Harbinger of the Storm - By Aliette De Bodard Page 0,125

said. “And the Southern Hummingbird even more so.”

A chill ran though me. “You don’t serve Him–”

”I am His slave.” She smiled again, like a caged beast, waiting for its time to strike. “But even that will end, someday. Enough talk. It’s time for your sacrifice, priest.”

”I don’t understand–” In my hands lay my obsidian knives, and my amulet – and there was something else, a sense of absence, as if a part of me were missing.

Her voice was almost gentle. “This was what you brought, to fight your way to the god. Set it aside.”

”But I can’t –”

”Then you won’t pass.”

”What about the others?” I asked.

”They all made a sacrifice, according to their natures and their beings. Now it is your turn, priest.”

Without them, I would be naked in the heartland, worse than that, a dead man walking with no protection that would keep the magic of the Southern Hummingbird from destroying me. It would be like the imperial jails, only a thousand times worse.

Without this…

I thought of Acamapichtli, of what he had said about risks and acceptable sacrifices. The Duality curse the man, he was right, and admitting it cost me.

”Take them,” I said.

Her hands became a round ball of grass, into which my obsidian knives slid, one by one. The amulet went last, hissing as it went in. The grass turned a dull red, the colour of fresh blood, and something ached within me, more subtle than the pain of slashed earlobes or pierced tongue: a sense that I was no longer whole, no longer surrounded by protection.

She parted Her hands again and they seemed different than they had been before, more sharply defined, the obsidian a ittle less hungry. “Pass, priest,” She said.

There was a gate, by Her side, a half-circle of painfully bright light, as if a piece of the sun had descended into this strange world. It flickered, and grew dimmer, until I could stare into its depths, and catch a glimpse of lakes, and verdant knolls dotted by houses of adobe.

I walked up to it. My body shook, and I couldn’t command it properly. My whole sense of equilibrium seemed to have been skewed, my perception of myself no longer accurate.

What had She taken from me?

The light grew bright again as I crossed, searing me to the bone. Before I had time to cry out, it was over, leaving me with nothing more than a slightly painful tingle all over. I was kneeling in a circle traced on grass, the blood that had been filling it slowly draining away, sinking back into the mud. Then the circle was gone, and I stood in the middle of grass and reeds, under a sky so blue it was almost painful, with a gentle breeze caressing my skin.

”Acatl?”

It was Quenami, but I hardly recognised him. His hair was dishevelled, his face stained by mud, his finery all gone, replaced by the torn loincloth of a peasant, his gilded sandals faded and broken. There was nothing left of the authority he’d effortlessly commanded.

”Where is–” I started, but then saw Acamapichtli lying at his feet in a widening pool of blood. I hobbled closer. The feeling of something missing receding as I breathed in the air of the heartland. It was warm and pleasant, though I wasn’t fooled. It would gradually wear me down, as it had done in the imperial jails.

Acamapichtli looked as if he had been mauled. Streaks of red ran down his arms and his back, lying parallel to each other, like the wheals of a whip, or the claws of some huge feline. His clothes were tatters, heavy with the blood he was losing. Mud had seeped into his feet, as if he had been running barefoot in a swamp.

I looked up at Quenami, but saw nothing over me but the face of a frightened peasant. “The Duality take you!” I snapped. “We need cloth. Is there anything out there that can help us?”

”We’re alone, Acatl.” Quenami’s voice quavered, but he finally controlled it, coming back to some of his usual smoothness. “No villages or any habitation I can see.”

Stifling a curse, I took off my cloak and tore it to make bandages. With the help of Quenami, we managed to bind the worst wounds. If only we’d had maguey sap, or dayflower to cleanse them with. A pity Teomitl–

Teomitl? I looked around me, and saw, as Quenami said, nothing but the blades of grass around us, and a hill rising above us. “Where is