Over this, I superimposed the story itself—which is about friendship and loyalty and honor, and how far to take those. I hadn’t originally intended this to be about a band of sisters, but given that it’s all too often the reverse that holds true in speculative fiction, I’m pretty pleased it turned out that way—with three female main characters and the men unobtrusively relegated to the background. I’m glad the story ends up making a statement about the place and power of women, even if it’s a very subtle one.
The mind wanders, when one takes teonanácatl.
If she allowed herself to think, she’d smell bleach, mingling with the faint, rank smell of blood; she’d see the grooves of the cell, smeared with what might be blood or faeces.
She’d remember—the pain insinuating itself into the marrow of her bones, until it, too, becomes a dull thing, a matter of habit—she’d remember dragging herself upward when dawn filters through the slit-windows: too tired and wan to offer her blood to Tonatiuh the sun, whispering a prayer that ends up sounding more and more like an apology.
The god, of course, will insist that she live until the end, for life and blood are too precious to be wasted—no matter how broken or useless she’s become, wasting away in the darkness.
Here’s the thing: she’s not sure how long she can last.
It was Jaguar Captain Palli who gave her the teonanácatl—opening his hand to reveal the two black, crushed mushrooms, the food of the gods, the drugs of the lost, of the doomed—she couldn’t tell if it was because he pitied her, or if it’s yet another trap, another ambush they hope she’ll fall into.
But still . . . She took them. She held them, wrapped tight in the palms of her hands, as the guards walked her back. And when she was alone once more, she stared at them for a long while, feeling the tremor start in her fingers—the hunger, the craving for normality—for oblivion.
The mind wanders—backward, into the only time worth remembering.
The picture lay on the table, beside Onalli’s bloodied worship-thorns. It showed a girl standing by a stall in the marketplace, holding out a clock of emerald-green quetzal feathers with an uncertain air, as if it would leap and bite at any moment. Two other girls stood silhouetted in the shadows behind her, as if already fading into insignificance.
It wasn’t the best one Onalli had of Xochitl, by a large margin—but she’d been thinking about it a lot, those days—about the fundamental irony of it, like a god’s ultimate joke on her.
“Having second thoughts?” Atcoatl asked, behind her.
Onalli’s hand reached out, to turn the picture over—and stopped when his tone finally sank in.
She turned to look at him: his broad, tanned face was impassive—a true Knight’s, showing none of what he felt.
“No,” she said, slowly, carefully. “I’m not having second thoughts. But you are, aren’t you?”
Atcoatl grimaced. “Onalli—”
He was the one who’d helped her, from the start—getting her the encrypted radio sets, the illicit nanos to lower her body temperatures, the small syringes containing everything from teonanácatl inhibitors to endurance nanos. More than that: he had believed her—that her desperate gamble would work, that they’d retrieve Xochitl alive, out of the madness the Jaguar House had become. . . .
“This is too big,” Atcoatl said. He shook his head, and Onalli heard the rest, the words he wasn’t saying.
What if we get caught?
Onalli chose the easiest way to dispel fear: anger. “So you intend to sit by and do nothing?”
Atcoatl’s eyes flashed with a burning hatred—and no wonder. He had seen the fall of his own House; his fellow Eagle Knights, bound and abandoned in the burning wreckage of their own dormitories; the Otter and the Skull Knights, killed, maimed, or scattered to breathe dust in the silver mines. “I’m no coward. One day, the Revered Speaker and his ilk will pay for what they’ve done. But this—this is just courting death.”
Onalli’s gaze strayed again to the picture—to Xochitl’s face, frozen in that moment of dubious innocence. “I can’t leave her there.”
“The resistance—” Atcoatl started.
Onalli snorted. “By the time the resistance can pull the House down, it will be too late. You know it.” There had been attacks: two maglev stations bombed; political dissidents mysteriously vanishing before their arrest. She didn’t deny the existence of an underground movement, but she recognized the signs: it was still weak, still trying to organize itself.
Atcoatl said nothing; but Onalli was Jaguar Knight, and her training enabled her to read the hint of disapproval in his stance.
“Look,” she said, finally. “I’m the one taking the biggest risk. You’ll be outside the House, with plenty of time to leave if anything goes wrong.”
“If you’re caught—”
“You think I’d turn on you?” Onalli asked. “After all they’ve done to Xochitl, you think I’d help them?”
Atcoatl’s face was dark. “You know what they’re doing, inside the House.”
She didn’t—but she could imagine it, all too well. Which was why she needed to pull Xochitl out. Her friend hadn’t deserved this; any of this. “I’m Jaguar Knight,” she said, softly. “And I give you my word that I’d rather end my own life than let them worm anything out of me.”
Atcoatl looked at her. “You’re sincere, but what you believe doesn’t change anything.”
“Doesn’t it? I believe the Revered Speaker’s rule is unlawful. I believe the Jaguar House had no right to betray its own dissidents, or interrogate them. Isn’t that what we all believe in?”
Atcoatl shifted, and wouldn’t answer.
“Tell me what you believe in, then,” Onalli said.
He was silent for a while. “Black One take you,” he said, savagely. “Just this once, Onalli. Just this once.”
Onalli nodded. “Promise.” Afterward, they’d go north—into the United States or Xuya, into countries where freedom was more than a word on paper. They’d be safe.
She finished tying her hair in a neat bun—a habit she’d taken on her missions abroad—and slid her worship-thorns into her belt, smearing the blood over her skinsuit. A prayer, for whoever among the gods might be listening tonight; for Fate, the Black One, the god of the Smoking Mirror, who could always be swayed or turned away, if you had the heart and guts to seize your chance when it came.
Atcoatl waited for her at the door, holding it open with ill grace.
“Let’s go,” Onalli said.
She left the picture on the table—knowing, all the while, why she’d done so: not because it would burden her, but because of one simple thing. Fear. Fear that she’d find Xochitl and stare into her face, and see the broken mind behind the eyes—nothing like the shy, courageous girl she remembered.
Outside, the air was clear and cold, and a hundred stars shone upon the city of Tenochtitlan: a hundred demons, waiting in the darkness to descend and rend all life limb from limb. Onalli rubbed her worship-thorns, trying to remember the assurance she’d always felt on her missions—why couldn’t she remember anything, now that she was home—now that she was breaking into her own House?
The priest of the Black One sits cross-legged across the mat—facing Xochitl and pursing his lips as if contemplating a particular problem. His hair is greasy and tangled, mattered with the blood of his devotions; and the smell that emanates from him is the rank one of charnel houses—with the slight tang of bleach. He’s attempted to wash his hands before coming, and hasn’t succeeded.