by Sean Wallace
“Xochipil,” she said. “Worker 18861 of Mictlan’s Well.”
He was silent for a while, looking at her as if something bothered him. Please, please …
“Daughter of Huexocanauhtli and Camahuac,” the hierarch said, finally.
“Yes.”
“Do you know why I’m here, Xochipil?” His eyes were a wide, shining green: a many-layered patina over the perfect, pristine metal of his skin – wide, compassionate, it would be so easy to tell him, to throw herself on his mercy before he discovered the truth …
“No,” she whispered. “No.”
The hierarch’s gaze held her, weighed her. “Is that really the truth, Xochipil?” He put a peculiar stress on her name – lingering on it, like a lover, like a mother, caring for her, for the communion she had with the machine and everything it meant to her.
No. It wasn’t the truth. Of course it wasn’t. She had only to confess—
Machine break him, she wasn’t going to give in so easily. “Yes,” she said, and words came pouring out of her mouth almost faster than she could think them. “Every word the truth, by my will to serve, by my bond to the god-machine, in this age and the next and the next.”
The hierarch’s hand reached out, brushed her hair. His touch left a tingling, a slighter beat to counter the excruciating one of the rails. “I see,” he said. “Thank you, Xochipil.”
And then he was gone, and it was as if someone had cut tight bands of copper from Xochipil’s chest. She stood, breathing in the beat of the rails, the throbbing within her, knowing she’d won, for now.
It was only after the inspection was over that it occurred to her that everything had gone far too smoothly. The taint of blood-magic wouldn’t have been so easily removed; and the hierarch should have seen it.
Unless …
It took her half an hour to find it. By then, the beat of the rails was so strong it watered her eyes, and she could barely focus on what she was doing – could barely keep her thoughts straight enough to act.
But it was there, all right: a small, barely visible glyph inked in blood, and its twin on the other side of the threshold, forming the word for “protection”. They throbbed, too, beneath her fingers – not like the rails, but like a living heart.
Tezoca, it seemed, had left her a farewell gift.
Xochipil went down, knowing that whatever had happened would be at the bottom of the Well, where the power was stronger – where whatever Tezoca had been looking for doubtless resided.
Work had resumed, and the crews had little patience for a crippled girl. Even Malli threw Xochipil a warning look as she descended the footpath. Xochipil retreated instead: going down again, on the paths that coiled around the shaft of the Well. All the while, the intensity of the beat increased, and there came a growing sense of anger, of outrage from the rails.
Down, down, past the sunspheres and the stark whiteness of steel and chrome – fewer workers now, and the fevered beat was so strong she could barely walk, could barely hold on to the thought that she had to put one foot before the other, that she had to …
She realized that for the past moments she’d been standing absolutely still – and started walking again.
The rails were above and below her. They had narrowed, becoming close enough to reach, with the steam-cars steadily going up and down, and Xochipil was standing alone between them, staring at the white steel of the walls. The beat was too strong – in her bones and in her heart, growing until it was all she could do not to fall to her knees.
She couldn’t go further down – not to the platform where the hierarch had stood, not to the very bottom and whatever had gone wrong.
Turn back, she had to – it was folly to come here, folly to seek Tezoca. Everything was fiery pain, a pain she couldn’t bear, not for this long …
Machine break her, she wasn’t made of such pliable stuff.
She reached out and touched the rails.
Pain unfolded a thousandfold within her: the beat coursed up her arm, squeezed around her heart, spread in her chest like a starburst of knives – and her hand was welded to the rails, she couldn’t take it away—
She was falling, down, down, into a chasm that had no end, the earth opening itself to receive her, and the beat pounding in every fibre of her body was the beat of a huge, glistening heart, buried under the soil of the desert – a heart that was the only thing of flesh amidst the entombed human bones.
Over and over it beat within her, booming, overflowing in her ears, the liquid sound of blood in an organ so vast she could barely apprehend it – over and over …
At last, at long last, it ended, and she fell to her knees, gasping, with the beat still coursing in her – muted now, the pain almost bearable, almost, like rubbed salt instead of knives …
But the beat was a voice now, and it whispered, over and over, brother, brother …
A god. There was a god down there, buried beneath Mictlan’s Well. The power Tezoca had been seeking, the power the god-machine was finally ferrying back to itself – a god’s heart, a god’s magic, setting the earth atremble, energizing the rails.
That was … impossible.
Why would it be? Was it such a great leap of imagination, once you accepted that gods were as hard to kill as the machine?
Brother, whispered the rails – and they were angry, so angry because he was dead, or going to die – it wasn’t clear, just a jumble of impressions, a hodgepodge of words she couldn’t untangle. And, in the distance, steadily rising, was the voice of the machine, seeking to subsume the god in its midst – a persistent ache, a darkness slowly rising to smother everything.
Dare she—?
There was no other choice.
Xochipil reached out and touched the rails again.
The pain was the same, arcing straight to her heart, the beat that was so much stronger than her. Through gritted teeth she fought to get the words out, to ask her question …
Where is he?
Where is Tezoca?
Brother, whispered the rails.
Where … is … he?
The machine’s voice was rising, blindly questing for whoever had the audacity to touch the rails, to meddle in the link it was establishing between Mictlan’s Well and itself …
She had to let go; but if she did so, she wouldn’t know what had happened. Still she kept her hands on the rails, asking them over and over about Tezoca.
“You won’t find him there,” a voice said, far behind her.
Startled, Xochipil withdrew her hands from the rails – and the pressure in her body and in her mind diminished, faded to a dull, throbbing ache.
Behind her, on the floor of steel and chrome, stood a woman. Her hair was the black of congealed blood, her skin the colour of dulled copper and her face was achingly familiar.
“What do you mean?” Xochipil asked.
“You shouldn’t be here,” the woman said, shaking her head.
Xochipil suddenly realized that this was the woman Tezoca had used to cast his blood-magic, and who now stood beside the rails as if they were a minor discomfort. “What would you know?” she asked.
The woman smiled, and raised her hands. Thin red lines ran along the tips of her fingers; and there were scabs on her arms, too.
Blood-magic. Blood-offerings. But the age of gods was past, the Change had come upon them – there was no longer need …
“He forced this on you,” Xochipil whispered – move, move, they had to move, for the hierarch would soon come, attracted by her touch on the rails … “He bewitched you, tricked you into making your offerings …”
The woman smiled again. “I make my own choices. And so should you.” Then, without preamble, “They cast his broken body into the desert, to be devoured by carrion birds and scavengers.”
“Tezoca?” Xochipil asked, though she knew the answer. “Then he failed.”
The woman said nothing, but the dullness in her eyes was answer enough. “The god-machine is strong,”
she whispered, raising her bloodied hands as if to ward off a blow. “Very strong.”
There was movement, at the edge of Xochipil’s field of vision – workers, and a flash of white robes from downwards – and the voice of the hierarch echoing all around them: “Attend. There has been a violation of the Commonwealth—”
The compulsion was overwhelming; as before, there was nothing Xochipil could do to resist, she could do nothing but to abase herself and beg the forgiveness of the machine for interfering …
Hands, holding her – tracing something on the nape of her neck, warm and pulsing – a push in her back, sending her sprawling, out of the path of the advancing hierarch. “Run!”
And Xochipil was up, before she could think, slipping away from them – up, up, with barely any memory of being lame – away from the pressure of the rails and the voice of the hierarch, the instinct for survival stronger than anything.
It was only when she reached the twentieth floor that she stopped, the pain and weariness she’d kept at bay slamming into her, seeing, again and again, the face of the woman, transfigured as she stood awaiting the hierarch; feeling, again and again, the touch of the blood-magic on her, sharpening her mind around the single thought of saving herself.
“Why?” she whispered, but the woman, after all, had already answered her.
I make my own choices. And so should you.
Outside, the sun shone bright and unbearable, its warm light bleaching the desert sands, shimmering over the throbbing rails. Xochipil walked, her lame leg trailing behind her, the blistering heat shrivelling her skin, her lips, her eyes.
She’d had no choice but to leave the Well, for the alarm would be raised by now; and this time the hierarch would know her, take her as his own, break her into her smallest parts and remould her into the service of the machine …
Rocks tumbled under her feet. It was only after a while that she realized she was looking at the sky: for the sound of beating wings, the gathering of vultures overhead.
They cast his broken body into the desert, to be devoured by carrion birds and scavengers.
Tezoca …
She followed the rails, feeling the distant rumble in her body, weak and watered down – the beat of the god, the beat of the machine, all one and the same for this age of the world, and the next, and the next.
After a while, there was nothing but the merciless sun, nothing but the light swathing the rocks and the boulders, and the bronze of the rails. The flask of water by her side was heavy, but she mustn’t drink, mustn’t empty it so soon …
Let the sun remain silent, the machine whispered, its voice coursing along the rails, mingling with the voice of the buried god, rising to silence it forever. Let the altars be made of pristine steel, let the blood and the breath remain in our bodies …
Let the sun remain silent …
After a few hours – an afternoon – an eternity – she saw in the sky the first vultures, circling over her.
“Not dead,” she whispered, stumbling on. “Not dead.”
But really, what was the point?
“Not … dead …”
When the vultures became a crowd, she walked on, towards the shrieking column of birds, away from the familiar beat of the rails – away from the god-machine and the hierarch and the heart buried in the soil, towards a mound at the base of a hill, a tangle of blood and broken limbs, wrapped in a torn cloak.
She threw rocks at the birds, and screamed until her voice was hoarse. They hopped away, watching her warily – waiting for her, too, to tumble and fall, to become carrion.
Then, in silence, she knelt by Tezoca’s side.
The skin of his face was torn and bloodied, the limbs slack under her touch. Broken bones shifted within the mass of glistening flesh.
She reached out to take the voice of the heart – and stopped herself inches from the bloody mass of the wrist. That would have been pointless. He was dead, clearly dead, his promises and goals meaningless.
Machine break you, she’d wished on Tezoca; and the machine had, indeed, broken him so thoroughly that nothing was left.
A hiss startled her. One of the birds, coming back? But no, it came from the body – a last exhalation of breath from shattered lungs, a last oozing from some mangled organ.
Tezoca’s eyes were open, and staring straight at her.
The shock of that sight travelled up her arm, devolved into the frantic beat of her heart.
“You’re dead,” she whispered, and remembered what he had told her, back in the Well.
Some things are hard to kill.
Again, the same hiss: words, whispered through crushed lips. Asking for her help?
“I wasn’t able to help myself,” she said bitterly. She hadn’t even been able to help the woman. Nevertheless, she tipped the last of the water within her flask – a few sips, nothing more – past his wasted lips.
His throat contracted, swallowing the water; then he convulsed, and the water came rushing back out in a spurt that splattered on the rocks.
The hiss again, and his eyes, boring into hers – not angry, not amused, but pleading.
She knew, of course, the only thing which would sustain him. The mere thought was revolting.
But here they were, both of them, both broken and dying in the desert; and he had given her his protection, in the cruel, desultory way of the old gods – but it was still more than the god-machine had ever given her.
“All right,” Xochipil said. She reached out and foraged in the cloak, spreading out the obsidian shards as she found them. They glimmered in the sunlight, with the remembrance of a dead age.
She picked what looked like the sharpest one, and held it for a while in her hand. “It’s not because I worship you,” she said. His eyes watched her, unblinking, unwavering. “It’s not because I fear your anger, or that the sun will tumble from the sky if you’re not properly honoured. But you watched out for me, and I’d be sorry to see you go.”
Then, as smoothly, as effortlessly as if she’d done it all her life, she brought the edge of the obsidian against her wrist, and before she could think, sliced through her veins. Blood spurted up in an obscene fountain – much, much faster than she’d expected, a stream of red falling like rain upon the dried earth.
Pain spread, too – lines of fire radiating from the slit, pulsing in her arm like a red-hot axle. Her hand wouldn’t stop opening and closing, her fingers clenching like claws; she couldn’t control its movements. She had to use her other hand to guide the wound over Tezoca’s mouth, and watched him swallow and not spit anything out his wasted throat muscles greedily contracting.
Something was flowing, a shadow across the desert floor, an invisible wind. The air shivered as if in a storm, and dust rose, billowing like yellow sheets unfolding. Grains of dust skittered across the obsidian shards, making a noise like nails on copper, skittering across the body of Tezoca until his skin seemed to shift in the wind, until the colour of the desert had sunk into his bones and covered the red sheen of his muscles.
His hands reached up, iron coils, and drew Xochipil’s slit wrist against his mouth. His lips closed around the wound, hungrily sucking at the flowing blood like a child at his mother’s breast.
And he didn’t stop. The wound didn’t close, and still he drank, making quiet, sickening suckling sounds. Pain knifed her with each sip he took – repeated stabs with obsidian blades.
Xochipil’s thoughts were scattering, growing hazier and hazier – how much like an old god, to take everything that was given; how naive had she been, to slit her wrist and expect it to heal, to feed a god and hope he would stop …
The shadows were growing, pooling under the obsidian shards – and then, in a flash of dazzling light, the shards leapt towards each other and vanished.
“Enough,” Tezoca said, his voice echoing like the anger of the storm. “Enough!” He pushed her away – sent her stumbling, fighting to hold herself upright, her fingers fumbling to close the wound in her wri
st.
The ground would not stop shaking under her. Through hazy eyes she saw her blood spattered among the rocks, encircling the place where Tezoca now stood.
He was tall, and his face was streaked with black and yellow; and the stars shone in the curls of his hair; and his eyes glimmered like water in underground caves. In his hand, something shone: an obsidian mirror, in which she could still guess at the faint line of cracks. It reflected nothing but smoke; but even from where she was she could feel its heat, and the power within, the beat as strong as that of the rails.
And he was walking – flowing across the sand, reaching out to her – and in a single gesture pinching shut the wound in her wrist. Xochipil stood, shaking, trying to hold herself up, falling to one knee, and then face down on the ground, until oblivion swallowed her whole.
She dreamt that he carried her in his arms, under the shelter of a large rock, and carefully laid her on the ground like a sick child. She dreamt that he was sitting by her side, staring at the skies, weeping tears of blood for all the old gods who had fallen – for his brother Quetzalcoatl, who had once been his friend, who had once been his enemy, and who was now subsumed into the machine, in this age and the next and the next.
She dreamt that he gathered rocks and scraggly bushes and turned his smoke-filled mirror towards them – that they burst into flickering, warm flames – and that he stood outlined by the fire, watching her sleep.
Now you understand about sacrifices, he whispered.
And she didn’t, and he must have seen something of that, because he said, his voice booming like the wrath of the heavens, Not out of fear or of greed or because the sun will tumble from the sky, but because you cared.
I was sorry for you, Xochipil thought, thrashing, trying to reach him through a pane of glass – but he wouldn’t answer.
When she woke up in the dim light of the rising sun, she was alone, and the air still smelled like ashes.
He had left her his wide-brimmed hat, and some food; and had refilled her water-flask. Her hands throbbed: he had traced the glyphs for “safe journey” and “water” on their backs – all the favour he would grant her, all the thanks he would ever condescend to give.