In my mind's eye I saw Her, coiled within the house, feeding the buildings with Her light. Gradually, She coalesced at the heart of the courtyard: a monstrous human shape with translucent skin the colour of ripe corn, with hollow eyes that swallowed the light and gave nothing back.
“Priest,” She said, and Her voice, echoing around the walls, was amused. “You are clever.”
“Not clever enough. I should have guessed that a curse that did not come from the underworld had to come from the heavens.”
“Humans could have done this,” Xilonen said, still amused. “But they did not.”
“Why do you punish them? They did not cheat you of your sacrifice.”
Xilonen smiled, an utterly inhuman expression. “Let the sins of the beloved father fall on the beloved son, and onto his beloved war-son, and the sins of the husband be taken up by the wife. I was cheated of My revenge.”
So Tlalli had died a natural death after all. “And is there nothing they could offer, that would make you forget?”
Xilonen shook Her head. “They are Mine. They amuse me: Mazahuatl, that pathetic excuse for a warrior, refusing to acknowledge his bad luck on the battlefield. That arrogant, misguided mother who thinks they can fall no lower. Who thinks I have punished them enough, that I would not dare touch her son's prisoner. My son has enemies,” She said, mimicking Huchimitl's voice with a chilling, contemptuous precision. “They have no enemies but Me. And you think to bargain for either of them, priest? You serve no one.”
“I serve Mictlantecuhtli, God of the Dead,” I said, drawing myself to my full height.
The goddess recoiled at the mention of Mictlantecuhtli, He in Whose country nothing grows. I pressed my slim advantage.
“There are rules, and rituals.”
“They offered Me a tainted sacrifice.” Xilonen was growling like a jaguar about to pounce. “They cheated Me of my proper offerings. And you dare bargain for them?”
“There is such a thing as forgiveness. Such a thing as ignorance.”
“Ignorance is not innocence. I will not be cheated, priest, whether knowingly or unknowingly.” Her head, arched back, touched the sky; Her feet were rooted in the earth of the courtyard. She was utterly beyond me: wild, savage, cruel. She could have crushed me with a thought, had I not belonged to a god She had no mastery over.
It had been a long time since my days in calmecac, a long time since I had learnt the hymns for every one of our gods and goddesses. I searched through my faltering memories, and finally said,
“I will offer You sheathes of corn taken from the Divine Fields
Lady of the Emerald
Ears of maize, freshly cut, green and tender
I will anoint You with new plumes, new chalks
The hearts of two deer
The blood of eagles – “
Xilonen was crouching at the heart of the courtyard, watching me, but Her face had taken on an almost dreamy expression.
I went on,
“Let me fill Your hands with snake fangs
With white flowers still in the bud
Turquoise mined from the depths
Goddess of the Barrel Cactus
Our Mother
Our Protector.”
She was smiling at me now, the contented smile of a child. I was not fooled. There is a reason for all those rituals, for all those hymns. They know what things are pleasing to the gods, what things will appease Them. But it had been a great wrong Tlalli and Yoltzin had dealt Xilonen; and still She had quickened the seeds; still She had made the corn grow. She felt entitled to some compensation.
“Will You bargain with me, Lady?” I asked, kneeling before her in the dirt.
Her smile widened – though I could barely see Her, I could feel Her amusement quivering in the air. “You are tenacious, priest – and not unattractive.”
To Chicomecoatl, who was also Xilonen, we gave the hearts of beautiful girls and boys, that they might forever serve Her in heaven. “Is that the price?” I asked.
She smiled. “It is tempting, priest. But not enough.”
“What else would you want?” I asked. “I have nothing else to give but myself.”
“I know that,” She said, reaching out with Her gigantic hand. It shrank as it came near me, until it was only twice the size of mine. She cupped my chin in Her palm, and raised my face to look into Hers. Her touch was warm, slightly moist, like the earth after the rains. Her eyes held the depths of the night.
I held on to my memories of Huchimitl, to what she had meant, and still meant, to me. For too long, I had preserved myself; for too long, I had denied my feelings for her. Now was the time for a true sacrifice. “Is that the price?” I asked again, through lips that seemed to have turned to stone.
Xilonen's smile was that of a jaguar given human flesh. “Such a beauty,” She whispered. I saw myself in Her eyes, as I had been in my youth, tall and beautiful and arrogant, and then as I was now, older and greyer, kneeling before Her in abject obedience. “Yes,” She said. “It is most satisfactory.”
My skin started itching, as if sloughing away, and then the tingling sensation became stronger and stronger, and I realised what I felt were hands, stroking my back, my chest, the nape of my neck; lips, slowly caressing my fingertips and earlobes until my whole body ached with a desperate need. It was not an unpleasant feeling; although some part of me, clamouring at the back of my mind, knew that it was not natural, that I had just sold myself away.
“Acatl? No!”
The sound pierced my torpor, and I realised it was a voice I knew, calling my name. Xilonen released me; I became aware of the dampness of the ground, crawling up my legs; of the light of the stars above.
Of Huchimitl, who stood before the main doors, her mask glimmering in the cold light. It was an effort to raise my head and look at her.
“He is not Yours,” she said, anger in her voice.
Xilonen laughed. “He offered himself. Freely, to undo the great wrong your husband did to me.”
“He is not Yours,” Huchimitl repeated.
“Whose would he be?” Xilonen asked, mocking. “Yours? You could not hold him.”
“No.” Huchimitl's voice was toneless. Calmly, she walked forward, until she stood before Xilonen. “If a life has to be sacrificed, let it be mine.”
“Yours?” Xilonen laughed. “You denied yourself to Me all those years. You hid yourself from My face, cowering in your house, for fear that others would catch a glimpse of you and be forever marked. And you think you are a worthy sacrifice?”
I could not speak. I could not drag myself upwards, to shut Huchimitl's mouth before she said the irreparable. I could just remain where I was. Watching. Listening. Unable to affect anything.
Huchimitl's voice, when she spoke next, was very quiet. “You made me a worthy sacrifice,” she said. “You removed me from the human world.” And slowly, deliberately, reached upwards with both hands, and took away her mask.