Harbinger of the Storm - By Aliette De Bodard Page 0,128

him to demean himself.

I said nothing, but it was hard.

I had been rowing since childhood and it should have been easy, but the wood of the oar quivered in my hands and I felt more and more light-headed with each oar-strike. Every drop of water against my skin seemed to burn, and the island in the centre seemed to blur and shift with every passing moment.

We were perhaps halfway across the lake when Acamapichtli woke up. “Where–” he whispered.

”The heartland,” Quenami said.

”What happened?” I asked, but he shook his head, and closed his eyes again. It didn’t look as though he was going to be much use, after all.

If I had thought the heartland was bad, the central island was worse. The moment I set foot on it, I felt a jolt travel through my chest, a particular tightness, growing steadily worse. There was something in the ground, something in the air, something that didn’t want me, that would wash me away like a flood washed away boats and nets. Acamapichtli seemed to weigh as much as a slab of stone, and I could barely focus on the path, for there was a path this time, snaking upwards around the hill. I watched the earth, step after step, I watched the water that filled the footsteps of whoever had come before us clawed and monstrous, a trail I had seen before but couldn’t seem to focus on…

Step after step, agonising breath after agonising breath, fire in my lungs, rising up to fill my brain, confused images, of seven caves gouged into the hillside, torn open by some giant beast, of fountains where herons bathed in a blur of white, of an old woman in rags, sweeping the threshold of her house and watching us pass by with bitter satisfaction in her eyes, and then the scene shifted, and her face was that of a skull, her hands were claws, and the broom she held was made of human femurs, bound together with thread as red as blood.

Up, and the seven caves faded away, and small shrines appeared by the hillside, mounds of earth with pyramids on them, shimmering with light, their staircases dripping with blood even though the altars were empty…

Up, and a flock of herons took flight, cawing harshly, shedding white feathers as they went, and then skin, and then blood-red muscles, until only their skeletons remained, and darkness in the hollow of their eyes…

There was a sound on the edge of my hearing like the buzzing of flies on a corpse, the grating of bones. After a while, I realised it was my name, coming from infinitely far away, but it didn’t matter, not anymore…

That sound again, and everything scattering, fading into darkness.

”Acatl!”

I lay on something hard, and my cheek hurt. I moved, my hand coming to rest against my skin, it felt like stretched paper, nothing living anymore. “Quenami?”

He still had his hand up, braced for a further strike against me, and Acamapichtli was lying prone at his feet. His eyes were open, his mouth working around words I couldn’t recognise. Raising my gaze, I saw that we were on a stone platform with a simple altar, encrusted with so much blood the stone seemed to have turned red. “How–”

”I dragged you here.” He sounded exasperated. “That’s not the point.”

”Then what is?”

And then I saw Her. Itzpapalotl stood waiting for us at the entrance of the shrine – casual, relaxed, Her claws flexed, Her obsidian wings in repose. And behind Her…

He was tall, impossibly so, with the body of a youth, tanned skin and raised muscles, and a face streaked with deep cobalt blue, coming up so high it seemed to merge with the sun in the sky. In His left hand was a huge snake, and, every time it writhed, flames flared up, licking its scales; in His right hand was a macuahitl sword decorated with paper banners, the same ones carried by warriors during the annual sacrifices, and the feather headdress that stretched behind him was a circle of yellow feathers, pale and blinding.

I flattened myself against the ground in the lowest form of obeisance, ignoring the dizziness that flared up again in me. The floor was blessedly cool, a steadying influence. I didn’t have to move after all, just to focus on speaking out. Beside me, Quenami abased himself as well. Acamapichtli attempted to move, but fell back with a groan.

”Priests,” Itzpapalotl’s hollow voice said. “You have come in the presence of the Lord