Flowers of War: What Understanding Defies
Feb. 8th, 2006 11:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aithneIf you'll recall, when last we saw Jade she was trying to figure out how to get three potential sacrifices out of the Temple, having had her entire worldview more or less shattered by her god.
She's already in over her head, and she's barely even begun.
[Note: yes, I know leopards are African; I'm using the word here to denote a black jaguar. Also, traditional nahuales aren't exactly what we think of as werecreatures, but they're close enough for me for the moment.]
The moon, not quite full, rose over the Temple of Tenochtitlan. Jade, walking down the internal corridors towards the holding cells where the sacrifices were kept. It was dark, stinking, and loud with moans, talking, and prayers. She fought the urge to cover her mouth with her hand, just as she always did every time she came down here to choose a sacrifice. She calmed her pounding heart and walked forward.
The guards bowed to her. "Priest," one said. "What would you have of us?"
"I need three sacrifices," she said, and turned to look at the cages as if musing over which ones she wanted. "The girl, there. The warrior, right at the front. And the old one by him." The guards nodded and one went to each cage, unlocking it and gesturing to the ones she had chosen. Their fierce swords, edged with obsidian, warned the rest back. A naked blade in her hand, Jade watched impassively as the three she had chosen came out of the cages.
Jaguar, Onyx, and Smoke came over to her, and Jaguar nodded to her. She gave him just the edge of a smile, enough to tell him that she knew him, and said, "You three need to come with me if you don't want to end up on the altar."
Jaguar nodded, and the other two looked by turns puzzled and stunned. She palmed one of her knives and pressed it into Jaguar's hand, then stepped in front of her charges. "Just follow my lead," she said quietly as she stepped forward.
The guards had turned to relock the cages. "Wait," she commanded them. "Come here."
Her gaze did not waver as they shrugged and walked towards her. She was unruffled water, offering no threat, until the first of them came within range.
Then she stepped forward and slammed her knife into the man's throat. Beside her, acting at almost the same instant, Jaguar slid the knife she'd given him into the guard's ribs. The man collapsed silently.
The other guard gave a shout, and there was a frozen moment when the people in the cages just stared, not understanding what had just happened. "Now we run!" Jade grinned, and took to her heels, setting off for one of the two entrances into the holding cells.
The others followed closely behind. There were shouts and screams as men and women boiled out of the two cells that had been opened. It was perhaps a tenth of the sacrifices slated for the next few days; they made a glorious noise as they became a tide of humanity, heading for both exits. The scream of the remaining guard was swallowed by the tumult as he was crushed underfoot.
Jade was stripping off her priestess headdress, heedless of the feathers as she folded it and tucked it under her arm. She freed her sling from where she had tucked it into her waistband, slipping a stone into the sling. Before them, the two guards on the stone doors behind her were trying to close them against the rush of people. Jade let fly with the stone, then reloaded and released another, then another. The third hit the mark, the shoulder of one of the guards on the door. (She had been aiming for his head, and resolved to practice more with the sling.)
That one fell back, and though one of the doors slammed shut, she and her three charges managed to slide through the other. Jade glanced at Smoke, but her worry was unfounded; the girl was fleet of foot, and seemed to be inspired by the howling masses behind them.
Those masses hit the door, which burst open. They poured out into the streets, and before them the four of them ran, Jade grinning widely. She started to angle towards where she lad left stashes of clothing and food, thinking that they would be leaving the city that night.
Jaguar caught her wrist. "This way," he said, and began to pull her away from where she'd been going, in almost the opposite direction.
Surprised, she almost stumbled and caught herself. Starting to follow him, she said, "There's food and clothing over there. But you're the one who knows where we're going."
"Different plan, Jade." He was running now, the rest of them working to keep up. "Glad you came to your senses."
She nodded and then concentrated on running. He was leading them into one of the poorer sections of town, a warren of small houses, and seemingly at random ducked into one of them. Smoke nearly ran into Jade as she skidded to a halt and turned to follow Jaguar.
He had been met at the door by three large warriors, all of whom looked angry at something. He brushed by them without a word, and the rest of them stayed close on his heels. He tapped on a back wall three times, and it swung open, away from them.
There was a staircase beyond the door, and beyond the staircase there was a maze of narrow tunnels. Jaguar seemed to know where he was going, and silently they followed.
Finally, Jade spoke. "Where are we going, by the way?"
"The resistance movement." In the dim light, she could see him turn his head to grin sharply at her. "Welcome to the world below, as we call it."
She blinked. Resistance movement? "I had no idea there was even a resistance movement. It's good to see you're alive, by the way. we all thought you ran into something in the swamp bigger than you were."
"Well yes and no. I ran into the same something that you did."
"Yes, he mentioned." They fell silent as they descended a bit deeper. She had no idea where they were, now. The two young people behind her looked even more lost than she was, and far more stunned, as if unsure if they'd been rescued or simply saved for a worse fate. "I'm Jade," she said to them. "Late of the temple of Huitzilopochtli."
"Smoke," said the girl, a bit shyly. "This is Onyx." They were holding hands, Jade noticed, and she suddenly thought she knew at least part of why the god had wanted to save the warrior.
She turned back to Jaguar. He had slowed and turned from a wide place in the tunnel to a room about as large as her own back at the Temple. There were cushions, chairs, and water jars, and Jaguar motioned them to make themselves comfortable. As she sat, Jade asked, "So now what? The god didn't tell me anything more than to get you folks out of the holding cells and keep you alive."
He gave her a half-smile. "Ah, he can be vague sometimes. But I think the general plan was for us to start a rebellion against Aziuhoatl and possibly install Smoke as the new ruler."
She saw Smoke blink and straighten at that. Jade replied, "Well. That sounds reasonable. Insanely difficult, but reasonable."
"Yes. Barring that, I think we are maybe to get her out of here and start over."
Jade nodded. "That's probably more realistic. But now that I know what I know...Aziuhoatl probably shouldn't be in a position of leadership." She remembered that Smoke was his daughter, and decided the less said, the better.
"He has taken certain liberties with a great many things," he said, running his hand through his sweat-matted hair. "We need to stop him. Eighty thousand people killed in a single day is--extreme."
"How many people do we have on this side of things, now?" she asked.
"Just a few hundred."
She blew out a noisy breath and remarked dryly, "This is not the most achievable divine request I've ever received, that's for sure."
His answering smile was rueful. "No, it's not, but you can be a great help, now. It depends on what you think you can accomplish."
"I've never backed down from anything hard before. I'm not about to start." She shrugged, and straightened her back. No, she never had backed down from anything hard. It was almost a comforting thought. She had never failed in anything she had truly set her mind to.
Jaguar nodded. "The guards that saw you are dead, and they will think an escape happened. If you think you can play the role of high priestess again you could get us information like no one else ever could."
Go back? She had been all set to leave, to embark on a new life, to find new ways to honor and serve her god. She had not thought about the idea that she might be asked to go back into there. To live a lie. She thought about it for a moment. She could do it, if she needed to. If this was her mission, if this was where she would be the most useful... "If the ones on the door are dead--yes, I could probably go back. I don't exactly relish having to play the part again, now that I know what the sacrifices aren't accomplishing."
He gave her a wry smile. "You see, though. Aziuhoatl has been looking for a replacement for an advisor of his. And we have been hearing that he would like you to be the one. You would be just one of his advisors but still, it puts you in a position that we could never have achieved."
Jade blinked, sitting bolt upright. An advisor? Her? She had never aspired to it, it would have taken her away from the daily rhythms of life in the Temple. But now, she rather thought that being away from those rhythms would be good for her. Slowly, she nodded. "And I could get almost any information that you needed."
"That is the basic plan, if you are willing."
"I am. If it helps stop what's happening..."
She thought that was approval in his eyes. She was starting to remember bits and pieces of this man, now, the way he leaned back in his chair and the way he inclined his head as if listening to something none of the rest of them could hear. Little pieces of their short relationship and the friendship that had preceded it were floating upward in her, like feathers in a spring wind. "It will," he said, and she suddenly wondered if the same thing was happening for him. It was so strange, to come face to face with him after years of assuming he was dead and gone. She had forgotten him because there was no need for her to remember.
He was perhaps a little thinner, and the lines on his face carved perhaps a little deeper with the years. But his hair had been steel when he had been her age, and he looked like the same person she had known years ago.
Then she saw the challenge in his eyes, and was brought short. Not the same person, she reminded herself. Not the same person at all.
They had not been much to each other. But there had been kindness there, which was more than she could say for a few of her other lovers. She just wished she could remember why they had fallen away from each other. She brought herself out of her reverie. "Then I will. I'm sure I can pretend to be the person I was for seventeen years, at least for a while," she said, grimacing a bit.
"You will probably not have to sacrifice anymore, if that is your wish. Advisors are usually exempt from that sort of thing."
She inclined her head. "It would be a start. It's...very difficult to sacrifice when you keep seeing the sacrifices as people rather than souls who happen to have an inconvenient body attached."
Now it was Jaguar's turn to grimace. "I remember," he said. "You will want to go back tonight, then. If you need to contact us, come to the same house and ask for me."
She nodded and rose to leave. As she did so, she caught sight of Smoke and Onyx. The warrior had an arm around Smoke, and she was leaning into him, her face drawn and tired. Jade had an inkling that it wasn't the exertion of their run that had taken so much out of her. She's got a hard path ahead of her. I hope you're up to it, little one.
Onyx raised his eyes and looked at her, with that deep calm she had always associated with the most dangerous of warriors--the ones who spared no energy on anger or rage or even, it seemed, regret, the ones who lived entirely in the moment. His gaze was almost a challenge, and she returned it levelly. Be worthy of her, and I will try to be worthy of all of you.
Then she nodded to Jaguar once more and retraced her steps up to the upper world.
*****
Jade arrived back at the Temple, slipping in one of the back ways. She was a trifle bedraggled, but there was nothing she could do about it yet. There had been chaos in the streets, people running everywhere, temple guards, city guards, warriors from the army, all trying to chase down and return the escaped sacrifices. It seemed like a good number of them were going free, though a few had been caught and were being dragged back. Irrelevantly, Jade thought about the girl she hadn't sacrificed the day before yesterday and somewhat hoped she'd been among the escapees.
She might not have made much of a dent, freeing only a tenth of the sacrifices, but that was eight thousand or so people who would not be on the altar stone in the next few days. Within the Temple, inside the thick stone walls, it was as if nothing untoward at all had happened. Jade was silently rehearsing a story to explain where she had been when she rounded the corner to her rooms.
Her door was open, and she could see that the bright hangings she had on the wall had been removed. She blinked, and then looked at the two men who stood on either side of the door. They were in the uniform of palace guards, golden ornaments on their shoulders and at their hips. Anther look inside her room revealed that all of her possessions had been removed. "Can I help you?" she asked the guards.
"Yes, honored one," said one of the guards, his white plumes marking him as relatively senior, but not as senior as she was within the Temple. "We are here to escort you to your new quarters."
New quarters? "In the palace?" she managed.
He nodded, barely. "Yes, honored one. Please follow us." She did, out of the Temple, to the palace that directly adjoined it. The head priest always lived in the palace rather than the Temple; the Chief Speaker was always needing spiritual counsel at odd hours, it seemed. Jade's suspicions were confirmed when the guards opened the doors to the head priest's chamber, and within it Jade could see that her things were all there--the hangings on the walls, the statuettes arranged in the niches by the windows, her clothes press, her regalia.
She had evidently just been made head priest.
Jade inclined her head towards the guards. "I presume Aziuhoatl wishes to see me, then?"
"In the morning, honored one. He will send us for you then."
"Ah. Tell me, do either of you know what happened to the former head priest?" she asked.
The one on the left nodded. "We escorted him the sacrificial chambers this evening. He will be one with our god in three days."
She nodded. "I see. Thank you." The guards nodded and backed out, closing the door as they went.
Jade went to her sleeping mat and knelt, folding herself in half over her bent knees. "Huitzilopochtli help me," she muttered, bending so her forehead touched the mat. Her hands were shaking and her head felt as if it were vibrating with the aftermath of a great bell ringing.
It was not as though she were not qualified; she was one of the five most senior priests, and one of the most powerful. She had not been expecting it. And the head priest--what had happened to him? Had someone found out that his powers had been taken from him by the god?
Jaguar had been right. The position of head priest came with a seat among Aziuhoatl's advisors; she would be the lowest of the twenty-seven, but the rate of attrition was steady. She straightened from her folded position and glanced out the window. It faced east, as was only proper for the head priest of the solar god. They were large chambers, and they made her possessions look sparse in contrast.
She was surprised at how calm she felt. This was not where she had expected to end the night; perhaps fleeing through the swamps or in the twisting tunnels below the city, yes. She had expected to be hunted, to hide. Instead, she had been given to power like a gift to a child. Huitzilopochtli had spoken the truth when he'd said her life would change. She'd had no idea what he'd meant when he'd said it, but she was getting more of an inkling now.
Instead of running for her life, she was to stay here and attempt to help the work of others along. It didn't sound dangerous, but Jade had lived near the palace for most of her life. The only way to advance among the advisors was through the deaths of those above you. Scheming against one's superiors was not just tolerated, it was openly encouraged. She would have nothing to fear from that, at least for a little while, but this was a sort of jockeying for power that she'd never done before.
It made her uneasy, as if the ground beneath her feet were shifting and trembling. This felt like the most dangerous opportunity she could have been offered, to work to do the true god's will while maintaining a veneer of acceptable faith. For certain, if she'd mentioned Huitzilopochtli's visit to anyone who hadn't received one of their own, she would be condemned as dangerously mad.
She had a chance, now, to bring the Temple back in line with the god's wishes. If she managed to survive. She sighed and began to unbind her hair, shaking it out and combing her fingers through it, then plaiting it loosely for the night. The head priest determined the path the Temple would take, but the Temple was a large, unruly beast, and Chief Speaker's wishes mattered far more than was likely healthy for it.
She shook her head and lay down. She slept very little that night, her mind restless even if her body was exhausted. Her mind kept returning to that moment when she had seen the sacrifice before her as a fellow human. She was astonished at how empty the place where her faith had always lived within her felt, scraped dry and scrubbed clean. She felt as if the god had opened her and hollowed her out, leaving her with--what? Perhaps I will be helping now, she thought. If this brings me closer to the divine one, if I can replace what I was doing with something with true meaning--
But there was a part of her that could not believe that she had been practicing a lie for seventeen years. That part of her cried like a wounded child, bringing up all of the wordless memories of all of the sacrifices she had done. So many, she hardly remembered most of them, the hearts she had held beating in her hands. She had always felt the most holy in those moments, offering a warrior's heart to the sun, doing what she had most fervently believed had been what her god wanted.
How could she have been so very wrong? And why, in all her prayers, had Huitzilopochtli never told her how wrong she was?
At sunrise, she was up and doing her first devotions of the day, a series of simple prayers to help prepare her for the day ahead.
She could not have known then that nothing could prepare her for what would happen between sunrise and sunset.
*****
An hour or so after sunrise, the palace guards who had escorted her into the palace last night came to fetch her. Jade wondered if these two young men were assigned to her, but did not ask. Instead, she studied them. The one to her left was younger, and the gold discs at his shoulders looked newer. He had a scar on the side of his face, marring his otherwise attractive features, and his eyes were light, like newly-cut wood.
The older one was probably approaching her age, and from the straightness of his backbone and the set of his shoulders she surmised that he had been doing this for so many years that his bearing had become automatic. But the lines at the corners of his mouth were from laughing, not frowning, and she thought that away from his duty this man was probably a very different person than he seemed right now. He was not particularly handsome, but not offensive to the eye, and Jade rather thought that somewhere he probably had a plump wife and a basketful of children.
She withdrew from speculation and straightened her own spine, letting calm flow over her like water. She was wearing her best regalia, her finest feathers and her largest pectoral, and her most regal expression. They were approaching the Chief Speaker's chambers, and Jade steadied her thoughts. She was going to have to be very, very careful with Aziuhoatl.
Aziuhoatl was probably ten or so years older than she was, a short man with dark hair with little trace of white in it. He was quite formally dressed, feathers and gold rustling and clinking as he moved. His face was drawn, and his eyes looked like he had not slept much the night before, if at all.
She bowed deeply. "Chief Speaker, honored one and chosen of Huitzilopochtli, brightness of the sunrise to you," she said, and straightened.
The Chief Speaker nodded. "You have settled into your new apartments I hope?" he asked without preamble.
Jade inclined her head, her feathers rustling. "I have. It was a surprise, but I am adjusting. The guards said that the former head priest is to be sacrificed in three days' time."
"Yes, he who will not be named again in my presence will be sacrificed. It may be the only way that he can redeem himself in the eyes of our god." His voice held an unspoken warning. "As such, I discounted any of his recommendations for replacing him and chose the one person he didn't recommend. That would be you." Jade remained impassive as the Speaker shifted in his seat. "This also places you among my advisors. You have bottom rank at the moment but that may change as people alter their ranks." His smile was thin and fleeting. "Or you alter them for them."
Jade nodded to show that she understood. "May I ask what the former head priest did, lord? Has he caused a mess that I will have to clean up?" Her voice was steady, and her gaze direct. The Speaker would expect nothing less from the head priest of Huitzilopochtli, no matter if they were male or female.
"No mess, our god lost favor in him. He could no longer cast magic. His life was over. He will be sacrificed to make sure the sun returns."
A judicious display of powers every once in a while would not go amiss, she thought. I will remember this. "Ah, I see. Perhaps he can redeem himself in death."
"Well, he did allow some of the sacrifices for the great temple to escape. So that error, compounded with the error of insulting our god, leads to his blood on the altar." Aziuhoatl folded his hands. "As high priestess now, I don't expect you to make many sacrifices, leaving that to the other temple priests. But I will have you sacrifice the old high priest."
Jade knew that her smile was very sharp indeed. She remembered that Huitzilopochtli had removed the old high priest's powers. "Of course. I am sure the god will be happy to receive his soul, to keep the sun moving."
"Yes, he will be pleased by all the souls he will receive in the next days. Blessing us for the next year. "
She nodded, then lifted her chin a bit. "Tell me, what are the duties of your advisors, beyond the head priest business?"
It was a question he had been expecting her to ask, she saw. "In your case, I need spiritual advice, and sometimes need your skills to handle certain problems."
Spiritual advice. I suppose this man does not have a wish to hear the truths that I know. Ah, well. "I understand. I will be happy to do whatever is needful."
Aziuhoatl leaned forward a bit, the gold ornaments on his headdress chiming quietly. "Now I do have a question for you. What do you know of an old priest named Jaguar?"
Startled, she frowned. "I knew him a few years ago. He disappeared. Died, we thought, probably ran into something in the swamp."
He lifted one side of his mouth in disdain. "Not dead. Runs an underground movement proclaiming that our god talks to him and that we are the ones in the wrong. Claims that sacrifices do not turn the sun. We caught him and now he has escaped." Jade made very sure to keep her body still. "Rumor has it that you had a relationship with him. That true?"
She nodded. The truth was safe enough here. "I did, once. It was not serious, and it ended some time before he disappeared."
"How well did you know him? Did he talk about his beliefs before he disappeared?"
She spread her hands. "Reasonably well, but if he ever believed anything heretical, he kept it to himself. If he believed what he claims to believe now, he probably knew I would have spoken to the head priest about him. And he would have been among the next day's sacrifices."
He settled back in his chair. "That's what I expected. Should he by some chance contact you--you will notify us, correct?"
Jade drew herself upward, and she said with all of the conviction that she would have mustered in truth a few days ago, "Of course. Heresy must be rooted out at its source! That sort of talk is very dangerous indeed."
Whatever the Speaker saw in her eyes and heard in her voice seemed to satisfy him, and he nodded. "Good, now on to other topics. I want you to coordinate with Coal on searching for the family of a temple guard named Onyx. I want them found and brought here. They have seem to have gone into hiding. Coal is attempting to root them out. This was a job that the old high priest was to accomplish, but his loss of powers was disturbing."
She nodded. "I am sure it was. Of course I will help."
"Good. Please talk to him at your earliest possible opportunity." Aziuhoatl folded his hands. "We will speak again and I will see you on top of the temple at dawn in three days."
It was obviously a dismissal. She murmured, "Yes, lord," bowed again, and then backed out of the room. The two palace guards were waiting for her, and she set off for her room with them at her side. She asked the older one, "Do you know where I might find the advisor Coal?"
The guard glanced over at her, apparently surprised to be addressed. "Yes, honored one, he shares an apartment down the hall from yours. At this hour of the day, he is likely in. We can take you there, if you like."
Jade nodded. "Thank you. After that, I will have no need for your services for a time. I have a job to do for the Chief Speaker that will take me away from here, possibly for most of the day."
"If you need us, simply ask any of the guards for one of us. I am Leaf, my fellow is Spear. We will show you to Coal's apartments."
They did so, and left her standing there, looking at the door. She raised her hand and gave a preemptory knock. After a moment, the door was opened by a warrior.
He was a tall man, almost as tall as she was, his hair brushing his collarbone. Jade saw without surprise a number of long scars on his arms and legs. She said, "Coal. I am Jade, the new high priest of Huitzilopochtli. Aziuhoatl sent me to speak to you about your search for the family of a warrior named Onyx."
"Jade," he said, and his tone was respectful. A true son of the god, then. He bowed slightly. "Good, please come and sit."
He led her inside. He--or whoever he shared his apartments with--liked the brightest colors that the weavers could come up with; the hangings on his wall were beautiful but a bit eye-jarring to be lived with. Coal sat at a table and gestured towards the other chair. After she was seated, he asked, "What has Aziuhoatl told you?"
She shrugged. "Only that he wants them brought to him, and that they've gone into hiding. He didn't say why he wanted them."
Coal chuckled, and it struck her that it was the first laughter she had heard in the palace since she'd arrived. "Ah, I didn't figure he would. His daughter Smoke is seeing Onyx. They escaped last night with Jaguar, the rebel priest. They were to be sacrificed for the great temple."
She raised an eyebrow. "Ah, I had not heard that Aziuhoatl was going to sacrifice his daughter."
"Aziuhoatl was very put out upon hearing that his daughter was bedding a commoner. Smoke will never come out of hiding, but Onyx we may be able to get to. He is very loyal to his family and if we capture them, out he will probably come and with him, Smoke."
She nodded. "Ah. They have gone into hiding because of this, then. Well enough. Where have you been looking?"
"We have looked in their house and found little of use, but only warriors went and I doubt they looked very hard. It was my intention to return this morning and look again," he said.
"Ah. Perhaps I should come with you, then," she replied, inclining her head. "Aziuhoatl said that the former head priest's lack of powers had hindered the search so far."
Coal smiled briefly. "I could use the company. We had hoped he would be able to locate them."
"If there is anything to find, I should be able to see it. Unless they have fled the city, they shouldn't be able to hide for too long."
"That is my fear. Are you ready?"
She shook her head. "I need a few things from my quarters, but it will only take me a few minutes to get them."
Coal stood and gestured to the door. "I will meet you in a little while in the hall, then."
"Very well," she said, and took her leave. She went to her rooms and gathered up a few things, knives and an atlatl and darts for it. She could use an obsidian-edged sword, but she preferred the weight of a knife in her hands. She picked up a few other items she thought might be of use, turning over in her mind what she might have to do to obscure what evidence she might find. Her job would be made easier by the fact that Coal had no reason whatsoever to suspect her of treachery, and he had never met her before today and wouldn't be able to tell when she wasn't telling all she knew.
She hoped, at least.
She met Coal as they had agreed, and he led her to a house. It was a spacious house that had obviously held a relatively large number of people--perhaps twelve or fourteen, maybe more. The residents had obviously left in a hurry, various personal items were left scattered around the floors and furniture. From the amount of dust on the floor, Jade could tell that they had not been gone long, a few days at most. There were footprints in the dist, probably from the temple guards who had come through last night looking for the family.
Jade slipped into the sight that would reveal to her traces of magic used here recently, and began to wander the house. The pantry was bare--the family had taken almost all of the food in the house with them when they had fled. Most of the clothing was gone from the presses, as well. Wherever the family had gone, they were not planning to come back.
In one of the sleeping-rooms, apparently occupied by several of the family's girl children from the dolls and the clothing that had been left behind, there was a faintly glowing outline on one wall, like a door. There were new footprints in the dust, overlaying the footprints of the searchers, that paused at the wall and then moved on.
Jade decided to avoid that wall for now. Coal came up to her side, and she said, "It does look very much like they've fled town."
He nodded. "Same here, looks like though some else has been here." He pointed to the tracks left in the dust.
"Hard to tell who, though. It could have been someone returning, or a neighbor realizing they were gone and helping themselves to something." She shrugged.
Coal nodded and began to walk towards the back of the house. Jade decided to take a closer look at the wall and the outline. There were shelves stacked in front of the outline, and as Jade looked, she realized that what she was seeing was in fact a door, about half the height of a normal door. She walked in front of the wall, scuffing her feet a bit, obscuring the fact that the tracks had paused in front of the door. She made sure to walk around the room, looking under sleeping mats and picking up discarded dolls.
"Jade, come here." That was Coal, calling from the back of the house, and she straightened and went to him. The back of the house opened into a small courtyard with a garden in it, tiled in the center with plants around it. Coal was kneeling, looking at something in front of him.
It was a body, Jade saw as she came into the courtyard. She stopped next to Coal, and looked down on the dead boy lying on the tiles. His throat had been torn out, raggedly, as if by an animal, and his open eyes were filmed with death. He had been young, maybe sixteen, and his dark hair was cropped short. He had just been made a full warrior, then; boys were not allowed to cut their hair until they had taken three captives in battle. Flies were buzzing, and the smell of death was rank in the courtyard--but not nearly as rank as it should be. "What on earth?" she muttered.
"Gets better," Coal said. "Look at these tracks. Recognize them from the other room?" He pointed at the tracks, then raised his hand to follow the trail. "They change right there, moving from one shape to another ,and then they go over that 10 foot wall as a leopard or some other big cat.
"A shapechanger? All right, this has just gotten very strange." She knelt by the body, looking it over. There was some blood, but not nearly enough. This boy had not been killed here. She lifted one of his arms, gauging the stiffness in it. "I wonder who this one was?"
"Like I said, this gets better. The boy is one of Aziuhoatl's personal guards. He likes the young ones, they are quick and agile and more willing to take a knife for him." Coal's voice was disturbed.
"Why would one of Aziuhoatl's personal guards have been down here? This was done recently."
Coal got to his feet. "So let's backtrack this. The shapechanger comes into the house, comes to the garden, is surprised by this boy and kills him?" He shook his head. "Not likely. Theory?"
She was looking at the boy's wrist, seeing bruises and abrasions there, as if he had been tied and struggled before he died. There was something wrong with the shoulder--it appeared to have been dislocated. "This boy didn't die here, there's not enough blood. he was killed elsewhere and brought here. A warning, perhaps? We'd need to find out if he was one of the ones who was down here before. If he was, he might have been captured, especially if he wandered off by himself."
"No, he wasn't unless Aziuhoatl sent him to check in on me or us. My own guards came."
Jade picked up the boy's other wrist, which had similar abrasions to the other one. The hand looked as if it had been hit with something heavy, or been hit against something. She slid her hand under the boy's shirt, trying to gauge how cold the boy was. There was still some warmth in him, it felt like. "And all of them came back? Odd. I wonder if he was one of the ones out chasing the escapees last night."
When she stood, she caught Coal looking at her with unease on his face. She'd wondered if he'd ever seen a priest deal with a body. Or perhaps it was because she was female. He was a warrior; he had to have seen the dead before. "Probably. Everyone was. So the boy has been dead how long? Can you tell?" he asked.
"A few hours, no more. He's still a bit warm, and the wound hasn't dried yet."
"So he gets captured and the shapechanger hauls him here to what? Feed? But kills him somewhere else?"
Jade was looking at the body of the boy, noting that his knife and all of his possessions other than his clothes had been removed. "To feed--no, I don't think so. It's very odd. It really does look like he was left here for people to find. Perhaps the shapechanger didn't know that people would be coming again after the house was searched last night."
Coal gave her a dubious look. "So it was a place to dump the body?"
"Maybe. Maybe he was planning on coming back for it later."
"For what?"
"Who knows?" She shook her head sharply. "He was definitely captured and kept for a while. Tied up somewhere, looks like. I wonder if the neighbors saw anything?"
He shrugged. "I doubt it. Most people locked themselves in last night. Escapees running loose. The tracks lead into the girls' room--anything there?"
It was Jade's turn to shrug. "Nothing much that I saw, though I'll go back and look again. I have two theories, and I don't really like either of them. One, that the boy was captured, possibly tortured for whatever he knew, and then killed and left here for us to find. Two, that we have a shapechanger on the loose that cached its kill here to eat later."
Coal grimaced. "You are right, I don't like either one. If its the second one, this is just random. If it's the first, is this some sort of warning?"
"That's what I'm wondering. I'd honestly prefer the second theory. if it's the first, then I'd definitely say this was planted as some sort of warning." She turned her face towards the sun briefly, closing her eyes. "I'll go back and look at the girls' room, if you could check around here some more and see if anyone dropped anything over here," she said. Coal agreed, and she walked purposefully towards the sleeping room she had been in before.
With Coal distracted, she could use the time to make sure the trail went cold as ice after they left. There was a stone-shaping spell that priests used to make their obsidian knives sharp enough to cut twilight that would do here. Quickly, she sealed the barely-visible crack in the adobe brick that made the house, murmuring to the wall as she did so.
She was well finished by the time Coal came looking for her. "There is some blood on the wall in the far corner, not enough for a kill but enough if the boy was dragged over the wall," he said to her.
Jade nodded. "Must be how he got in. It rather looks like he wandered around in the house for a while. Maybe looking for a better place to stash the body than the garden."
"Odd, related in some way?"
"Possibly. Or maybe Onyx has shapeshifters in his family."
He shrugged. "That's a possibility. Well, unless you found anything, I will get the guards to carry off the body. Any spells that will show you what happened?"
She shook her head. "Not that I have at the moment. I could do some divination, but I need some quiet time in prayer for that."
"Then I will let you get to it. I will go and get the guards."
She smiled faintly. "I will see what the god says about this."
"If you find out anything, let me know." She nodded, and he turned to go. As he passed out of the room, he paused and turned back, as if he was about to speak. Then he seemed to think better of it and turned back. Jade listened as his footsteps retreated.
When he was gone, she sank down to her knees where she was. There seemed to be no better place to do this. She closed her eyes and began to build a spell within her, feeling her power fill the structure she was building in her mind, the prayer that gave shape to the lightning that the god lent her. "Why did he die, Huitzilopochtli?" she said into the expectant silence, and released the hold that leashed the spell within her. "What happened here?"
A familiar voice answered her. "Long story, but I suggest first that you unshape that wall, you just cut off the air to Onyx's family." She opened her eyes to see Huitzilopochtli standing there, looking down at her with amusement. "Unless you are trying to kill them."
Jade blinked. "...No, not really. I'll go do that." She rose and went to the wall. "I thought it was merely a passageway to below the city."
Huitzilopochtli shook his head as Jade muttered the counterspell to the stone shaping spell. "Nope, his family is hiding in there. The boy in the courtyard found them last night."
When she was done with the spell and the door had been restored, Jade turned back to her god. "Ah. Was he actually killed by a shapechanger?"
"Were-creature, nahual, technically. Only one form. Onyx and his brother Clay had a accident hunting many years ago. Got bit by a were-leopard."
"Ah. I take it Clay was the one who killed the guard." Nahuales were known, of course, the legends of the skinwalkers given terrifyingly real form. But they stayed outside the city, away from people.
Her god nodded. "Clay was here when the boy showed up. He found the door like you did. They grabbed him and tied him up and stuffed him in the hole. He was violent in there, the boy was. Clay killed him after the guards came. He was trying to get the body out of the courtyard when you came. He didn't have time and went over the wall. He's out there somewhere now."
Jade shook her head. "These people need to get out of here. it's only a matter of time before they're found again. I can come back after dark, I think."
"Your job is twofold. Get them out of here, and find Clay. If he is found before you can move these people....let's just say Coal is very persuasive." The god's voice had a warning note in it that Jade heeded well.
"I need to find Clay first, then. The day is not the best time to try to move a batch of people. How many of them are there, by the way?" she asked.
"Big family. Without Clay they are ten."
She sucked in a breath through her teeth. thinking. "Right, definitely not something I can do in broad daylight. I'll need to take them to Jaguar, most likely. Now, I need to find Clay. And I need to convince him that I'm not going to hurt him."
He chuckled. "Tough order. Good luck." As she opened her mouth to thank him, he said, "By the way, he's about to be captured."
Jade just stared at him for a moment. "Where is he?" she finally managed.
"East gate." Without another word, without even bidding the god farewell, she whirled and began running. The east gate was a bit more than half a mile away. Flat out she ran, heedless of the stares she gathered as she pounded down the street.
As she rounded the last corner before the gate, she pulled up, breathing hard. There were growls and shouting coming from near the gate, and she saw three guards, spears held before them, backing a leopard away from them. The leopard was lashing its tail, snarling, and one of the guards was bleeding from claw wounds. She heard more shouts as additional guards came towards the scene, and she saw that the cat's black-furred sides were shining wet with blood from wounds.
She sent a quick prayer upwards, straightened, and walked towards the guards and the leopard. She brushed past one of the guards, who grunted in surprise. In her best priestess voice, she said, "Stop! This animal belongs to the Temple."
The scene was frozen for a moment, and then the guards nodded and backed off. They kept their spears level and pointed at the great cat, though. Jade walked forward slowly, her hands empty and palms up. "Little brother, you've gotten yourself in trouble," she said in a low voice. "Come with me. I will not harm you."
The cat growled but offered no other threat as she approached. In the moment, she did not even think of fear. He was a beautiful creature, his yellow eyes fierce and wild, the ivory teeth in the mouth that hung open as he panted sharp and strong. Slowly, Jade bent and put her hand on the cat's head. His dark fur was surprisingly soft, and she resisted the urge to stroke him, or even scratch him behind the ears. Very quietly, she said, "I can take you to your brother, but only if you trust me and play along. Pretend to be a pet, at least for a few minutes."
Clay pulled away from her and looked at her consideringly, then heaved a sigh and lay down at her feet. Jade nodded and straightened, raising her voice. "This one belonged to the former head priest of Huitzilopochtli. He evidently loosed it last night before he was taken. He is perfectly tame...if you are a priest of Huitzilopochtli. I will return him to his place."
The guards, wide-eyed, put up their spears and backed off. They offered no challenge as she walked away, Clay at her side. She knew exactly what a sight she made, a tall priestess with a great cat at her side, and straightened her shoulders. Clay was still bleeding, but was moving well, and she judged that most of his wounds were superficial. She turned a corner and then another, trying to lose herself in the twisting streets. Ducking into a narrow alley, she beckoned to Clay.
"Come here and let me look at those," she said. "You're leaving a trail of blood." Switching its tail, the leopard followed her into the shade of a building, and she bent to touch his wounds and mutter, feeling the power twist out of her and knit skin and muscle together. She concentrated on the cuts that were still bleeding, running her hands through the midnight-black fur where the skin had pulled together, making sure that the healing had taken.
It took her perhaps five minutes, and when she was done, Clay was no longer bleeding. "All right, let's go," she said, and he fell in beside her once more as she walked. Did she imagine it, or was the great cat more relaxed than he had been a few minutes before? It must be that he was in less pain, now.
She turned a corner and another, and found herself finally on the street where the house was that led into the world below. Just as Jaguar had, she knocked on the door and then walked in past the guards. They recognized her and looked askance at the cat, but one left and returned with Jaguar.
Jade nodded to him. "This is Clay, I don't know if you've met. Onyx's brother."
"I have. Good catch. What about the other family members?" he asked, after nodding to Clay, who had sat down next to her.
"Still in hiding. I think something Clay did will throw people off the scent, but I plan to return tonight and bring them out. I was giving the task of finding them, you see." She grimaced. "We found the body of one of Aziuhoatl's guards in the garden."
"What killed him?"
Jade gestured to Clay. "Clay did. He found the family, was tied up overnight, but was killed this morning. Clay was going over the wall with the body when Coal and I walked in. So says Huitzilopochtli, anyway. This is going to be difficult to cover up entirely, but I think I can manage to redirect suspicions."
Jaguar nodded. "Good. We can get the family tonight, now that we know. Anybody see you with him in this state?"
She made a face. "A number of people. He got himself nearly captured at the east gate."
"Trouble if that gets back," he said, and there was a gravely considering look on his face.
"I was thinking about seeing if I could find a dead leopard to return with." She shrugged. "And I know. It was the only way out without killing him, though, or taking on a bunch of guards on my own."
"Who else knows that that body was killed by Clay?"
She spread her hands. "Coal, the advisor. Though I theorized that the body was killed outside the house and dragged into the garden to cache for later. Coal's not stupid, unfortunately."
He shook his head and rubbed his chin. Jade remembered with a start that he only did that when he was worried. "I hope your dead leopard plan works. Otherwise you are going to have to do something about him. We can get a leopard for you but we will have to hunt it down, could take days if we are unlucky."
"I can tell them it got away, but I have people hunting for it," she suggested.
"Does he suspect that the killer was nahual?"
She nodded. "He does, unfortunately. Though I have heard that some nahual keep their animal shape when they die. I'm thinking I can blame this one on the former head priest. If he was allied with a were-leopard, and I discovered this, I'd have a reason to have kept it quiet while I investigate and hunted down the creature."
"It's easier to come up with a dead human in a short time than a leopard." Jaguar sat down in a nearby chair, and gestured to one nearby.
She sat and answered, "True enough. It could be just about anyone, though someone about Clay's size would work best."
"Yes. I might suggest that as a better option. Might throw Coal off."
Considering this, she thought about cover stories. "And it would explain why I came and got him from the guards. After all, if he attacked me on my way back to the Temple, I'd have no choice but to kill him."
"Yes, and we can come up with a dead human pretty quick." At her raised eyebrow, he said, "We have a guard that we took prisoner a day back or so when he stumbled onto one of our locations. We were trying to get information out of him. He will do."
Jade nodded and pulled her priest headdress off, running one hand over her hair while she gently shook out the feathers. "Sounds like a plan, then. Easy and self-contained. Then I head back to the Temple, body in tow. You in, Clay?" He rumbled and swished his heavy tail, which Jade took for agreement.
"What's your normal path to the temple from the east gate?" asked Jaguar.
She thought about it. "Reasonably direct, though there's a market on the way that I usually detour through if I'm not pressed for time."
Jaguar nodded. "On the other side of the market, then. Have Clay go with you to that point. Fake a battle and then find the body."
"I will." She hesitated, then said, "Oh, I spoke to Aziuhoatl this morning, but I don't think he said anything you don't already know. He asked me to tell him if you contacted me. "
Her fellow priest looked at her consideringly. "Are you going to?"
Jade snorted. "Of course not. He knows of our former relationship, but I just told him the truth--it was relatively brief and ended a while before you disappeared, and you never said anything heretical to me during it."
"Good. What about Coal, can you handle him?"
She considered the warrior she'd spent part of the morning with. He was likely a good warrior, but he was also a loyal follower of Huitzilopochtli, she'd picked up that much. She could use that to her advantage. "I think so. If nothing else, I can probably pick a fight with him. I don't think he suspects I'm anything other than what I say I am."
There was a small smile on Jaguar's face. "Think you can win that fight?"
Jade put her headdress back on her head, securing it into and under her hair. "Maybe," she admitted, then smiled. "Especially if I don't fight fair."
He chuckled and they both rose. They discussed exactly where she would find the body, then she and Clay left for the appointed spot.
"You'll try to run, I'll tackle you," she told the nahual. "Don't be afraid to leave a few claw marks, though I'd appreciate it if you didn't bite me."
He growl-coughed and looked up at her with those all-too-intelligent eyes. Jade suspected he was laughing at her. They lapsed into a companionable silence, hardly broken even when they arrived at the appointed spot. Clay broke away from her and she followed, stretching herself into a run, shouting, "Stop!"
Clay snarled and whipped around, and she threw herself at him, her knife out but carefully turned so it would fold back into her hand when it met flesh. Clay screamed and they went rolling into the shadows, Jade suddenly finding herself with an armful of claws and fur, his teeth clicking together altogether too close to her neck. His back claws raked her thigh deeply, and she made a choked noise. Then Clay went limp, with her lying atop him.
She rolled off of the leopard, and winced as she rolled to her feet, wiping her knife against her bleeding thigh to bloody it. She saw the body that she was supposed to find, covered with a cloth, and said, "Get out of here, Clay." As she bent forward to pull the body out from cover, he obeyed.
The body she uncovered had been knifed neatly in the heart. It was a naked young man, though not as young as the dead guard from earlier in the morning. She looked at him briefly, muttered, "You'll do," and pulled him completely out of cover.
The wounds on her leg were beginning to hurt, and it was a long walk back to the palace. She ignored the wound for the moment as she raised her voice, calling for the city guard. They could take the body back to the palace for her, and she could go speak to Coal.
She glanced once more into the face of the young man who had been killed in Clay's place. I wonder who you were? I suppose I'll find out.
As she waited for the guard to arrive, she healed her leg enough that she could at least walk back to the palace. The rest of the healing could wait until she had shown up on Coal's doorstep obviously wounded by the fight.
She wiped blood from her thigh and sighed. It had been a very long day, and it wasn't even noon yet. And it was likely to get even longer...
She's already in over her head, and she's barely even begun.
[Note: yes, I know leopards are African; I'm using the word here to denote a black jaguar. Also, traditional nahuales aren't exactly what we think of as werecreatures, but they're close enough for me for the moment.]
The moon, not quite full, rose over the Temple of Tenochtitlan. Jade, walking down the internal corridors towards the holding cells where the sacrifices were kept. It was dark, stinking, and loud with moans, talking, and prayers. She fought the urge to cover her mouth with her hand, just as she always did every time she came down here to choose a sacrifice. She calmed her pounding heart and walked forward.
The guards bowed to her. "Priest," one said. "What would you have of us?"
"I need three sacrifices," she said, and turned to look at the cages as if musing over which ones she wanted. "The girl, there. The warrior, right at the front. And the old one by him." The guards nodded and one went to each cage, unlocking it and gesturing to the ones she had chosen. Their fierce swords, edged with obsidian, warned the rest back. A naked blade in her hand, Jade watched impassively as the three she had chosen came out of the cages.
Jaguar, Onyx, and Smoke came over to her, and Jaguar nodded to her. She gave him just the edge of a smile, enough to tell him that she knew him, and said, "You three need to come with me if you don't want to end up on the altar."
Jaguar nodded, and the other two looked by turns puzzled and stunned. She palmed one of her knives and pressed it into Jaguar's hand, then stepped in front of her charges. "Just follow my lead," she said quietly as she stepped forward.
The guards had turned to relock the cages. "Wait," she commanded them. "Come here."
Her gaze did not waver as they shrugged and walked towards her. She was unruffled water, offering no threat, until the first of them came within range.
Then she stepped forward and slammed her knife into the man's throat. Beside her, acting at almost the same instant, Jaguar slid the knife she'd given him into the guard's ribs. The man collapsed silently.
The other guard gave a shout, and there was a frozen moment when the people in the cages just stared, not understanding what had just happened. "Now we run!" Jade grinned, and took to her heels, setting off for one of the two entrances into the holding cells.
The others followed closely behind. There were shouts and screams as men and women boiled out of the two cells that had been opened. It was perhaps a tenth of the sacrifices slated for the next few days; they made a glorious noise as they became a tide of humanity, heading for both exits. The scream of the remaining guard was swallowed by the tumult as he was crushed underfoot.
Jade was stripping off her priestess headdress, heedless of the feathers as she folded it and tucked it under her arm. She freed her sling from where she had tucked it into her waistband, slipping a stone into the sling. Before them, the two guards on the stone doors behind her were trying to close them against the rush of people. Jade let fly with the stone, then reloaded and released another, then another. The third hit the mark, the shoulder of one of the guards on the door. (She had been aiming for his head, and resolved to practice more with the sling.)
That one fell back, and though one of the doors slammed shut, she and her three charges managed to slide through the other. Jade glanced at Smoke, but her worry was unfounded; the girl was fleet of foot, and seemed to be inspired by the howling masses behind them.
Those masses hit the door, which burst open. They poured out into the streets, and before them the four of them ran, Jade grinning widely. She started to angle towards where she lad left stashes of clothing and food, thinking that they would be leaving the city that night.
Jaguar caught her wrist. "This way," he said, and began to pull her away from where she'd been going, in almost the opposite direction.
Surprised, she almost stumbled and caught herself. Starting to follow him, she said, "There's food and clothing over there. But you're the one who knows where we're going."
"Different plan, Jade." He was running now, the rest of them working to keep up. "Glad you came to your senses."
She nodded and then concentrated on running. He was leading them into one of the poorer sections of town, a warren of small houses, and seemingly at random ducked into one of them. Smoke nearly ran into Jade as she skidded to a halt and turned to follow Jaguar.
He had been met at the door by three large warriors, all of whom looked angry at something. He brushed by them without a word, and the rest of them stayed close on his heels. He tapped on a back wall three times, and it swung open, away from them.
There was a staircase beyond the door, and beyond the staircase there was a maze of narrow tunnels. Jaguar seemed to know where he was going, and silently they followed.
Finally, Jade spoke. "Where are we going, by the way?"
"The resistance movement." In the dim light, she could see him turn his head to grin sharply at her. "Welcome to the world below, as we call it."
She blinked. Resistance movement? "I had no idea there was even a resistance movement. It's good to see you're alive, by the way. we all thought you ran into something in the swamp bigger than you were."
"Well yes and no. I ran into the same something that you did."
"Yes, he mentioned." They fell silent as they descended a bit deeper. She had no idea where they were, now. The two young people behind her looked even more lost than she was, and far more stunned, as if unsure if they'd been rescued or simply saved for a worse fate. "I'm Jade," she said to them. "Late of the temple of Huitzilopochtli."
"Smoke," said the girl, a bit shyly. "This is Onyx." They were holding hands, Jade noticed, and she suddenly thought she knew at least part of why the god had wanted to save the warrior.
She turned back to Jaguar. He had slowed and turned from a wide place in the tunnel to a room about as large as her own back at the Temple. There were cushions, chairs, and water jars, and Jaguar motioned them to make themselves comfortable. As she sat, Jade asked, "So now what? The god didn't tell me anything more than to get you folks out of the holding cells and keep you alive."
He gave her a half-smile. "Ah, he can be vague sometimes. But I think the general plan was for us to start a rebellion against Aziuhoatl and possibly install Smoke as the new ruler."
She saw Smoke blink and straighten at that. Jade replied, "Well. That sounds reasonable. Insanely difficult, but reasonable."
"Yes. Barring that, I think we are maybe to get her out of here and start over."
Jade nodded. "That's probably more realistic. But now that I know what I know...Aziuhoatl probably shouldn't be in a position of leadership." She remembered that Smoke was his daughter, and decided the less said, the better.
"He has taken certain liberties with a great many things," he said, running his hand through his sweat-matted hair. "We need to stop him. Eighty thousand people killed in a single day is--extreme."
"How many people do we have on this side of things, now?" she asked.
"Just a few hundred."
She blew out a noisy breath and remarked dryly, "This is not the most achievable divine request I've ever received, that's for sure."
His answering smile was rueful. "No, it's not, but you can be a great help, now. It depends on what you think you can accomplish."
"I've never backed down from anything hard before. I'm not about to start." She shrugged, and straightened her back. No, she never had backed down from anything hard. It was almost a comforting thought. She had never failed in anything she had truly set her mind to.
Jaguar nodded. "The guards that saw you are dead, and they will think an escape happened. If you think you can play the role of high priestess again you could get us information like no one else ever could."
Go back? She had been all set to leave, to embark on a new life, to find new ways to honor and serve her god. She had not thought about the idea that she might be asked to go back into there. To live a lie. She thought about it for a moment. She could do it, if she needed to. If this was her mission, if this was where she would be the most useful... "If the ones on the door are dead--yes, I could probably go back. I don't exactly relish having to play the part again, now that I know what the sacrifices aren't accomplishing."
He gave her a wry smile. "You see, though. Aziuhoatl has been looking for a replacement for an advisor of his. And we have been hearing that he would like you to be the one. You would be just one of his advisors but still, it puts you in a position that we could never have achieved."
Jade blinked, sitting bolt upright. An advisor? Her? She had never aspired to it, it would have taken her away from the daily rhythms of life in the Temple. But now, she rather thought that being away from those rhythms would be good for her. Slowly, she nodded. "And I could get almost any information that you needed."
"That is the basic plan, if you are willing."
"I am. If it helps stop what's happening..."
She thought that was approval in his eyes. She was starting to remember bits and pieces of this man, now, the way he leaned back in his chair and the way he inclined his head as if listening to something none of the rest of them could hear. Little pieces of their short relationship and the friendship that had preceded it were floating upward in her, like feathers in a spring wind. "It will," he said, and she suddenly wondered if the same thing was happening for him. It was so strange, to come face to face with him after years of assuming he was dead and gone. She had forgotten him because there was no need for her to remember.
He was perhaps a little thinner, and the lines on his face carved perhaps a little deeper with the years. But his hair had been steel when he had been her age, and he looked like the same person she had known years ago.
Then she saw the challenge in his eyes, and was brought short. Not the same person, she reminded herself. Not the same person at all.
They had not been much to each other. But there had been kindness there, which was more than she could say for a few of her other lovers. She just wished she could remember why they had fallen away from each other. She brought herself out of her reverie. "Then I will. I'm sure I can pretend to be the person I was for seventeen years, at least for a while," she said, grimacing a bit.
"You will probably not have to sacrifice anymore, if that is your wish. Advisors are usually exempt from that sort of thing."
She inclined her head. "It would be a start. It's...very difficult to sacrifice when you keep seeing the sacrifices as people rather than souls who happen to have an inconvenient body attached."
Now it was Jaguar's turn to grimace. "I remember," he said. "You will want to go back tonight, then. If you need to contact us, come to the same house and ask for me."
She nodded and rose to leave. As she did so, she caught sight of Smoke and Onyx. The warrior had an arm around Smoke, and she was leaning into him, her face drawn and tired. Jade had an inkling that it wasn't the exertion of their run that had taken so much out of her. She's got a hard path ahead of her. I hope you're up to it, little one.
Onyx raised his eyes and looked at her, with that deep calm she had always associated with the most dangerous of warriors--the ones who spared no energy on anger or rage or even, it seemed, regret, the ones who lived entirely in the moment. His gaze was almost a challenge, and she returned it levelly. Be worthy of her, and I will try to be worthy of all of you.
Then she nodded to Jaguar once more and retraced her steps up to the upper world.
*****
Jade arrived back at the Temple, slipping in one of the back ways. She was a trifle bedraggled, but there was nothing she could do about it yet. There had been chaos in the streets, people running everywhere, temple guards, city guards, warriors from the army, all trying to chase down and return the escaped sacrifices. It seemed like a good number of them were going free, though a few had been caught and were being dragged back. Irrelevantly, Jade thought about the girl she hadn't sacrificed the day before yesterday and somewhat hoped she'd been among the escapees.
She might not have made much of a dent, freeing only a tenth of the sacrifices, but that was eight thousand or so people who would not be on the altar stone in the next few days. Within the Temple, inside the thick stone walls, it was as if nothing untoward at all had happened. Jade was silently rehearsing a story to explain where she had been when she rounded the corner to her rooms.
Her door was open, and she could see that the bright hangings she had on the wall had been removed. She blinked, and then looked at the two men who stood on either side of the door. They were in the uniform of palace guards, golden ornaments on their shoulders and at their hips. Anther look inside her room revealed that all of her possessions had been removed. "Can I help you?" she asked the guards.
"Yes, honored one," said one of the guards, his white plumes marking him as relatively senior, but not as senior as she was within the Temple. "We are here to escort you to your new quarters."
New quarters? "In the palace?" she managed.
He nodded, barely. "Yes, honored one. Please follow us." She did, out of the Temple, to the palace that directly adjoined it. The head priest always lived in the palace rather than the Temple; the Chief Speaker was always needing spiritual counsel at odd hours, it seemed. Jade's suspicions were confirmed when the guards opened the doors to the head priest's chamber, and within it Jade could see that her things were all there--the hangings on the walls, the statuettes arranged in the niches by the windows, her clothes press, her regalia.
She had evidently just been made head priest.
Jade inclined her head towards the guards. "I presume Aziuhoatl wishes to see me, then?"
"In the morning, honored one. He will send us for you then."
"Ah. Tell me, do either of you know what happened to the former head priest?" she asked.
The one on the left nodded. "We escorted him the sacrificial chambers this evening. He will be one with our god in three days."
She nodded. "I see. Thank you." The guards nodded and backed out, closing the door as they went.
Jade went to her sleeping mat and knelt, folding herself in half over her bent knees. "Huitzilopochtli help me," she muttered, bending so her forehead touched the mat. Her hands were shaking and her head felt as if it were vibrating with the aftermath of a great bell ringing.
It was not as though she were not qualified; she was one of the five most senior priests, and one of the most powerful. She had not been expecting it. And the head priest--what had happened to him? Had someone found out that his powers had been taken from him by the god?
Jaguar had been right. The position of head priest came with a seat among Aziuhoatl's advisors; she would be the lowest of the twenty-seven, but the rate of attrition was steady. She straightened from her folded position and glanced out the window. It faced east, as was only proper for the head priest of the solar god. They were large chambers, and they made her possessions look sparse in contrast.
She was surprised at how calm she felt. This was not where she had expected to end the night; perhaps fleeing through the swamps or in the twisting tunnels below the city, yes. She had expected to be hunted, to hide. Instead, she had been given to power like a gift to a child. Huitzilopochtli had spoken the truth when he'd said her life would change. She'd had no idea what he'd meant when he'd said it, but she was getting more of an inkling now.
Instead of running for her life, she was to stay here and attempt to help the work of others along. It didn't sound dangerous, but Jade had lived near the palace for most of her life. The only way to advance among the advisors was through the deaths of those above you. Scheming against one's superiors was not just tolerated, it was openly encouraged. She would have nothing to fear from that, at least for a little while, but this was a sort of jockeying for power that she'd never done before.
It made her uneasy, as if the ground beneath her feet were shifting and trembling. This felt like the most dangerous opportunity she could have been offered, to work to do the true god's will while maintaining a veneer of acceptable faith. For certain, if she'd mentioned Huitzilopochtli's visit to anyone who hadn't received one of their own, she would be condemned as dangerously mad.
She had a chance, now, to bring the Temple back in line with the god's wishes. If she managed to survive. She sighed and began to unbind her hair, shaking it out and combing her fingers through it, then plaiting it loosely for the night. The head priest determined the path the Temple would take, but the Temple was a large, unruly beast, and Chief Speaker's wishes mattered far more than was likely healthy for it.
She shook her head and lay down. She slept very little that night, her mind restless even if her body was exhausted. Her mind kept returning to that moment when she had seen the sacrifice before her as a fellow human. She was astonished at how empty the place where her faith had always lived within her felt, scraped dry and scrubbed clean. She felt as if the god had opened her and hollowed her out, leaving her with--what? Perhaps I will be helping now, she thought. If this brings me closer to the divine one, if I can replace what I was doing with something with true meaning--
But there was a part of her that could not believe that she had been practicing a lie for seventeen years. That part of her cried like a wounded child, bringing up all of the wordless memories of all of the sacrifices she had done. So many, she hardly remembered most of them, the hearts she had held beating in her hands. She had always felt the most holy in those moments, offering a warrior's heart to the sun, doing what she had most fervently believed had been what her god wanted.
How could she have been so very wrong? And why, in all her prayers, had Huitzilopochtli never told her how wrong she was?
At sunrise, she was up and doing her first devotions of the day, a series of simple prayers to help prepare her for the day ahead.
She could not have known then that nothing could prepare her for what would happen between sunrise and sunset.
*****
An hour or so after sunrise, the palace guards who had escorted her into the palace last night came to fetch her. Jade wondered if these two young men were assigned to her, but did not ask. Instead, she studied them. The one to her left was younger, and the gold discs at his shoulders looked newer. He had a scar on the side of his face, marring his otherwise attractive features, and his eyes were light, like newly-cut wood.
The older one was probably approaching her age, and from the straightness of his backbone and the set of his shoulders she surmised that he had been doing this for so many years that his bearing had become automatic. But the lines at the corners of his mouth were from laughing, not frowning, and she thought that away from his duty this man was probably a very different person than he seemed right now. He was not particularly handsome, but not offensive to the eye, and Jade rather thought that somewhere he probably had a plump wife and a basketful of children.
She withdrew from speculation and straightened her own spine, letting calm flow over her like water. She was wearing her best regalia, her finest feathers and her largest pectoral, and her most regal expression. They were approaching the Chief Speaker's chambers, and Jade steadied her thoughts. She was going to have to be very, very careful with Aziuhoatl.
Aziuhoatl was probably ten or so years older than she was, a short man with dark hair with little trace of white in it. He was quite formally dressed, feathers and gold rustling and clinking as he moved. His face was drawn, and his eyes looked like he had not slept much the night before, if at all.
She bowed deeply. "Chief Speaker, honored one and chosen of Huitzilopochtli, brightness of the sunrise to you," she said, and straightened.
The Chief Speaker nodded. "You have settled into your new apartments I hope?" he asked without preamble.
Jade inclined her head, her feathers rustling. "I have. It was a surprise, but I am adjusting. The guards said that the former head priest is to be sacrificed in three days' time."
"Yes, he who will not be named again in my presence will be sacrificed. It may be the only way that he can redeem himself in the eyes of our god." His voice held an unspoken warning. "As such, I discounted any of his recommendations for replacing him and chose the one person he didn't recommend. That would be you." Jade remained impassive as the Speaker shifted in his seat. "This also places you among my advisors. You have bottom rank at the moment but that may change as people alter their ranks." His smile was thin and fleeting. "Or you alter them for them."
Jade nodded to show that she understood. "May I ask what the former head priest did, lord? Has he caused a mess that I will have to clean up?" Her voice was steady, and her gaze direct. The Speaker would expect nothing less from the head priest of Huitzilopochtli, no matter if they were male or female.
"No mess, our god lost favor in him. He could no longer cast magic. His life was over. He will be sacrificed to make sure the sun returns."
A judicious display of powers every once in a while would not go amiss, she thought. I will remember this. "Ah, I see. Perhaps he can redeem himself in death."
"Well, he did allow some of the sacrifices for the great temple to escape. So that error, compounded with the error of insulting our god, leads to his blood on the altar." Aziuhoatl folded his hands. "As high priestess now, I don't expect you to make many sacrifices, leaving that to the other temple priests. But I will have you sacrifice the old high priest."
Jade knew that her smile was very sharp indeed. She remembered that Huitzilopochtli had removed the old high priest's powers. "Of course. I am sure the god will be happy to receive his soul, to keep the sun moving."
"Yes, he will be pleased by all the souls he will receive in the next days. Blessing us for the next year. "
She nodded, then lifted her chin a bit. "Tell me, what are the duties of your advisors, beyond the head priest business?"
It was a question he had been expecting her to ask, she saw. "In your case, I need spiritual advice, and sometimes need your skills to handle certain problems."
Spiritual advice. I suppose this man does not have a wish to hear the truths that I know. Ah, well. "I understand. I will be happy to do whatever is needful."
Aziuhoatl leaned forward a bit, the gold ornaments on his headdress chiming quietly. "Now I do have a question for you. What do you know of an old priest named Jaguar?"
Startled, she frowned. "I knew him a few years ago. He disappeared. Died, we thought, probably ran into something in the swamp."
He lifted one side of his mouth in disdain. "Not dead. Runs an underground movement proclaiming that our god talks to him and that we are the ones in the wrong. Claims that sacrifices do not turn the sun. We caught him and now he has escaped." Jade made very sure to keep her body still. "Rumor has it that you had a relationship with him. That true?"
She nodded. The truth was safe enough here. "I did, once. It was not serious, and it ended some time before he disappeared."
"How well did you know him? Did he talk about his beliefs before he disappeared?"
She spread her hands. "Reasonably well, but if he ever believed anything heretical, he kept it to himself. If he believed what he claims to believe now, he probably knew I would have spoken to the head priest about him. And he would have been among the next day's sacrifices."
He settled back in his chair. "That's what I expected. Should he by some chance contact you--you will notify us, correct?"
Jade drew herself upward, and she said with all of the conviction that she would have mustered in truth a few days ago, "Of course. Heresy must be rooted out at its source! That sort of talk is very dangerous indeed."
Whatever the Speaker saw in her eyes and heard in her voice seemed to satisfy him, and he nodded. "Good, now on to other topics. I want you to coordinate with Coal on searching for the family of a temple guard named Onyx. I want them found and brought here. They have seem to have gone into hiding. Coal is attempting to root them out. This was a job that the old high priest was to accomplish, but his loss of powers was disturbing."
She nodded. "I am sure it was. Of course I will help."
"Good. Please talk to him at your earliest possible opportunity." Aziuhoatl folded his hands. "We will speak again and I will see you on top of the temple at dawn in three days."
It was obviously a dismissal. She murmured, "Yes, lord," bowed again, and then backed out of the room. The two palace guards were waiting for her, and she set off for her room with them at her side. She asked the older one, "Do you know where I might find the advisor Coal?"
The guard glanced over at her, apparently surprised to be addressed. "Yes, honored one, he shares an apartment down the hall from yours. At this hour of the day, he is likely in. We can take you there, if you like."
Jade nodded. "Thank you. After that, I will have no need for your services for a time. I have a job to do for the Chief Speaker that will take me away from here, possibly for most of the day."
"If you need us, simply ask any of the guards for one of us. I am Leaf, my fellow is Spear. We will show you to Coal's apartments."
They did so, and left her standing there, looking at the door. She raised her hand and gave a preemptory knock. After a moment, the door was opened by a warrior.
He was a tall man, almost as tall as she was, his hair brushing his collarbone. Jade saw without surprise a number of long scars on his arms and legs. She said, "Coal. I am Jade, the new high priest of Huitzilopochtli. Aziuhoatl sent me to speak to you about your search for the family of a warrior named Onyx."
"Jade," he said, and his tone was respectful. A true son of the god, then. He bowed slightly. "Good, please come and sit."
He led her inside. He--or whoever he shared his apartments with--liked the brightest colors that the weavers could come up with; the hangings on his wall were beautiful but a bit eye-jarring to be lived with. Coal sat at a table and gestured towards the other chair. After she was seated, he asked, "What has Aziuhoatl told you?"
She shrugged. "Only that he wants them brought to him, and that they've gone into hiding. He didn't say why he wanted them."
Coal chuckled, and it struck her that it was the first laughter she had heard in the palace since she'd arrived. "Ah, I didn't figure he would. His daughter Smoke is seeing Onyx. They escaped last night with Jaguar, the rebel priest. They were to be sacrificed for the great temple."
She raised an eyebrow. "Ah, I had not heard that Aziuhoatl was going to sacrifice his daughter."
"Aziuhoatl was very put out upon hearing that his daughter was bedding a commoner. Smoke will never come out of hiding, but Onyx we may be able to get to. He is very loyal to his family and if we capture them, out he will probably come and with him, Smoke."
She nodded. "Ah. They have gone into hiding because of this, then. Well enough. Where have you been looking?"
"We have looked in their house and found little of use, but only warriors went and I doubt they looked very hard. It was my intention to return this morning and look again," he said.
"Ah. Perhaps I should come with you, then," she replied, inclining her head. "Aziuhoatl said that the former head priest's lack of powers had hindered the search so far."
Coal smiled briefly. "I could use the company. We had hoped he would be able to locate them."
"If there is anything to find, I should be able to see it. Unless they have fled the city, they shouldn't be able to hide for too long."
"That is my fear. Are you ready?"
She shook her head. "I need a few things from my quarters, but it will only take me a few minutes to get them."
Coal stood and gestured to the door. "I will meet you in a little while in the hall, then."
"Very well," she said, and took her leave. She went to her rooms and gathered up a few things, knives and an atlatl and darts for it. She could use an obsidian-edged sword, but she preferred the weight of a knife in her hands. She picked up a few other items she thought might be of use, turning over in her mind what she might have to do to obscure what evidence she might find. Her job would be made easier by the fact that Coal had no reason whatsoever to suspect her of treachery, and he had never met her before today and wouldn't be able to tell when she wasn't telling all she knew.
She hoped, at least.
She met Coal as they had agreed, and he led her to a house. It was a spacious house that had obviously held a relatively large number of people--perhaps twelve or fourteen, maybe more. The residents had obviously left in a hurry, various personal items were left scattered around the floors and furniture. From the amount of dust on the floor, Jade could tell that they had not been gone long, a few days at most. There were footprints in the dist, probably from the temple guards who had come through last night looking for the family.
Jade slipped into the sight that would reveal to her traces of magic used here recently, and began to wander the house. The pantry was bare--the family had taken almost all of the food in the house with them when they had fled. Most of the clothing was gone from the presses, as well. Wherever the family had gone, they were not planning to come back.
In one of the sleeping-rooms, apparently occupied by several of the family's girl children from the dolls and the clothing that had been left behind, there was a faintly glowing outline on one wall, like a door. There were new footprints in the dust, overlaying the footprints of the searchers, that paused at the wall and then moved on.
Jade decided to avoid that wall for now. Coal came up to her side, and she said, "It does look very much like they've fled town."
He nodded. "Same here, looks like though some else has been here." He pointed to the tracks left in the dust.
"Hard to tell who, though. It could have been someone returning, or a neighbor realizing they were gone and helping themselves to something." She shrugged.
Coal nodded and began to walk towards the back of the house. Jade decided to take a closer look at the wall and the outline. There were shelves stacked in front of the outline, and as Jade looked, she realized that what she was seeing was in fact a door, about half the height of a normal door. She walked in front of the wall, scuffing her feet a bit, obscuring the fact that the tracks had paused in front of the door. She made sure to walk around the room, looking under sleeping mats and picking up discarded dolls.
"Jade, come here." That was Coal, calling from the back of the house, and she straightened and went to him. The back of the house opened into a small courtyard with a garden in it, tiled in the center with plants around it. Coal was kneeling, looking at something in front of him.
It was a body, Jade saw as she came into the courtyard. She stopped next to Coal, and looked down on the dead boy lying on the tiles. His throat had been torn out, raggedly, as if by an animal, and his open eyes were filmed with death. He had been young, maybe sixteen, and his dark hair was cropped short. He had just been made a full warrior, then; boys were not allowed to cut their hair until they had taken three captives in battle. Flies were buzzing, and the smell of death was rank in the courtyard--but not nearly as rank as it should be. "What on earth?" she muttered.
"Gets better," Coal said. "Look at these tracks. Recognize them from the other room?" He pointed at the tracks, then raised his hand to follow the trail. "They change right there, moving from one shape to another ,and then they go over that 10 foot wall as a leopard or some other big cat.
"A shapechanger? All right, this has just gotten very strange." She knelt by the body, looking it over. There was some blood, but not nearly enough. This boy had not been killed here. She lifted one of his arms, gauging the stiffness in it. "I wonder who this one was?"
"Like I said, this gets better. The boy is one of Aziuhoatl's personal guards. He likes the young ones, they are quick and agile and more willing to take a knife for him." Coal's voice was disturbed.
"Why would one of Aziuhoatl's personal guards have been down here? This was done recently."
Coal got to his feet. "So let's backtrack this. The shapechanger comes into the house, comes to the garden, is surprised by this boy and kills him?" He shook his head. "Not likely. Theory?"
She was looking at the boy's wrist, seeing bruises and abrasions there, as if he had been tied and struggled before he died. There was something wrong with the shoulder--it appeared to have been dislocated. "This boy didn't die here, there's not enough blood. he was killed elsewhere and brought here. A warning, perhaps? We'd need to find out if he was one of the ones who was down here before. If he was, he might have been captured, especially if he wandered off by himself."
"No, he wasn't unless Aziuhoatl sent him to check in on me or us. My own guards came."
Jade picked up the boy's other wrist, which had similar abrasions to the other one. The hand looked as if it had been hit with something heavy, or been hit against something. She slid her hand under the boy's shirt, trying to gauge how cold the boy was. There was still some warmth in him, it felt like. "And all of them came back? Odd. I wonder if he was one of the ones out chasing the escapees last night."
When she stood, she caught Coal looking at her with unease on his face. She'd wondered if he'd ever seen a priest deal with a body. Or perhaps it was because she was female. He was a warrior; he had to have seen the dead before. "Probably. Everyone was. So the boy has been dead how long? Can you tell?" he asked.
"A few hours, no more. He's still a bit warm, and the wound hasn't dried yet."
"So he gets captured and the shapechanger hauls him here to what? Feed? But kills him somewhere else?"
Jade was looking at the body of the boy, noting that his knife and all of his possessions other than his clothes had been removed. "To feed--no, I don't think so. It's very odd. It really does look like he was left here for people to find. Perhaps the shapechanger didn't know that people would be coming again after the house was searched last night."
Coal gave her a dubious look. "So it was a place to dump the body?"
"Maybe. Maybe he was planning on coming back for it later."
"For what?"
"Who knows?" She shook her head sharply. "He was definitely captured and kept for a while. Tied up somewhere, looks like. I wonder if the neighbors saw anything?"
He shrugged. "I doubt it. Most people locked themselves in last night. Escapees running loose. The tracks lead into the girls' room--anything there?"
It was Jade's turn to shrug. "Nothing much that I saw, though I'll go back and look again. I have two theories, and I don't really like either of them. One, that the boy was captured, possibly tortured for whatever he knew, and then killed and left here for us to find. Two, that we have a shapechanger on the loose that cached its kill here to eat later."
Coal grimaced. "You are right, I don't like either one. If its the second one, this is just random. If it's the first, is this some sort of warning?"
"That's what I'm wondering. I'd honestly prefer the second theory. if it's the first, then I'd definitely say this was planted as some sort of warning." She turned her face towards the sun briefly, closing her eyes. "I'll go back and look at the girls' room, if you could check around here some more and see if anyone dropped anything over here," she said. Coal agreed, and she walked purposefully towards the sleeping room she had been in before.
With Coal distracted, she could use the time to make sure the trail went cold as ice after they left. There was a stone-shaping spell that priests used to make their obsidian knives sharp enough to cut twilight that would do here. Quickly, she sealed the barely-visible crack in the adobe brick that made the house, murmuring to the wall as she did so.
She was well finished by the time Coal came looking for her. "There is some blood on the wall in the far corner, not enough for a kill but enough if the boy was dragged over the wall," he said to her.
Jade nodded. "Must be how he got in. It rather looks like he wandered around in the house for a while. Maybe looking for a better place to stash the body than the garden."
"Odd, related in some way?"
"Possibly. Or maybe Onyx has shapeshifters in his family."
He shrugged. "That's a possibility. Well, unless you found anything, I will get the guards to carry off the body. Any spells that will show you what happened?"
She shook her head. "Not that I have at the moment. I could do some divination, but I need some quiet time in prayer for that."
"Then I will let you get to it. I will go and get the guards."
She smiled faintly. "I will see what the god says about this."
"If you find out anything, let me know." She nodded, and he turned to go. As he passed out of the room, he paused and turned back, as if he was about to speak. Then he seemed to think better of it and turned back. Jade listened as his footsteps retreated.
When he was gone, she sank down to her knees where she was. There seemed to be no better place to do this. She closed her eyes and began to build a spell within her, feeling her power fill the structure she was building in her mind, the prayer that gave shape to the lightning that the god lent her. "Why did he die, Huitzilopochtli?" she said into the expectant silence, and released the hold that leashed the spell within her. "What happened here?"
A familiar voice answered her. "Long story, but I suggest first that you unshape that wall, you just cut off the air to Onyx's family." She opened her eyes to see Huitzilopochtli standing there, looking down at her with amusement. "Unless you are trying to kill them."
Jade blinked. "...No, not really. I'll go do that." She rose and went to the wall. "I thought it was merely a passageway to below the city."
Huitzilopochtli shook his head as Jade muttered the counterspell to the stone shaping spell. "Nope, his family is hiding in there. The boy in the courtyard found them last night."
When she was done with the spell and the door had been restored, Jade turned back to her god. "Ah. Was he actually killed by a shapechanger?"
"Were-creature, nahual, technically. Only one form. Onyx and his brother Clay had a accident hunting many years ago. Got bit by a were-leopard."
"Ah. I take it Clay was the one who killed the guard." Nahuales were known, of course, the legends of the skinwalkers given terrifyingly real form. But they stayed outside the city, away from people.
Her god nodded. "Clay was here when the boy showed up. He found the door like you did. They grabbed him and tied him up and stuffed him in the hole. He was violent in there, the boy was. Clay killed him after the guards came. He was trying to get the body out of the courtyard when you came. He didn't have time and went over the wall. He's out there somewhere now."
Jade shook her head. "These people need to get out of here. it's only a matter of time before they're found again. I can come back after dark, I think."
"Your job is twofold. Get them out of here, and find Clay. If he is found before you can move these people....let's just say Coal is very persuasive." The god's voice had a warning note in it that Jade heeded well.
"I need to find Clay first, then. The day is not the best time to try to move a batch of people. How many of them are there, by the way?" she asked.
"Big family. Without Clay they are ten."
She sucked in a breath through her teeth. thinking. "Right, definitely not something I can do in broad daylight. I'll need to take them to Jaguar, most likely. Now, I need to find Clay. And I need to convince him that I'm not going to hurt him."
He chuckled. "Tough order. Good luck." As she opened her mouth to thank him, he said, "By the way, he's about to be captured."
Jade just stared at him for a moment. "Where is he?" she finally managed.
"East gate." Without another word, without even bidding the god farewell, she whirled and began running. The east gate was a bit more than half a mile away. Flat out she ran, heedless of the stares she gathered as she pounded down the street.
As she rounded the last corner before the gate, she pulled up, breathing hard. There were growls and shouting coming from near the gate, and she saw three guards, spears held before them, backing a leopard away from them. The leopard was lashing its tail, snarling, and one of the guards was bleeding from claw wounds. She heard more shouts as additional guards came towards the scene, and she saw that the cat's black-furred sides were shining wet with blood from wounds.
She sent a quick prayer upwards, straightened, and walked towards the guards and the leopard. She brushed past one of the guards, who grunted in surprise. In her best priestess voice, she said, "Stop! This animal belongs to the Temple."
The scene was frozen for a moment, and then the guards nodded and backed off. They kept their spears level and pointed at the great cat, though. Jade walked forward slowly, her hands empty and palms up. "Little brother, you've gotten yourself in trouble," she said in a low voice. "Come with me. I will not harm you."
The cat growled but offered no other threat as she approached. In the moment, she did not even think of fear. He was a beautiful creature, his yellow eyes fierce and wild, the ivory teeth in the mouth that hung open as he panted sharp and strong. Slowly, Jade bent and put her hand on the cat's head. His dark fur was surprisingly soft, and she resisted the urge to stroke him, or even scratch him behind the ears. Very quietly, she said, "I can take you to your brother, but only if you trust me and play along. Pretend to be a pet, at least for a few minutes."
Clay pulled away from her and looked at her consideringly, then heaved a sigh and lay down at her feet. Jade nodded and straightened, raising her voice. "This one belonged to the former head priest of Huitzilopochtli. He evidently loosed it last night before he was taken. He is perfectly tame...if you are a priest of Huitzilopochtli. I will return him to his place."
The guards, wide-eyed, put up their spears and backed off. They offered no challenge as she walked away, Clay at her side. She knew exactly what a sight she made, a tall priestess with a great cat at her side, and straightened her shoulders. Clay was still bleeding, but was moving well, and she judged that most of his wounds were superficial. She turned a corner and then another, trying to lose herself in the twisting streets. Ducking into a narrow alley, she beckoned to Clay.
"Come here and let me look at those," she said. "You're leaving a trail of blood." Switching its tail, the leopard followed her into the shade of a building, and she bent to touch his wounds and mutter, feeling the power twist out of her and knit skin and muscle together. She concentrated on the cuts that were still bleeding, running her hands through the midnight-black fur where the skin had pulled together, making sure that the healing had taken.
It took her perhaps five minutes, and when she was done, Clay was no longer bleeding. "All right, let's go," she said, and he fell in beside her once more as she walked. Did she imagine it, or was the great cat more relaxed than he had been a few minutes before? It must be that he was in less pain, now.
She turned a corner and another, and found herself finally on the street where the house was that led into the world below. Just as Jaguar had, she knocked on the door and then walked in past the guards. They recognized her and looked askance at the cat, but one left and returned with Jaguar.
Jade nodded to him. "This is Clay, I don't know if you've met. Onyx's brother."
"I have. Good catch. What about the other family members?" he asked, after nodding to Clay, who had sat down next to her.
"Still in hiding. I think something Clay did will throw people off the scent, but I plan to return tonight and bring them out. I was giving the task of finding them, you see." She grimaced. "We found the body of one of Aziuhoatl's guards in the garden."
"What killed him?"
Jade gestured to Clay. "Clay did. He found the family, was tied up overnight, but was killed this morning. Clay was going over the wall with the body when Coal and I walked in. So says Huitzilopochtli, anyway. This is going to be difficult to cover up entirely, but I think I can manage to redirect suspicions."
Jaguar nodded. "Good. We can get the family tonight, now that we know. Anybody see you with him in this state?"
She made a face. "A number of people. He got himself nearly captured at the east gate."
"Trouble if that gets back," he said, and there was a gravely considering look on his face.
"I was thinking about seeing if I could find a dead leopard to return with." She shrugged. "And I know. It was the only way out without killing him, though, or taking on a bunch of guards on my own."
"Who else knows that that body was killed by Clay?"
She spread her hands. "Coal, the advisor. Though I theorized that the body was killed outside the house and dragged into the garden to cache for later. Coal's not stupid, unfortunately."
He shook his head and rubbed his chin. Jade remembered with a start that he only did that when he was worried. "I hope your dead leopard plan works. Otherwise you are going to have to do something about him. We can get a leopard for you but we will have to hunt it down, could take days if we are unlucky."
"I can tell them it got away, but I have people hunting for it," she suggested.
"Does he suspect that the killer was nahual?"
She nodded. "He does, unfortunately. Though I have heard that some nahual keep their animal shape when they die. I'm thinking I can blame this one on the former head priest. If he was allied with a were-leopard, and I discovered this, I'd have a reason to have kept it quiet while I investigate and hunted down the creature."
"It's easier to come up with a dead human in a short time than a leopard." Jaguar sat down in a nearby chair, and gestured to one nearby.
She sat and answered, "True enough. It could be just about anyone, though someone about Clay's size would work best."
"Yes. I might suggest that as a better option. Might throw Coal off."
Considering this, she thought about cover stories. "And it would explain why I came and got him from the guards. After all, if he attacked me on my way back to the Temple, I'd have no choice but to kill him."
"Yes, and we can come up with a dead human pretty quick." At her raised eyebrow, he said, "We have a guard that we took prisoner a day back or so when he stumbled onto one of our locations. We were trying to get information out of him. He will do."
Jade nodded and pulled her priest headdress off, running one hand over her hair while she gently shook out the feathers. "Sounds like a plan, then. Easy and self-contained. Then I head back to the Temple, body in tow. You in, Clay?" He rumbled and swished his heavy tail, which Jade took for agreement.
"What's your normal path to the temple from the east gate?" asked Jaguar.
She thought about it. "Reasonably direct, though there's a market on the way that I usually detour through if I'm not pressed for time."
Jaguar nodded. "On the other side of the market, then. Have Clay go with you to that point. Fake a battle and then find the body."
"I will." She hesitated, then said, "Oh, I spoke to Aziuhoatl this morning, but I don't think he said anything you don't already know. He asked me to tell him if you contacted me. "
Her fellow priest looked at her consideringly. "Are you going to?"
Jade snorted. "Of course not. He knows of our former relationship, but I just told him the truth--it was relatively brief and ended a while before you disappeared, and you never said anything heretical to me during it."
"Good. What about Coal, can you handle him?"
She considered the warrior she'd spent part of the morning with. He was likely a good warrior, but he was also a loyal follower of Huitzilopochtli, she'd picked up that much. She could use that to her advantage. "I think so. If nothing else, I can probably pick a fight with him. I don't think he suspects I'm anything other than what I say I am."
There was a small smile on Jaguar's face. "Think you can win that fight?"
Jade put her headdress back on her head, securing it into and under her hair. "Maybe," she admitted, then smiled. "Especially if I don't fight fair."
He chuckled and they both rose. They discussed exactly where she would find the body, then she and Clay left for the appointed spot.
"You'll try to run, I'll tackle you," she told the nahual. "Don't be afraid to leave a few claw marks, though I'd appreciate it if you didn't bite me."
He growl-coughed and looked up at her with those all-too-intelligent eyes. Jade suspected he was laughing at her. They lapsed into a companionable silence, hardly broken even when they arrived at the appointed spot. Clay broke away from her and she followed, stretching herself into a run, shouting, "Stop!"
Clay snarled and whipped around, and she threw herself at him, her knife out but carefully turned so it would fold back into her hand when it met flesh. Clay screamed and they went rolling into the shadows, Jade suddenly finding herself with an armful of claws and fur, his teeth clicking together altogether too close to her neck. His back claws raked her thigh deeply, and she made a choked noise. Then Clay went limp, with her lying atop him.
She rolled off of the leopard, and winced as she rolled to her feet, wiping her knife against her bleeding thigh to bloody it. She saw the body that she was supposed to find, covered with a cloth, and said, "Get out of here, Clay." As she bent forward to pull the body out from cover, he obeyed.
The body she uncovered had been knifed neatly in the heart. It was a naked young man, though not as young as the dead guard from earlier in the morning. She looked at him briefly, muttered, "You'll do," and pulled him completely out of cover.
The wounds on her leg were beginning to hurt, and it was a long walk back to the palace. She ignored the wound for the moment as she raised her voice, calling for the city guard. They could take the body back to the palace for her, and she could go speak to Coal.
She glanced once more into the face of the young man who had been killed in Clay's place. I wonder who you were? I suppose I'll find out.
As she waited for the guard to arrive, she healed her leg enough that she could at least walk back to the palace. The rest of the healing could wait until she had shown up on Coal's doorstep obviously wounded by the fight.
She wiped blood from her thigh and sighed. It had been a very long day, and it wasn't even noon yet. And it was likely to get even longer...
she turns out the light anticipating night falling
tenderly around her
and watches the dusk
the words won't come
she carries the act so convincingly the fact is
sometimes she believes it
that she can be happy the way things are
be happy with the things she's done
--Vienna Teng, The Tower
tenderly around her
and watches the dusk
the words won't come
she carries the act so convincingly the fact is
sometimes she believes it
that she can be happy the way things are
be happy with the things she's done
--Vienna Teng, The Tower
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Date: 2006-02-09 03:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-09 04:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-09 06:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-09 06:49 pm (UTC)Between the wooden and obsidian swords, the obsidian and bone knives, the slings, and the atlatls, the weapons in this one are all kinds of fun. :)