Obsidian Puma (The Aztec Chronicles Book 1) Page 6

  “And that’s what you did back home? Oh, that explains things.”

  A rumbling noise coming from further down the lakeside caught their attention. The beams above their heads shuddered ever so slightly. Necalli frowned, watching the weak rays of light that managed to sneak into their spontaneous hideaway. Even on such a short causeway – not truly a causeway but a sort of a passageway, as Tlatelolco stood so nearby the two cities were sometimes regarded as though sharing one huge island instead of two close by ones – the bridges would be lifted only when the sun was about to commence its night’s journey through the Underworld, not a long time from now, surely.

  “We have to hurry,” he said, suddenly worried, not relishing the idea of wading along the Great Lake’s shores in the darkness, or even just semi-darkness. “Unless you can think of a way of getting us up there without ruining our clothing for good.”

  No one mistook his address as meaning anyone but their copper-melting company, their eyes darting in the same direction, wondering and expectant.

  The boy shifted from one muddied foot to another, clearly uneasy under so much undue attention. “We need to make a rope,” he muttered, shrugging. “Tie a noose in its end and try to make it cling to one of the bulges up there. That’ll make the climb easier.”

  “And how about more realistic solutions?” inquired Axolin, ridiculously polite, bordering on offensive.

  The boy shot his mocker another of his fiercely burning glares.

  “Then the way of the reeds it is,” declared Necalli, in no mood for more arguing. It was getting dark and no person in his right mind would wish to wander the lake waters after the light went off, unless wishing to end his life in its bottom, dead and missing one’s eyes, nails, or teeth, all eaten up by the ferocious ahuitzotls lurking in these waters, greedy for these parts of the human beings alone. Shivering at the very thought, he pushed his way past them, not liking how the nearest cluster of reeds rustled, as though warning them not to proceed.

  “It’s can’t be deep enough to make one need to swim,” he went on, needing the encouragement of their words as much as they did, but not about to admit to his fear. And to think that they had encountered someone bearing this very name only this afternoon, may the annoying royal offspring fall into the lake all by himself, straight into the claws of his namesake and the mercy of their teeth! “And even if it is, it’ll be only a short swim. We are still close to that shore of the temple with the tunnel; it’s as sure as the sunlight.” Which was retreating with unsettling haste, now merely a flickering gray, spreading equally whether shadowed by massive constriction or not.

  “I can’t swim,” murmured Patli, hastening his step and so catching up with Necalli and ahead of the other two. “I do it really badly.”

  “You won’t have to. It’s just a shallow swamp here.”

  “But what if we do?”

  Shrugging, Necalli side-glanced his companion, impressed by the blank face and the matter-of-fact tone. Some boys that he knew would be whimpering now, begging to stop and find another solution. “We’ll manage to get to the shore without letting you drown.”

  “The reeds will help.” The copper-melting boy was again commenting without being asked to, not appropriately respectful of his noble company. “He can always clutch to those.”

  “Of course,” tossed Necalli tersely, angry with himself for not thinking of such additional means of reassurance. “But it won’t get to us swimming, and it is not our main concern anyway.”

  For a heartbeat, they proceeded in silence, with the swishing of driest of reeds being the only immediate sound, the clamor of the shore with the warehouses and the workshops dotting it aplenty, like the more distant hum of the lake and the lively activity all around it, nothing but a background, not on their side.

  “What are you afraid of?” asked the workshop boy after a while, when the plopping of their sandals disappeared, swallowed by the muddy water, now splashing around their tights, jumping there in no gradual way.

  “As though you don’t know.” Axolin’s snort seeped through the deepening darkness, having lost its lightly amused or mocking quality again. “Don’t play it dumber than an average villager, will you?”

  “I’m not playing it dumb, you stupid lump of rotten meat!” There was evidently a limit to the foreigner’s burning glares as an answer to insults. “You are the one looking dumb, back in the tunnel and here on the –”

  “Miztli!” cried out Patli, not foreigner enough himself not to understand the implication of yelling at the noble calmecac pupil while being nothing but a dirty apprentice in the workshop of this or that city slum; let alone something as insulting as name calling and worse.

  But the copper-melting commoner had had enough. While Axolin’s eyes widened with shock, then narrowed with red-hot fury, as he launched sideways, aiming to reach his offender in one leap – not a possible feat while being stuck hip-deep in the mud – the workshop boy didn’t retreat, planting his legs wider while bringing his arms up and forward, ready to withstand the attack, if not to mount one. Necalli felt nothing save amusement. It would have been different if the naked villager flared at him, of course. However as of now, they had simply no time for this foolishness, and Axolin’s twisted face and blazing eyes promised no good. With his light temper and nice disposition, when goaded, Axolin tended to lose any grain of good sense, blinded with fury, turning as unreasonable as they come.

  “Stop it,” he said, reaching out in order to grab his friend’s arm, not liking the way it shot toward the girdle, as though aiming for the dagger attached to it, the prerogative of a calmecac student who was old enough to be allowed to join classes concerning actual warfare, and not only the theoretical side of it. Axolin was the best in some of it, throwing knives with enviable accuracy, besting even his older fellow students.

  The interfering hand caused the charging youth to sway but did not deter him from his course. In another heartbeat, he was upon his offender, lashing out with both hands, not burdened by flashing obsidian, none of this. Still, Necalli pushed forward, set on inserting himself between the two antagonists, his blood boiling with rage of his own. How stupid it was to start fighting when deep in the mud of the lake’s shore and just as the darkness was about to fall, the surest way to make every dangerous creature aware of their uninvited, unwarranted presence.

  “Stop it!” he barked, this time quite loudly, his shout overcoming the clamor their stupid thrashing around was making. His fist missing its target by a mere fraction, Axolin had another one planted upon his rival’s high cheekbone quite neatly, drawing away again with a clear intention to return, even though his own ribs sustained quite an assault in the form of an opposing flurry of landing fists, which were of admirable size and firmness, only expected in the working commoners, of course. The warriors were superior while fighting with weapons, which worried Necalli to a degree. Not as much as the possible upsetting of their side in the muddy waters, though.

  “Are you out of your stupid mind?” Grabbing his friend’s arm more forcefully, which now was wrapped around the working boy’s neck with firm determination, disregarding the similar state of affairs on the other side, he used his entire weight in order to pry his friend loose, if only a little. “Stop that, both of you, you stupid half wits. Get away from each other.”

  Using his shoulder as a wedge, he pushed them so hard, they both went down and into the water, and he had a hard time maintaining his own balance from the suddenness of it.

  “You stupid –”

  And then it happened. He had never seen it, not from close proximity and not from afar, but the stories were there, told and retold by all sorts of people, usually at nights, the boys huddling together, scaring each other. The fishermen from the city and the villages had first-hand accounts to report, and there were books depicting the creature, serious books, priests’ calendars and such, drawn by eyewitnesses, those who saw it and managed to get away, not many, usually just witnesses, not the direc
t objects of the monster’s attack.

  In the gathering darkness, it was difficult to see, so his senses informed him before his terrified eyes did. Both boys were still spluttering, struggling to get to their feet before the other did, still eager to attack, oblivious to anything else, but the slick body of maybe half of his size was sliding alongside, the pointed ears and head, the spiky fur, and the tail, huge and as black as the gathering night.

  Numbed with terror, he watched it circling, nimble and deadly, meaning harm. The tail, it would be using its tail now, he knew, blinking to make his mind work. It would grab them one by one with its tail, wrapping its human-like fingers of this same lethal limb around them in order to pull them under.

  Patli’s scream tore him from his stupefied staring, brought the sounds back in force, crumbling down his stomach, making it turn violently, as though he was about to get sick. The others stopped thrashing and were jumping away too, waving their arms in a ridiculous manner. The slick silhouette was darting every which way, like the shadow of the Underworld, which it might very well have been. No one knew from where ahuitzotls originated.

  The next thing he knew, the workshop boy uttered a funny yelp, falling backwards in a strange fashion, head first, or rather his neck, as a person would dive when trying to do it backwards, a bizarre picture. His limbs were thrashing wildly, but his head, half under the water and half out, was stretched out weirdly, wrapped in a blur of slick limbs, while Axolin, living up to his name of a Water Lizard, joined the melee quite fearlessly, beating at the strangling paws, trying to pry them off.

  The realization that brought Necalli’s frozen body back to life with a start, made him hurl himself into the raging fight with little consideration, his hands claws, grabbing the flailing hands, pulling hard. For a heartbeat, it felt like a lost struggle, then the workshop boy was back, gasping for air, gurgling desperately. Of the creature there was no sign.

  Blinking in confusion, his instincts still screaming danger, not letting the sense of victory prevail, he tried to unlock his grip on the elbow he was clutching for dear life before, then again felt rather than saw the movement, this time much closer, the slick fur brushing against his side, making him shudder in revulsion, frozen yet again against any better judgment. The tail with the human hand, where was it? His mind kept wondering, desperate to locate the source of danger. The creature would attack with its best-fitting feature, like he did with the workshop boy, like it did in every story and tale.

  Axolin was beating at the water around them, his knife out and ready. About time! The workshop boy managed to regain his balance along with an upright position, apparently not hurt too badly. But of course! Ahuitzotls were reported to drag their prey down, into their caves at the bottom of the lake, to drown them and only then begin feasting. They weren’t fighters but ambushers. So maybe they could keep each other safe, not to let the creature drag them below, just like with the foreigner boy.

  “Axolin, keep close, don’t let –” Surprised to hear his own voice doling out orders, or any reasonable sounds at all, he felt the push and had to fight for his balance as the water splashed yet again. The next thing he knew, something heavy was clinging to his arm, hanging there like a dead weight, making his struggle to stay upright more difficult. No pain, just the weight, the fierceness of the clasp.

  Disoriented, he tried to push it away, shooting his hands up, both of them. A futile attempt. Something was fastened around his arm, crushing it in its savage grip. It made him stagger and the scream that tore from his lips had a frightening sound, yet the strong hands were pulling him back, steadying, supporting, and after more thrashing around – he couldn’t tell if it was Axolin or the working boy – the weight wasn’t there anymore. Only the pain remained, that tearing, bone-crushing agony. To pull his arm up and out of the water apparently wasn’t a good idea. It doubled the pain, or maybe even tripled it. Like the dots of the glyphs they were made to multiply in school, the dots and the bars, the pain spiraled in no orderly way.

  “Is it dead?” the commoner boy was asking, his voice coming in waves, not very steady.

  “Don’t know, no, I think not… well, maybe… maybe it got hurt, I think…” Axolin was stammering as badly, in a way that would make Necalli laugh and make ridiculous imitations, he knew. But for the pain, and the fear, and that stupid ringing in his ears, he might have thought of commenting on that. As it was, he let the hands of the workshop boy direct him back out of the reeds and into the stretch of land they had just managed to leave, wondering briefly what sense it made to go back, unless willing to enter the tunnels once again. Not such a bad idea, come to think of it. The suffocating closeness was twenty times more preferable to the dark water inhabited by monsters.

  Chapter 5

  The necessity to crawl back into the oppressive darkness, pressed by the crude, revoltingly damp slabs of stones from all over did not make him cringe or even hesitate. Unlike these spoiled city boys, he had been around underground caves and tunnels since he could walk straight or close enough to this time. Father never missed the opportunity to bring his sons along on the less dangerous missions of mining, to learn the family’s trade, and to have a good time as well. It was never boring with Father, never unpleasant despite the hard work of excavating hard pieces of copper and other precious materials hidden in colorful or dully grayish stones, of separating them from each other.

  Oh, but how he missed Father!

  Fiercely sometimes, fighting the urge to run away and back home every dawn of waking up in this towering island-monster, so huge and so busy, imposing, humbling, unfriendly, brimming with foreigners but despising them all, the uncouth savages from the various conquered lands, the lands they themselves bothered to go out and conquer. So what did they expect? Still, here was Father, succumbing to this same idea the other conquered or wisely joined towns and villages did, going themselves or sending their promising children to the mighty Capital in hopes of a better future.

  Some future indeed, he thought bitterly; a wonderful opportunity to spend one’s time between raging braziers all day long, working into exhaustion, receiving nothing but humiliating ordering about. Even though compared to those whom Patli called ‘calmecac boys,’ the people of the workshop were not so haughty or violent after all.

  Rolling his eyes, he slipped through the crack they had left while fleeing the stupid first tunnel, hanging on his hands, seeking the support of the wooden planks, finding none. Bewildered, he let go, his hands trembling, refusing to support his weight any longer. It wasn’t high anyway. Still, the throbbing in the back of his head interrupted his concentration, made him wish to feel it out again, for the tenth or maybe twentieth time since escaping the accursed lake. Was the stiffness there all dried mud, a result of his thrashing about in the lake, or had the monster’s teeth sunk into his flesh after all? The mere memory made him shudder violently in unstoppable tremors. That terrible creature, so frightening and vicious, so inhumanly strong, set on having him dragged under the surface, set on devouring him, oh mighty deities.

  His fingers reached into a small pouch tied to his loincloth, still there, reassuring, giving him strength. The smoothness of the polished obsidian did this, his knowledge of the talisman – oh, but it kept him safe today and on other occasions. The dark, glassy, beautiful puma, carved and fashioned out of solid obsidian, given to him upon his tenth birthday but made on the day he was born. While Mother was struggling to bring him to this world, like all women did, engaging in a long strenuous battle – they said it took her days to do that and that she almost died – Father was working on the obsidian puma, carving it lovingly, pledging to various deities, begging for help. Unlike jade or turquoise, granite or malachite, obsidian was no material to fashion figurines or jewelry out of – too brittle, too easily chipped or fragmented. Yet Father had worked stubbornly, praying and carving, asking for guidance and help of powerful deities, producing this wonder in time to greet his newborn last son, a strong healthy baby, miracu
lously undamaged by the difficult delivery. They had told and retold him the story several times, and he had his share of unauthorized peeking at the obsidian wonder, marveling at the wonderfully detailed, majestic, glossy creature, as dark as a moonless night and as powerful; his namesake – ItzMiztli, Obsidian Puma. Oh, but the wonderful talisman made it easier to go through the days in the melting room. It made the longing for home bearable. He never let it out of his reach.

  Clutching the glassy smoothness tightly between his fingers, he looked around, probing with his senses, listening intently. Even the lake’s monsters were powerless against his talisman; still, what a vicious creature it was! They hadn’t dared to even talk about what happened. Spilling pell-mell into the relative safety of their previous hideaway under the earthworks and beams, they busied themselves with the bleeding arm of the calmecac boy, the one who was distributing orders before. He was having a hard time with it, clenching it with his good arm, all swollen and bleeding, torn in quite a few places. It was easy to hear the grinding of this one’s teeth, the way he must have clenched them against the pain.

  The sensible thing to do was to dive back into the tunnel, run its length as fast as they could, back to the normalcy of the city and help. However, sensibility was not the strong side of the calmecac boys, apparently, whatever this calmecac thing was. Both the wounded and his annoyingly violent, haughty friend refused to even contemplate the idea. In the end, it came to Patli volunteering his, Miztli’s, services, to rush back using the tunnel and get that rope he was suggesting to make out of their precious clothing in the first place, climb the earthworks, and walk back home leisurely, taking their time. An unnecessarily intricate plan, but apparently, their fancy cloaks were too important, more than the bleeding arm of their would-be leader. So the tunnel it was for him, not such a difficult challenge. He was no city boy afraid of stone walls and some musky air.