|
A Tale of Azatlan
By George Mele
SIWAKALPA WAS NOT what I envisioned a ‘witch’ would be. She did not dwell in a forest hut, but in a small, respectable house within the River District of Na Yxim. She dwelt alone, unless one counted a parrot that didn’t speak, a particularly large crow, and a papaya hued snake that coiled about her neck, seeking warmth between her breasts.
She technically wasn’t a witch, but a tepatiani: a ‘spirit-healer’. Tepatiani is something neither quite shaman nor doctor nor... well... witch. I didn’t really understand the difference then; I am not sure I do now.
To my sixteen years Siwakalpa seemed both young and old at once. An unlined face was framed by night-black hair with a long, silver streak at the left temple. Her nose was long and slightly crooked, her jaw sharp, and her dark eyes were nearly black. A young man, with the ill manners of his teens, I couldn’t help but note the fullness of the breasts whose lower curves peeked out from below her wipil, or the flat, tattooed belly that showed between the hem of that garment and waist of her long, cotton skirt.
‘So why is a youth from Akatzinko far from home and fidgeting nervously in my home, while trying not to glimpse at what he can’t have, hmm?’ the tepatiani asked, the directness of her words making me flush hotly.
‘I... that is... Mother Yohali... ’
‘What is your name, beyond “Stammers-with-Shame”?’
‘Pinótl Three-Reed, Lady.’
‘I am hardly a “lady”. But I have known Yohali Nightwind since she and I were girls. If she wished for my aid, she has many more efficient ways to send for me than sending a stripling on a three-day paddle upriver.’
‘Perhaps, La-Siwakalpa, but Mother Yohali is dead.’
The tepatiani gasped, then regained control of herself.
‘You’d best start at the beginning.’
‘One of my ancestors was the spirit-speaker of Akatzinko. At that time there was a demon plaguing our village, striking dead man and beast alike: their bodies covered in open sores, their eyes, ears and nose weeping blood. This demon hunted us for many moons, until my ancestor imprisoned it within a clay pot, which he sealed so the demon could not escape.’
Siwakalpa nodded, saying nothing, but seemed unimpressed so I carried on.
‘That pot has been kept ever since by the eldest woman in my family with a strange ritual. The lid is shaped like a face, and its open mouth is impressed deep in the clay. Each moon the keeper feeds it with her blood, and our hunters also make an offering whenever they return successful. I believed the demon in the pot was a patron hunting spirit. And so—’ I paused, not wishing to continue.
‘Go on.’
‘So, when weeks passed in which I had lost more arrows than I had taken game, so that some of the young maidens took to calling me “Pinótl the Farmer,” I snuck into Grandmother’s house to try and make an offering... and... I dropped the bowl. It shattered.’
‘I see. What happened next?’
‘There was a howling sound, and a rush of wind from the shards, which were thickly coated inside with dried blood. The whirlwind could be seen, and it was blood red!
‘Hearing my shouting, Grandmother came, and the wind passed right through her... killed her where she stood, her body bleeding from everywhere! Then it blew through the village, and whatever was in its path it struck dead. Mother Yohali challenged it, she had her rattle and a forked stick, but whatever magic she intended…’ I looked down in shame. ‘It took her as it did the others. Then the wind rushed off into the forest, withering all it touched: man, beast, leaf or root.’
‘And your elders sent you to me, hoping I can handle this demon.’
I nodded.
‘They say it is my fault.’
Her dark eyes glittered like obsidian and felt just as sharp as she held my gaze.
‘It is at that, Pinótl Three-Reed.’ I winced hearing her say that. ‘But not yours alone. Your people have used the demon’s power for their profit. It was only a matter of time until disaster struck.’
‘Do you know what this demon is? How to kill it?’
‘I may know what it is: Kuchúmakik— “Festering Blood”—a plague spirit of the Underworld. A potent demon, and difficult to hunt in the Middle World.’
‘But you can do this? You will do this?’
She sat back and chewed her little fingernail distractedly as she looked around her small house, then rose and started opening chests and filling a traveller’s bag.
‘I decided to help the moment you told me Yohali was dead. But I am a tepatiani, not a spirit-speaker, my aid does not come free.’
I thrust out my chest proudly.
‘I did this thing; I will pay whatever price is required to slay it.’
The tepatiani turned and looked me up and down.
‘Understand, I can perhaps bind or dispel Kuchúmakik, but there is no killing it. Nor can we achieve this without aid.’
‘I think all of Akatzinko’s hunters would help.’
Siwakalpa swung her pack over her head, so the strap hung diagonally across her chest, the bulging satchel resting on one hip.
‘It is not their help we need. Fortunately, I know where we can find it.’
Although we paddled my canoe nearly all the way back to Akatzinko, the tepatiani had no interest in visiting my village just yet. Instead, she had me lead her to where the demon had burst into the woods, leaving a trail of dead pines and withered grass in its path. She walked about, observed the village from that vantage, and ignored my nervous questions.
Finally, as the sun was starting to set, she asked me to take her to the now empty farm-fields, the planters having since returned home for the night.
I wasn’t sure what Siwakalpa was seeking, but we found a spot where the maize had been cleared that she deemed acceptable, though at first, I could not say what had made it so—until I spied the small house, identical to any farmer’s, only a fraction of its size and no taller than my waist.
The spirit-healer approached the house, reaching into her satchel, and drew from it a sugar beet. Sitting down, cross–legged, on a spot of bare ground before the house, she drew a small obsidian knife and began cutting the beet into slices she laid before the door.
‘You don’t mean to call upon the Very Small Ones?’ I asked in surprise.
No one lived at the edge of the wild without learning about its hidden and capricious guardians. Our farmers built these little houses in our fields and put out offerings of food and blood to appease them and gain their protection in overseeing our fields.
Ignoring my outburst, Siwakalpa cut her left wrist with a clearly practiced motion. Blood began to flow, and as she let it drip onto each beet slice, she chanted:
Come to me, you Chanekeh!
Very Small Ones, hear my call.
Children of the Maize, Keepers of the Bean.
Watchers-at-the Wood, Come!
Hear the plea of a Big Sister
Who would have your counsel.
I offer the Sweet and the Salty.
The price is paid. Come!
And just like that, the sugar beets were gone, and I was surrounded by the Chanekeh.
Had they come out of the maize stalks or up from the ground? Or perhaps they had always been there, just unseen? Truly they were the ‘Very Small Ones’; the tallest came no higher than my waist, many were shorter. In form they dressed like any Tzoltonek peasant in loincloths and open vests. A few wore the wide, straw hats fieldworkers used to keep the sun from burning them raw. But there the similarities ended, for the Chanekeh were oddly formed. Their skin was the colour of woodland moss, and their feet and hands too large for their bodies, the digits long with knobby joints. Their ears were also long, bulbous or pointed, but were always oversized, as were their noses and chins. Only a few had any hair, which was cut like ours but green-black, as were their eyes.
One stepped forward, probably the leader, for his nose and ears were the longest in the group, and the hair that flowed from under his hat hung in oiled ringlets to his waist.
‘Siwakalpa Walks-at-Night-without-Fear, long has it been since you made an offering to the People.’
‘Greetings, Little Father of the Wild! I apologize for my long absence. I have been dwelling in Na Yaxim—the Great Stone Village—where the Very Small People do not dwell.’
The Chanekeh made a face like curdled llama milk at the mention of human city-life.
‘A poor choice but yours to make. Why have you summoned us?’ he demanded.
The spirit-healer’s smile faded.
‘I must request the People’s assistance in a dangerous undertaking.’
‘Once Walks-at-Night-without-Fear was beloved of the People, but this was long and long in the reckoning of mortals. She has not danced in our glades nor offered the Sweet and the Salty in many moons. Why should we do this thing?’
‘Because I have danced in your glade and offer sugar beets and blood now. And because, valuing the skills of the Very Small People, I am prepared to pay for your aid.’
The elder Chanekeh pondered this for a moment, chewing one of his rubbery lips, then turned to his companions. There followed a long, and it seemed heated, conference among them. At last, the leader turned back to us.
‘The boy,’ he said, gesturing to me. ‘We will take the Sweet and the Salty of him.’
I reached for an arrow, but Siwakalpa’s strong, tanned hand stopped me.
‘No, Little Father. I am here on a task for this boy, and he is under my protection. He must keep his heart.’
The Chanekeh frowned and turned back to his companions. There was a more furious debate, during which the tepatiani turned to me. ‘Keep your mouth shut and make no aggressive moves. If the Very Small People should feel threatened, they will make swift work of us.’
I swallowed hard and willed my arrow hand to hang by my side, my knees trembling.
Now the one Siwakalpa called ‘Little Father,’ turned back to us.
‘We are currently having problems with a Tsakoatl, who has made its nest in the Twinkling Caves and devours any of the People who go there.’
I could not say what a Tsakoatl—Obsidian Serpent—was, but it sounded ominous.
‘How is the creature able to find you when you may pass unseen?’ Siwakalpa asked.
‘Like all of the Great Serpents, he smells as well as he sees, and his body can sense the slightest tremble in the ground.’
‘Little Father, I am not carrying what is needed to weave a charm to deceive the Serpent. Nor can I delay to parley with it on your behalf because our need is more pressing: there is a Kuchúmakik loose, and it is very hungry. Even now it hunts these woods on both sides of the Veil. Is this not of greater importance than the Tsakoatl, who offers no threat so long as the People stay away from the Twinkling Caves. Will the Very Small People accept my oath that if they aid me now, I shall help them after?’
Once again, the Chanekeh conferred among themselves, and the sun had long set before we had their answer.
‘You are right, Walks-at-Night-without-Fear: an angered Kuchúmakik is a far greater threat than a Tsakoatl to the People. We will help, but you must deal with the Tsakoatl as soon as Kuchúmakik is bound or slain.’
Siwakalpa nodded gravely.
‘This is agreeable, Little Father. Now here is what I want you to do...’
‘Watch your body?’ I asked incredulously. ‘You pledged to fight this “Obsidian Serpent” so the Chanekeh would do something I could have done for you?’
Siwakalpa laughed at my naïveté, and I felt my face burn red with shame.
‘Sweet, foolish boy. You cannot do this thing. Firstly, because they can watch our bodies in this world and the Unseen, which you certainly cannot. Secondly,’ the spirit-healer smiled her lopsided smile, and ran one long finger down my nose, ‘because you are coming with me.’
I had not suspected this was even possible. Realizing I must indeed seem a ‘foolish boy’, I babbled something brave sounding, but the spirit-healer was already about her task.
‘How skilled are you with that?’ she asked, indicating my bow.
‘I passed the tests of manhood in my twelfth Dry Season,’ I boasted proudly, ‘and on my first hunt alone I returned with a stag.’
‘Well, if we survive today, you’ll be a far greater hunter than your father and uncles combined. Now, fan your arrows out on the ground, the heads united.’
I complied, and thought they looked like a giant turkey’s tail when it was done. Siwakalpa cast what looked like dried pine needles over them from a small pouch while chanting a song. Then she approached me with her knife. Trembling, but knowing I’d trusted her this far, I stood still as she made a small cut in the back of my draw hand, and then smeared some of my blood onto the grip of my bow.
‘The Unseen World is entered many ways, but we will spirit-walk. These tools can be of use, but to cross the Veil, they need to be infused with living tonalli—spirit.’
I nodded dumbly, only somewhat understanding, as she lifted each arrow and scraped the point along my bare chest, drawing a small drop of blood. ‘By the tonalli you shed onto them, they become part of you and will be able to pierce the Kuchúmakik.’
When it was done, she returned each arrow to my leather quiver and told me to lie on the grass beside my bow and arrows, palms turned up, eyes closed. Doing so I felt nervous, foolish, and somewhat afraid knowing that the Chanekeh were all around us, watching, and that they had been willing to accept my heart as coin. But I lay back and tried to relax my body as she knelt beside me, painting small marks on my breast and forehead and belly. She told me to close my eyes, and I heard her voice lifted in a chant, accompanied by a rattle’s hiss.
There was a tingling through my limbs, then a feeling of pulling at my limbs, my navel... and then I was free!
I rose to my feet and looked around dazedly. I saw the Chanekeh, the same as before, only each gleamed with a soft nimbus of light. My own body lay on the ground between them, and another beside it, both hard to clearly perceive. I shook my head as if to clear it.
‘Crossing the Veil is disconcerting at first,’ a warm voice said behind me.
I turned and beheld Siwakalpa, but not as she had been before. Her cotton skirt and wipil were gone, with only an elaborately knotted loincloth about her hips that hung in two panels, before and behind, to her knees. Otherwise, the tepatiani was entirely naked, but for jewellery: golden armbands and anklets, a silver and jade girdle in the form of a coiling serpent swallowing its tail, and a necklace of jaguar claws. Braided in her hair were bits of bone, silver and gold.
I quickly glanced down to see if I too had lost my clothes, but found they existed as did my bow and arrows... not that my loincloth hid my interest in my guide’s new appearance. I tried to ignore those desires and look Siwakalpa in the eyes alone. I failed.
‘My spirit-self does seem to do that to you menfolk—and a few women as well. You’re a lovely boy; perhaps in a few years... ’
I blushed more. That damned witch just laughed.
‘Though it is amusing to tease you Pinótl Three-Reed, the Kuchúmakik’s scent is still upon the air, which means I can track it. Listen carefully, then we should be off.
‘First,’ she held up a thumb, ‘this is the Unseen World, the spirit-realm that separates the Middle and Underworlds. Dreamers, magic-workers and all manner of spirit either dwell or walk here.’
‘Such as the Chanekeh?’
‘Yes, which is why you see them clearly, even though at the moment they are active in the Middle World as well. Secondly, because the Unseen is so close to our own world, the tonalli can cross into it without entirely breaking its contact with the mortal body.’
‘But we... I...’ I wasn’t sure how to ask my question, so I just gestured to the shadowy forms of our bodies lying among the Chanekeh.
‘Yes, we dwell there, powered by the fire of the yaotl—the heart spirit. The yaotl is anchoring us to the Middle World. Thus, what happens here happens to our mortal flesh. Do you understand, Pinótl?’
I nodded slowly. ‘If we are wounded, so are our physical bodies. So, if we are killed...’
Her eyes met mine, and she nodded. ‘Just so. Therefore, act as carefully here as you would in the Middle World, no matter how wondrous things might seem. You are still quite mortal.’
Drawing an arrow, I followed her toward the trees, and we passed among impossibly tall pines and stout oaks. Occasionally, shadow-forms of the mortal forest appeared: birds, deer, rabbits and opossum—they seemed aware of us, at least dimly—but we were far more aware of them than one would be in a mortal wood. I even spied a grison and realised this time, the creature was looking straight back at me with clear, slightly luminescent eyes.
‘That is a spirit-beast,’ Siwakalpa advised, ‘it is native here. Oh... and I should mention jaguars dwell equally in both worlds and hunt in both.’
‘Oh,’ I said nervously.
We seemed to walk for hours, but where it had been night in the mortal world, the sun never moved from directly overhead. Siwakalpa explained that time in the Unseen World is fluid... it is day, or it is night, but there is no real shift from one to the next. The sun is overhead, then the sun is gone at times of its choosing.
The Kuchúmakik’s trail in the Unseen cut a path four strides wide through the foliage: tree branches hung dead, trunks looked twisted and desiccated, the ground cover was scoured bare... all was blight and decay and the path itself felt unhealthy. Birdsong had fallen silent, and the air was strangely cool and dry. My heart pounded, but I bit my tongue, determined not to show my fear to Siwakalpa, who walked beside me as if strolling to market.
Things began happening almost at once.
A large shape moved quickly through the trees ahead of us. Larger than any stag, larger than a bear, and moving like neither.
‘There!’ I shouted, pointing with my bowstave at the fleeing figure. We raced after it, the tepatiani moving soundlessly through the trees, while before us there was now a loud crashing through the underbrush. The demon realised it was being hunted.
A crowded forest was to our advantage rather than the demon’s, since the trees would hinder the movement of its much larger body. Consequently, it would try leading us to a place where it could easily turn and fight.
As predicted, we found the Kuchúmakik waiting for us in a clearing. Seeing its spirit form, I wished I were still in the mortal realm. The demon’s form was mannish, but freakishly stretched, elongated in the limbs and torso, as if a man of six feet had been pulled until he was nearly nine. Its leathery skin was no skin at all but the drying meat of flayed muscle, pink and blue with pulsing veins, and covered in weeping sores that dripped blackish blood. The demon’s red eyes glowed with a lambent light, and a clear hatred. Worst of all was that those horrid eyes and the wide gash of a mouth were the only features in that face. Even from here it smelled of wound-pus and old meat.
Siwakalpa had slowed to a stop, holding her ceiba-wood staff aloft in one hand, her chanting lost to the drumming in my ears, which I realised with a start, was my own heartbeat.
I had told the tepatiani that I was as fine a huntsman as any in our village. Now I had to prove it. I put arrow to string, and fired on the run, already drawing a second shaft as the first sped home.
Moving with deceptive speed, the Kuchúmakik dodged my first arrow, almost folding in half, weasel like, its pockmarked, skinless flesh dripping black blood onto the ground. Everywhere the blood spattered, the vegetation sizzled, withered and died.
The demon leaped, long, seven-fingered hands extended towards me, black nails glistening like obsidian. No, they were obsidian, I realised, as I threw myself behind a tree. I landed heavily on my side, but those deadly claws missed me, instead tearing a hunk from a towering oak.
Siwakalpa’s voice rang out, far too loud, but the rules of sound in the Unseen World were as malleable as its sun. Her chant had some sort of effect on the Kuchúmakik, for its skin started to bubble and stretch, as if being pulled from its skeleton by an invisible hand. The demon howled, its cry causing needles to fall from trees and birds to drop dead from the sky.
Such a scream should have killed me, I am sure of it, but it didn’t, only knocked me flat as the ground shook and trembled. I had no time to marvel at this, for the demon was turning its attention to the tepatiani. I came up to one knee and fired another arrow. My shot was true, sinking deep into the back of its left knee.
Such a shot would have crippled a man, but the Kuchúmakik was no man. It turned its head, and those horrible red eyes met mine. Immediately, I felt my heart start to pound madly, like it would burst from my chest. My temples and wrists throbbed, and I could see the veins in my draw hand starting to swell...
In horror I released my third arrow. It was hasty, but it hit the demon in the chest, just below the clavicle. Its gaze broke contact with my eyes. Another screech as it snapped the shaft off, then sprang to its left and began to run back into the trees. I lay on the ground, dazed. My heart was still pounding but the pulsing in my veins had ceased. I licked my lips and tasted blood, running freely from my nose. My vision was blurred, dark at the edges. I tried speaking, but it was impossible, or rather, I moved my lips but heard nothing.
‘Lord Huntsman, be merciful!’ I moaned but could not hear my own prayer.
Then Siwakalpa was by my side, extending her staff to me. My hand folded around it and instantly I felt a soft warmth, like a just-woven llama-wool blanket wrap about me. My senses started functioning again, and she hauled me to my feet.
‘The Kuchúmakik’s gaze is as deadly as its touch,’ she warned. ‘Remember, you can be wounded or killed here as surely as in the Middle World.’
I nodded, panting.
‘We’ve delayed enough. The demon is on the run, as I wanted. We must keep pursuing it.’
‘Where?’
‘Let’s just say our Very Small Friends and I have prepared a surprise. Now, can you run?’
I nodded, but she was already gone, running as easily and swiftly as any hunter.
The Kuchúmakik’s wounds were slowing it, and we were able to catch up with the demon as it crashed through the forest, blind with pain and rage. Once I had it in sight, I fired another arrow, which glanced off its hip and then two more that nicked the flayed flesh but served to drive it on, which seemed Siwakalpa’s goal.
Suddenly, there were small shapes appearing ahead: in the trees, on the ground, hidden among the underbrush, and each carried a thin, braided rope tied in a lasso. Seeing the Chanekeh appear, Kuchúmakik slowed, tried to turn to its right, but the first two lassos landed about its neck, then a third caught a wrist.
The Very Small People can be invisible in either world at will, and while small, they are very strong. This had been Siwakalpa’s plan: to herd the demon into an ambush. Strong spirit ropes—braided, I would later learn, from the hair of those who’d broken faith with the Chanekeh—soon bound the writhing monster about its neck, waist and wrists, while the Very Small People lashed the other ends securely about oak trees, or looped them about their waists and dug in.
The Kuchúmakik writhed and strained against its bonds; trees cracked, the ground shook, pine needles fell, stripping branches bare. Several of the Very Small People were tossed about at the ends of their ropes or sent flying through the air. One ventured too close and had his head torn free by the demon’s outsized hands.
But the tethers held.
I used the demon’s distraction to sink arrows into its knees, so that it sagged to the ground. Then, Siwakalpa stepped before me, her staff glowing, writhing with twin blue snakes made not of flesh, but lightning. She whirled the staff about her head with one hand, the other flung towards a short, plump Chankeh who held out an earthenware jar she must have brought in her satchel from Na Yxim.
The Kuchúmakik screamed that same terrible howl I’d endured before, but this time I felt something break in one of my ears and vessels burst in my eyes, as the air itself seemed to ripple with its howl. My head felt as if it were being crushed. Indeed, I saw the skull of a Chanekeh crumple in on itself like an empty sack.
Somehow, I put an arrow straight into the demon’s open mouth, burying it in its gullet and silencing that terrible roar. Then I collapsed, certain my head was crushed.
The tepatiani was still on her feet, staggered, her voice cracking as she continued her spell. The words were dim, lost to me, my hearing ruined. Some of the Chanekeh must have met the Kuchúmakik’s gaze, for I saw their flesh turn an ugly purple and start to burst open, horrible wounds appearing across their limbs as their eyes, ears, and nose ran with blood. One wailed as the veins in his wrist and throat burst, spraying blood; in a flicker he disappeared.
I understood now how close I’d come to death before and was afraid that the Very Small People’s magical ropes would not hold. But they did, and I managed to rise and fit one last arrow to my bow. I aimed, taking my time, my deafened ears ignoring Siwakalpa’s chanting and the Chanekeh chattering: the roaring wind of sorcery and spirit-magic.
Sensing my attack, Kuchúmakik looked towards me, our eyes met.
My heart boomed, my eyes began to blur as they filled with blood.
I loosed my arrow.
An eye exploded.
All was darkness.
‘There you are, Pinótl Three-Reed,’ Siwakalpa teased. ‘I thought perhaps I’d lost you in the Unseen.’
My eyes opened.
No, my right eye opened. The other was pulled covered. I tried to sit up, was rewarded by terrible pain in my eye, in my skull, and fell back.
‘Easy now, easy, my brave hunter,’ the tepatiani said softly, her strong, warm hands pushing back down onto the soft grass upon which I lay. ‘The time for leaping about has passed.’
She put something to my lips... a bowl of warm tea... I sipped, then sipped a bit more and lay back, my head throbbing.
‘That’s a good boy. It is hard to reunite souls... and you left a bit of yourself in the Unseen World. Rest now. Rest... ’
When again I woke, she was singing. Not spell-singing, just a Tzoltonek song of love, lovers and folly. Like any other woman might while tending a fire.
Of course, Siwakalpa was not any other woman, nor was this any other camp.
I sat up slowly this time. The sickness in my stomach had passed, and the throbbing in my head and eye was constant, but endurable. With my good eye, I looked about.
It was night, the stars overhead our own. Kneeling at the fire, Siwakalpa was dressed as I’d first seen her: in skirt and wipil, with none of the obvious trappings of power.
‘Ah, good, you decided not to die on me after all,’ she said as easily as if saying she was pleased I was on time for dinner. ‘Don’t touch that eye! It needs to heal.’
‘Is it...?’ I was afraid to ask.
‘Complicated? Decidedly. I will explain later. Have some soup—a parting gift from the Chanekeh, so it’s a bit odd: sugar beets, tomatillos, wild onions and... rabbit? Possum? Monkey? Whatever, it’s good.’
That didn’t sound all that good, and I had larger concerns than food. I rolled to my side.
‘The Very Small People and the Tzakoatl... we must help them now.’
Siwakalpa laughed. ‘Such a brave lad! It is already done: I gave them the spirit bowl to feed the Obsidian Serpent.’
‘But how will they get it to eat it? And won’t that set the demon free again?’
‘Hah! Now you think ahead! Men! To the first: the Chanekeh are masters of illusion: they will make the jar appear like one of them; and it seems the Tzakoatl is quite fond of the taste of Chanekeh! As to the second: the jar is fragile in the Middle World, but it is unbreakable in the Unseen World, and the Great Serpents, like the Chanekeh, live in both worlds at once. It will eat the jar, the demon will try to get free, causing the Tzakoatl terrible injury, so the Very Small People may then slay it and bury serpent and jar deep in the Twinkling Caves. It could have no more fierce guardians, I think.’
‘Then, Mistress Siwakalpa... if all is finished... what is your price?’ I finally found the courage to ask. ‘You said you would name it after the demon was bound.’
The tepatiani turned to me, her face serious. ‘I did at that, Pinótl Three-Reed.’
I swallowed hard.
She rose from the fire, a bowl made from a dried gourd in her hands. Her dark eyes met my remaining one, and then she slowly smiled, and held the bowl out to me like bestowing a talisman.
‘I think you have paid quite a bit already,’ she said, ‘Your hearing will never be as it was, your eye... well, when you see what remains, remember I did what I could to make it less... horrible.’
I shuddered. ‘But those are wounds, not payment.’
‘Are they not? I doubt a half-deaf, one-eyed lad will ever hunt again. That seems a steep price. And this adventure has strengthened my alliance with the Very Small People. I am almost content.’
‘Almost?’
She nodded and her smile faded to something far more predatory.
‘Almost.’
The village centre was crowded with everyone from the wise elders to young children. I was too tired and pained in my eye to care what they were whispering to each other upon seeing us. Siwakalpa, however, stood erect like a goddess come to earth, her left hand stretched forward, pointing from elder to elder.
‘Pinótl Three-Reed tampered with forces he did not understand, and in doing so unwittingly brought havoc upon your village. He has paid a high price for his transgressions.’
The elders nodded and there were murmurs of agreement.
‘However, this would never have happened, had not all of Akatzinko, in your vanity and pride, kept something you had no business keeping. Whoever really bound the Kuchúmakik was a great spirit-worker; I do not believe that one so skilled would have told a village of huntsmen and fisherfolk to keep the demon’s jar for themselves as a prize. No, he would have ordered it buried or otherwise hidden away.
‘You knew to send Pinótl to me once the demon was free, which means you knew how such things should be handled. Therefore, I judge your crimes to be far greater than his and convict you all. Here is my price: this boy shall sit as one of the village elders, and shall be respected as first among you, though he never draws a bow again. For he fought against a mighty Kuchúmakik, which none here have done.’
There were murmurs of anger, but the tepatiani continued.
‘Once he is healed, each elder will meet with him alone, and glance into Pinótl’s dead eye. If you cannot hold his gaze, you shall give counsel nevermore.
‘If you do not do these things,’ Siwakalpa’s voice was sharp as obsidian and her face twice as dark, ‘I shall be very angry. And the Very Small People, who now count Pinótl great among them and see all, shall be angry as well—and they are rarely inclined to mercy.’
And that was the end of it. In twenty-two turns of the seasons since, we’ve seen nothing of the demon—nor the tepatiani.
Oh yes, my eye.
Siwakalpa insisted I wait a full cycle of the moon before I uncovered it and explained how to treat it thereafter. Before she left, she fashioned a patch to conceal it, this one I wear still.
I had assumed when the wrappings came off, I would find either a mangled hole, or a shrivelled, milky orb with a torn lid. But when the bandages were removed, the lid was whole, and the shattered bone had healed with little visible damage. Siwakalpa truly had worked wonders.
This was not the concern.
The Unseen World has its own laws. I loosed my arrow just as the Kuchúmakik and I had met gazes; my arrow striking it in the eye, just as my own was destroyed by the demon’s power. By the strange laws of the spirit world, this had united us, if but for a moment, and mingled a piece of our tonalli.
The Kuchúmakik was bound into the spirit jar and buried deep in the Twinkling Caves; gone from the world of men. But I remained, and so too did a piece of the demon. A piece I would forever remember whenever I removed my patch and used a soft cloth bathed in fresh blood to clean and feed my gleaming red eye, an inhuman thing whom those with greed or vanity in their hearts cannot meet without their own starting to bleed.
On the full moon I dance in the glade and offer the Sweet and the Salty before the door of the Chanekeh house, and Akatzinko’s crops flourish, for the Very Small People are content. |
|
