”

  A flush of pride nearly set Steen to singing out loud. Everything had fallen perfectly into place. He had successfully controlled all of the difficulties that had arisen, all of the intrusions and irrationalities that would have derailed a man of lesser scope than he. Like a chess master, he had weathered his enemies’ forays while consolidating his own attack, had inured himself to the maddening pranks of the Tochtli, and all the while he had arranged his own pieces for the mating assault. Shah mat, he thought, the king is dead. And that goes for you, President Tyler, and for General Santa Ana as well.

  But it wouldn’t do to be overconfident just yet. Steen hadn’t slept in several days, which was why he’d resorted to Traphagen’s in the first place, and he knew that it would take delicate diplomacy to finish what he’d started. He mustn’t let the Balsamic Extract run away with his senses. The chacmool had successfully negotiated the problems it had faced after being reawakened, weak and in a strange society. No doubt it felt capable of handling everything itself. But it had never actually governed, never led the people of a state through the day-to-day rigors of taxes and property disputes. It had served admirably in its capacity as divine intermediary, but secular matters were best left to secular people. The Mexican tla-tpani, philosopher-kings, and cihuacoatl, the snake-women named for the goddess of childbirth, had filled that role in previous centuries. Render unto Caesar, Steen thought; Christ had been right on target. Only in the Sixth Sun, the prophets would say render unto Steen.

  He rehearsed this argument as he walked up the stairs, probing it for weaknesses. Everything, he thought again, was falling perfectly into place. He would defeat fatigue just as he had every other opponent.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” Steen said upon entering the library. “And you as well, of course, young lady.” Mr. McDougall slouched in a chair to his left, warily eyeing the chacmool, which sat behind the desk, near the library’s large windows. The girl was curled up on an overstuffed divan, wearing the chacmool’s quetzal-feather cloak. Steen noted this with some surprise, and was even more disconcerted to see that the girl’s scars were all but gone, grown over by blotchy black scabs. New hair had also grown in over the dead tissue that had covered much of her cranium.

  Nanahuatzin, of course—the Scabby One. This was no doubt the chacmool’s handiwork. Steen had always looked on the girl’s disfigurement as pure evidence of her destiny (and his), but this rejuvenation put the matter beyond all doubt. She was being healed, made whole in order to meet the god who would take her, and in the process she was being fit literally into the role that she had previously filled only through the strange analogy of reincarnation. No longer could he see her as a little girl born under an auspicious sign. She was becoming divine before his very eyes.

  “Good you’re finally here, Steen,” Royce said. He stood and put on his cap. “Means I can leave.”

  Surprised, Steen stepped back to block the doorway. “One moment, Mr. McDougall. Your part in this isn’t quite over.”

  “Oh, I believe it is. I did what you asked—got the girl and came all the way to bloody Louisville with her. But you and I are finished here. I won’t be party to murdering little girls.”

  Steen shot a nervous glance at the girl, but she looked to be in some sort of stupor. “A conscience, my Rabbit friend?” he said, allowing a note of gleeful sarcasm to color the question.

  “Call it what you like. I’ve always finished my business for you, and I have this time as well.” A strange haunted expression carved unfamiliar lines around Royce’s eyes and mouth. “But this is where it ends. I might be a killer, Steen, but Christ, she’s eleven years old.”

  “Is her life worth more than a world?” Steen asked jovially. He was enjoying this strange sight; imagine Royce McDougall conflicted by a guilty conscience!

  Royce cracked a weary smile, but the haunted expression didn’t leave his face. “That’s a question he would ask,” he said, thrusting a finger in the cha
cmool’s direction. “Pardon me, it. I don’t know if she’s worth more than a world. But this I’ll tell you: any world built on the blood and bones of little girls is a world I don’t want to live in. Now stand aside. I’ve one more bit of business to finish up, and then I’m out of this madness forever.” He stood directly in front of Steen, a tic working at the corner of his mouth and the fingers of his left hand twitching as if palsied.

  Steen considered—would McDougall actually assault him?— and then stood aside with a nod and a smile. Best not to take chances with the Rabbit’s adolescent bravado, not when everything was so nearly complete.

  “By all means, Mr. McDougall. I wish you all the best in future endeavors, provided those endeavors do not require your presence in New York.” Steen gestured at the door. “I believe Simon will have your coat.”

  McDougall brushed past him without another word. A moment later, the front door opened and shut. Strong will for one so young, Steen thought. With luck he would survive to learn discretion.

  But never mind; to events at hand.

  “So.” Steen shut the library door. “Always unfortunate how persons of limited scope interfere with history.”

  He regarded the chacmool, seeing it hale and hearty for the first time. Extraordinary being—unless one knew what to look for, it would automatically be taken for a normal Negro, just on the threshold of his middle years. Steen was reminded of a story Aaron Burr had told him, of a mysterious black man who appeared periodically to terrorize Mexican tribesmen. They had called it na-huatti, sorcerer. And the chacmool did bear a striking resemblance to a strange monolith Blennerhassett had brought from the Mexican jungles and kept in his study: strong squarish features dominated by a heavy brow, with just a hint of epicanthic fold about the eyes. Unfortunately, when Burr’s plans had fallen apart Blennerhassett had destroyed the monolith in a fit of panic. Steen had barely arrived in time to save the mirror and a few other relics.

  He realized he’d lost his train of thought. Fatigue and the Balsamic Extract were combining to make his mind wander. “Introductions are in order,” he said, clearing his throat. “I am—”

  “Wide Hat,” the chacmool finished for him. “You brought me to the city.”

  “Ah, correct.” Steen was slightly put off by its use of the name Lupita had given him, and also by the fact that it had somehow learned English. Its voice, too, had a way of lingering in the mind, disrupting his thoughts. “And you are—?”

  “The last name I bore was Nezahualpilli, but it was not mine. Names are of little value here.”

  “Very well.” Nezahualpilli? One of Motecuhzoma’s advisers had borne that name and been accused of sorcery. Aztec legend had it that he had foretold the coming of Cortes, then vanished, by some accounts hiding in a cave to avoid the Spaniards’ depredations. Steen had never connected the tale with the chacmool, but perhaps he should have. Nezahualpilli was by all accounts considered an extremely skillful politician. Perhaps I’ve been a bit naive, Steen thought, supposing that a being could live nearly two thousand years without acquiring some insight into human nature.

  Nervous, he started to sit in the chair McDougall had recently vacated, but thought better of it. Instead he went through the ritual of replacing his boutonniere, folding the wilted bloom into a handkerchief and dropping it into a wastebasket by the desk. The methodical action calmed him, as it always did; he straightened his tie and took a last moment to prepare his speech.

  The chacmool, though, spoke before he could begin. “What are you, Steen?”

  Taken aback by the question, Steen paused for several seconds before answering. “I am a man of scope,” he said finally. “A man who makes history happen.”

  The chacmool smiled. “Anyone can insert themselves into history. It records petty murderers as well as prophets.”

  Was an intellectual discussion what it wanted? Steen supposed it might be; after all, the chacmool hadn’t spoken to another human in more than three hundred years. Then again, it wasn’t exactly human, was it, and who knew what gods spoke of?

  “Granted,” he said. “But murders are merely recorded, and commented on. Prophets—visionaries—dictate what will be written.”

  “Perhaps. How many visionaries, though, have been passed over and forgotten?”

  “Some, to be sure. But greatness persists. Ignorance and mediocrity are obstacles to be overcome.”

  “Ah. And will you persist?”

  Steen began to feel as if he were taking part in a Socratic dialogue, in the role of Crito or another of Socrates’ willing dupes. I have to seize the initiative, he thought; show it that I am not to be underestimated.

  “I will,” he said. “What we are about to do will make the exploits of Caesar look like schoolyard bullying. To reawaken a god, a real living god born from the blood of its people, a being of the world that at the same time transcends it. That has never been done. No one has even understood that it was possible. And we will do it.”

  The chacmool murmured under its breath and flicked its fingers at the rain outside the window. “Before there were men,” it said, “before I was, was Tlaloc. He Who Makes Things Grow needs no worshipers to live. Men need him. He is no infant, to be awakened from a nap by the nipple of your belief.”

  Anger rose in its whispery voice as it continued. “You think to have power because you feed yolteotl to the gods. Power flows to those who believe, Wide Hat, and men, even if they forget for a thousand years, must finally remember that Tlaloc does not live in the smoke from sacrificial fires. He is the wood that burns. He is the earth, he is the water. To know him is to feel the power of earth and water, to cry out for lightning with your feet in the river. Other men have come before you, men who saw power in others’ fear of the gods. Tlaloc watches such men, and Tlaloc acts.”

  “Aye, Tlaloc acts,” Steen said hotly. This interrogation was beginning to make him angry. “He was acting when I spent thirty-five years of my life tracking your moldering body to a stinking hole in the ground. He was acting when you reawakened exactly when I’d predicted. He was acting when I chose that girl out of the thousands of girls born the same day. And he was for damned certain acting when we arrived here—again, exactly as I’d planned—with time yet to set fire to the Sixth Sun.”

  Steen found himself shaking, both with anger and with frustration at losing control of his demeanor. “Look at her!” he snapped, pointing at the girl. “In another week she’ll have not a mark left on her. Was that an accident?”

  The girl made as if to touch her face when Steen pointed in her direction, but she halted the gesture and clasped her hands in her lap. The chacmool smiled at her self-consciousness.

  “A little longer, Nanahuatzin,” it said fondly. “Soon, precious jade. Soon you will be whole again, and fit to finish your journey.”

  Its gaze lingered on her for another moment, then returned to Steen. “As much as you have said is true. But you are like the man who boasts of his fine clothes while his children shiver naked; your words are pollocotli, chaff thrown up to hide the harvest of your deeds. It was you who caused all of the obstacles you take such pride in having surmounted. It was you who allowed Prescott to capture a token from my robe and you who let him live long enough to be marked by the Old One’s Eye. That mark drew him to Tamanend, and now Prescott wears the Old One’s protection like a cloak. And another one, one whom I cannot see, aids him. Why? Out of a desire for revenge on you. Tell me now how majestic, how noble have been your efforts.”

  The open scorn in the chacmool’s tone left Steen completely at a loss. “How many others have tried to do this? How many failed? All of them. You need me,” he spluttered. “What do you know about government beyond the temple and the fire? What do you know about money? Nothing. You need me to keep the blood flowing on your precious altars. People aren’t going to just line up to have their bloody hearts ripped out.”

  “Again, half-truths,” the chacmool said with a dismissive wave. “Someone must govern, yes. Bu
t it need not be you.”

  “Need not, hell. You owe me.” Too bold, Steen realized as the words spilled from his mouth, but he was beyond caring. To have this, this glorified medicine man treat him like a goddamned servant! “Yes, Prescott is causing problems and yes, the girl escaped. But I marked her for you. Whatever else has gone wrong, she’s still here. And I did that. Without her, you’d have had to crawl back into your hole for another five centuries.”

  The chacmool nodded as if to placate him. “And for that you will be rewarded. But do not overreach yourself, Wide Hat. Do not ignore the counsel of those you should heed.”

  Overreach himself? The last fragile strand of Riley Steen’s self-control snapped. A man of his scope, a man who saw and understood the sweeping arc of history, didn’t have to stand for condescension from a creaking artifact given a semblance of life by the blood of street children and drunken sailors. “The girl is mine,” he growled. “I offered her as a gift to you, and you treat me like a dog. Fine. You can shrivel in a hole until the sun burns down to a bloody cinder, and I’ll laugh at you from my grave.” He strode toward the girl.

  The chacmool rose easily from its chair and blocked his path. “Finally you speak an entire truth,” it said softly. “The dead do laugh, and the grave is all about us, although most men cannot see it. Now you will. Now you will see.”

  With that, it seized Riley Steen by the skull and gouged his eyes from his head.

  Steen’s knees buckled and he folded to the study carpet, screaming into his hands. Somewhere he’d read that truly terrible injuries didn’t hurt right away, that the shock was too much for the body to register, but that didn’t seem to be true. This pain left him helpless and howling like a circumcised babe. It was like an earthquake; it absorbed everything else; it was …