Obsidian Puma (The Aztec Chronicles Book 1) Page 7

  His landing was smooth with no crushing crates greeting him with their sharp hurting edges; still, it made his battered body protest. But he had collected too many bruises on this stupid adventure aside from his aching neck! How was he to explain those to old Tlaquitoc if asked? Or to Acatlo, the elder of the sons, such a grim, demanding person. It was hard enough to face him this afternoon, asking permission to go out, explaining that nothing was left to do in the workshop in the absence of its owner. The annoying man made such skeptical faces. But for Patli’s intervention, this boy’s quick seemingly lighthearted reasoning, he would have been refused, most surely. But then, maybe it would have been for the better.

  The darkness enveloped him, pitch-black as opposed to the simmering lightness of the outside, with nothing to illuminate the closeness of the cramped space. It was eerily quiet, and it made his nerves prickle. Something was wrong. What?

  He tried to probe with his senses, remembering Father’s words. When underground, one should be capable of finding one’s way without the light. Sometimes mines would crumble, on account of occasional earth’s tremors, or when they were dug without proper care or planning. Then a good miner would have to find his way out, having his limbs and his senses at his disposal, but little else. The tunnels were never deep enough to trap a person for good, but if panicked, a man was done for, Father would repeat over and over. So the first thing was not to panic, not to lose one’s lucid thinking to frantic running or thrashing about.

  Holding his breath, he listened carefully, reaching out with his hands, moving slowly, and feeling out the obstacles. The crates seemed to be still there, and the towering piles made of clubs and the spear-throwing devices. But where was this chest he had dragged in order to climb the opening? This crude construction of plants that left his palms full of splinters which were still there, the least of his worries.

  Then it hit him. The chest! It was back in its place, or anywhere; it wasn’t under the opening where they had left it. Otherwise, he would not have to jump. His heart was again making wild leaps, trying to sneak out through his throat. Breathlessly, he listened, desperate. Who or what moved that chest? And where was he, or it, now?

  From the direction where his senses informed him was the tunnel that brought them here, came nothing but silence. Not absolute enveloping silence like before, he noticed now. Some noises were reaching his ears – faint rustling, the scurrying of tiny feet. Rats? Underground creatures? A mysterious beast of the lake? It must have been lurking up there, directly above this tunnel, come to think of it. Oh mighty deities!

  The urge to scramble back, to claw his way up the wall and charge through the gaping opening welled, but he forced his limbs into stillness, willing his mind to think it all through. That panic Father was talking about, he must not succumb to it. Maybe he should still try to brave the tunnel. The narrowness of it was oppressive but promising. No beast larger than a fox would be able to squeeze through some of its turns, to chase him and corner and this time devour him for good. The beast of the lake was larger than that.

  The memory of the slimy, revoltingly muddy, foul-smelling limbs wrapped around his head, biting and pulling, smearing his face with scratches and worse, made him nearly lose his painfully gained sense of control, washing his whole body with a wave of patent dread. But it was grabbing him with everything it had – more than four limbs? – determined to pull him down, determined to devour him on the way or after reaching its lair. Still out there, lying in wait. Could it escape the water and burrow its way down here? But he had to get out of here, he had to!

  Groping the slanting stones, he staggered onto his only possible route of escape, determined to put as much distance between himself and the whole accursed place until the pressing walls began to retreat, enabling a more straight-backed posture. There he managed to force his legs into a calmer pace, not succumbing to the urge of running in a neck-breaking speed, the most unwise of the courses. Broken limbs would not help him escape any faster. Neither would it help the others, who counted on his coming back with a rope, stranded on their piece of flattened land, surrounded by water teeming with monsters. Did they expect him to bring along more substantial help? But of what sort? He had no friends in this cold and aloof altepetl, no relatives. A bare-foot villager, a foreigner; a commoner, as they claimed. Well, who knew that the sandals were not an unnecessarily expensive wear but a way to prove one’s worthiness? But how did this Necalli boy keep carrying on about it, the conceited piece of meat, he and his friend. And yet they were the ones to come to his rescue, to fight the water monster and pull him, Miztli, out of the beast’s clutches. They could have bolted away or stood and screamed like Patli did, but they didn’t. How very strange.

  The ground was tilting upwards, as he remembered it should, and he let out a held breath, then caught it again. The voices! Very muffled, they reached him, drifting from his left, an impossible direction as the tunnel spread behind and ahead, not sideways. Freezing, he listened, picking up a faint scratching, as though something dragged over the wall he was pressed against.

  The silence returned, to be interrupted shortly. This time, it was a muted bang that made him jump away and straight into the dampness of the opposite wall, not a distance at all. Above the wild pounding of his heart, he heard the voices again, unmistakable this time. People were talking somewhere behind the surrounding stones, working as well, dragging things. The images of another room full of weaponry or other sorts of treasures filled his mind’s eye. Despite his fear, he brushed his palms against the wall in question, feeling it out. If he dared, he would have knocked on it, trying to hear its quality. Was it hollow in parts? That would explain the noises.

  Silently, he crept on, his ears pricked up, fear forgotten. People were easier to deal with, to talk to or run away from. They were not bloodthirsty beasts. Sure enough, a tiny draft told him that another opening was gaping discreetly to his left. Maybe those people would be willing to help. They might have ropes and other useful tools. Were they searching for copper here, under the lake’s shore? It seemed to be a strange place to extract it, as usually precious metals were to be found in mountains and hills.

  Still unsure of himself, he headed toward the draft, sensing another opening, hesitating, then diving into it, determined. The faint flickering at its far edge led him on, warm and inviting.

  “Careful with this thing!” cried out a voice, so near it made him freeze dead in his tracks. Another thud like the one that caught his attention on the other side of the wall shook the moldy air. “If it breaks, you pay from your share. I’ll make sure to tell them that.”

  His heart was again thundering too loudly, threatening to give away his presence.

  “You just try to do that,” hissed the second voice, positively shaking. “You filthy piece of excrement, I’ll make sure you will never be able to walk straight again.”

  Two panicked steps brought Miztli back to the relative safety of the previous corridor.

  “You try to do that yourself,” snickered the first voice, unimpressed. “Empty promises, brother. You can’t best me and you won’t be able to carry on with your canoe-loads if you keep messing things up.”

  The darkness came to life with more grating upon the heavily damp stones.

  “I’m not messing anything up. That other opening under the causeway; it wasn’t me who left it open.”

  “Who then?”

  The voices began drawing away, to Miztli’s immense relief, his back covered with sweat, heart still fluttering. They were talking about the stone he had removed and left open, weren’t they? They were the ones to discover it and move the crate away. And what if they were still lingering there when he rushed to jump in without thinking?

  “They pay us to put the clubs there without making the entire Tenochtitlan aware of it, you stupid frog-eater.”

  “I wasn’t the one to leave that passage open!” protested the second man, his cry echoing between the narrow walls. “I wasn’t there since we
arrived.”

  “Then who was there to move that stone aside and peek in? Curious fishermen? Oh, you are laughable, brother, you are! And the highborn Tlatelolcan scum won’t be pleased, that much I promise you.”

  For some time, he didn’t dare to let out a held breath, then, as the voices died away for good, he ventured to turn around, anxious to grope his way back without being detected. No, these people wouldn’t be offering any help, that much was obvious. They would rather harm the intruders instead.

  A new draft of air swept over his bare back, bringing along the strong scent of burning torch, all this cheap oil. Whirling around, his incredulous gaze took in a silhouette, standing rock-still, staring at him.

  For a heartbeat, nothing happened. The torch flickered weakly, giving barely any light. In its poor illumination, the man’s face looked like a skull, with two dark round holes for eyes and the gaping mouth to match. Miztli felt his heart coming to a total halt. Yet, as the man lurched forward, as though not clear about his own intentions, whether to grab the intruder or just strike him with his torch, his heart came back to life with a start. Desperate not to let his assailant block his only route of escape, he literally threw himself toward the corridor to his right, his only aim – the safety of the darkness in there, no flickering dots in the original corridor and no stinking musk of the smoking torch.

  The man guessed his intention, waving his beacon as though it was a weapon itself, thrusting its glow onto his path, the narrowness of the corridor on his side. It drew a prettily glowing line, shimmering weakly but still scorching hot. A familiar feeling.

  He didn’t hesitate, not even for a heartbeat. This flame was no vicious blaze from his red-hot braziers, not even close. Pushing it away with both hands, he barely felt any burning sensation. In the next heartbeat, the feeble flare was flickering, fluttering upon the floor, defeated.

  He didn’t stay to watch it die. As though all the creatures of the Underworld were after him, he charged into the blissful darkness, praying that he remembered the way.

  Chapter 6

  The moment her oldest brother Acatlo came back, taking their mother’s attention away, Chantli bolted for the outside, relieved beyond measure. There were only so many activities one could take on a given day and this particular afternoon was full to bursting already. She needed time – time to think, time to understand, to absorb the imminent change. However, with Mother fussing about the possible expense of new clothes, shoes, and other accessories that would have to be purchased, and on such a short notice, it was plain impossible to concentrate, so her brother’s usually annoying chattering and complaints – what a self-centered lump of meat he was, the precious first-born, the prospective successor – came just in time.

  Jumping over the twisted rows of vegetables adorning their tiny patio, just a strip of dusty earth, really, with no border to separate it from the greenery of their neighbors, nothing like the patios one could glimpse in the neighborhoods beyond the marketplace and toward the Central Plaza, Chantli hastened her step, not willing to be detected and probably called back. There were evening chores that still needed to be attended, with Mother not being happy if left to deal with the washing of the cooking facilities or rearranging the inner rooms for the nighttime by padding them with plenty of petatl-mats all by herself. Still, there were times when a person needed the opportunity to think things over.

  Oh, that towering bright, beautiful temple; so high, so imposing, so polished and refined. Would she manage to enter it without making some terrible blunder? Would she manage to go through one single day without committing twenty mistakes along the way? They were so sure of themselves, these dwellers of the Royal Enclosure, so confident, so cultured. How could she spend one single heartbeat there without sticking out like a torch in the night, without making them angry with her? And why didn’t Father tell her beforehand? He could have, at least, hinted. When he ordered her to dress her best and accompany him to the Great Pyramid’s precinct, he could have let her know about any of it, relay what was at stake. Then she would have behaved better, wouldn’t have followed that boy into his dubious secret passages, for one. But were they angry with her sweeping through the main entrance, as though nothing happened, and just as they were coming back. Oh mighty deities, but Father even looked as though he might strike her, he who rarely slapped even his sons. And that scary man, the priest of that temple, the most important one. When Father made her face this dark-clothed statue of a person, she had been positively terrified, way beyond words or actions. Such a tall, aloof, freezing presence, eyeing her through his squinting eyes with a certain amount of interest, as though she had been an insect that he had yet to decide its usefulness – to squish it out of the way or to boil it in the cooking pot? Like the delicious crispy chapulin, the grasshoppers, prepared in a special way, the snack the children of their neighborhood cherished above any other.

  Hesitating over the dusty pathway leading toward the nearby workshop of the feather-maker and his family house, she tried not to let her misgivings gnaw and make her lose the last of her confidence. Didn’t she expect to be sent to school anyway? She had seen fourteen summers; she was of age. Their local telpochcalli had a vast ground-floor room dedicated to girls and their lessons, the female children of traders and craftsmen, those who wished to improve their daughters’ skills and, most of all, their marital eligibility. Even so, the school was reported to be fun. She was looking forward to it, to attend the classes with several of her girl friends, to see what it was all about. However, now?

  Oh mighty deities, but how was she to make her way beyond the Great Plaza every morning, such a long walk, to enter that scary temple or the sprawling cluster of buildings behind it that her unexpected companion was talking about; to spend her days alone and out of place, challenged with unfamiliar things. Would she manage? And would she be required to sleep there, like that boy from the temple? In telpochcalli, only boys slept, but who knew what the rules were in the imperial snobbish calmecac? Would she be as unhappy there as that boy, sneaking away the moment she could? Somehow, she suspected it would be exactly the case. Oh mighty deities!

  Shaking her head, she remembered their conversation, the shared adventure of sneaking through that corridor, eavesdropping on the gossiping priests. He was such a rascal, a funny type that one couldn’t but wish to like and put in his place at the same time, a strange combination. He claimed to be one of the royal house, that his brother was Tenochtitlan’s Emperor, even though she had her doubts about that. An offspring of the royal family? No! One didn’t meet such legendary persons out there on the streets. Even though it happened near the Royal Enclosure, come to think of it. Still, this boy must have been making it up, taking her for a silly commoner who wouldn’t know better. But he was surprised with her claim that her brothers went to the ‘commoners school’ – that was how he put it, the haughty little beast. As though he was any better, even though of course his clothes were terribly expensive, his cloak elaborately decorated, and his sandals the most glittering wear she had ever seen. It was difficult to see the leather under the sparkle of pretty stones.

  “Chantli!”

  The apparition, a form caked with mud and splattered with streaks of earth alternating with patches of dust in an elaborate manner, like a war paint, with a messed up loincloth and a disheveled hair to match, fell upon her as she hesitated under the torch fastened on the wall of Father’s workshop, uncertain of her destination now that it was already dark. Deep in thought, she didn’t notice anyone nearing, and now her heart pumped madly, trying to jump out of her chest. What an annoyance!

  Wide-eyed, she stared at the workshop boy, recognizing the familiar features but barely, all mud and scratches and maybe even some blood. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing,” he panted, obviously having a hard time catching his breath.

  Taking in the wildness of his appearance and, more importantly, the atypical way his eyes darted, looking furtive and afraid, she stepped
closer, curious now, even perturbed. “Where have you been?”

  “Nowhere.” He was still gasping, doubled over, evidently putting it all in the attempt to catch his breath, his palms planted against his muscled upper legs, supporting, in a way.

  In the few moons he had been living in the workshop, she never saw him either that drained or that agitated; or so neglected, for that matter. Half-naked villager from the gods-forsaken south or not, he did bother to wash his face every morning, arranging his uncut hair in a neat bun. There was no way to work in his blazing prison otherwise without chancing burning one’s hair and the rest of one’s body along the way. Also, she remembered, he was very meticulous about going to the nearest shore for a thorough wash up at the end of each day, even for just a quick dip. He wasn’t invited to visit local temazcalli baths along with their family and other respectable people of the neighborhood. Still, he always looked satisfactorily neat when outside of the melting room, yet now he presented the image of the wildest of the barbarians from beyond the eastern highlands, or the way Tenochtitlan people would imagine those people.

  “Were you allowed to leave the workshop?” she inquired, somewhat at a loss as to how to proceed.

  He nodded readily, his breath stabilizing. “Yes, yes. Acatlo told me I can go. He agreed when Patli asked.” Straightening up, he peered at her, uncertain once again. “Did he say something? Is your father back already?”

  She just nodded. “We came back not long ago. Father is eating. Or maybe he went to the workshop again. If you go now, he might be there.”

  He shook his head violently, looking as though about to take a step back. “He is in the workshop?”

  “Yes, why wouldn’t he be? He is always working after the evening meal. Do you know him so little?” Deciding to see the funny side of it, the safest of courses, always when something puzzling was involved, Chantli grinned. “I don’t think he is mad with you being out or something. Maybe he didn’t even notice. Out there in the Royal Enclosure, he was certainly busy with more important things than wild boys getting into trouble.” A shrug seemed to be in order. “You can sneak back into the workshop the moment he is gone. He won’t stay there for long, not this evening. He has things to think over and prepare.” Her own predicament surfaced, serving to dampen her mood once again. But what would she do out there in the calmecac temple? What would they make her learn or perform?