Obsidian Puma (The Aztec Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  Unable not to, Necalli snickered. “You should see yourself now, working boy. A crazy sight.”

  Unexpectedly, his rescuer grinned, his teeth flashing in the darkness. “You should see yourself, calmecac boy. Not such a pretty sight either.” Another light chortle. “Feeling any better?”

  Necalli considered this thoughtfully. “No, but it’s good to be up here and away from there.”

  “I bet.” Then the grin disappeared. “Let go of the rope. They are waiting for it too.”

  “Oh.” He sat up, then took in their additional company. A wary silhouette adorned with two braids and some hair sticking out around it, standing there apprehensively, clearly not just a curious passerby judging by the assertiveness of her pose, all eyes and expectation. The bundle she clutched seemed to contain ropes or cloths or both. “Who are you?”

  The girl said nothing, staying at a safe distance, studying him with the unconcealed curiosity of a person who has stumbled over a rare animal. It irritated him, this open scrutiny, inappropriate in a woman, whether a lady who wouldn’t stare at a man no matter who he was out of mere decency, or a maid who wouldn’t dare to look at the nobles directly out of pure humbleness if nothing else. Just who did this fowl think she was?

  Giving her a look that he hoped relayed everything he thought about her presumptuousness, he pulled himself up resolutely, struggling onto his feet, painfully aware of the gracelessness with which he did this. But for the damn arm. The pain was again more bearable now that he didn’t need to hang on to it, but he didn’t care for his limb’s obvious swollenness and the trickling blood, both pronounced more clearly in the helpful illumination of the moon, with no room for mistake or illusion.

  The commoner boy was grinding his teeth, struggling against the rope that was jerking madly, dancing in his outstretched hands, threatening to pull him over the edge. It was obvious that Axolin, no climber under the best of circumstances, was having a hard time battling the embankment’s wall. Necalli pushed his arm, along with the girl, out of his mind. To grab the edge of the rope with his good hand turned out to be surprisingly easy.

  “The damn stupid wall,” Axolin was gasping, dragged over the rough border stones, with both Necalli and the working boy having wasted the last of their strength, unable to summon enough enthusiasm to try to be gentle with their pull. “The stinking, rotting causeway!”

  He could hear the girl’s snicker, brief and muffled, but there.

  “Now Patli.” The workshop boy was already busy gliding the rope back down the edge. But did that one have an unexhausted amount of dedication and determination! Necalli felt like leaving their cowardly telpochcalli accomplice to his own devices. Why was the working commoner bothering so much? It was not as though Patli did something for him, helped him in the lake while the monster attacked him, or even came to his aid when Axolin was trying to beat him into more humbleness. Then he remembered the connection. Oh yes, that one worked in Patli’s father’s or uncle’s workshop, melting some stinking copper. Of course he could not slink back into his workplace without having the owner’s relative along, hale and healthy.

  “I’ll help you,” said the girl, coming closer in the meantime. She had a nice voice, quite melodious.

  “Who is this?” whispered Axolin, picking himself up with as much artlessness as Necalli himself had displayed before. But was the climbing of the annoying water construction a stupid business!

  Necalli just shrugged, watching the girl as she leaned over the slippery edge, doing so gracefully, with much skill. A marketplace fowl, undoubtedly, but an able one, a pleasant-looking sight. The occasional passersby, not many at this time of the evening, slowed their steps, some stopping to gawk, others just glancing, exchanging mirthful comments.

  Pursing his lips, Necalli pushed forward, inserting himself between these two and next to the commoner boy, grabbing the edge of the rope once again. Lowborn fowl that this girl must be, he still couldn’t let her do a man’s work.

  “We better hurry,” he whispered, motioning with his head at the crowding people. “Before the authorities come and start asking questions.”

  The boy by his side shuddered. “Or the smugglers from the tunnel,” he murmured, doubling his efforts, yanking at the rope hard.

  “What smugglers?”

  “The men…” Shaking his head in order to get rid of the wild tendrils that were fluttering in front of his face, muddied and insistent, he went on gasping. “In that tunnel… there were men… They almost caught me, and then outside, out there by the wharves…”

  Patli, apparently lighter than the impressively muscled Axolin, slipped onto the ground like a fish pulled into a fisherman’s canoe. Amused, Necalli watched him fluttering by their feet, trying to catch his breath, or maybe to contain the pain. He remembered how it felt to be hauled over the spiky wall. Nothing pleasant, even though it was better than their battle with the lake’s monster.

  “Thank you,” the telpochcalli boy was mumbling, addressing him in particular, glancing at Axolin, paying no attention to his peer from the workshop.

  “Thank him,” said Necalli curtly, suddenly incensed. “Your friend did more than anyone to drag you out of this mess.”

  An awkward silence prevailed. Even the people around halted their conversations, apparently enjoying the unfolding show.

  “Let us be off.”

  “But you are bleeding.” This time it was the girl, watching him through a puzzled frown.

  “Not that badly,” he said, ridiculously pleased with the opportunity to display his bravery, disregarding the wound among other flesh matters. The calmecac teachers, whether veterans or priests, always harped on that, the warrior’s mandatory ability to be above physical pain or any other such concern. He scowled at the watching commoners. “The entertainment is over.” Most of their audience stared back, unabashed. The dwellers of the poorest districts were always this way, and here, near Tlatelolco causeway, there was the best representation of those. “Let us go.”

  The workshop boy responded to this last command with surprising alacrity for the one previously set in his own way of doing things. Pressing against the edge of the embankment so closely he chanced falling back into the water or the meager piece of land they went to such pains in order to escape, he slipped alongside it, aiming to disappear back into the city and fast, or so it seemed. Necalli made a face. This one was a strange bird, but trustworthy, with a fair share of courage and good thinking. A surprise.

  “What took you so long?” he asked quietly, edging their copper-melting company away from the rest of them, pleased to see that the boy got the hint, falling into his, Necalli’s, step quite naturally, a few paces ahead of the others. “Did you run into trouble? What’s with the girl?” A quick glance at their followers informed him that the pretty fowl was hurrying alongside Patli now, talking to him in a breathless rush. “Where did you dig this thing from?”

  “Chantli?” The boy shot him a puzzled glance. “She is the daughter of old Tlaquitoc. She got the ropes and some other things.”

  “Who is this old Tlaquitoc?”

  “The craftsman, the metal-worker. The owner of the workshop.”

  “Oh.” He side-glanced his companion again, taking in the broadness of the youth’s shoulders and the sturdiness of his legs and arms, displaying scratches and bruises aplenty, some obviously not the fruit of their afternoon adventures. “Are you his slave?”

  “No!” The boy reared in horror. “I’m no one’s slave!”

  “Relax,” said Necalli, nudging his companion into resuming their walk with a swift thrust of his elbow, not hurtfully but firmly, his good arm supporting the wounded one. “You said ‘owner,’ and you look no better than a slave anyway. Also Patli, that worthless piece of cowardly meat, treats you like dirt. Not like a member of that workshop family or something.”

  The boy grunted something in response.

  “What’s your name, anyway?”

  “ItzMiztli.”


  “Obsidian Puma? Not bad. Miztli will do, though.”

  “Of course. Everyone calls me that.”

  Shrugging in response, Necalli turned into the darker alley, glad to reach the mainland again. The worst of the reckless adventure was over and not too soon. Oh, but would the calmecac authorities be incensed with them coming back well after darkness. Even though the evening rites could be missed out on safely from time to time, if one didn’t do it too often and didn’t have the bad luck of popping into the temple’s priests’ mind while still missing.

  “So, where you came from, that’s all you people do, crawling tunnels and mines?”

  “Some of us, yes.” Even though away from the causeway and the attention of the curious crowds, the boy remained as tense as an overstretched maguey string, shooting narrowed glances around, evidently ready to bolt away. “My father works in the mountains. They bring green pieces of copper and other things to melt. Canoe-loads of those. They send them to altepetls like Tenochtitlan, for the people like old Tlaquitoc, to mix with silver and gold, or sometimes other substances, to melt and then work into beautiful things. The craftsmen work on those.”

  “Do they have to dig tunnels like the one under the causeway?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “What do you think was there? Did you see anything interesting on your way back?”

  Another furtive glance around. “Those weapons we saw in that room with the opening, there are plenty more in other corridors.”

  “What corridors? Are there more tunnels in there?” The web of narrow pathways began to haunt him. Were they going to find their way out and into more respectable neighborhoods?

  “Oh yes. Plenty.” The deep-set eyes rested on him, narrow, brimming with tension. “At least two more, and people running all over them, like underground rats, carrying chests from that other city, beyond the causeway.”

  “Tlatelolco?”

  “Yes.”

  “You saw all this on your way back?” A new alley looked promising, lined by cane-and-reed shacks, but broader, suggesting that it might lead them to more acceptable places. From the colorful walls of the marketplace, it was not such a long way back to school and not so unfamiliar.

  “Well, yes.” The boy shrugged and returned to eye their surroundings, more on guard now that people were hurrying past or just strolling, his gaze scanning them alertly, narrowed against the generous illumination of the moon. “They had torches and it was easy to spy on them, as they were busy carrying things and talking and getting angry at each other. But then…” He grimaced painfully. “Well, then one surprised me from behind and I had to bolt away. Too far, too fast.” He shrugged again, but this time, the pursed lips were twisting into a crooked sort of a grin. “That man with the torch was no runner.”

  “But he did try to chase you?”

  “Yes.”

  Axolin’s hurried footsteps caught up with them before the tall boy materialized by their side, evidently not interested in the company of the telpochcalli pupil and a pretty but dubious marketplace fowl. “Where are we?”

  The workshop boy returned to watch the road ahead quite abruptly.

  Necalli made a face. “I wish I knew.” Pretending indifference seemed like the best of courses when lost and about to get in trouble with school authorities. “In the end, we’ll get somewhere.”

  Axolin’s snort rolled down the unimpressive row of would-be houses, ruffling their shaky walls like the gusts of wind that kept whipping all around. “We need to be back in school before all the stars are out and shining. Old Yaotzin will piss hot water if we don’t appear at the temple in time. And you need to have your arm bandaged before that. Maybe it needs to be seen by a healer.” His eyes shot toward the commoner. “Don’t you know of a good way to reach the marketplace and fast?”

  “No, I don’t,” drawled Miztli-boy, scowling with the challenge of a cornered animal, in the way he did through this entire evening, come to think of it, reflected Necalli. A puma indeed, obsidian or not. What a spectacular name for a foreigner from this or that gods-forsaken village.

  “Useless piece of commoner dirt,” related Axolin, back to the lack of patience he displayed in the tunnel or while wading in the reeds of the lake.

  “Not like some stinking no-good piece of excrement,” retorted the boy promptly, clearly not averse to resuming the fighting stopped by the water monster, inconsiderately at that.

  Rolling his eyes, Necalli pushed himself between the two antagonists, incensed and amused at the same time.

  “Stop it, you stupid ugly male turkeys, both of you. It’s not the time.” Axolin seemed not impressed, so he pushed his friend away, using his shoulder. “Miztli is no useless commoner, so stop calling him names. If you want to beat someone, go for Patli. He is as useless as they come.” Slowing his step, he looked back, gesturing at the telpochcalli boy to catch up. This one was dragging unhurriedly, still plaguing the girl with his stories, looking clumsy and out of place beside the efficiency and the grace of her stride. Despite the modestly long, simply embroidered maguey skirt, it was easy to imagine the length of her legs or the grace of their sway. She was a pretty thing. “Patli, move your stupid behind. We need to find our way back to the city and fast.”

  Patli was glancing whichever way, set on not meeting his eyes apparently. Necalli snorted.

  “It is not such a long way from here to the Central Plaza,” offered the girl, meeting his gaze with no misgivings as opposed to her contemptible family member. “You need to stick to the workshops areas and then turn by the Tlaloc’s temple next to the colorful wall of the marketplace and follow the roads there.”

  Against his will, he watched her, liking the way her eyes glimmered with earnest simplicity, answering his gaze openly, with a glaring lack of modesty, which now, for some reason pleased him, appeared like a natural thing. She was no shrill marketplace fowl, this one. Anything but.

  “We don’t know all those roads, behind the workshops or wherever.” The thought occurred to him, pleasant and full of possibilities. “Can you show us the way?”

  She frowned thoughtfully, but this time, Patli came to life all at once. “Who do you think she is, a market girl?” he demanded, regaining his past self-assurance or some of it, lost so entirely since the event in the lake. “Chantli is a respectable girl, not your commoner fowls you talk about day and night!”

  “Shut up,” growled Necalli, aware of the awkwardness in this situation and more incensed by it. Just who did this stupid piece of slimy meat think he was, to presume lecturing him on commoner fowls or anyone else, for that matter? And in front of her! “Swallow your tongue behind your teeth and keep it there before I make you do that.”

  But now it was Axolin’s turn to take sides, and of the commoner part of their party as well. “Stop yelling at him. He talked sense. He can take us back to calmecac. Why bother the girl?”

  “Because that’s what I want to do,” grunted Necalli, feeling at an acute disadvantage, worse with every uttered word.

  “Nice of you to want things.” The damn Axolin was enjoying it. He glared at his friend, contemplating putting his teeth out of use before doing this to Patli.

  “It’s too dark and too far.” This time it was the girl’s voice, delightfully calm and husky, with no undercurrents to mar it and make it sound as stupid as they did. “I have to run home and hope that Mother didn’t notice. Miztli can take me, while Patli will take you both to your school. You have to go back to your telpochcalli anyway.”

  “Your father may want to see me before I go,” muttered Patli, his lips pursed tight, eyes glowing eerily, challenging but wary, the regular expression.

  She brushed his protests aside with sweet assertiveness. “I’ll make excuses, keep Father busy. He won’t notice your absence.”

  “He probably already noticed. And your absence too.”

  This served to dampen her radiance, and to renew Necalli’s spell of anger. But did the slimy piece of work Patli enjoy rubb
ing her face into the trouble she might have gotten herself into.

  “We’ll take you home, then go back to our school,” he declared firmly, taking the lead. “Which way is it?”

  The glow of her face was back, even if partly. “This way.” She waved in the direction they had just left, non-committal. “Behind the warehouses and the workshops. Where the feather-workers sell their craft.”

  “And what about your arm, you gallant warrior?” reminded Axolin, smirking again with no shame. “What if it falls off for good while you are busy doing silly things?”

  “Shut up.”

  Oh, but he didn’t need his friend’s needling, not now, but the girl stepped forward at once, grabbing the limb in question with little ceremony. “Let me see.”

  For a heartbeat, he felt like snatching his hand away, startled by her lack of manners again. Then the warmth of her touch made him reconsider. Such a strange sensation, like jumping into cold water through the midwinter celebrations, invigorating and unsettling at the same time. He held his breath.

  “It looks like a bite,” she declared, pulling him into the moonlit patch of the road. “Something big, with large teeth.”

  “It was,” confirmed Patli when no one else would.

  “Ahuitzotl?” she breathed, dropping his hand as though it was poisoned, taking the thrilling sensation away. Her eyes leapt at none other than the workshop boy, who kept remarkably quiet, picking no fights with Axolin. One good turn.

  They all nodded silently.

  “Then you must visit Tlaloc’s temple! You must consult one of the tlaloque, the priests. They are the only ones who can deal with ahuitzotl and its deeds.”

  Her eyes, nicely large and well spaced, now wide-open, peered at him anxiously, eager to convince, but the agitation did not suit her, spoiling the exquisiteness of her delicate features. He didn’t care. Her words cascaded down his spine like sharp pebbles, hurting physically, sending his mind into panicked fits, like back in the lake. But of course! How silly he was, disregarding this matter as unimportant, trying to push it out of his mind. It was no simple rat or dog that bit him. No, he could not get away by putting on ointment and hoping the wound would heal soon enough without rotting into bad things.