Sky Knife (24 page)

Stone Jaguar reached into a bag and pulled out a handful of
copal.
“Death Smoke can divine the will of the gods through the spirit of
copal,
” he said. He threw the
copal
into the sorcerous flames. Thick white smoke billowed out of the firepit all around Sky Knife.

“Breathe in the smoke,” said Stone Jaguar, “and let your mind rest.”

Sky Knife closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. The musky odor of the
copal
filled his nostrils. His fingers tingled and thought suddenly seemed unimportant. Sky Knife let his mind drift and his awareness of his surroundings fade.

“Beware!”

Sky Knife jerked, heart pounding, and opened his eyes. He looked around for the source of the voice, but saw nothing but white smoke tinted blue by the sorcerous fires above.

“Who's there?” he asked.

“You should be relaxing, not talking,” said Stone Jaguar.

“But the voice…”

“Voice?” shouted Stone Jaguar. “What was that about a voice?”

“I … I heard someone say ‘beware,'” said Sky Knife. “It sounded as though the person were right beside me.” His heartbeat slowed slightly but Sky Knife could still feel its pounding in his ears.

“A deep voice? A shrill voice? What?”

Sky Knife thought for a moment. “Neither,” he said. “I can't put any quality to it. It just
was.
”

Silence.

“Stone Jaguar?” asked Sky Knife, afraid the other man had deserted him in the smoke.

“Amazing,” said Stone Jaguar.

Sky Knife waited to see if Stone Jaguar would say anything else. The serpent at his throat stirred briefly and he stroked it.

“I have never heard the voice,” said Stone Jaguar. “Sometimes, I thought Death Smoke only imagined it or I'd hear it too. But you heard it—the first time you listened. I thought your ease at learning to call fire was a fluke. Now I see I was wrong.”

“But what does it mean?” asked Sky Knife. “Beware of what?”

“The gods don't explain themselves to men,” said Stone Jaguar. “The warning might not even have been for you personally, but for the priesthood, or perhaps Tikal in general. Death Smoke would smoke and fast after he listened to the voice, so that he could determine what the voice meant by its messages.”

“It seemed very personal,” said Sky Knife softly.

“I imagine it did,” said Stone Jaguar. “Try again.”

“Again?” Sky Knife hovered between excitement and terror. A god had spoken to
him
—Sky Knife could barely imagine what that meant. He had never thought to be so honored. But catching the attention of the gods was not necessarily something Sky Knife had ever desired. Even Itzamna, Lord of All, could spread chaos and destruction in turn with giving life and security to men. Ix Chel his wife was a healer, but she also caused plague. The gods had many duties and wore many faces, not all of them beneficial to men.

“Yes, again,” commanded Stone Jaguar. “Relax and open yourself to the gods.”

Sky Knife closed his eyes, let out the air in his lungs, and then took a deep breath. He held his breath a moment and let it out slowly. His skin tingled as if the smoke caressed him with its feather-light touch. The touch of the smoke brushed up from his fingers to the backs of his hands. Up his arm to his elbows and then to his shoulders. The
chic-chac
tensed and squeezed Sky Knife's neck weakly.

Sky Knife opened his eyes and squeaked in surprise. He sat in a large room—larger than the one he had been in—lit by blazing globes of yellow light that drifted across the vaulted ceiling. Brightly painted murals displaying scenes of torture and sacrifice crowded the walls. The scene on the wall before him showed a priest offering the heart of a sacrifice. Tears of blood were shed by the people in the crowd below while Itzamna himself looked down from above.

A slight rustling sound came from behind him. Sky Knife leaped to his feet and turned around.

“Oh, Itzamna,” he whispered.

In front of him stood an iguana the size of a tapir. Its tail stretched out behind it into the darkness of the corridor beyond. Its bright green scales sparkled in the light and its sides were marked by dark brown stripes that stopped just short of the ridge of spines that ran down the center of its back.

The one eye the iguana had turned toward him was dark brown. The iguana blinked the eye slowly, the lid sliding from the bottom up.

Sky Knife fell to his knees and banged his forehead against the floor. “Itzamna, Lord of All,” he whispered. “I am honored to be in your presence.”

Sky Knife waited, but heard nothing. He raised his head slowly. The iguana lowered the dewlap at its throat and opened its mouth. Inside its mouth, its pink, slightly forked tongue wriggled from side to side. Slowly, the iguana shut its mouth.

As Sky Knife watched, the brilliant greens and browns of the iguana's scales faded to yellow. Even the brown of its eyes lightened until they were bright, bright gold.

The iguana sneezed.

Horrified, Sky Knife stood up and backed against the wall. This couldn't be Itzamna. It was a trick, a evil spirit in disguise.

“Itzamna curse you!” he cried.

The iguana writhed and shrank until nothing remained of it but a small green worm like the ones in the fields. Sky Knife hesitated, but walked to the worm and stomped on it.

Instead of a satisfying splat, cackling laughter rose from the floor. Sky Knife jerked his foot back, but it was too late. A yellow ooze surrounded his foot and quickly worked its way up to his knee.

Sky Knife tried to shake the goo off, but it spread so quickly it was to his waist before he could shake his foot a second time.

“No!” he screamed. But the ooze climbed higher, past his chest, to his neck.

To his neck. It stopped. Sky Knife felt the
chic-chac
go rigid.

All the feeling in Sky Knife's body and limbs faded away. He sank to the floor. Terror burst from his gut and rushed up his throat. He screamed.

Then a terrible pain in his throat blazed through his terror and shoved him down into a flaming world where only the sound of laughter could be heard.

That, and a small, thin scream, almost too high to hear. Sky Knife screamed, too, knowing the sound for what it was in his soul. It was the dying scream of a rainbow serpent.

26

“Sky Knife! Sky Knife!”

Someone was calling him, but the sound was so far away and he hurt all over. Sky Knife resisted the pull of the voice, but it insisted.

“Sky Knife! Come on, boy, snap out of it! What happened?”

A stinging pain in his face. Someone had slapped him. Sky Knife opened his eyes in anger. Then he remembered.

“The
chic-chac!
” he shouted. “Where is it?”

Sky Knife sat up but the pounding in his head told him he'd made a mistake. He held his head in his hands like a man who had had too much
pulque.
Every movement sent more spikes of pain jarring into his skull.

“Sky Knife?”

Sky Knife took a deep breath before turning toward the voice. Stone Jaguar sat next to him, sweat glistening on his face and chest. The older man's hair was wild despite the grease on it and his eyes were wide. Sky Knife blinked in surprise. Stone Jaguar looked terrified.

“What happened?” asked Stone Jaguar.
“What happened?”

Higher ranked priest or no, Sky Knife had other priorities besides Stone Jaguar's questions. “The
chic-chac,
” he said again. “Where is it? I thought I heard it die.” He felt his neck, but his fingers touched only smooth skin.

Stone Jaguar pointed toward Sky Knife's neck. “It … I … I don't know how to explain. Wait.” Stone Jaguar got up and brought back a bowl of water. “Look.”

Sky Knife leaned over the bowl. The serpent was still around his neck.

“It's a tattoo,” said Stone Jaguar. “I don't understand what happened.”

“I was attacked,” said Sky Knife. He couldn't keep his hands away from the tattoo of the serpent. It looked so real.

“By what?”

“I don't know. It looked like an iguana, then a worm. Then it laughed and became a yellow ooze that tried to consume me. Somehow, the
chic-chac
stopped it.”

“Cizin,” growled Stone Jaguar. “He is still here.”

Sky Knife paid no attention. Grief wracked him at the thought of the
chic-chac
dead. It had given his life for him. It had taken the poison of Yellow Chin and fought off the yellow ooze. And it had left its mark on his neck. Sky Knife didn't know what the tattoo meant, but he knew in his heart it could not be bad. The
chic-chac
may have perished, but it had left something of itself behind. At least its love. Maybe more.

Tears rolled down Sky Knife's face and he choked back sobs. His chest felt tight. “Why?” he asked.

“Why what?” asked Stone Jaguar.

Sky Knife shook his head. He didn't expect an answer. He could only be grateful that the rainbow serpent, an immortal being, had chosen to put his life before its own.

Stone Jaguar smoothed his hair down. He spat into the blue fire in the firepit. “Cizin here, and the rainbow serpent dead.” Stone Jaguar's gaze slid to Sky Knife's neck. “Apparently dead,” he amended. Stone Jaguar sighed. In the flickering light of the blue flame, he suddenly seemed older and very worried. “Come back to the fire,” Stone Jaguar said. “You still have much to learn.”

Sky Knife slid back to his place. The
copal
smoke had dissipated, but the thick musky smell remained in the room.

“Normally, we work for days to get new priests to be able to sense the voice of the
copal.
Sometimes, we work for weeks and they never do hear anything. Apparently, the gods have already deigned to speak with you through the
copal,
” said Stone Jaguar. “So I won't repeat that lesson.” He reached into the bag and brought out a cigar. He held the cigar to the blue flame until it caught and handed it to Sky Knife.

Sky Knife took the cigar and put it to his lips. A tingle in his neck stopped him. He put the cigar down quickly.

“What's wrong?” asked Stone Jaguar.

“I don't know. I think there's trouble.”

“Trouble? Where? How?”

Sky Knife shook his head and looked around the room. Shadows slid in and out of the blue balls of flame in the vaulted ceiling. The shadows merged at the western end of the room and fell to the floor.

“Itzamna!” whispered Stone Jaguar. “What sorcery is this?”

The cigar Sky Knife had put down smoked and then went out. Sky Knife stood, feeling naked without Bone Splinter to help him. The shadow in front of him whirled as if stirred by an invisible ladle. Slowly, it coalesced into a dense fog that took on the shape of a man.

A man with a fleshless face and chest. A man whose skin was covered with black and yellow blotches.

“Cizin,” muttered Stone Jaguar. “I curse you and all you've done to this city.”

“Death to you!” screeched the terrible figure. Its fleshless jaws flapped loosely and its teeth rattled against each other. Maggots crawled in the hole where its nose should have been.

“Death death death!” whispered other voices. Sky Knife whirled, but the room behind him was empty.

“Watch!” said Cizin.

Sky Knife turned back to the god of death, but the voices around him did not stop. “Watch watch watch!” they cried, over and over. Sky Knife shivered. The temperature in the room had dropped since Cizin had appeared. Already, Sky Knife was colder than he could remember being in his life.

Cizin hopped on his swollen, bruised feet. His lidless eyes rolled loosely in their sockets.

“Come, Sky Knife, we must dispel this hideous creature,” said Stone Jaguar. The older man spread his hands and chanted in a language Sky Knife did not recognize. But the chant flowed into his soul like rain onto the dry
milpas
in spring. Sky Knife concentrated on the chant and put his hands, palms out, toward Cizin. He shivered again, anxious to clasp his arms to his chest to conserve warmth. But he had to help Stone Jaguar now.

Cizin laughed. The high, screechy sound grated on Sky Knife's ears. It sent shivers up and down his spine. Cizin hopped closer.

“Bad luck!” shouted the god of death.

The voices snickered. Sky Knife dropped his hands and clasped his arms together across his chest to control his shivering. Fear pushed his heartbeat faster and he panted in terror.

A strange fog appeared before Sky Knife. He stared at it and realized it was formed by the breath coming out of his mouth. What magic was this? Sky Knife backed away from the fog, but couldn't escape it.

“Cold!” said Cizin.

“Cold cold cold!” echoed the voices.

Stone Jaguar stopped his chant. “Foul monster!” he shouted at the prancing figure.

“Eat your bones!” screeched Cizin.

“Bones bones bones!” said the voices.

Cizin took a step toward Stone Jaguar and pointed a finger at the priest. Then, slowly, Cizin turned to Sky Knife and swung the blotched finger toward the younger man.

Voices chittered and gibbered in Sky Knife's ear. “Death death death!” they sang.

Anger rushed over Sky Knife in a searing wave, forcing the cold from his bones and the fear from his mind. “No!” he shouted. He stepped forward and picked up the cigar. He reached outward with his mind and called fire to the cigar. The end of the cigar burst into flames. Sky Knife took the flaming cigar and shoved it into the maggoty dark hole in the center of Cizin's face.

Cizin screamed. The high, piercing sound hurt Sky Knife's ears. He stepped back away from Cizin and clamped his hands over his ears.

The god of death writhed in agony. He reached for the cigar but his hands smoked where he touched it. Cizin fell to his knees. Yellow fluid oozed out of his blotched skin and puddled around him. Cold winds swirled around the room and battered at Sky Knife, but he stood firm against them.