Serpent and Storm

by Marella Sands

  “Heart’s blood,” said another man. “Look!”

  The pressure on Sky Knife’s back disappeared.

  “What’s going on here?” asked Dark Lightning. “What are you doing?”

  Sky Knife struggled to push himself up. “I have no idea,” he said. “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t get too close to him,” said Leather Apron. “I told you, we should have killed him before. We have no idea how much power he has.”

  “He’s just an iguana priest,” said Dark Lightning. “His lizard god’s power can’t compare to the Masked One.”

  Sky Knife eased into a sitting position. He wiped blood away from his face and looked around.

  The cavern consisted of four rooms clustered around a lower central point. Sky Knife shivered. This was the Center of All—the sacred quincunx. Now he understood the true reason for the shape of the Teotihuacan ballcourt.

  At the bottom of the depression in the middle of the cavern sat Black Coyote. He had been gagged but was unbound. Tears streaked his face and his hair stuck out in all directions.

  “You have to release the boy now before things get worse, Dark Lightning,” said Sky Knife.

  “No,” said the ballplayer. He was dressed in the long purple skirt and feather-and-bead chestplate he had worn at the king’s last meal. “I will be king.”

  “Grasping Fire will be king if you kill the boy,” said Sky Knife. “Are you planning his death, too?”

  “Grasping Fire can never be king,” said Dark Lightning. “He is a murderer and therefore unsuitable. Even the Storm God wouldn’t choose him.”

  “What?” asked Sky Knife.

  “Yes,” said Dark Lightning. “I assume he never told you that.”

  Sky Knife paused. A murderer? “Whom did he kill? When?”

  Dark Lightning laughed. “You may have power, Maya priest, but not the power to make me answer your questions.”

  “Kill him,” urged Leather Apron. “If you won’t, I will.”

  “We don’t dare,” said Dark Lightning. “His god will have his vengeance on us.”

  Leather Apron didn’t answer that. Sky Knife glanced from one man to the other. Leather Apron and Dark Lightning stood a few feet away. Behind them stood several men in ballplayer uniforms. Dark Lightning put a foot forward as if to step up to Sky Knife, but hesitated, then took a step backward instead. The ballplayers behind him averted their eyes.

  Sky Knife glanced down at himself and saw nothing wrong. His clothing and jewelry were all in place. Only the blood on his hand stood out.

  Sky Knife looked again, uneasy. Nothing was wrong—that was just it. No dust from the floor clung to him. Despite the pain of wounds underneath his tunic and skirt, his clothing was whole. Even the feathers of the headdress were bright and unbroken. They gleamed brightly green and blue in the lamplight.

  He still tasted blood, though. The split in his lip remained. It seemed that the Center might refuse to tear his clothing but was eager for his blood.

  Sky Knife’s hand went to the bag at his waist. It was empty. He remembered now—he had dropped the knife in the tunnel outside during the struggle with the Guardian.

  “Explain this,” demanded Dark Lightning.

  “I can’t,” said Sky Knife. “I don’t know what’s happening here.”

  “You must know,” said Dark Lightning. “When we dragged you in here, you were covered with dirt and blood. Half the feathers in your headdress were missing. Now you look as though you’re ready for a ceremony.”

  “I can’t explain it,” said Sky Knife. He climbed to his feet. Spots dotted his vision momentarily and he almost stumbled, but he took a deep breath and kept on his feet.

  Sky Knife walked toward the depression in the center of the room. Several feet away from the boy, something stopped him. Sky Knife put out his hands. An invisible barrier separated him from Black Coyote.

  “What have you done with the king?” asked Sky Knife.

  “Nothing,” said Dark Lightning.

  “Kill him—now!” urged Leather Apron again.

  “Very well,” said Dark Lightning. “It seems we’ll get nothing from him this way.”

  Sky Knife spun around to face his opponents. Leather Apron grabbed a spear and thrust it toward him. Sky Knife leaped aside. He stumbled on the uneven surface and fell. Sky Knife rolled over and came up on his feet.

  Leather Apron stabbed again at Sky Knife. The priest grabbed the shaft of the spear just behind the point and pushed his weight toward the other man.

  Leather Apron lost his balance and fell over backwards, letting go of the spear. Sky Knife rammed the butt of the spear into Leather Apron’s gut.

  Leather Apron made an ooph sound and his face reddened. Sky Knife stepped back and turned the spear around to face the other ballplayers and Dark Lightning.

  “Free the king,” said Sky Knife. “Or you’ll find out just how much power I have.”

  Dark Lightning regarded him evenly while Leather Apron climbed painfully to his feet. “No, I don’t think so,” he said. “The spell we got was very specific. It will keep the king here at this location until I dispel it. Only I can do that, so if you want the king alive, you’ll think twice before sticking me with that spear.”

  Sky Knife glanced around the cavern. “Where are the others?” he asked. “Deer and Whiskers-of-Rat.”

  “Dead,” said Dark Lightning. “We left them in the passage. The twin is of no use to us since the boy will never be king, and the other—obviously unimportant.”

  “I don’t believe you,” said Sky Knife. “You don’t seem willing to kill anyone, or the boy would be dead. I would be dead.”

  “Do not mistake patience for weakness,” said Dark Lightning.

  “There is no reason to kill the boy—yet,” said Leather Apron. “Alive, he can be used to bargain with. Your friends had no such value.”

  Grief clutched at Sky Knife’s heart. “No!” he shouted. He ran toward Leather Apron. The ballplayer tried to step out of the way but stood frozen in place, only his eyes betraying his fear.

  To Sky Knife, it felt as though the spear leaped from his hands to bury itself in Leather Apron’s neck. Blood spouted out of the wound to cover Dark Lightning, the other two ballplayers, the walls, the floor, the ceiling. Sky Knife remained clean, untouched by the blood.

  Sky Knife stepped back, aghast. He had taken life during the p’a chi, the sacrifice, but he had never attacked anyone in anger. He backed up until he bumped into the wall.

  Dark Lightning blanched. “Masked One,” he whispered.

  Sky Knife caught the direction of Dark Lightning’s gaze and he saw it—Leather Apron’s blood was flowing up the walls to gather in puddles on the ceiling of the cavern.

  Soon no blood remained on the floor or on Leather Apron. All of it hastened to join the growing puddles on the ceiling. The puddles quivered and sent out small feelers, mingling with other puddles, then drawing apart.

  Sky Knife watched the blood dance in horror. Any moment now, it would behave like blood, splatter to the floor and be thick and red covering everything and everyone. Sky Knife had been to dozens of sacrifices and blood always did that. Always.

  Apparently, Leather Apron’s blood did not care to do what it should. The puddles mingled into one giant pool that swirled as though stirred by an invisible stick.

  One of Dark Lightning’s men screamed and ran for the entrance to the tunnel. At the entrance, he screamed again and fell forward onto his face. He didn’t move.

  Dark Lightning’s other man sidled around the wall of the cavern toward the exit.

  “Don’t be a fool,” said Dark Lightning. “Stay still!”

  The man didn’t listen. The pool on the ceiling pulsed and quivered and moved closer to him. The man yelped and jumped away from it, but the blood pool let go its unnatural hold on the ceiling and engulfed him.

  The man didn’t even have time to scream. One moment he was looking up at the ceiling in terror and the
next he was covered head to toe in bright red blood.

  The man stood still a moment. Then, slowly, his mouth opened. Inside, all was blood.

  “The Center has been violated,” said the deep voice of the Guardian. “No man may know the full truth of the Center of All.”

  “I agree the Center has been violated,” said Sky Knife. “But the Masked One did invite me here to retrieve the boy. I intend to do just that.”

  Blood flowed freely over the surface of the ballplayer’s body. It was constantly in motion. Sky Knife found it difficult to focus—it seemed to be alternately getting closer to him and becoming farther away.

  “I don’t know who you are,” said Dark Lightning. “But I’m sure the Masked One does not want you here in her womb. Get out!”

  The blood-covered man turned toward Dark Lightning. “You can die next for the crime of trespass,” said the Guardian.

  Suddenly, a horrible screeching assaulted Sky Knife. He screamed and clamped his hands over his ears. Across the room, Dark Lightning did the same.

  But the effect on the Guardian was even more dramatic. The ballplayer’s soaked body spun around and around madly, splattering blood on the walls, the floor, the ceiling.

  The shrieking grew louder and louder. It pounded against Sky Knife’s ears and sliced right through his thoughts.

  Then it was gone. Sky Knife lowered his hands slowly. The spinning man stopped abruptly, standing, but limp, as if a giant hand held him on his feet. The ballplayer was free of the all-engulfing blood.

  He was also missing a few other things. Like his skin.

  20

  Sky Knife looked away. He had never seen anyone without their skin before—flaying was not a Mayan custom. The red man-shaped thing in front of him was grotesque.

  “Masked One,” said Dark Lightning. “Protect me.”

  Sky Knife glanced back. The bluish intestines of the possessed body quivered and then fell forward out of their cavity. The wet splat they made when they hit the floor sickened Sky Knife. His stomach churned and a bitter taste sat on the back of his tongue.

  Sky Knife squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on keeping control. But the foul odor of feces and decay emanating from the creature overwhelmed him and he sagged to his knees, gagging.

  When he finished, he looked up. The red man stood over him, lidless eyes fixed on his neck.

  “You must die,” said the Guardian. It reached out a hand.

  Sky Knife leaned back against the wall, frozen in fear, unable to look away from the hand that came for his neck.

  The Guardian wrapped its slick skinless hand around Sky Knife’s throat and began to squeeze. Sky Knife reached for the Guardian’s wrist and tried to pull it away, but the thing’s grip was strong. Sky Knife opened his mouth, not yet desperate for air, but it was only a matter of moments. Sky Knife’s pulse pounded in his ears.

  Abruptly, the Guardian let go and jumped back.

  “No,” it said. “This cannot be.”

  Sky Knife gulped in air. His hands went to his throat. The Guardian watched him but made no move toward him.

  Sky Knife edged along the wall toward the tunnel entrance, away from the Guardian. Dark Lightning slowly edged his way along the wall on the opposite side. Black Coyote cowered in his prison, head lowered. His shoulders shook.

  The Guardian turned to Dark Lightning. “If I cannot have the priest, I will at least have you.”

  “No,” said Dark Lightning. He ran for the tunnel entrance, but the Guardian jumped in front of him. It trailed yards of intestines behind it.

  One of the four rooms that surrounded the central area remained between Sky Knife and the tunnel entrance. He glanced in the room and stopped, surprised.

  On a raised dais sat three men dressed in finery and more jewelry than Sky Knife had ever seen in one place before.

  “Help us,” he said. “The Guardian will kill us all.”

  The three men did not respond. Sky Knife approached them warily. They were absolutely still and did not appear to be breathing.

  As Sky Knife got close, he realized the men’s eyes were actually ground crystal. The skin of their hands had pulled away from their fingernails, making the nails look long and clawlike.

  They were dead, but their bodies were preserved so well that, even now, knowing their spirits had departed, Sky Knife half expected the men to breathe, to stretch, to talk. To live.

  Sky Knife took a last look at the strangely preserved men. It was evident they were no threat, but no help, either. He needed to get back to the king.

  Something strange caught his eye. All the jewelry the men wore—all of it—was hematite, ground and polished just like the necklace he wore.

  What was it Jaguar’s Daughter had said—hematite was a mirror for the truth? Sky Knife’s hand went to the hematite necklace around his own neck. Perhaps here, in the Center, in the Trueness of Reality, it was more than just a mirror. It was substance.

  Sky Knife turned his back on the dead men and hoped his hunch was right. The Guardian could not strangle him while he wore the necklace.

  That didn’t necessarily mean the Guardian couldn’t kill him a dozen other ways. Sky Knife tried not to think about that.

  The Guardian kept Dark Lightning at bay, playing with him—first feinting one way, then another. The ballplayer’s hair had come out of its arrangement and stuck out in all directions.

  “Help me,” shouted Dark Lightning. “Sky Knife—help me.”

  “Why should I?”

  “If you don’t, the king dies. Remember, I’m the only one who can release the spell that holds him.”

  “I don’t know that,” said Sky Knife. “It could be easy to dispel.” Sky Knife hesitated, but Dark Lightning was right. He couldn’t allow the ballplayer to die as long as there was a chance Dark Lightning was the only one who could release the king.

  The Guardian leaped toward Dark Lightning. The ballplayer screamed and ran toward Sky Knife.

  “Behind me!” shouted Sky Knife. “Get some of the jewelry—the hematite. Put it on.”

  Dark Lightning brushed by Sky Knife, nearly knocking him down. Sky Knife reeled but kept his feet.

  The Guardian, deprived of its prey, turned toward Sky Knife. “You think you’re clever,” it said. “But I’m cleverer still. You can’t leave here as long as I maintain my hold on this body. And you can’t wait forever. Soon you’ll be begging me to end your puny lives for you. Your tongues will have swollen up in your heads, but I’ll understand you just the same. You will remove your jewelry and offer yourselves up to me.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Sky Knife. He eased toward the tunnel entrance again.

  “You cannot leave that way,” said the Guardian.

  “Perhaps not,” said Sky Knife. “But I’m not leaving the king here with you.” That didn’t mean Sky Knife didn’t want a good look at his only escape route—it would be useless to release the king and run if the tunnel had been blocked by his struggle with the Guardian earlier.

  Sky Knife reached the tunnel entrance and the body of the ballplayer. The dead man lay across the entrance, limbs akimbo, eyes wide open and tongue hanging from his mouth. A strange red burn covered him in a zig-zag pattern from head to waist.

  “The gods of the Underworld could use a few good ballplayers,” said the Guardian. “Perhaps he can satisfy their peculiar tastes.”

  Sky Knife could see nothing in the darkness that lay beyond the narrow neck of the tunnel. Cautiously, he felt the cool rocks of the cavern’s wall and moved his hand toward the neck of the tunnel.

  A stinging pain shot up his arm. Gasping, Sky Knife jerked his hand away.

  Sky Knife fell against the wall of the cavern, grasping his throbbing hand with his uninjured hand.

  The Guardian laughed. “You see, there is no escape. I am the Center and greater than your tiny lizard god. I remember his first wailing cries at his birth. I knew him as a young shoot, when he roamed the lands and swam in the seas, in
the days before man was fashioned. Before your kind were even a dream, before your gods were given birth by creation, I was here.”

  The skinless man stood over Sky Knife, holding his own intestines in his hand. “You are nothing, priest, but a speck of creation. These forms you wear are nothing but a kernel. A husk you wear for a time and discard. You will discard yours now.”

  “Life is a mask, an illusion, over the reality of death,” said Sky Knife. “And it may be that death is but an illusion of something else. A husk I may be. But I am a priest of Itzamna while I wear this body, and I will not leave here without the king.”

  Sky Knife leaped at the Guardian and knocked the thing down. The Guardian screamed in anger. It hit the floor with a wet squishy sound much like that of a melon hitting pavement. Sky Knife rolled away and came up on his feet. The Guardian regarded him from the floor.

  “It is long past time you died,” said the Guardian. “I will use your soul to amuse me in the the eons ahead.”

  The Guardian threw its intestines toward Sky Knife. Sky Knife, surprised, darted away, but the coiled intestines encircled his ankles and tripped him. Sky Knife reached down to pull the warm sticky organ away from him, but a strong hand pushed his shoulder to the floor.

  The other hand shoved intestines into Sky Knife’s mouth. The vile taste clogged Sky Knife’s nose and throat and choked him. He shook his head from side to side, but the Guardian’s grip never loosened.

  “So I can’t strangle you, boy,” hissed the Guardian. “There are worse ways to die.”

  Sky Knife tried to bite down on the soft tissue, but the Guardian only crammed more of the putrid flesh into his mouth. Sky Knife felt dizzy and exhausted. Even struggling began to seem like too much effort.

  Suddenly, the screeching noise sounded again in the cavern. The Guardian leaped away. Sky Knife spat out the intestines and lay on the floor, gasping, too tired even to cover his ears against the awful sound.

  The noise continued unabated. Sky Knife pushed himself to his knees and looked around. The Guardian danced insanely in one of the four caverns. Its limbs flew about as if it had no control and its intestines wrapped around its own arms and legs.