Nebula Awards Showcase 2012

by James Patrick Kelly

  Tecipiani shakes her head. “Don't you dare make such a statement.” Her voice is curt, as cutting as an obsidian blade. “We are Jaguar Knights. We serve the Mexica Empire and its Revered Speaker. We're nothing more than that. Never.”

  “But—” Xochitl starts.

  “We're nothing more than that,” Tecipiani says, again.

  No, that's not true. They're Jaguar Knights; they've learnt to judge people on a word or a gesture—because, when you're out on a mission, it marks the line between life and death. They know…

  “You're mad,” Onalli says. “Back when Commander Malinalli was still alive, all the Houses, all the Knights spoke against Ixtli—including ours. What do you think the Revered Speaker will do to us, once he's asserted his power?”

  “I'm your Commander,” Tecipiani says, her voice slightly rising. “That, too, is something you must remember, Jaguar Lieutenant. I speak for the House.”

  “I'll remember.” Onalli's voice is low and dangerous. And Xochitl knows that here, now, they've reached the real parting of the ways—not when Tecipiani was appointed company leader or commander, not when she was the one who started assigning missions to her old friends—but this, here, now, this ultimate profession of cowardice.

  “Good,” Tecipiani says. She seems oblivious to the undercurrents, the gazes passing between Onalli and Xochitl. But, then, she's never been good with details. “You'll come to my office later, Onalli. I'll have another mission for you.”

  And that, too, is cowardice: what she cannot control, Tecipiani will get rid of. Xochitl looks at Onalli—and back at her Commander, who still hasn't moved—and she feels the first stirrings of defiance flutter in her belly.

  Onalli dropped the last few hand-spans into the courtyard, and immediately flattened herself against the wall—a bad reflex. There was a security camera not a few handspans from her, but all it would see in the darkness was another blur: her skinsuit was made of non-reflective materials, which wouldn't show up on infrared, and she'd taken nanos to lower her skin temperature. There'd be fire and blood to pay later, but she didn't really care anymore.

  Everything was silent, too much so. Where were the guards and the security—where was Tecipiani's iron handhold on the House? She'd felt the fear from outside—the wide, empty space in front of the entrance; the haunted eyes of the Jaguar Captain she'd pumped for information on the maglev; all the horror stories she'd heard on her way into Tenochtitlan.

  And yet…

  The back of her scalp prickled. A trap. They'd known she was coming. They were expecting her.

  But she'd gone too far to give up; and the wall was a bitch to climb, anyway.

  She drew the first of her throwing knives, and, warily, progressed deeper into the House. Still nothing—the hungry silence of the stars—the warm breath of Grandmother Earth underfoot—the numinous presence of Xolotl, god of Death, walking in her footsteps…

  A shadow moved across the entrance to the courtyard, under the vague shapes of the pillars. Onalli's hand tightened around the haft of the knife. Staying motionless would be her demise. She had to move fast, to silence them before they could raise the alarm.

  She uncoiled—leapt, with the speed of a rattlesnake, straight towards the waiting shadow. Her knife was meant to catch the shadow in the chest, but it parried with surprising speed. All she could see of the shadow was a smear in the darkness, a larger silhouette that seemed to move in time with her. The shadow wasn't screaming; all its energy was focused into the fight, pure, incandescent, the dance that gave the gods their due, that kept Tonatiuh the sun in the sky and Grandmother Earth sated, the one they'd both trained for, all their lives.

  There was something wrong, very wrong with the way the shadow moved…She parried a slash at her legs, and pressed it again, trying to disarm him.

  In the starlight, she barely saw the sweeping arc of its knife, moving diagonally across her weak side—she raised her own blade to parry, caught the knife and sent it clattering to the ground, and moved in for the kill.

  Too late, she saw the second blade. She threw herself backwards, but not before it had drawn a fiery slash across her skinsuit.

  They stood, facing one another, in silence.

  “You—you move like us.” the shadow said. The voice was high-pitched, shaking, and suddenly she realised what had been wrong with its moves: the eagerness, the abandon of the unblooded novices.

  “You're a boy,” she breathed. “A child.”

  Black One, no.

  “I'm no child.” He shifted, in the starlight, letting her catch a glimpse of his gangly awkwardness. “Don't make that mistake.”

  “I apologise.” Onalli put all the contriteness she can in her voice; she softened the muscles of her back to hunch over in a submissive position: he might not be able to see her very well, but he'd still see enough to get the subconscious primers.

  The boy didn't move. Finally he said, as if this were an everyday conversation. “If I called, they would be here in a heartbeat.”

  “You haven't called.” Onalli kept her voice steady, trying to encourage him not to remedy this oversight.

  In the starlight, she saw him shake his head. “I'd be dead before they came.”

  “No,” Onalli said, the word torn out of her before she could plan for it. “I'm not here to kill you.”

  “I believe you.” A pause, then, “You've come for the House. To avenge your own.”

  Her own? And then she understood. He thought her a Knight; but not of the Jaguar. An Eagle, perhaps, or an Otter: any of the former elite of Greater Mexica, the ones Revered Speaker Ixtli had obliterated from the Fifth World.

  She'd forgotten that this was no mere boy, but a novice of her order, who would one day become a Knight, like her, like Tecipiani, like Xochitl. He'd heard and seen enough to know that she hated the House's heart and guts; but he hadn't yet connected it with who she was.

  “I'm just here for a friend,” Onalli said. “She—she needs help.”

  “Help.” His voice was steadier, almost thoughtful. “The kind of help that requires infiltration, and a knife.”

  She had more than knives: all the paraphernalia of Knights on a mission, stun-guns, syringes filled with endurance and pain nanos. But she hadn't got them out. She wasn't sure why. Tecipiani had turned the House into something dark that needed to be put down, and she'd do whatever it took. And yet…

  It was still her House. “She's in the cells,” Onalli said.

  “In trouble,” the boy repeated, flatly. “I'm sure they wouldn't arrest her without good reason.”

  Black One take him, he was so innocent, so trusting in the rightness of whatever the House did; like her or Xochitl, ages before their eyes opened. She wanted to shake him. “I have no time to argue with you. Will you let me pass?”

  The boy said nothing for a while. She could feel him wavering in the starlight—and, because she was Jaguar Knight, she also knew that it wouldn't be enough, that he'd call for the guards, rather than entrusting himself to some vague stranger who had tried to kill him.

  No choice, then.

  She moved before he could react—shifting her whole weight towards him and bearing him to the ground, even as her hand moved to cover his mouth. As they landed, there was a crunch like bones breaking—for a moment, she thought she'd killed him, but he was still looking at her in disbelief, trying to bite her—with her other hand, she reached into her skinsuit, and withdrew a syringe.

  He gasped when she injected him, his eyes rolling up, the cornea an eerie white in the starlight. Now that her eyes were accustomed to the darkness, she could see him clearly: his skin smooth and dark, his hands clenching, then relaxing as the teonanácatl inhibitor took hold.

  She could only hope that she'd got the doses right: he was wirier than most adults, and his metabolism was still that of a child.

  As she left the courtyard, he was twitching, in the grip of the hallucinations that came as a side-effect. With luck, he'd wake up with a heada
che, and a vague memory of everything not being quite right—but not remember the vivid nightmares the drug gave. She thought of beseeching the gods for small or large mercies; but the only two in her wake were the Black One and Xolotl, the Taker of the Dead.

  “I'm sorry,” she whispered, knowing he couldn't hear her; knowing he would hate and fear her for the rest of his days. “But I can't trust the justice of this House—I just can't.”

  Nine years ago

  Xochitl stands by the stall, dubiously holding the cloak of quetzal-feathers against her chest. “It's a little too much, don't you think?”

  “No way,” Onalli says.

  “If your idea of clothing is tawdry, sure,” Tecipiani says, with an amused shake of her head. “This is stuff for almond-eyed tourists.”

  And, indeed, there's more Asians at the stall than trueblood Mexica—though Onalli, who's half and half, could almost pass for Asian herself. “Aw, come on,” Onalli says. “It's perfect. Think of all the boys queuing for a kiss. You'd have to start selling tickets.”

  Xochitl makes a mock stab at Onalli, as if withdrawing a knife from under her tunic. But her friend is too quick, and steps aside, leaving her pushing at empty air.

  “What's the matter? Eagles ate your muscles?” Onalli says—always belabouring the obvious.

  Xochitl looks again at the cloak—bright and garish, but not quite in the right way. “No,” she says, finally. “But Tecipiani's right. It's not worth the money.” Not even for a glance from Palli—who's much too mature, any way, to get caught by such base tricks.

  Tecipiani, who seldom brags about her triumphs, simply nods. “There's another stall further down,” she says. “Maybe there'll be something—”

  There's a scream, on the edge of the market: not that of someone being robbed, but that of a madman.

  What in the Fifth World—

  Xochitl puts back the cloak, and shifts, feeling the reassuring heaviness of the obsidian blades at her waist. Onalli has already withdrawn hers; but Tecipiani has moved before them all, striding towards the source. Her hands are empty.

  Ahead, at the entrance to the marketplace, is a grounded aircar, its door gaping empty. The rest of the procession that was following it is slowly coming to a stop—though with difficulty, as there is little place among the closely-crammed stalls for fifteen aircars.

  The sea of muttering faces disembarking from the aircars is a hodgepodge of colours, from European to Asian, and even a few Mexica. They wear banners proudly tacked to their backs, in a deliberately old-fashioned style: coyotes and rabbits drawn in featherwork spread out like fans behind their heads.

  It's all oddly familiar and repulsive at the same time, a living remnant of another time. “Revivalists,” Xochitl says, aloud.

  Which means—

  She turns, scanning the marketplace for a running man: the unwilling sacrifice victim, the only one who had a reason to break and run.

  What Xochitl sees, instead, is Tecipiani, walking determinately into a side aisle of the marketplace as if she were looking for a specific stall.

  The revivalists are gathering, harangued by a blue-clad priest who is organising search parties.

  “Idiots,” Onalli curses under her breath. She's always believed more in penance than in human sacrifice; and the Revivalists have always rubbed her the wrong way. Xochitl isn't particularly religious, and has no opinion either way.

  “Come on,” she says.

  They find Tecipiani near the back of the animals section—and, kneeling before her, is a hunched man, still wearing the remnants of the elaborate costume that marked him as the sacrifice victim. He's shivering; his face contorts as he speaks words that Xochitl can't make out amidst the noises of the chattering parrots and screaming monkeys in their metal cages.

  As they come closer, Tecipiani makes a dismissive gesture; and the man springs to life, running away deeper into the marketplace.

  “The search party is coming this way,” Onalli says.

  Tecipiani doesn't answer for a while: she's looking at the man—and, as she turns back towards her friends, Xochitl sees burning hope and pity in her gaze.

  “They won't catch him,” she says. “He's strong, and fast. He'll make it.”

  Onalli looks as though she might protest, but doesn't say anything.

  “We should head back,” Tecipiani says, finally. Her voice is toneless again; her eyes dry and emotionless.

  On their way back, they meet the main body of the search party: the fevered eyes of the priest rest on them for a while, as if judging their fitness as replacements.

  Tecipiani moves, slightly, to stand in the priest's way, her smile dazzling and threatening. She shakes her head, once, twice. “We're not easy prey,” she says, aloud.

  The priest focuses on her; and, after a long, long while, his gaze moves away. Too much to chew. Tecipiani is right: they won't be bested so easily.

  They walk on, through the back streets by the marketplace, heading back to the House to find some shade.

  Nevertheless, Xochitl feels as though the sunlight has been blotted out. She shivers. “They're sick people.”

  “Just mad,” Onalli says. “Don't think about them anymore. They're not worth your time.”

  She'd like to—but she knows that the priest's eyes will haunt her nightmares for the months to come. And it's not so much the madness; it's just that it doesn't make sense at all, this frenzy to spread unwilling, tainted blood.

  Tecipiani waits until they're almost back to the House to speak. “They're not mad, you know.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Onalli says.

  Tecipiani's gaze is distant. “There's a logic to it. Spreading unwilling blood is a sin, but Tonatiuh needs blood to continue shining down on us. Grandmother Earth needs blood to put forth maize and cotton and nanomachines.”

  “It's still a fucking sin, no matter which way you take it.” Onalli seems to take the argument as a challenge.

  Tecipiani says nothing for a while. “I suppose so. But still, they're only doing what they think is good.”

  “And they're wrong,” Xochitl says, with a vehemence that surprises her.

  “Perhaps,” Tecipiani says. “And perhaps not. Would you rather take the risk of the world ending?” She looks up, into the sky. “Of all the stars falling down upon us, monsters eager to tear us apart?”

  There's silence, then. Xochitl tries to think of something, of anything to counter Tecipiani, but she can't. She's been too crafty. She always is.

  “If you believe that,” Onalli says, with a scowl, “why did you let him go?”

  Tecipiani shakes her head, and in her eyes is a shadow of what Xochitl saw, back in the marketplace—pity and hope. “I said I understood. Not that I approved. I wouldn't do anything I didn't believe in whole-heartedly. I never do.”

  And that's the problem, Xochitl thinks. It will always be the problem. Tecipiani does what she believes in; but you're never sure what she's truly thinking.

  * * *

  The cell was worryingly easy to enter: once Onalli had dealt with the two guards at the entrance—who, even though they were Jaguar Specialists barely a step above novices, really should have known better. She had gone for the windpipe of the first, and left a syringe stuck in the shoulder of the second, who was out in less time than it took her to open the door.

  Inside, it was dark, and stifling. A rank smell, like the mortuary of a hospital, rose as she walked.

  “Xochitl?” she whispered.

  There was no noise. But against the furthest wall was a dark lump—and, as she walked closer, it resolved into a slumped human shape.

  Black One, no. Please watch over her, watch over us all…

  Straps and chains held Xochitl against the wall, and thin tubes snaked upwards, into a machine that thrummed like a beating heart.

  Teonanácatl, and peyotl, and truth-serum, and the gods knew what else…

  It was only instinct that kept her going forward: a horrified, debased part of h
er that wouldn't stop, that had to analyse the situation no matter what. She found the IVs by touch—feeling the hard skin where the syringes had rubbed—the bruises on the face, the broken nose—the eyes that opened, not seeing her.

  “Xochitl. Xochitl. It's all right. I'm here. Everything is going to be all right. I promise.”

  But the body was limp; the face distorted in a grimace of terror; and there was, indeed, nothing left of the picture she'd held on for so long.

  “Come on, come on,” she whispered, fiddling with the straps—her sharpened nails catching on the leather, fumbling around the knots.

  The cold, detached part of her finally took control; and, forcing herself not to think of what she was doing, she cut through the straps, one by one—pulled out the IVs, and gently disengaged the body, catching its full weight on her arms.

  Xochitl shuddered, a spasm like that of a dying woman. “Tecipiani,” she whispered. “No…”

  “She's not here,” Onalli said. Gently, carefully, she rose with Xochitl in her arms, cradling her close, like a hurt child.

  Black One take you, Tecipiani. Oblivion's too good for the likes of you. I hope you burn in the Christian Hell, with the sinners and the blasphemers and the traitors. I hope you burn…

  She was halfway out of the House, trudging through the last courtyard before the novices’ quarters, when she became aware she wasn't alone.

  Too late.

  The lights came on, blinding, unforgiving.

  “I always knew you'd come back, Onalli,” a voice said. “No matter how hard I tried to send you away.”

  Black One take her for a fool. Too easy. It had been too easy, from beginning to end: just another of her sick games.

  “Black One screw you,” Onalli spat into the brightness. “That's all you deserve, isn't it, Tecipiani?”

  The commander was just a silhouette—standing, by the sound of her, only a few paces away. But Xochitl lay in Onalli's arms, a limp weight she couldn't toss aside, even to strike.