Obsidian Puma (The Aztec Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  “But I need…” Suddenly, his eyes widened and he peered at her with renewed interest, all expectancy and hope. “Can you… maybe… would you?”

  “What?” It was funny, the way he gazed at her, like a child determined to ask but afraid at the same time. “You don’t make much sense.”

  “Would you go in there and fetch a rope?” He frowned painfully, eyes boring into her, gauging her reactions.

  “A rope?” she repeated, stupefied.

  “Yes. Something long, durable; a good rope. He has those things. In the chest with the smaller tools, by the inner doorway. There are plenty of ropes there, not long enough, maybe, but we can tie them together. Two pieces.” He was talking in a rush now, or rather, thinking aloud. “That should be enough.”

  She eyed him with growing uneasiness. “You don’t make any sense, Miztli.”

  The ring of his name seemed to bring him back to reality. His frown deepened. “You won’t tell him about what I asked? Your father or your brothers.”

  “No. But…” She measured him with a pointed glance. “...but you will have to tell me what you need this rope for.” Pursing her lips, she narrowed her eyes against his scowl. “Then I will help you and won’t tell a word, I promise.”

  His forehead looked like a wrinkled blanket, furrowed by too many creases. “I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can. You need my help.”

  Another painfully undecided scrutiny. “You promise not to tell?”

  “Yes!” She felt the excitement tickling in her hands and feet. What secret did he harbor?

  Dubiously, he glanced at the surrounding darkness, as though afraid that the dancing shadows the oiled torch was casting would give his secret away. “Patli and two other boys, they are stuck under the causeway. You know, this thing with bridges and beams.”

  “Under the causeway?” she cried out, then pressed her palms to her mouth, muffling the rest of the cry. “Which one?”

  “The one that is near here.”

  “The Tlatelolco causeway?”

  He just nodded, glancing around again.

  “How did they get there?”

  He rolled his eyes in a telling grimace. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you later, some of it, I promise, but now I need to hurry. They are stuck there, and that calmecac boy, he is bleeding. His arm is in bad shape. And also, these people from the tunnels, they may try and look for us and trace our way straight away to where they are now. Or here, for that matter. I don’t know if they followed me here.” The sudden flood of his words stopped, mainly for lack of air, or so she suspected. “I need to return there and fast!”

  She gave up trying to comprehend his fragmented phrases and words. “I’ll get you that rope. Wait for me here.”

  “Bring two,” he called after her, but she just nodded and hastened her step, her elation welling. Maybe Mother would not notice her absence if she was busy with either of her complaining stepsons or with anything, really. Oh mighty deities, please let her remain too busy. For this was one adventure she wasn’t about to miss out on. Trust Patli to get his new friends in trouble. Oh yes, her cousin had a nose for places and experiences and an unquenchable thirst for risky adventures. And if the apprentice village boy was allowed to join, then so was she. Especially now that her freedom to run about was going to end, abruptly at that.

  Father wasn’t in the workshop at all and she breathed with relief, her sense of urgency prevailing, making her rush through the chests, frantic. What if he came back and asked her for the purpose of all this poring around? Ropes, oh yes, he kept the maguey woven ropes, the sturdiest of them all, the very best quality. Enough to pull someone up the causeway? She didn’t know the answer to that, but that boy Miztli seemed like someone who would know. Oh, how lucky it was that Father had every possible tool or accessory close at hand, even accessories he rarely used. For good measure, she grabbed a few coiled bundles before bolting toward the outside, in a rush now.

  Miztli’s silhouette was hovering next to the doorway, apparently unable to wait patiently at the place she had left him.

  “Did you get it?”

  “Yes.” She waved her loot before his face but took her hand away quickly as he reached for it. “Let us go.”

  “You can’t,” he gasped, staring at her and not trying to resume the attempts to recapture her goods.

  “Yes, I can,” she repeated firmly, turning to go. “Are you coming or not?”

  After a heartbeat of silence, his footsteps caught up with her. “Your father will be furious.”

  “He won’t even know. We’ll be back quickly.”

  “And what if we aren’t?”

  “Why? Tlatelolco causeway is such a short walk from here, and it’s not yet dangerous. It’s not the dead of the night. Everyone is still out and about.”

  He shrugged and said nothing, walking beside her silently, surprisingly light-footed for the strong broad boy that he was, fit for carrying his heavy loads, spending his time lifting massive ceramic pots and blazing braziers. Oh, but how Father kept reflecting on the usefulness of his new apprentice, boasting of his strength and endurance! Not every boy who had been admitted to work here lasted for longer than a market interval. Even her brothers found every excuse to avoid spending time in the braziers’ room, not to mention Patli, the crafty troublemaker.

  “Tell me what happened. Why do you look – and smell! – like someone who got dragged all over the lake’s bottom and worse? What’s Patli got you into?”

  He shrugged again, then looked around, openly troubled. “Is this the way to that causeway? We didn’t walk through here before.”

  “It’s the better way,” she said, lifting her own shoulders in an indifferent shrug, thrilled with the feeling of proving herself better than them yet again. “Patli doesn’t know all the alleys around this part of the city. But I do.”

  He looked impressed.

  “Patli is just boasting around, but he came to Tenochtitlan not long before you. So if he lords it over you, any of it, tell him to go and jump into the lake.”

  This time, he giggled. “He won’t do it unless pushed. Not with the scary things that swim in your lake.”

  “What things?”

  But his brief outburst of merriment was gone. “I don’t know. Something scary.”

  “Where?” The quietness of his voice made her aware of the surrounding darkness, despite the moon and the passersby’s torches, flickering helpfully, lighting some of their way.

  “Under that causeway. In the reeds.”

  “How do you know?”

  “We… we ran into it. Out there, in the reeds.” It was difficult to hear his words now, the way he was muttering, as though afraid to say it aloud. “It was terrible and… and vicious. Bloodthirsty. It wanted to eat us or drown us. Or do both.”

  She willed her legs into keeping their pace, because he didn’t seem as if he was about to slow down or stop for good, despite his hair-raising stories. “It attacked you?”

  “Yes! It jumped on me and it tried to pull me down. We were fighting with that calmecac boy. He is so annoying and stupid! But then, then this thing, it was grabbing my head. From behind. Clutching it with twenty hands or more, pulling me under the water. It was terrible.”

  The frantic flow of words stopped as suddenly as it burst out, as though drained. She didn’t care. What he said was too terrifying to keep on listening. For a heartbeat, a silence prevailed, interrupted by the hum of people around the wharves and down the lakeshore. In the nearest alley, someone was playing a flute quite unskillfully, blowing in a mess of tunes.

  “How did you get away?” she whispered, barely recognizing her own voice, such a pitifully weak sound. “If it was… if it was an ahuitzotl, then you were supposed to… supposed to…”

  It was easy to feel his shudder. “What’s an ahuitzotl?”

  She halted for good. “What do you mean?”

  In the strengthening moonlight, his frown was clearly visible, a deep sco
wl. “I don’t know. You say… that thing… what is it, this spiny-water-something?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “No.”

  Shaking her head, she resumed her walk, mainly to get away from the disharmonious flute that grew louder, desperate to succeed. “You are a strange one. How can you not know what ahuitzotl is? Even foreigners should know that.”

  He grunted something angry in response.

  “The Water Spiny One is very dangerous,” she said when the warehouses retreated, leaving them with the strong odor of fish and the view of the causeway, just a dark mass stretching in the glittering water, ending at the wharves of Tlatelolco, a desolate line glimmering with occasional light, not difficult to see. The other island was only a short distance away. The foreigners often presumed that both islands were one entity of two independent cities. “If you met it and came out alive, you are a very lucky person, you and your friends.”

  “What does it do?” he asked, hastening his step, clearly relieved to reach their destination at last.

  “It pulls you under the water, makes you drown. Then it eats your eyes out and your teeth. And your fingernails too.” Pleased with the effect, as he was gaping at her with an open dread now, she nodded in order to reinforce her claims. “It has an arm on its tail, which of course is long and huge, and it uses it to pull people under most effectively.” To talk like that and in such close proximity to the water felt wrong. She curbed her urge to frighten him some more. “So if you truly ran into this creature, you are very lucky to be alive now and talking about it.”

  “Can it climb out of the water?” Again, he was walking too fast, making it difficult to keep up with him.

  “No, I don’t think it can.”

  “Still, we need to get them out of there in a hurry,” he muttered, hastening his step into a near run.

  Out of breath, she made it a point not to complain. Even though without her help he couldn’t have reached the causeway so fast, running all the way or not, there was no need to give him cause to regret bringing her along.

  “Do you think it was ahuitzotl and not something –”

  A group of slim silhouettes sprang into their view, emerging from the darkness of the courtyard belonging to the old temple, now just a cluster of abandoned buildings. Gripping their torches, they moved decidedly, glancing around, curiously on guard. Nothing out of the ordinary, with this area abounding with smugglers and worse, she reflected, shrugging off the tiny splash of worry. At this time of the evening, they were still safe. It was… The suddenness with which his palm locked around her upper arm startled her, made her sway. She struggled to break free, but he pulled her on and into a nearby pathway, narrow and stinking, full of fish and its entrails, the leftovers from the activities of the day.

  “What are you…”

  “Keep quiet,” he was hissing, pressing her arm tightly, even painfully. “Don’t…”

  Not accustomed to being treated in such manner, she pulled away sharply, ready to hit him or rake him with her nails if he tried to grab her again. “How dare you!”

  The torches of the men were upon them, following, attracted by the noise probably. She didn’t care. Just who did he think he was to treat her in this way? The uncouth foreigner, the stupid half-naked villager!

  The stench of the cheap oil reinforced the natural foulness of the small alley’s odor. She glared at him, welcoming this unexpected source of illumination. “Who do you think you are to do this?”

  He didn’t bother to answer, staring past her, at the intruders with torches, as tense as a metal string that was coiled too tightly, about to recoil; those copper strings Father used to produce for the woven bells. Puzzled, she glanced back. The men were four in all, thin and sinewy, wearing loincloths, their girdles outlined by the dancing shadows, surely stocked with knives and other cutting devices. Smugglers!

  “Is that the whelp?” one of them cried out, thrusting his dripping beacon so close it made her eyes water.

  For a wild moment, she thought he was going to grab them with the arm still burdened by the burning stick, or maybe strike them with it. Then the boy launched forward with the agility of a snake, and not the cat-like creature he was named after, striking fast with one arm, knocking the torch down. In another heartbeat, she felt herself being pulled again, more decisively than before, yet this time, she didn’t resist. Panting, she ran after him, letting him pull her into one alley, then another, trusting his instincts rather than her knowledge of the area this time. He certainly knew what he was doing.

  Chapter 7

  The rope was good, made out of maguey and fastened with many strings. Necalli tried to pay no attention to his throbbing arm, which curiously troubled him less than immediately after being dragged onto the firm land. The gashes in it were still bleeding, but slowly, not vigorously, and there was a measure of consolation in it. It was torn badly enough, wasn’t it? Still, it didn’t seem as though he was about to bleed to death.

  He shuddered again, remembering the dreadful encounter. How vicious the creature was, how strong. Attacking them with such relentlessness, not about to give up and go away. It was set on having them all for its meal, their eyes and their teeth, and their fingernails. Oh mighty deities!

  “Just hold on to this thing with all you have. Don’t let it go. Can you manage?” Axolin’s voice brought him back to the rope he was clutching, and the reality of the damp humming darkness, the sound of the waves murmuring softly, too near to reassure. “You go up first.”

  He nodded briefly, clutching his lower lip between his teeth. Under different circumstances, he would have insisted on seeing the other two off before he went, like a good leader should. However, now he was too exhausted and numb with continuous pain; too scared, truth be told. Could the water monster ahuitzotl climb up shorelines for a stroll around the dry land, or rather, for a good hunt? This question and many others of the sort had kept circling in his head through the endless waiting, while the darkness grew deeper and their fears mushroomed accordingly, with the workshop boy not coming back, the worthless piece of commoner meat that he was.

  Why did they trust him in the first place, that little pile of excrement from some stupid foreign village? Why didn’t Axolin or even Patli go? They could have, couldn’t they? Or maybe even he himself, the torn arm or not. He could climb back into the stupid tunnel, make his way in the darkness until he found its far edge. How many additional corridors could be down there anyway? And yet, no one found enough courage to return to the accursed passageway under the lake, no one but the barefoot commoner who fought quite bravely back there in the reeds, leaping to his, Necalli’s, aid along with Axolin when Patli wouldn’t.

  Every time he remembered, he would glare at the telpochcalli boy, even though the thunderbolts his eyes shot seemed to be wasted in the thickening darkness. Then the fear would return, triggered by the dreaded question. Could the monstrous ahuitzotl come back, swim after the scent of their blood or their fear, climb this pitifully small piece of land, attack them again, now only three youths; scared, exhausted, and wounded? What a thought.

  “Are you coming?” This came from the dark mass of the earthwork, somewhere above their heads, a loud whispering. “Hurry up.”

  Necalli clutched the rope with both hands, disregarding the pain and the renewed trickling, the blood seeping out, oozing slowly, making the unseemly dread return.

  “You go after me,” he said hurriedly, addressing Axolin. “Let the telpochcalli boy be the last, the useless piece of cowardly meat that he is.”

  “I’m not a coward,” protested Patli with little spirit or conviction.

  Necalli readjusted his grip on the rope. “Shut up.” The urge to tell this one what he thought about him and his kind welled, but he pushed it away, ashamed to admit that he might be lingering now on purpose, postponing the challenge of the climb. The slanting side of the earthwork’s foundation was disgustingly slippery, reeking of rot, jabbing with its multitude of sharp edg
es, pieces of rock and sharp gravel, and whatever else it was built of. But to have both functioning arms!

  He clenched his teeth against the groan as the first pull had him hanging in the air, catching his breath, gathering energy for the next one. Another agonized heartbeat saw him clinging to the revolting surface, grateful for its existence now, pressing against it.

  The rope shuddered and even though he knew that the workshop boy must be having a hard time trying not to let it slip, taking his, Necalli’s, entire weight on the strength of his arms maybe, he still didn’t find enough power to go on. Just another moment of respite. His wounded arm pumped with pain, each wave fiercer than the other, and he just couldn’t make it attempt the next feat of bravery, not yet.

  As the rope shuddered more violently and then actually began sliding down, he was just about to push on, feeling his hands slipping anyway, afraid he would go plummeting down and after such a desperate effort. Busy fighting to keep himself glued to their only means of escape, he felt himself being yanked upwards, his limbs hitting the uneven surface of the wall, his mind in a jumble. The next thing he knew, he was tugged again, this time by his shoulders, jerked unceremoniously, pushed over the low barrier and onto the flattened ground, gasping with pain, the flattened stones jutting against his limbs, but not as badly as the ones of the outer wall, not as vicious and mean.

  “Are you good?” In the silvery glimmer of the moon that poured its light generously here, unrestricted by the shadow of the massive earthwork, the workshop boy’s face looked as though he had been preparing to go into a battle, with a strange sort of pattern covering his features, from the dark of numerous scratches to the dull gray of the splattered mud, his hair sticking out in a ridiculous manner.