[Aztec 04] - Tribute of Death

by Simon Levack

  ‘I can’t see anything else,’ he went on. ‘I daren’t go in, where it’s dark, because then she’ll be there like that – cold, stiff. Not how I knew her.’

  Then he lowered the arm and was staring at me, wide-eyed, seemingly oblivious to the tears now pouring down his cheeks. ‘Yaotl, I want her back, you know?’

  ‘I know.’

  He stretched his hand out towards me, but dropped it. ‘No, you don’t. I know she can’t come back, not really, not alive, but that’s how I want to see her, do you understand that? As she was, laughing, grinding maize, running around after the bloody kids…’ He suddenly seemed to feel the urge to move; to rise or turn around, I was not sure which, but whatever it was it made him lurch forward like a blind man, off balance, and I had to put my arms out to catch him before he toppled over.

  We ended up in a clumsy embrace, the big commoner weeping in my arms. At last, I thought, I knew what this had all been about, and I realised how difficult it would have been for me to leave, while there was anything that might still be done to find Star’s body. It had nothing to do with the fate of her soul, with whether or not it was destined to dwell in the Land of the Women and dance with the setting sun.

  It was Handy’s soul that was in jeopardy now. He needed something to put out of his mind the horrible memory of his wife’s burial and the terror that had followed it, because until he found it, he would remember nothing else of her; and the image of that pathetic corpse being dragged across the city, dismembered and abused, forever hanging in front of his vision like a lure, might be enough to drive his spirit from his body.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I whispered. ‘My friend, we’ll find her. We’ll see her buried as she should be.’

  His body was still shaking uncontrollably when the sun went down.

  I persuaded Handy to go indoors, to stretch out his sleeping mat by the hearth. Eventually, exhaustion overcame him and he slept. From the way he tossed and turned and muttered throughout the night his dreams were obviously troubled, but he settled at last, seemingly so deeply asleep that whatever was haunting him had lost him and given up.

  Snake and most of Handy’s other children were already slumbering. Only Spotted Eagle remained awake and alert. He glared at me suspiciously for a while and then got up and went out into the courtyard without speaking. The anger that had driven him to attack me by his mother’s empty grave had not gone away. The young man himself probably could not have told me what it was he blamed me for. For the moment it was enough that I was here and an outsider, and that my coming had coincided with the moment at which everything had started to go horribly wrong.

  Tired though I was, I found it impossible to lie still. I was too afraid and too agitated to sleep. Instead I paced back and forth in the room, until the fading light from the fire in the hearth became too faint for me to do so without the risk of treading on someone.

  I had a lot to think about.

  It occurred to me that Spotted Eagle had posted himself by the gateway in order to prevent me from sneaking away. A grown man might have realised that there was no need. Fear notwithstanding, I did not have such a heart of stone that I could not be affected by his father’s grief, and as I paced I found myself thinking about its causes, and the mysteries that surrounded them.

  Somebody, during the previous night, had stolen Star’s body. Presumably – because I could think of no other motive – he had done so in order to obtain charms that might be useful both to a sorcerer and a warrior. Flower Gatherer had vanished. Someone had died and been hidden in the nearby canal, but it was impossible to tell whether this was Flower Gatherer, Red Macaw – who was also missing – or indeed someone else altogether. Until it was known who the dead man in the canal had been, there was no way to tell why he had been killed.

  I needed to get to the bottom of the mystery because at its heart was a greater one. What was the being that had attacked us and followed me through the streets after Star’s burial? It had to have some connection with the theft; yet it had been seeking something more than the body of a dead mother. It had followed me through the streets and called me by my name.

  13

  I woke up with a start.

  I was not aware of having gone to sleep. The last thing I remembered doing was squatting beside the hearth, staring into the embers and pulling my cloak around me for warmth while I thought about the troubles that beset me: both my own and Handy’s.

  Beside me, the big commoner was still curled up peacefully on his sleeping mat. I could hear his snoring, and the regular breathing of Snake and the other children. I could see him as well, a vague, still form on the floor. In my confused state, having been roused from a deep sleep, I thought at first that it was daylight shining faintly into the room. As I became more fully awake I recognised the light’s silvery quality. It was still night-time and the moon was up.

  I was aware that a sound had woken me up. Since everyone around me was unconscious, it must have come from outside.

  I crept cautiously through the open doorway.

  There was enough light for me to see Spotted Eagle, who as I had guessed was wide awake and squatting by the entrance. The young man turned around sharply at my approach.

  ‘Relax,’ I said coolly. ‘I’m not about to run off. I’m afraid you’ve got a long way to go before you’re as frightening as that thing out there!’

  ‘Shut up and listen!’ he hissed. ‘Did you hear it?’ Coming closer, I saw the pale gleam of his eyes: they were wide with terror. He may have come out here with the intention of stopping me from going out but I judged that was the last thing on his mind now.

  ‘I heard something,’ I said. ‘I was asleep. I don’t know what woke me up.’

  The young man licked his lips nervously. ‘It sounded like a scream.’ He seemed for the moment at least to have forgotten his hostility towards me.

  I felt a pricking at the back of my neck. ‘What sort of scream?’ I asked stupidly.

  Instead of answering, he turned his head, looking in the direction of the doorway. ‘It came from out there – by the canal.’

  The waterway that ran past Handy’s house was the same as the one that bordered the marketplace. I peered at it around the courtyard wall, but could see nothing in the gloom. ‘How close?’ I asked.

  ‘Close enough!’

  Courtyard walls stood on both sides of the canal. They would trap and magnify any sound, making it hard to tell where it had come from. Baffled, I withdrew from the doorway. ‘Could be anything,’ I said. ‘An animal, maybe.’

  ‘What kind of animal?’ His voice shook. There were creatures of the night as terrifying as any demon: owls, racoons, weasels. To see or hear any of these after dark was said to be portent of death.

  ‘It may be something harmless, or not even an animal at all. Some fool blundering into a canal at night.’ I gave a hollow laugh; Spotted Eagle’s nervousness was starting to get to me. ‘You know, some young lord with a gourd of sacred wine, or a merchant going home from a feast, so full of mushrooms or peyote buttons he thinks he can fly…’

  The young man interrupted me, hissing fiercely: ‘What’s that, then? That’s no drunk!’

  I fell silent. After a moment I caught the sound he had heard, and it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I could not identify it, but it sounded like a voice, crooning softly, maybe singing or chanting, and there was something else like a shuffling of feet.

  ‘Now would be a good time to tell me which members of your family sing in their sleep,’ I murmured.

  ‘It’s coming from outside, Yaotl.’

  ‘What is?’ Fear made my throat contract so that I had to force the words out.

  Spotted Eagle lurched to his feet. ‘There’s only one way to find out.’

  I stared at him. ‘You must be crazy! You’ve no idea what’s out there!’

  Astonishingly, he grinned at me. ‘You have, though, haven’t you? Think it’s the otomi, come to get you?’ The hint of a taunt
in his voice stung me, but not enough to make me volunteer to go and see for myself.

  ‘Listen,’ I said. ‘If that’s who it is then believe me, you don’t want to get involved! And if it isn’t then it’s none of our business.’ I was trying to persuade the young man to stay where he was. I had no reason to feel concerned for his safety, but if anything happened to him, I did not want to be the one to have to tell his father about it.

  He walked towards the exit. ‘You forget,’ he said shortly, ‘I live here. This is my parish.’ Kite would have been proud of him. He stood by the canal, looking to left and right. Reluctantly, I followed him. I felt more vulnerable alone in the courtyard than I did joining him outside it.

  I lowered my voice. ‘Shouldn’t we wake your father?’

  ‘I don’t want to disturb him.’

  The water of the canal reflected the sky as a wide, pale streak in the darkness at our feet. Walls loomed around us, throwing deep shadows over the paths on either side of the narrow waterway and making it hard to see anything else.

  ‘We’d better go along the path for a bit and see what’s there,’ Spotted Eagle muttered. ‘I’ll go one way. You go the other.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea...’ I began, but he was already moving. I stayed where I was for a moment, irresolute, watching him vanish into the shadows. I was not sure whether to do as he had said or to follow him because it felt safer being in company.

  My mind was made up by a sudden noise from somewhere behind me.

  I started and whirled about. At first I could see nothing, only hear the sound that had caught my attention: that shuffling again, but louder now and closer, magnified to a rhythmic slapping. It was the sound bare feet would make, dancing on hard earth.

  Peering fearfully into the darkness, I noticed movement. About twenty paces away something jerked erratically, seeming to approach and recede, a little like a flickering torch flame but almost as dark as its background. I stared at it, baffled, until I noticed an object that moved in time with its movements and the slapping sound, a short, narrow thing that gleamed palely in the moonlight.

  The breath caught in my throat as I realised what I was looking at. The pale thing was part of a severed limb. There was someone just in front of me, dancing with a dead woman’s forearm.

  It looked as though I had found part of Star’s body, and the sorcerer who had stolen it.

  I stood, paralysed with terror, as the jerking feet brought the dancer now forward, now back, but always a little closer. I could hear breathing now, but no words. The stranger seemed oblivious to my presence, absorbed in the ritual.

  I might have stood like that until he was close enough to plunge a knife into me – not asleep, but as helpless as if I had been – if Spotted Eagle’s cry had not jerked me back to life.

  ‘Yaotl! Over here!’

  I started and whirled around, forgetting the person in front of me for an instant. A grunt, like the noise of someone disturbed in mid-snore, told me the dancer was surprised as well.

  Spotted Eagle was invisible in the shadows, but what I could see was enough to freeze the blood in my veins.

  It stood on the roof of a house, a shadow cast against the pale sky. It was impossibly tall for a man. Its shape was conical, slightly curved, like some great twisted root, but it had limbs like a man’s that were bent as if in a crouch. It was preparing to leap onto the path below.

  I dashed towards it, screaming: ‘Spotted Eagle! Look out!’ The thing vanished from my sight as it fell, landing with a loud, ungraceful clatter and a bellowing cry that may have been part pain and part rage. Distracted by my voice, it had mistimed its jump.

  Feet thumped the path behind me. I heard rapid, shallow breathing. A hand seized the material of my cloak.

  I remembered the dancer then. It was too late and my assailant was too close for thought. Still running, I turned, almost losing my footing, and struck instinctively with my fist. The blow connected with something soft, halting the shadowy figure in mid stride. With a snarl, it staggered back and thrust the pale shape towards me. It was only a finger’s breadth in front of my face. I could smell it: raw meat and a hint of rot.

  Furious now, I lashed out again, but my target was too far away. I heard a giggle, a peculiar, high-pitched noise. I wondered whether the sorcerer had taken sacred mushrooms as part of the magic that was supposed to lull a household to sleep.

  Unable to hit the dancer again, I screamed instead.

  It may have been my shout or it may simply have been bafflement and fear at the failure of the charm to render me unconscious; but for whatever reason, the giggling stopped. In its place came a shocked silence, and then a strange, babbling, gibbering sound as the stranger backed away, then turned and bounded off into the night.

  I took two steps in pursuit. Then I remembered the creature I had seen leaping off the roof, which was now presumably somewhere on the path behind me. I spun around again.

  ‘Spotted Eagle?’ I called nervously.

  After a long, dreadful interval the youth’s voice, shaky but clear, answered: ‘Here. I’m all right. It ran off.’

  I hesitated, fearing a trap, before walking cautiously towards him. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I think it hurt itself when it fell. It landed with a bit of a crash, anyway. It took a swipe at me with a sword, but I think one of its legs must have given way. Then all that screaming broke out over there and it staggered off.’ He added in a shamefaced tone: ‘I was too slow getting after it. I wasn’t expecting anything like that!’

  Judging by the catch in his voice, the shock had just begun to affect him. ‘Yaotl,’ he gasped, as I got close enough to see him and notice how pale and drawn his face looked in the poor light, ‘What was it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘Some kind of demon? My friend back there must have brought it with him.’ I told him what had happened to me.

  ‘You saw my mother’s arm?’ he cried in a strangled voice.

  ‘I think so. I was like you, though – too shocked to do anything about it.’ There was a pause. I tensed, waiting for an explosion of wrath from the youth, a tirade about my failure to recover the arm, more bitter reproaches for drawing this horror down upon his family.

  Instead he said: ‘That thing would have got me if you hadn’t yelled.’ After a further hesitation he added gruffly: ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ I replied, embarrassed. Looking for a change of topic I went on: ‘You saw something first, though, didn’t you? What was it?’

  His answer should not have surprised me. I should have anticipated it, considering why we had come out here, but it still came as a shock.

  ‘A body.’

  THREE FLOWER

  1

  Spotted Eagle said that one of us ought to go at once to the parish hall, to alert Kite and his men. He changed his mind when I asked him where he thought our assailants had got to.

  ‘They may have run off,’ I said. ‘Then again, they may be lurking around the next corner. Do you want to risk running into them again?’

  ‘Not particularly,’ he admitted.

  ‘Wait until daylight. We’ll be able to get a good look at this body then, as well.’

  ‘Who do you think this is?’

  There would be no answer to that question until the morning. If the body had been left in the same condition as the one Kite had shown me earlier, there was every chance we would not know even then. ‘I couldn’t begin to guess,’ I said unhappily.

  ‘Flower Gatherer and Red Macaw are still missing,’ the youth mused.

  ‘True. If it was either of them then we may know later on. Or not. For all we know this was just some poor sod who got in the way. Maybe we can find out when there’s light enough to see. Kite won’t like this, will he? Another unidentified body on his patch!’

  I knew parish policemen. They were old soldiers who had settled down to a quiet life of arresting drunks, making sure no-one was cheated too outrageously
in the local marketplace and rounding up labourers when the call went out for men to work on some big public project. They were not used to murder. ‘We’ll just have to wait.’ I looked sideways at the young man and gave him a cautious grin. ‘Do you still think I’m about to run away?’

  He looked startled, and then laughed nervously. ‘No chance! You’re no more keen on braving whatever’s roaming around out there than I am!’

  Until dawn we kept a largely silent vigil over the inert form on the path. I reflected that one mystery had been solved, as it looked as if a sorcerer had been involved in robbing Star’s grave. That told me nothing about who he was; nor whose body had been found in the canal by the marketplace, nor who the unfortunate creature that now lay in front of us might be. Above all we had no clue to who or what kind of being this sorcerer’s accomplice might be. All I knew about that was that I had seen it before, following me through the streets after Star’s burial. So, it seemed, had the midwives and the fishermen, and we all agreed on one thing: its form was not human.

  Dawn brought Handy out of his house, blinking and yawning in the early morning sunlight of what promised to be a bright, clear day. He stopped and stared when he saw his son and me examining the body.

  ‘Father.’ The young man leapt to his feet and went to him. ‘Are you all right?’

  Handy grimaced and rubbed his eyes. ‘Better for a night’s sleep… what happened out here, though?’

  Before Spotted Eagle could say a word, I said to him: ‘You can run and fetch your policeman, now. You’d better warn him this isn’t pretty to look at!’

  The dead man lay on his back. He had been wearing a cloak, but it was bunched beneath him, exposing his skin except where it was covered by a breechcloth. In the daylight it did nothing to conceal the full horror of his injuries.

  His flesh seemed to have burst open, leaving long, deep gashes whose edges were pink but whose middles were dark with welling blood. Jagged bone and slick organs peeped out of some of them. An arm hung loose, ripped from its socket, and part of it was misshapen, crushed, the flesh torn as if by the claws of some savage beast. The face was almost whole, but blood had poured from every orifice in it: mouth, nostrils, ears, even the corners of his eyes.