The Smoking Mirror

by David Bowles

  Carol moved without further hesitation, rushing away as fast as her four legs would carry her, Johnny right on her heels. With what seemed like a howl of frustration, the whirlwind changed directions and followed them again.

  Dude, it’s like the thing is alive!

  Or being controlled by someone , Carol suggested. She was certain now that whatever had their mother was actively trying to keep them from reaching the center of Mictlan. As if to confirm her suspicions, two more freezing cyclones appeared on the horizon, moving quickly. The three would converge on her and Johnny within minutes.

  Glancing down at the necklace that dangled about her neck, Carol took stock of her possible forms. None were faster than the wolf. She thought about becoming a snatch-bat again, trying to fly above the twisters, but it seemed a foolish plan, unlikely to end well. A glance at the bracelet round Johnny’s upper foreleg revealed a similar dilemma.

  We need help, or we’re going to die. Quetzalcoatl, do you hear me? Tonantzin? God? Mother Mary? Please come to our aid. We want to complete this mission, truly, want to save our mother, stop the dark forces. But if we die now, we’re pretty much useless. We can’t do this alone. Please.

  Thundering from between the two new tornadoes came Xolotl, insanely fast, the wrinkled skin of his face blown back in a grimace that was both fearful and funny. Skidding to a stop in front of them, he shouted against the wailing winds: “Shift into something with opposable thumbs and get on my back quickly!”

  Carol saw only one possibility. She took a little desiccated black digit in her mouth. In moments she was a rather large raccoon, clambering up the side of the gigantic red hellhound. A similarly oversized spider monkey swung onto Xolotl’s back behind her.

  Aw, Johnny’s found his true inner form , she joked.

  Ya cállate, méndigo mapache. Now I know who steals my sweets from my room when I’m asleep. Bandit. You don’t even have thumbs, just really flexible paws. You might have to use your little teeth, Rocky Raccoon.

  “Hang on!” Xolotl called. Their hands gripped folds of his skin, and he exploded into movement just as the three cyclones came together. The hellhound moved with supernatural speed, sending up walls of snow and sand in the wake of his passing. Carol clung for dear life. When Xolotl began to ascend into the bleak mountains from which the biting wind blew, she nearly slipped, but her brother’s prehensile tail snagged her and pulled her close.

  Careful, sis. I’ve got you. Four opposable thumbs and a grabby tail: I can hold on for the both of us.

  Eventually they’d climbed high enough into the mountains that the cyclones could only beat uselessly against the slopes. Xolotl ducked into a large cavern, and Carol scurried off into a dark recess to change. It felt good to be a human girl again, to feel denim and cotton against her skin, to stand erect and have a voice.

  Of course, it’s crazy cold in here, but I need to talk to him. We deserve answers.

  Johnny had already changed and was huddling close to a fire that danced on the surface of a ring of rocks, presumably via magic worked by Xolotl. She hurried to the warmth, rubbing her hands with momentary delight before turning to the hellhound.

  “Thanks for saving us.”

  “You’re welcome. I was already on my way, but I heard your prayer and came as fast as possible.”

  Johnny opened his mouth, his eyebrow raised as if to make a sarcastic comment, but Carol waved him to silence. “Xolotl, the first two deserts almost got us.”

  “I know, Carolina. Our eyes are on you. We—”

  “Your eyes…” She swallowed the anger she felt burning in the pit of her stomach. “But you guys didn’t intervene. I could have been lost in that dark forever. Johnny could have forgotten who he was forever. I need to understand why you would risk us like that if we’re so important.”

  Sighing, Xolotl shifted into his human form. He mumbled a few words and the fur he clenched about him swirled into normal if old-fashioned clothes: boots, jeans, a woolen shirt and duster. At a gesture, a slouch hat appeared in his hands, and he set it on his dirty blond hair.

  “It’s easier to chat like this,” he said, sitting on a nearby pile of rocks.

  “Dude, you look like a cowboy.” Johnny had a real dislike for Western clothing, partly because everyone in their dad’s family was so Tex-Mex or country and was always pressuring him to jump on that bandwagon.

  “Yes, well, this was how I dressed the last time I incarnated. It’s easier to conjure up.” He nodded in Carol’s direction. “Okay. Let’s talk about what you’ve faced thus far. Carolina, the black silence that attempted to possess you is cehualli, the dark shadow magic of Tezcatlipoca. It is his entropic response to teotl, the creative power that binds the universe together. You fought it off, amazingly, by using a teocuicatl, a sacred hymn that repels chaos, destruction and entropy. What I don’t understand is where that song came from.”

  Carol cleared her throat to hide her emotion. “My dad. I was attacked this way five years ago, and my dad sang a song to help me get past my fear. He only sang one verse, over and over, but the entire song came to me there in the darkness.”

  The man scratched at the stubble on his chin. “I suppose I just don’t remember, but someone in your father’s family must have been a cuicuani, a sacred singer. They passed the gift on to him, and it is now accessible to you. That’s good news. Songs are powerful defenses.”

  “Yay,” said Johnny weakly, holding one of his bare feet toward the fire. “Carol’s a Jedi diva.”

  “Hush, dork.”

  “Strong in this one is the teotl,” Johnny croaking, aping Yoda’s voice. “Yodel she will against the Aztec Sith and their cehualli light sabers.”

  Carol punched her brother in the shoulder. “I’m trying to be serious, Johnny. And he doesn’t even get your cutesy pop culture references.”

  “That I don’t,” Xolotl confirmed. “But I do understand what happened to Juan Ángel among the Balamija. First, his tonal responded to the call of Acomiztli, one of the most powerful beings in Mictlan. That’s what made him foolishly to attempt to draw the creatures away. That and a newly blossoming desire to belong. For most of your childhood you have been inseparable. Your mother’s disappearance has pulled you so far apart that you, Juan Ángel, have been excluding yourself from groups of boys your age, while Carol had managed to build a support system of friends that helped her deal with the loss, not only of your mother, but of you, her best friend. The Balamija took advantage of your longing to once again be a member of a group.”

  Carol noticed Johnny’s eyes, downcast and embarrassed at this revelation. She suddenly felt ashamed herself. He needed me, and I pushed him away. My best friend.

  Xolotl pushed his hat a little farther back on his head. “Then, Juan Ángel, you did precisely what I had warned you both not to do: you fell asleep.”

  “Wait, they knocked me out, cowboy. Not the same thing.”

  “Yes, but you put yourself in that position. When either of you becomes unconscious in this place, your human and animal souls will combine and you lose your memories.”

  Johnny gritted his teeth. “Great. So Carol’s awesome because she sang away the darkness, but I suck because I let myself get merged or whatever.”

  “Don’t get defensive. You should have been stuck that way forever, Juan Ángel, a random jaguar in the Balamija for eternity, or until one of the snatch-bats killed you. But you managed to peel your human self away from your tonal. How?”

  Carol looked intently at Johnny as he remembered. “It was Carol. She…she was in danger. I had to be me again. To save her.”

  “Good. Your love for your family is a powerful source of teotl as well, and that magic triggers the uncommon xoxal you both possess.”

  Giggling, Carol mouthed love Jedi at Johnny, and he cracked a smile. Returning her attention to Xolotl, she expressed what was on both their minds.

  “Couldn’t you have told us this stuff earlier? You’re not a very good guide, you know.”<
br />
  “It’s the way of Quetzalcoatl. If you are given too much help, you aren’t acting of your own free will. There’s much he could do to interfere in human affairs. But he refuses to. People have to be free to discover the truth, to make mistakes. To believe lies, if you choose to. Like this place. For centuries, Tezcatlipoca spread a vicious lie among the Mexica and other Aztec tribes that souls are destroyed at the center of Mictlan. As I’ve told you, in reality they pass Beyond, where neither Quetzalcoatl nor Tezcatlipoca have any sway. But the Dark Lord thrives on despair and chaos. He made your ancestors believe that everything enduring about their personalities would fade away at the end of their four-year journey. For this reason there was no ancestor worship among the Mexica. Four years after their deaths, people’s names were forgotten. Grave sites were unmarked. A deep, existential sadness pervaded the lives of those who believed this lie.”

  This was one of the most depressing things Carol had ever heard. It echoed some of her father’s own concerns about the Aztec empire; his articles criticizing this and other elements of their worldview had caused quite a furor among certain academic circles.

  “But we stayed distant, even then. Because humans must find hope on their own. You must face the darkness alone. You’ve been given the tools, but the fight is yours.” He stood, pressing his hat more tightly upon his head, adjusting the string beneath his chin. “And that’s why I have to leave you now. I will not say the coming challenges are easier than the first three. That would be a lie. I will promise you, however, that if you stay together and put your love for family above all else, you will make it through to the heart of Mictlan. There the greatest barrier to your happiness awaits you. I believe in you both, little brother and sister. I know that you are strong enough to stand when everyone else would cringe and bow.

  “Fight for your mother’s freedom, twins. I’ll see you on the other side.”

  And he stepped into the darkness outside the cave and disappeared.

  Chapter Twelve

  Johnny stared for a long time at the entrance to the cave, Xolotl’s words echoing in his head. The weight of the work before them suddenly settled on his shoulders. Physically and emotionally, he was exhausted. He wanted nothing more than to sit down beside the fire and rest for days.

  So instead he shrugged and beckoned to Carol. “Time to get moving. Six more of these stupid deserts left.”

  Carol sighed. “I feel like I’m at the Mall, going and in and out of changing rooms.”

  “About that. I just wanted to half-shift into the jaguar-boy or whatever. I think I can hold that form long enough to get down the mountainside. Haunted ruins, that’s what’s next. Do we really need an animal form for ghosts?”

  “Okay, it’s worth a try.”

  Johnny let his tonal come forward, stopping it partway through the transformation. With most of his attention on maintaining that unnatural blend of human and beast, he exited the cave and made his way along the dark path that threaded through the peaks and down the other side of the freezing mountains. The wolf-girl followed close behind him, her labored breathing a sign of how difficult she found her transitional shape. Before too long, however, the howling, icy winds were gone, and the twins reverted to human form with a sigh of relief.

  The mountain slope was gradual and carpeted with dead grass. Johnny’s feet were pricked from time to time by burrs and thorns, but beyond that, the descent was pretty easy.

  Carol finally broke their sustained silence by clearing her throat.

  “Johnny, I, uh, want to apologize. I haven’t been there for you like I need to be. I took refuge in my friends and left you pretty much alone. That was wrong.”

  Johnny waved her concerns away. “Oh, that wasn’t your fault, Carol. I’m the one who didn’t want to share his feelings, remember? I just thought that if I didn’t talk about it, that if I kept my pain really close, then Mom would be alive in me, you know? I was, this is kind of stupid, but I was afraid that if I talked about it, I’d start accepting it, and then I would move on. I didn’t want to, you know?”

  “Yes, I get you. Well, the good thing is, we’re a team again, right? Just like when we stood up to those bullies that one time. What were we, five years old?”

  Johnny thought of the two of them, facing down a gang of kids three years older than them. He laughed at the image. “Yeah. Stupid Martínez kids. Their parents had them so spoiled, huh? But we didn’t give them our toys that day, and we ran them off. That was pretty cool. Sure, Carol. We’re a team again. The Garza Twins. All we need are rings and a monkey.”

  “What?”

  Johnny pretended to be shocked. “Dude, I keep telling you…you need to watch more classic cartoons. Filling your head with a bunch of boring history is going to drive you nuts.”

  “No, listening to your weird pop-culture allusions is what is going to drive me nuts.”

  “Dude, you’re a girl! What do you even talk about with Nikki and all them? Because, yeah, your friends don’t seem all up on all this stuff you know, like, pre-Colombian political systems and stuff. Just saying.”

  “Well, we don’t sit around talking about action films and 70s cartoons. We, you know, talk about…”

  Johnny snapped his fingers. “Boys. You talk about boys. Predictable.”

  Carol flushed red, and Johnny laughed. Oh, man. When she starts dating, we’re going to have so much fun, Dad and me. Threatening the stupid punks and all.

  “Uh, if you’re done mocking me, you might look down there.” Carol gestured at the valley that now spread below them. Its dark red sands were dotted with ruined stone structures of all sizes, from small homes to enormous cathedrals.

  “Okay. Ruins. And ghosts. What can we expect?”

  “Based on what they’ve already tried, they’ll want to freak us out and/or separate us. So, uh, don’t let the ghosts freak you out, and stick close to me.”

  Johnny smirked. “Yeah, why don’t you stick close to me, huh?”

  “We’ll stick close to each other, alright?” Her eyes flashed lupine yellow.

  “Don’t get all esponjada, Carol. I’m just kidding.”

  They soon found themselves ambling along among the ruins. The buildings seemed impossibly old, inscriptions and decorations worn nearly invisible by the passage of time. Johnny studied their unusual architecture, not detecting any signs of the major trends in either European or Mesoamerican design. Granted, he was still an amateur, but as far as he could tell, the structures had not been made by human hands. The dimensions were off, the symmetry awry, the engineering techniques were frankly, alien.

  “Carol, you’re the Mexican history buff…How many ages have gone by, in Aztec mythology?”

  “We’re in the…fifth, I think. Yes. This is the fifth sun. The last age.”

  “What happened to end the other ones?”

  “Oh, uh, destruction? Remember what Xolotl told us. Some gods, mainly Quetzalcoatl, kept trying to create intelligent beings, but then they’d get wiped out.”

  Johnny nodded, running his fingers along the frame of an enormous doorway. “The Balamija have these huge were-jaguars that killed off the giants of the First Age. That’s what one cat told me. I wonder…maybe these are buildings from all the way back then.”

  Carol shrugged. “Who knows? Or maybe from one of the other ages.”

  Unbidden, a thought rose to Johnny’s consciousness. “Oh, man.”

  “What?”

  “Xolotl. He said it was mainly Tezcatlipoca doing the destroying, right?”

  Carol swallowed hard. “Yeah.”

  “And what about our world? The fifth one. What do the legends say?”

  Carol squinted, as if thinking hard. “I’m not sure, Johnny. I’m more interested in actual history, not mythology, you know.”

  Raising an eyebrow, Johnny gestured around them. “Dude, it seems to me that mythology and history? Same thing.”

  “Okay. Touché or whatever. Your point?”

  “My poi
nt is: what if that’s what he wants to destroy the world? Maybe he needs to kill us or something to make it happen.”

  Carol’s face went pallid. “Or maybe he needs our help. Our xoxal.”

  “Why the heck would we help him? That’s crazy.”

  “Maybe that’s why he’s got Mom, Johnny. So he can blackmail us.”

  The idea was sobering. Johnny tried to imagine himself choosing between his mother’s life and the destruction of the entire world. Screw that. We’ll find another way. We’ll beat Mr. Chaos-and-Dark-Magic. Even if he is a god.

  “And you’ll fail her,” a voice muttered nearby. Johnny whipped his head around and saw his grandmother, fluttering spectrally in the doorway of a nearby building.

  “Abuela Helga?” Carol whispered.

  “Yes, it’s me, you cold-hearted child. You sent me to my death, so you shouldn’t be surprised to find me here, in the Land of Shades.”

  “Wait,” Johnny said. “We sent you to your death? But you just let go, didn’t you? You had been holding on, waiting to tell us what we were. Then you escaped…”

  “Oh, you’re right that I was holding on,” the phantasm hissed, writhing angrily. “For years I waited for you to visit me, trapped in that broken body. But you were too good to come across the border, weren’t you? Too young and full of life to spend time with an old, crippled woman.”

  Tears slipped down Carol’s face. “Oh, abuelita, I’m so sorry! I was selfish and unthinking…”

  “Yes!” raged the apparition. “You were cruel! And as a result, you didn’t learn of your abilities. Your mother had no one who could help her fight off the dark that crept round your home and dragged her down. This is all your fault!”

  Carol was openly weeping now, and Johnny’s chest felt like it would burst. This isn’t right, though. She wouldn’t treat us like this. She wouldn’t even feel that way. Not abue.

  “Shhh, Carol,” he muttered. “Stop crying. It’s not her.” Turning to the specter, he repeated with more confidence. “You’re not her. You’re some demon pretending to be her. Well, you can go tell your master I said his little tricks are worth crap. We’re coming for our mother, and we’re coming for him. He wants xoxal, we’re going to give it to him. But he ain’t going to like it. You tell him that, you fake. Tell him to stick his cehualli where the sun don’t shine.”