Flowers of War: Shattered Dagger
Jan. 31st, 2006 08:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aithne[geekery, cowritten just like Constantinople was.]
I'm always interested in what happens to characters after the standard fantasy tropes, after "happily ever after" happens.
In this case, this is the standard "plucky girl disguises herself as a boy to become a fighter, turns out to be good at it, gets exposed for what she is and then is saved by divine intervention" story...only that was years ago, said girl is a woman now and well-established in her place in the world, and she thinks that the hard part of her life is over and done with. She's happy and well-adjusted, and she's done exactly what she wanted to do with her life.
Jade Reed is about to find out what comes after happily ever after, first hand...
My name is Jade Reed, and I belong to Huitzilopochtli, the god of war. There are very few of us woman priests, and all of us got here in unusual ways. I distinguished myself on the battlefield when I was younger, disguising myself as a boy and fighting with the heart of a jaguar. I took my first prisoner when I was twelve.
My father was sent to the gods when I was very young, and my mother did what she had to in order to survive. Unfortunately, it did not leave much time for me, and I was attracted to the mock battles that the boys fought. Two of the boys became my closest friends, and they helped me disguise myself and join the boys as they became men on the battlefield. I burned with holy flame, I was as fierce as the sun itself, and my knife was strong and sharp. My friends, the brave Fire Coyote and the cunning Smoking Shield, ran beside me, and we were glorious!
Unfortunately, my disguise could not last forever. I was strong, and my body did not betray me with its curves until I was sixteen, but eventually it was noticed what I was. I was taken to the Great Temple in chains, and the priests prayed for Huitzilopochtli to tell them what must be done with a woman who would defile the sacred ritual of war with her presence.
There was no answer for a moment. Then a bright green presence buzzed over my head, and paused there. A hummingbird, the sacred messenger of the god himself! It looked at the priests and warbled a small song, then flew off almost too quickly to see.
And on the ground before me, there was something that the hummingbird had dropped. A green feather. It was an unmistakable omen. The Hummingbird of the South had claimed me as one of his own, and the priests had no choice but to take me in.
So I became a priestess. I am tall and rawboned, now in my thirty-third year, my hip-length black hair my only true beauty. I have had lovers who have praised my lips, of my proud blade of a nose, but it is the way of lovers to say sweet things that may or may not be true. I send men to the gods, to keep the sun moving, and I chant the praises of the one I love with all my soul, my Huitzilopochtli, my Hummingbird. I have never married--imagine the man that could compete with a god!--and I do not regret it at all.
But I do have one secret fear, one small doubt.
Tomorrow, we begin to reconsecrate the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan. Our Chief Speaker, Auitzotl, will be performing many of the sacrifices himself. There are so many to be sent to the gods, so many more than usual. It will take days to perform all of the rituals.
I have asked the god in my prayers if this is right, if he truly needs so many warriors sent to him. I have not received an answer, either yes or no. I watch the high priests, and they seem so sure that they are right. Perhaps the god is speaking to them as he is not speaking to me.
And perhaps the god has turned his face from me...or has turned his face from them. I do not know. But I hide my doubts, and make sure my blades are sharp, for they will surely see much use in the next four days.
*****
The sun beat down at the top of the Temple of Huitzilopochtli. The noonday sacrifices were always the worst, and Jade Reed wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. It was somewhat difficult to feel close to one's god when the sweat dripping off one's nose made it itch, she thought. The sacrifice before her was a girl, perhaps twelve or so, a prisoner taken in a recent battle.
Jade hated sacrificing children; it was much easier to find the hearts of grown men and women. But her soul had been claimed by the god, and she would be sent. She wiped her forehead again and continued her chant, calling the god to witness her next actions. All around her, she could hear the chants of her fellow priests and the screams as their sacrifices were sent to the gods. She began to intone the final chant, raising her knife high, bringing it down--
It was as if her obsidian knife had suddenly hit a stone wall. Jade blinked. There was a man's finger poised on the tip of the blade, as if that finger alone had stopped her cut. Irritated, she followed the finger to a hand, the hand to an arm, the arm to the shoulder of a handsome young warrior who was smiling at her.
She pulled the knife back. "Who are you, and why are you interrupting me?" she demanded.
The warrior looked a bit hurt. "I am offended, I think. You don't know me?"
Jade looked at him again. She took stock of the handsome face, the bright green feathers in his warrior's crest, the same bright green feathers decorating the ankle of the sandal on his left foot. And she suddenly noticed the way his presence made her feel, as if she were in the presence of something eternal. There was only one being that had ever made her feel that way.
She fell to her knees. "Huitzilopochtli, lord. I am so sorry. I did not expect to see you, my lord."
He smiled. "That's all right. I thought the whole stopping the knife by my finger thing might have given it away. And possibly the fact that nobody else is moving."
Jade glanced around. He was right; all around her there were knives frozen in mid-cut, mouths stretched open but silent, blood frozen in its fall to the ground. "May I ask why you've chosen to visit your servant, lord?" she asked, still on her knees.
"Yes, I have a job for you. But one that I ask and do not command."
She just stared at him for a moment. The god...asks something of me? He is a god. Why does he not simply command it of me, if he wishes it done? Nothing in her training had covered this eventuality, and his irreverent attitude was making her uneasy. "What job do you have for me to do?"
The god looked at her steadily, and she felt as if he were opening her soul to inspect the contents. "Let me start with your beliefs. What do you believe? Maybe better yet, why do you sacrifice?"
And he does not know this? "Because the warriors must be sent to help you keep the sun in motion. If we did not sacrifice, the sun would stop in the midday sky and burn us to death, or it would go down and never come up again, leaving us to freeze and starve. It is an honor to be sacrificed, to help with that."
Huitzilopochtli sighed. "Let me start by saying that's just wrong. Auitzotl wants you to believe that. The sun will go down and come up again with or without the sacrifices."
Hopelessly confused, Jade felt her tongue numb and her mind slip away from her like water. "He--what? If not that, then why?"
"Because your Chief Speaker is a bloodthirsty little monster. Don't get me wrong, I like a good battle. But this is just a blood bath. No one is winning anything here. Just a lot of blood with no cause." The god shrugged. "He is going to sacrifice over eighty thousand people in the next few days. That's the size of this city. Is that the right thing to do?"
His words mirrored her doubts so neatly that for a moment she thought he had merely spoken her own thoughts aloud. "I--had wondered. But I thought that the head priests spoke to you, that our ruler did as well. I thought you were the one that wanted the sacrifice, not they."
"Nope, your head priest is as powerless as a newborn. I took his powers from him. He lies well, though, I give him that."
Jade took a long breath. Her knees ached from the stone, but she ignored them with the ease of long practice. "All right. I'm going to go on faith that you're not a hallucination caused by my own selfish doubts. What am I supposed to do about it?"
"Ah well. Here's the crux of the situation. I need three of those sacrifices to live."
She could only stare at him. What did he just say? "Which ones?" she finally managed.
He extended his hand to her. "Come with me." Numbly, she reached out to take it. The god pulled her to her feet, and then suddenly they were elsewhere.
They were in the holding cells beneath the Temple. Hopelessly overcrowded at the moment, choked with sacrifices, she knew the rank smell and the din down here very well indeed. The god pointed. "Her. Her name is Smoke. You may recognize her. She is your ruler's daughter."
The girl was sixteen, a slip of a thing, pressed against the wooden bars of the cell she was in. Her face was patient, though, as if she had no fears in the world. "I do," Jade said. "I didn't know she was to be sacrificed."
He shrugged. "Special occasions, lead to special sacrifices."
Jade nodded. "We send the gods the ones we most cherish on the earth. "
"Rhetoric." He gave her a look sharp as a flaying knife, one that cut her open. "Get rid of it. We don't give you people to love so you can hack them up with a knife. Love is not a knife in the chest. Literally."
She still felt tongue-tied, but the god was starting to irritate her a bit. "It goes against everything I have been taught. Forgive me if it takes some time to unlearn the lessons of a lifetime. Who else?"
"I understand. Sorry to burst your illusions." Huitzilopochtli turned and led her down the corridor, to another cell. He pointed at a young man, a few years older than Smoke, dressed in somewhat bedraggled warrior's garb. "His name is Onyx," the god said.
Jade looked the boy over, made sure she would recognize him again if she saw him. "All right. Who is the last one?"
She did not understand the sudden suggestion of mischievousness in the god's eyes. "Behind him, the man praying right there. You will know him. His name is Jaguar. An old priest that disappeared three years ago. You might know him better as your ex-lover."
Her heart took a sudden lurch, and with a shock she recognized him. Jaguar. Jaguar, who had been kind to her, who had simply disappeared one day. He was alive? "Yes, I do remember him," she said, and memory softened her voice. "I thought he was dead."
The god shook his head. "No, I gave him the same talk that I am giving you. He changed his ways."
"I see. So why these three? And what do I do with them, if I do save them?"
He gave her a smile. "Well, then the hard part comes. Staying alive. You see, Auitzotl will be mightily annoyed, and he will be after you and them. Jaguar will show you the way."
"Are both of the others like Jaguar? You've had this little talk with them, as well?"
"They understand but they are not gifted with powers like you and Jaguar. They have other talents that are needed."
Jade let out a breath, and her eyes returned to Onyx, and Jaguar behind him. "All right. I take them, and we disappear."
"And your life will change, Jade. Hence why I am asking and not commanding you." She looked over at him, and again he was giving her that look that bored right into her, laid her open before him.
She flinched away from him, then spent a moment attempting to calm herself. "I..." She stopped, lost for words. "My loyalties have never been to the Temple. They have always been to you. I will manage. How can I not, now that you have told me this? I cannot un-know this."
"I can put you back to the point where I saw you. You will continue the stroke and will remember nothing."
Jade shook her head. "I believe a part of me already knows, lord. My doubts were coming to bother me quite a bit. I don't truly want to lose everything I've worked for, but if what I am doing is founded on a lie..."
Huitzilopochtli nodded. "That is why I came to you, Jade. But the decision is yours."
She looked away from him again, thinking. Everything she was, everything she had worked for--she would be throwing it all away. She had a comfortable life, a position of power, true faith in what she was doing. She never went hungry or thirsty, had enough of everything she could want, had friends and lovers when she wanted them, and solitude when she wanted that instead. People bowed to her, deferred to her, treated her with respect.
If she did this, she would lose all of it.
What is the most important thing in the world to me?
The answer beat beneath her breastbone, in the place that roared like a great cat in battle. Huitzilopochtli. He is everything. He is the only thing.
Jade looked up at her god. "I will do it. If the sacrifices are truly not necessary, I cannot continue as I have been."
He nodded. "Then, Jade, you have four days to rescue them and try not to get killed. They will help you along the way, and you will find wonders you can not imagine or even dream of. You will be hearing from me again. Good luck, my child."
Suddenly, she was back on top of the Temple, her eyes assaulted by the noonday sun. She was holding her knife, beginning her chant. Not quite back where she'd been interrupted, then. Just before.
She looked at the girl tied to the altar before her, and the girl raised her head and looked back.
Jade's obsidian dagger dropped from her nerveless hand and shattered on the stone.
With a strangled cry, she turned away, feeling her gorge rise. The girl tied to the altar was no longer simply a sacrifice, simply a soul tied to an inconvenient body that Jade would help rid her of. She was suddenly a person.
Suddenly human.
Shale, another priest, turned towards her, away from his own sacrifice. "Jade, are you all right?" he asked.
She shook her head. "No--no," she managed. "The sun--I think I am ill. Tell them I retired to my quarters, get someone else to take my place. If I get out of the sun--"
"Of course. Happens to the best of us. Go on, Jade, do you need help?"
"I'll be fine," she said, and though Shale gave her a doubtful look, he turned and went to find the ranking priest. Jade snapped at the Temple warriors who were standing by, "What are you waiting for? Get this one down to the holding cells. The omens are obviously bad for her today, she can wait to go to the god until tomorrow."
A few minutes later, she was curled up on her sleeping mat, shivering and sweating. She couldn't believe what she had just agreed to do. She could have gone back to her comfortable life and her small doubts. Instead, she had replaced those small doubts with very large ones indeed.
At the moment, she felt as useless as the dagger she had shattered, unable to force her mind into a semblance of order, to think about the task she had been charged with. All she could think about was the way that the girl she had been about to sacrifice had looked at her, and the way what the god had said to her had changed how she saw the girl entirely.
Perhaps she had gone mad. Would she know if she had? Had her mind broken? How am I to know? It was agonizing, not having any way to be certain that it had truly been the god she had spoken to.
She sighed. Stop it, Jade. That was him, and you know it. Nobody but a god can make you feel like that when you stand in front of him. You're just looking for an excuse to back out, she told herself sternly. But if it had been him, and he had been telling the truth--
What does that make me?
He had not seemed to be angry with her for her past mistakes. That was one encouraging sign, at least. He had wanted her help, and if that required giving up everything that she was now--
Perhaps I have allowed myself to become too comfortable. I fought so hard to get here, and it has been so long-- She stopped the thought, amazed at it.
So long since I have felt truly alive.
There were moments, of course. In the sacrifice, when she felt truly close to her god, in battle, in the throes of bedsport, the times when the blood stirred and pounded in her ears. But she was growing older, had found her first silver hairs the other morning, and she had settled into comfort and been grateful for it. She was no longer the fierce and wild child who had fought her way into the Temple years ago.
She put her head down on the mat. Alive or no, she had accepted this. She could not disappoint her god. So she would have to figure out how to disappear three sacrifices from the holding cells, in front of thousands of eyes, preferably while leaving enough confusion in her wake that it would take a while to work out who had taken them...and even which ones were missing.
She blinked, and then smiled. Confusion. She was suddenly put in mind of a flock of birds bursting in all directions from underfoot. If she were lucky, it might even take them a day or so to figure out that she was even gone. And by that time, they could be well on their way to wherever they were going.
Jade closed her eyes. It was possible. She knew how the Temple worked very well, and she had authority here, which would make things easier, especially if she knew she wasn't coming back. Like Jaguar, she was going to have to disappear.
Jaguar. She turned the thought of him over in her mind. He was a few years older than she, probably in his fortieth year now, one of the few men older than herself she had ever chosen for her bed. What he had lacked in youthful fire he had amply made up for in patience and persistence, she remembered fondly. They had fought--about what, she couldn't remember now--and parted ways before either of them had gotten too attached. A few months after that, he'd gone. It had been thought that he'd come across something in the forest that had been tougher than he was.
How had he ended up in the holding cells, anyway? Where had he been all this time, and why had he come back?
All questions she would learn the answers to, eventually. For the moment, she bent her mind and her will towards figuring out how to get her three charges out of the cells and away...
Quetzalxochitl oo
Tlachinol xochitli
zan iyyo tonequimilol
yahoxochitl
Flowers of divine liquor
flowers of fire:
only they can be our garment:
flowers of war
--fragment of a Nahuatl war poem ("flowers of war" refers to blood flowing from wounds)
I'm always interested in what happens to characters after the standard fantasy tropes, after "happily ever after" happens.
In this case, this is the standard "plucky girl disguises herself as a boy to become a fighter, turns out to be good at it, gets exposed for what she is and then is saved by divine intervention" story...only that was years ago, said girl is a woman now and well-established in her place in the world, and she thinks that the hard part of her life is over and done with. She's happy and well-adjusted, and she's done exactly what she wanted to do with her life.
Jade Reed is about to find out what comes after happily ever after, first hand...
My name is Jade Reed, and I belong to Huitzilopochtli, the god of war. There are very few of us woman priests, and all of us got here in unusual ways. I distinguished myself on the battlefield when I was younger, disguising myself as a boy and fighting with the heart of a jaguar. I took my first prisoner when I was twelve.
My father was sent to the gods when I was very young, and my mother did what she had to in order to survive. Unfortunately, it did not leave much time for me, and I was attracted to the mock battles that the boys fought. Two of the boys became my closest friends, and they helped me disguise myself and join the boys as they became men on the battlefield. I burned with holy flame, I was as fierce as the sun itself, and my knife was strong and sharp. My friends, the brave Fire Coyote and the cunning Smoking Shield, ran beside me, and we were glorious!
Unfortunately, my disguise could not last forever. I was strong, and my body did not betray me with its curves until I was sixteen, but eventually it was noticed what I was. I was taken to the Great Temple in chains, and the priests prayed for Huitzilopochtli to tell them what must be done with a woman who would defile the sacred ritual of war with her presence.
There was no answer for a moment. Then a bright green presence buzzed over my head, and paused there. A hummingbird, the sacred messenger of the god himself! It looked at the priests and warbled a small song, then flew off almost too quickly to see.
And on the ground before me, there was something that the hummingbird had dropped. A green feather. It was an unmistakable omen. The Hummingbird of the South had claimed me as one of his own, and the priests had no choice but to take me in.
So I became a priestess. I am tall and rawboned, now in my thirty-third year, my hip-length black hair my only true beauty. I have had lovers who have praised my lips, of my proud blade of a nose, but it is the way of lovers to say sweet things that may or may not be true. I send men to the gods, to keep the sun moving, and I chant the praises of the one I love with all my soul, my Huitzilopochtli, my Hummingbird. I have never married--imagine the man that could compete with a god!--and I do not regret it at all.
But I do have one secret fear, one small doubt.
Tomorrow, we begin to reconsecrate the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan. Our Chief Speaker, Auitzotl, will be performing many of the sacrifices himself. There are so many to be sent to the gods, so many more than usual. It will take days to perform all of the rituals.
I have asked the god in my prayers if this is right, if he truly needs so many warriors sent to him. I have not received an answer, either yes or no. I watch the high priests, and they seem so sure that they are right. Perhaps the god is speaking to them as he is not speaking to me.
And perhaps the god has turned his face from me...or has turned his face from them. I do not know. But I hide my doubts, and make sure my blades are sharp, for they will surely see much use in the next four days.
*****
The sun beat down at the top of the Temple of Huitzilopochtli. The noonday sacrifices were always the worst, and Jade Reed wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. It was somewhat difficult to feel close to one's god when the sweat dripping off one's nose made it itch, she thought. The sacrifice before her was a girl, perhaps twelve or so, a prisoner taken in a recent battle.
Jade hated sacrificing children; it was much easier to find the hearts of grown men and women. But her soul had been claimed by the god, and she would be sent. She wiped her forehead again and continued her chant, calling the god to witness her next actions. All around her, she could hear the chants of her fellow priests and the screams as their sacrifices were sent to the gods. She began to intone the final chant, raising her knife high, bringing it down--
It was as if her obsidian knife had suddenly hit a stone wall. Jade blinked. There was a man's finger poised on the tip of the blade, as if that finger alone had stopped her cut. Irritated, she followed the finger to a hand, the hand to an arm, the arm to the shoulder of a handsome young warrior who was smiling at her.
She pulled the knife back. "Who are you, and why are you interrupting me?" she demanded.
The warrior looked a bit hurt. "I am offended, I think. You don't know me?"
Jade looked at him again. She took stock of the handsome face, the bright green feathers in his warrior's crest, the same bright green feathers decorating the ankle of the sandal on his left foot. And she suddenly noticed the way his presence made her feel, as if she were in the presence of something eternal. There was only one being that had ever made her feel that way.
She fell to her knees. "Huitzilopochtli, lord. I am so sorry. I did not expect to see you, my lord."
He smiled. "That's all right. I thought the whole stopping the knife by my finger thing might have given it away. And possibly the fact that nobody else is moving."
Jade glanced around. He was right; all around her there were knives frozen in mid-cut, mouths stretched open but silent, blood frozen in its fall to the ground. "May I ask why you've chosen to visit your servant, lord?" she asked, still on her knees.
"Yes, I have a job for you. But one that I ask and do not command."
She just stared at him for a moment. The god...asks something of me? He is a god. Why does he not simply command it of me, if he wishes it done? Nothing in her training had covered this eventuality, and his irreverent attitude was making her uneasy. "What job do you have for me to do?"
The god looked at her steadily, and she felt as if he were opening her soul to inspect the contents. "Let me start with your beliefs. What do you believe? Maybe better yet, why do you sacrifice?"
And he does not know this? "Because the warriors must be sent to help you keep the sun in motion. If we did not sacrifice, the sun would stop in the midday sky and burn us to death, or it would go down and never come up again, leaving us to freeze and starve. It is an honor to be sacrificed, to help with that."
Huitzilopochtli sighed. "Let me start by saying that's just wrong. Auitzotl wants you to believe that. The sun will go down and come up again with or without the sacrifices."
Hopelessly confused, Jade felt her tongue numb and her mind slip away from her like water. "He--what? If not that, then why?"
"Because your Chief Speaker is a bloodthirsty little monster. Don't get me wrong, I like a good battle. But this is just a blood bath. No one is winning anything here. Just a lot of blood with no cause." The god shrugged. "He is going to sacrifice over eighty thousand people in the next few days. That's the size of this city. Is that the right thing to do?"
His words mirrored her doubts so neatly that for a moment she thought he had merely spoken her own thoughts aloud. "I--had wondered. But I thought that the head priests spoke to you, that our ruler did as well. I thought you were the one that wanted the sacrifice, not they."
"Nope, your head priest is as powerless as a newborn. I took his powers from him. He lies well, though, I give him that."
Jade took a long breath. Her knees ached from the stone, but she ignored them with the ease of long practice. "All right. I'm going to go on faith that you're not a hallucination caused by my own selfish doubts. What am I supposed to do about it?"
"Ah well. Here's the crux of the situation. I need three of those sacrifices to live."
She could only stare at him. What did he just say? "Which ones?" she finally managed.
He extended his hand to her. "Come with me." Numbly, she reached out to take it. The god pulled her to her feet, and then suddenly they were elsewhere.
They were in the holding cells beneath the Temple. Hopelessly overcrowded at the moment, choked with sacrifices, she knew the rank smell and the din down here very well indeed. The god pointed. "Her. Her name is Smoke. You may recognize her. She is your ruler's daughter."
The girl was sixteen, a slip of a thing, pressed against the wooden bars of the cell she was in. Her face was patient, though, as if she had no fears in the world. "I do," Jade said. "I didn't know she was to be sacrificed."
He shrugged. "Special occasions, lead to special sacrifices."
Jade nodded. "We send the gods the ones we most cherish on the earth. "
"Rhetoric." He gave her a look sharp as a flaying knife, one that cut her open. "Get rid of it. We don't give you people to love so you can hack them up with a knife. Love is not a knife in the chest. Literally."
She still felt tongue-tied, but the god was starting to irritate her a bit. "It goes against everything I have been taught. Forgive me if it takes some time to unlearn the lessons of a lifetime. Who else?"
"I understand. Sorry to burst your illusions." Huitzilopochtli turned and led her down the corridor, to another cell. He pointed at a young man, a few years older than Smoke, dressed in somewhat bedraggled warrior's garb. "His name is Onyx," the god said.
Jade looked the boy over, made sure she would recognize him again if she saw him. "All right. Who is the last one?"
She did not understand the sudden suggestion of mischievousness in the god's eyes. "Behind him, the man praying right there. You will know him. His name is Jaguar. An old priest that disappeared three years ago. You might know him better as your ex-lover."
Her heart took a sudden lurch, and with a shock she recognized him. Jaguar. Jaguar, who had been kind to her, who had simply disappeared one day. He was alive? "Yes, I do remember him," she said, and memory softened her voice. "I thought he was dead."
The god shook his head. "No, I gave him the same talk that I am giving you. He changed his ways."
"I see. So why these three? And what do I do with them, if I do save them?"
He gave her a smile. "Well, then the hard part comes. Staying alive. You see, Auitzotl will be mightily annoyed, and he will be after you and them. Jaguar will show you the way."
"Are both of the others like Jaguar? You've had this little talk with them, as well?"
"They understand but they are not gifted with powers like you and Jaguar. They have other talents that are needed."
Jade let out a breath, and her eyes returned to Onyx, and Jaguar behind him. "All right. I take them, and we disappear."
"And your life will change, Jade. Hence why I am asking and not commanding you." She looked over at him, and again he was giving her that look that bored right into her, laid her open before him.
She flinched away from him, then spent a moment attempting to calm herself. "I..." She stopped, lost for words. "My loyalties have never been to the Temple. They have always been to you. I will manage. How can I not, now that you have told me this? I cannot un-know this."
"I can put you back to the point where I saw you. You will continue the stroke and will remember nothing."
Jade shook her head. "I believe a part of me already knows, lord. My doubts were coming to bother me quite a bit. I don't truly want to lose everything I've worked for, but if what I am doing is founded on a lie..."
Huitzilopochtli nodded. "That is why I came to you, Jade. But the decision is yours."
She looked away from him again, thinking. Everything she was, everything she had worked for--she would be throwing it all away. She had a comfortable life, a position of power, true faith in what she was doing. She never went hungry or thirsty, had enough of everything she could want, had friends and lovers when she wanted them, and solitude when she wanted that instead. People bowed to her, deferred to her, treated her with respect.
If she did this, she would lose all of it.
What is the most important thing in the world to me?
The answer beat beneath her breastbone, in the place that roared like a great cat in battle. Huitzilopochtli. He is everything. He is the only thing.
Jade looked up at her god. "I will do it. If the sacrifices are truly not necessary, I cannot continue as I have been."
He nodded. "Then, Jade, you have four days to rescue them and try not to get killed. They will help you along the way, and you will find wonders you can not imagine or even dream of. You will be hearing from me again. Good luck, my child."
Suddenly, she was back on top of the Temple, her eyes assaulted by the noonday sun. She was holding her knife, beginning her chant. Not quite back where she'd been interrupted, then. Just before.
She looked at the girl tied to the altar before her, and the girl raised her head and looked back.
Jade's obsidian dagger dropped from her nerveless hand and shattered on the stone.
With a strangled cry, she turned away, feeling her gorge rise. The girl tied to the altar was no longer simply a sacrifice, simply a soul tied to an inconvenient body that Jade would help rid her of. She was suddenly a person.
Suddenly human.
Shale, another priest, turned towards her, away from his own sacrifice. "Jade, are you all right?" he asked.
She shook her head. "No--no," she managed. "The sun--I think I am ill. Tell them I retired to my quarters, get someone else to take my place. If I get out of the sun--"
"Of course. Happens to the best of us. Go on, Jade, do you need help?"
"I'll be fine," she said, and though Shale gave her a doubtful look, he turned and went to find the ranking priest. Jade snapped at the Temple warriors who were standing by, "What are you waiting for? Get this one down to the holding cells. The omens are obviously bad for her today, she can wait to go to the god until tomorrow."
A few minutes later, she was curled up on her sleeping mat, shivering and sweating. She couldn't believe what she had just agreed to do. She could have gone back to her comfortable life and her small doubts. Instead, she had replaced those small doubts with very large ones indeed.
At the moment, she felt as useless as the dagger she had shattered, unable to force her mind into a semblance of order, to think about the task she had been charged with. All she could think about was the way that the girl she had been about to sacrifice had looked at her, and the way what the god had said to her had changed how she saw the girl entirely.
Perhaps she had gone mad. Would she know if she had? Had her mind broken? How am I to know? It was agonizing, not having any way to be certain that it had truly been the god she had spoken to.
She sighed. Stop it, Jade. That was him, and you know it. Nobody but a god can make you feel like that when you stand in front of him. You're just looking for an excuse to back out, she told herself sternly. But if it had been him, and he had been telling the truth--
What does that make me?
He had not seemed to be angry with her for her past mistakes. That was one encouraging sign, at least. He had wanted her help, and if that required giving up everything that she was now--
Perhaps I have allowed myself to become too comfortable. I fought so hard to get here, and it has been so long-- She stopped the thought, amazed at it.
So long since I have felt truly alive.
There were moments, of course. In the sacrifice, when she felt truly close to her god, in battle, in the throes of bedsport, the times when the blood stirred and pounded in her ears. But she was growing older, had found her first silver hairs the other morning, and she had settled into comfort and been grateful for it. She was no longer the fierce and wild child who had fought her way into the Temple years ago.
She put her head down on the mat. Alive or no, she had accepted this. She could not disappoint her god. So she would have to figure out how to disappear three sacrifices from the holding cells, in front of thousands of eyes, preferably while leaving enough confusion in her wake that it would take a while to work out who had taken them...and even which ones were missing.
She blinked, and then smiled. Confusion. She was suddenly put in mind of a flock of birds bursting in all directions from underfoot. If she were lucky, it might even take them a day or so to figure out that she was even gone. And by that time, they could be well on their way to wherever they were going.
Jade closed her eyes. It was possible. She knew how the Temple worked very well, and she had authority here, which would make things easier, especially if she knew she wasn't coming back. Like Jaguar, she was going to have to disappear.
Jaguar. She turned the thought of him over in her mind. He was a few years older than she, probably in his fortieth year now, one of the few men older than herself she had ever chosen for her bed. What he had lacked in youthful fire he had amply made up for in patience and persistence, she remembered fondly. They had fought--about what, she couldn't remember now--and parted ways before either of them had gotten too attached. A few months after that, he'd gone. It had been thought that he'd come across something in the forest that had been tougher than he was.
How had he ended up in the holding cells, anyway? Where had he been all this time, and why had he come back?
All questions she would learn the answers to, eventually. For the moment, she bent her mind and her will towards figuring out how to get her three charges out of the cells and away...
Quetzalxochitl oo
Tlachinol xochitli
zan iyyo tonequimilol
yahoxochitl
Flowers of divine liquor
flowers of fire:
only they can be our garment:
flowers of war
--fragment of a Nahuatl war poem ("flowers of war" refers to blood flowing from wounds)
