The Mammoth Book Of Warriors and Wizardry (The Mammoth Book Series)

by Sean Wallace

  I found Neera shortly after. She rested at the bottom, cupped by soft seaweed. I pulled her from the bottom and began swimming towards the departing ships.

  Iulaja met me and blocked my way. “Leave her, Khrentophar. They fashioned this graveyard, not you. Let her rest among the other humans.”

  I floated nearer to Iulaja and touched his shoulder. “I will return to them, Iulaja. I owe her a deathbond.”

  “You . . .” His mind flared with disbelief. “None of them, not even her, deserves that. Drop her and come home.”

  “Yeavan protect me, but I cannot. I touched this child, Iulaja. Perhaps more of them can come to understand us.”

  “They will never understand us. Never.”

  Odd, how freedom can change its meaning. I had once wished for nothing but death by the hands of my Goddess, to be free of human shackles. There, floating close to my brother, I wished only to live that I might pass on her ways.

  Iulaja misunderstood my hesitation. His hand touched my shoulder, and he said, “Come, brother.”

  I pulled away. “I cannot.”

  He floated nearby for long seconds, and then his anger flared, and he swam to one side. “Begone, fool yeavanni.”

  I hugged Neera tight and swam away.

  Long after I had left Iulaja, I heard his ever so faint words. “Begone, dear Khrentophar. May she hold you close to her heart.”

  A WARRIOR’S DEATH

  Aliette de Bodard

  The room was in the most opulent part of the sacred precincts, away from prying eyes. Rich frescoes made it seem larger than it was, and a fountain whispered its endless song, giving a pleasant coolness to the air. But the room was no longer peaceful: its sanctity had been defiled by the murder of the War-God’s vessel.

  The pale body lay on a makeshift altar of blood-spattered cushions, a gaping hole in its chest. It was a grotesque parody of the holiest sacrifice, and the vessel’s heart was nowhere to be seen.

  The War-God’s high priest, Chamatl, knelt beside me. “We have touched nothing, Uzume.”

  “How long ago did this happen?”

  He shrugged. “It happened today, that much is sure. He was still alive to receive the morning devotions.”

  I wondered why someone would commit such a sacrilege. The chest had been opened with several jagged cuts, nothing like the clean marks a priest’s knife would have left. Gently, I raised the man’s head. His eyes were open, his face twisted in a horrible grimace of pain, but his mouth was closed. According to Chamatl, no one had heard his death cries. He had died bravely, a true warrior.

  And he was truly dead. Without the proper rituals for the sacrifice, the divine spark that had lived within him was rising back to the heavens – while the mortal part, torn from the divine, was making its way underground to the world of the dead. There would be no eternal reward, no ascension to godhood for the man who had offered his body as a vessel for the spirit of the War-God.

  The dead man had pale hair, pale skin, and eyes the red-brown color of a deer’s hide. I was unfamiliar with his race. Ten years had passed since my disgrace, and still I envied him for the honor that he’d been given. For failed warriors like me, for warriors who broke and ran on the battlefield, there was no reward, no chance of being chosen to host a god. All that was left to a disgraced warrior was the daily grind of the maize fields, a life spent alone with memories of battles.

  I raised my gaze to Chamatl. “Who was he before the god took him?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Who offered him, then?”

  Chamatl looked embarrassed. “Huracan, of the clan of Ertec, offered this sacrifice.”

  Ertec. “A merchant clan?” Had our city fallen so low?

  Chamatl gazed at the frescoes. “There have been no wars this year, no warriors brought back as prisoners. It has been our sacred duty since the beginning of time to offer a vessel worthy to host the War-God, a foreigner . . .”

  “Still, you could have had a war captain offer the vessel.”

  “I could have. But things went otherwise.” Chamatl looked back at the dead man. “I trust you have seen what you needed to see? Come then. We will find a more pleasant place to speak.”

  We stood in the main courtyard of the sacred precincts, watching maidens practice the Dance of Deer. “Why did you want me to see this murder?” I asked.

  “I need you to find who killed him. Discreetly.”

  “And the Festival of Renewal?” I asked. “The people will expect you to sacrifice this incarnation of the War-God so he can be reborn in the heavens and start the cycle anew. What are you going to tell Ahuatl?”

  “We’ll have someone ready to take his place,” Chamatl said.

  “In three months? I thought it took nine months of seclusion for the War-God to become fully incarnate in the body of the vessel, as it takes nine months for a child to be fully formed in the mother’s womb.”

  “There are drugs we can use in desperate cases like these,” Chamatl said. “I need to know who did this.” His brow creased with worry. “The way the vessel was killed – a parody of sacrifice – implies an enemy attempt to cut us off from our god. To make Ahuatl fall.”

  Ahuatl. Despite my disgrace, I loved my city. I loved my people, the beauty of our stone buildings, and our language. I loved our methods of cultivation and our skill at healing the sick. “How do you know this is true?”

  “Ahuatl is the greatest city in the world,” Chamatl said. “We bring civilization to the barbarian countries. We give them our beauty and our skills. But not everyone loves Ahuatl as I do. There are rumors of unrest in the conquered provinces, and agitators are at work here in the city.”

  “The god will watch over us,” I said.

  Chamatl looked dubious. Behind him, the maidens had started another dance, to the measured beat of drums. “What matters to me is that Ahuatl goes on,” he said. “I want the murderer brought to justice as a warning to the other agitators.”

  “Who are these agitators?”

  Chamatl shook his head. The turquoise pectoral he wore jangled, rippling like the skin of a snake. “I don’t want to unfairly influence your investigation. Go see Huracan. He’ll tell you the identity of the fallen vessel.”

  “I see.” Chamatl had his own ideas, then; people he desperately wanted to blame.

  “If you do find out who killed him,” Chamatl said, “I can use my influence to change your life.”

  “You have nothing I want.”

  “Not so,” Chamatl said. “The vessel of the War-God must be a captured prisoner or a slave. But there are other gods you could host, Uzume.”

  My heart missed a beat. “You would give me this honor?”

  “If you redeem yourself, yes,” Chamatl said. “I can arrange for you to host the God of Spears. A minor god, to be sure, but still a god.”

  I took a sharp breath. That he would offer this to someone who was not a warrior . . .

  To become a god. To merge with the divine nature, and come endlessly back to earth, incarnation after incarnation. To help guide and protect Ahuatl. My stomach felt hollow.

  I saw the gleam of triumph in Chamatl’s gaze. He had me, body and soul. And he knew it.

  As I left the temple, I found myself drawn to a recent fresco of our pantheon, showing the War-God surrounded by His court. He was in the center, proud and savage; around Him was the Inner Circle; at His side, the God of Battles, crushing an enemy warrior underfoot. Beyond the Inner Circle stood the minor gods, modestly ornamented, gripping knives instead of swords. Each god’s face had been painted over several times, to reflect the face of the latest vessel.

  I scanned the painted faces, until I found one that was familiar.

  Mixtal.

  I clutched the golden pendant he had given me. A year ago, the high priests had chosen Mixtal to receive the essence of the God of Skirmishes. He had come to the maize fields to bid me farewell. I remembered the arrogant lift of his head when he delivered the ne
ws. He felt sorry for me, I saw it in his eyes, but when he left, he did not look back.

  The pendant was a gift in memory of our friendship. Even though its sale would have kept me in luxury for a year, I clung to it as a reminder of what I had lost the day my courage failed me before the massed ranks of the enemy.

  On the mural, the War-God dwarfed Mixtal. His face was wild with the fury of battle. With an enemy soldier under one foot, and a bloody sword in each fist, His expression was merciless; the battlefield was no place for pity. He would never understand my failure.

  I released the pendant, felt its warmth against my chest.

  Though I could not hope to be forgiven, I had always hoped I could redeem myself, and Chamatl was offering me a second chance. A chance at immortality. A chance to save my city.

  I tore my gaze from the mural, and went to see Huracan.

  * * *

  The Ertec clan lived on the edge of the city, with little to distinguish their adobe houses from those of their peasant neighbors; the merchants of Ahuatl had long ago learned that an ostentatious display of wealth only angered the warriors and caused unrest. To keep the peace, the merchant class hid their luxurious gardens and comfortable rooms behind modest walls.

  The opulence of Huracan’s house surprised me. A two-storey building with an ornate door, it had walls frescoed with unsettling images of gods and goddesses presiding over human sacrifices: everything from beheadings to the skinning of strangled men.

  Huracan himself was a tall, lean man. He received me without fuss in his inner courtyard, in the shadow of palm trees. I sipped ground cocoa beans mixed with water, enjoying their bitter taste – cocoa was a luxury far beyond my means.

  “Your sacrifice is dead,” I said.

  “How?” Huracan had remarkable control of his face: his eyes flickered only briefly.

  “Someone cut out his heart.”

  “That would be the usual way,” Huracan said. “Although not the usual time.”

  He was taunting me. “He was murdered, in a mockery of the sacrifice.”

  “Just the heart cut out? No flute? No prayers?”

  When the day for the Festival of Renewal came, the incarnation of the War-God would walk along the crowded avenues of the city, to the rhythm of sacred hymns. People would throw flowers before him; and when at last he reached the Red Pyramid, where he would be sacrificed, he would play melancholy, hollow notes on a flute of bone.

  “No,” I said. “The vessel was merely butchered, the War-God’s manifestation incomplete.”

  “Poor Ralil. He wanted so much to become a god.”

  “He volunteered?”

  Ralil. Ahuatl’s warriors volunteered for the sacred duty of hosting the gods, but it was unheard of for a captured prisoner to offer himself.

  “Ralil was reluctant at first, but the last time I saw him, he looked almost happy.”

  Happy. He shouldn’t have been. What had happened to him?

  I sipped my cocoa, slowly, treasuring the last of it. “Where did you get him?”

  “I bought him in the marketplace because he looked healthy and strong.” Huracan grimaced. My interrogation did not please him, yet he was compelled to answer. “Ralil was captured from Maenque.”

  Maenque. Once a year the War-God and His Court offered us their blood in sacrifice, and Ahuatl repaid them with the blood of conquered cities in minor ceremonies throughout the year. Maenque was among the last of Ahuatl’s conquered cities, on the very edge of the western coast.

  “Did Ralil have any relatives in Ahuatl?” I asked.

  Huracan raised an eyebrow. “I offered him in sacrifice,” he said. “I visited him to apprise myself of the progress of the god, but I did not keep a watch on his life.” He sipped at his bitter cocoa. “He did have a countrywoman named Pochtli here in Ahuatl. She came to see him many times before he entered seclusion.”

  Pochtli. As a slave, she had served in the temple of the War-God; once freed, she had started weaving cactus fiber into loincloths for peasants. She had soon found herself at the head of several weaving workshops, making everything from rough clothes to fine cotton warrior-dress. There were rumors that, at night, the weaving workshops became meetinghouses for foreigners living in Ahuatl.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “My pleasure. Keep me informed, Uzume, will you?”

  “I will do as I see fit,” I said curtly. I owed this merchant nothing.

  Huracan’s gaze became chilly. “I am not without importance.”

  “Neither am I,” I said.

  “Ralil was my offering,” Huracan said. “Do not dismiss me so lightly.”

  His offering. A mere merchant had offered the greatest sacrifice.

  “Why were you chosen to make an offering?” The words came before I could stop them.

  Huracan smiled. “Am I unworthy, then?”

  I did not answer.

  “Perhaps you do not like me, or my kind. But we have our uses,” Huracan said. “Chamatl is an . . . acquaintance of mine. I recently completed a delicate mission for the Emperor, and as a reward, I was allowed to offer Ralil for sacrifice.” Huracan must have seen my face, for he said, “Don’t look so shocked, Uzume. We fight for the city in our own way, travelling to faraway places where people worship gods that do not understand the power of blood.”

  “You’re a spy,” I said. “Among other things.”

  Spies. That was no way to fight a war. You fought your enemy squarely on the battlefield, not through lies and knife stabs in the back. “How do you know Chamatl?”

  “He buys books from me,” Huracan said. Three rings glittered on his hand, each with a different stone: turquoise, obsidian, jade. “Foreign books about religion, mostly.”

  I sighed. One day Chamatl’s curiosity would lead him into trouble with the Emperor. Chamatl believed in knowledge, devoured books, and took from them unorthodox views on religion and politics.

  Though arrogant, Huracan appeared sincere. I saw no reason to trouble him further.

  Pochtli’s house was in the artisans’ district. The streets echoed with the cries of birds kept for ornamental feathers, and the sharp chipping sounds of the workers making obsidian knives.

  Pochtli kept me waiting and offered no refreshments. I sat in the courtyard of her modest house, and wondered how the War-God fared. Being torn from His flesh and sent back to the heavens must have been . . . unexpected.

  At last, a slight woman entered the courtyard and glared at me, fists on her hips.

  I bowed slowly, forcing a smile.

  “You have no place here,” said Pochtli. Her skin had a healthy tan from working under the sun, but her eyes were foreign, the same russet brown as Ralil’s.

  I kept my temper, but I stepped forward to loom over her. “I am Uzume, once a warrior of the Eagle Regiment. I come under the authority of Chamatl, High Priest of the War-God, who speaks for our Emperor.”

  Pochtli looked away and snorted. “What do you want?”

  “Answers,” I said. “Do you know Ralil?”

  She wavered, as if trying to decide which lie to use. “Yes,” she said finally. “I knew Ralil. From Maenque. He was a kinsman of mine.”

  “Was?” An odd thing to say; she could not know of his murder yet.

  “Ralil embraced your religion when he was captured.” She spat on the earthen floor of the courtyard. “He turned away from our gods and dedicated himself to yours.”

  I looked at the spit glistening next to my sandal, and wanted nothing more than to drag her before Chamatl for showing disrespect. But there was more at stake than my pride, so I said nothing. Ralil had embraced our faith. Perhaps this explained his enthusiasm for the sacrifice, but he had not shown such fervor at the beginning. “Are you sure Ralil was a believer?”

  “Ralil accepted his fate as the vessel of a foreign god,” Pochtli said. “What other explanation can there be?”

  “Did he ever tell you he worshipped the War-God?”

  “He didn
’t have to,” Pochtli said. “I went to the temple to try to bring him back to reason. But he wanted to become a god. He said it was worth it.” She spat again. “He said having a man from Maenque host a god of Ahuatl was in the best interest of our people. He spoke to me as if I were a fool not to share his beliefs.”

  Pochtli was lying. She would not meet my eyes. Her bitterness about her kinsman’s conversion sounded genuine, but it gave her a reason to have arranged his death. “You hated Ralil for his choice?” I asked.

  She watched me, gauging every nuance of my speech. “It’s you I hate, Uzume. You and your civilization. What kind of civilization would steal our men and tear out their still-beating hearts, all in the name of a god who cares too little for his people, and too much for conquered land?”

  “Ahuatl’s patron deity is the God of War,” I said. “We don’t need Him to care for us; we need Him to lead us to victory.”

  She smiled joylessly. “You warriors all think the same. Ralil didn’t understand either.”

  “You’ve been freed,” I pointed out. “If you hate us so much, you should go back to your kinsmen.”

  “Maenque has been conquered, and my kinsmen grovel before you there, as well as here. I prefer to stay in Ahuatl.”

  “And try to destroy us?”

  “Ahuatl deserves to fall,” Pochtli said. “It will fall with or without my help. The only thing that keeps Ahuatl strong is conquest. Now that the whole of the known world belongs to your people, what will they do with it?”

  “Do?”

  She sighed. “The gods of Maenque do not feast on human blood. They do not require conquest. Our society is one of equals, and merciful rule. Ahuatl will fall before it.”

  I raised my hand to strike her, but Ahuatl does not punish those who speak their minds – only those who plot against it.

  “You are on dangerous ground,” I snapped. “Everything you say threatens Ahuatl. You have every reason to destroy the Feast of Renewal.”