The 13 Secret Cities (Omnibus) (40 page)

Two down, one to go.

I only had the one choice I didn’t want to make. But I just had to enter Mictlán.

“I’m here; come find me,” I said. I held my grandmother’s tiny obsidian knife in my hand, and I ran my gloved thumb over its edge.

And then I shouted the name of the Ocullín.

The wind screamed, but I heard nothing.

The right side of the BP Bridge’s entrance looked as sharp as a blade, and it was right along this thin edge that I heard music. It was a low murmur, filled with white and red. It was so faint, it sounded like an old radio, but it was there.

I walked up to the railing, and I leaned in.

There, reflected on the sheet metal was a girl who was a woman, and a woman who was a girl.

She had a face that I recognized. A face like mine, but better. Symmetrical and natural.

I was staring at myself before I got my involuntary facelift and nose job. And just like I had witnessed once before at the Aragon ballroom, I saw the flesh on that face melt, stripping away its skin to reveal a tattered skull, while its flesh came off in red ribbons.

I had always wondered why a door had opened up inside the Aragon, and now I had my answer. The being that made these doors wanted me to step through it, to lure me into Mictlán.

This time, instead of fearing the reflection, I checked myself in it to make sure I showed no signs of fear.

I wanted my brother back.

I plunged myself into the mirror and left Millennium Park behind.

I didn’t glimpse any of the other secret cities in this journey through the sheet metal mirror, and I remembered that the green butterfly bridge had been built by a wizard. The reflections at the Aragon and the BP Bridge perhaps belonged to someone else.

I dissolved into darkness, and when I emerged again, I felt a breeze whip my legs, and I heard the sound of a million songs encircle me.

I had walked out into a short patch of flowers, and the wasps that hovered over their petals made music together with the plants. Darkness enveloped me, like an old friend, and my ears, nose and skin took the place of my vision.

The fullness of the sounds and the intensity of the smells of this place felt welcome. I cocked my head and let my ears guide me. I could feel the vast height of the canyon, and I felt the way its nooks and crannies rose for thousands — maybe millions—of miles into the air.
 

I listened to the space behind me, and I recognized the pyramid of flowers in the distance. In front of me lay a long road that floated on top of the lake. And at the center, a column that rotated in the dark. This was not the place where I had fought the Ocullín, but I recognized the road. This was one of the three roads that led to the city of Mictlán.

The city of Mictlán sat exactly in the cross shape that the four roads made as they led into its heart.

I walked toward the entrance of the city, and I let my thoughts drift into the intake and release of my breath.

Up close, I marveled at the rotation of the city. It didn’t just turn on an axis. It danced. Its walls were made of tendrils of moss, linked like a spiderweb membrane, and it teemed with life. Scorpions, snakes, and even fluted birds had woven their bodies together, sacrificing their individuality to make this structure that eclipsed me. The city was easily the size of all of Chicago but contained by a living body of things.

The paradox of life supporting a place of dead things was not lost on me, but I pressed on toward the end of the road to find an entrance.

Up close, the cylinder took on new life, as every texture in the universe came together to meet the palm of my hand. I needed a door, and I found none.

And then the city sang to me. It was a low murmur, but a song nonetheless.

“Seeking entry?” it said.

“Who are you?”

“I am the House of the Canyon. The Belly Button of the Coil. I can tell you met the children who grew up in my rooms.”

“What children are those?”

“The four Tezcatlipocas.”

“When did I meet them? I heard they left the Coil a long time ago.”

“Just because they’re gone doesn’t mean you can’t
feel
them or hear the songs they left behind.”

“You were their caretaker?”

“The first to leave was the Red Tezcatlipoca, the flayed one. He’s the one who rejoiced in the skin peeling off your face in the world above when men beat you with sticks.”

“So, you were a nanny of sorts.”

“Sure, I like that word. You can use it, friend.”

“And the White Tezcatlipoca?”

“He’s Quetzalcóatl, the Deserter. I also knew him when he was just a baby. Surely you saw his white plumage and his snake teeth, his face white as bone?”

“No, only in a memory. Someone else’s memory.”

I wondered where Blue Hummingbird might be now, in this vast Canyon.

“Well, you’re standing on the entrance of the White Tezcatlipoca, child. Each of the Tezcatlipocas has their own road into the city. This is the white road.”

“Funny you should say that. How can it be white if there’s no light in this place?”

The city let out a series of hard hisses.

“For a clever Wanderer, you have a very limited consciousness,” the city said. “And you surely don’t know how to really open your eyes.”

“And the Blue Road?”

“Yes, the Blue Tezcatlipoca. He was my favorite of all those babies. His road is the southern Road, where you once walked. Or where you will, depending on where the wheels take you.”

“But how would I have met the Blue Tezcatlipoca?”

“His name is Huitzilopochtli, and don’t you forget it,” said the city, and I felt a sharp scent of carrion escape its walls. Its presence possessed the air.

“He’s the god of war,” I said.

“And how fitting that you started a war on his southern road, child. Did you enjoy slashing the Ocullín with your blade? Did it make your skin prickle with excitement when you began your vendetta on the people of your own city? That is the essence of the Blue Tezcatlipoca, who is almost like a son to me.”

The cylinder sped up, and its music grew stern, sharper.

“I think you were a good nanny,” I said.

“One day, you too will know these joys. But I see you have come here to ask me for something. I feel it in your voice. I hear it inside of you.”

“I’m on my way to the Lords. And I need to take the northern road into the snow fields. The only way through is by traveling through the city.”

The city whispered, and several strands of thick moss reached out to me. They brushed my hands and my fingertips, seeking my skin.

“Let’s take you to the northern road, then, and I’ll tell you a story.”

With each step that I took into the cylindrical city, the moss and the bones that held it together rearranged themselves to create spacious halls for me to tread. As I moved forward, the path behind me knitted itself shut. I heard whispers from the walls by the millions, and the corridors and rooms sang tiny songs with questions at the end of their lines. The insects that formed the walls of this place were talking amongst themselves and wondering who I was.

I counted many living things in the walls, including crocodiles, lizards, snakes, deer, rabbits, dogs, monkeys, jaguars, eagles, vultures, and animals that looked like living rainstorms.

And in front of me, a soft purple glow led the way, like a tiny sparkler in the distance. It made music in the same voice as the city, and I eased into my journey.

“You don’t know how happy I am to have another person here,” the city said. “There are abandoned cribs and playrooms in this city. Maybe when you return, you will let me show them to you.”

The corridors spread for miles. Just as soon as I glimpsed one or felt one with the sonar of my cones, it was gone.

Then, down the long passageways, I felt us move toward something very tall.

The city showed me tall doors along the hallway. Each door was the size of a mountain. Whatever baby would have lived there would have been gigantic.

“No child is identical to another. You have been very close to the White Tezcatlipoca. You smell of his white light.”

“But I have never seen him. Just the Xolotl.”

“Close enough.”

“Why did they all leave?” I said.

“The children? Because that’s what they do. Children grow; they leave. Their parents entrusted me with their care, and eventually, the parents, the Elders, left too.”

“The snake — Blue Hummingbird — says she gets lonely in the canyon.”

“She’s sentimental. I am not. I do not mourn and I enjoy my new children. The vines in my walls and the rabbits that weave the ceilings inside this city — they are like babies to me.”

We made a turn. I hoped we were heading north.

How absurd that this hole in the cosmos has cardinal directions.

“I hear you, Wanderer,” the city said. “We do indeed have cardinal directions. In the depths of the Coil, we need to know our way, too.”

“Sorry,” I said. I forgot that I could quiet my thoughts, and that I
should
quiet my thoughts.
 

“There’s only one child who visits Mictlán often. Do you know him?” the city said.

“Can’t say I do.”

The lizard eyes embedded in the walls shifted, as if they blinked in unison.

“He’s the Black Tezcatlipoca; I am surprised you wouldn’t know him in your city.”

I laughed. “There’s a lot of info about you that we don’t receive in my city.”

“The Black Tezcatlipoca is the Smoking Mirror, girl. He’s the very reason you made it this far.”

“Why do you say that?”

“He’s pleased to see you disrupt the Coil.”

“I never saw my tonal at the age of thirteen,” I said. “Instead, I saw a presence in my bedroom.”

“That was a familiar being, the Ocullín. He was there under the permission of his creator, the Black Tezcatlipoca.”

“
What’s worse, the Ocullín or its master?” I said.

The city’s music tinkled. In between the notes, I felt a deep silence.

“Remember this, Wanderer. The Black Tezcatlipoca wields the deepest powers inside and outside the Coil.”

The dim purple light ahead blinked a couple of times, and I put my hand on the walls to steady myself through a narrow passageway. My palm came away wet with a sticky resin.

“Hurry, child, this way. If you walk too slowly, the gastric juices under your feet will begin to consume you.”

My feet squished in the dark, and I put terrible thoughts out of my head.

“The Black Tezcatlipoca sent the Ocullín to find me?”

“Yes, that’s what he does. He likes to play savior at times, and at others, he is a destroyer.”

“You mean he sent that thing after me just for fun?”

“He was always the most unruly of the four.”

“Will I ever see him down here? Or has he abandoned Mictlán forever, too?”

“You don’t understand that your link to the Black Tezcatlipoca grows inside many wheels, do you?”

Tendrils caressed my neck in the dark, and I let them. The city was one of the few beings who were willing to answer my questions. In fact, she was the only thing down here that resembled something human.

“We’ve come to the end of my body, child. You’ll need to step into the palace so you can exit onto the northern road. But before you do, there’s the matter of payment. Consider it a toll.”