The Smoking Mirror (14 page)

~~~

The
cuauhcualli
was a sort of stone dungeon beneath the
Mitnal.
Carol sat on the cold floor of their cell, scrubbing at the ash with her hands, trying to dust enough of it off to access her
tonal
. She believed that the Little People hadn’t lied and that somehow the jade could protect them from being sacrificed, but she didn’t want to depend solely on that.
It would be really good if we could shift and fly the heck out of here.

Johnny simply leaned back against the rough wall, tapping out a beat against his stolen shield with his fingers and humming some of that weird techno music he loved so much. His dark hair spiked out in all directions, and the ash on his skin made him appear almost ghost-like. The black clothes he’d formed from Huitzilopochtli’s cape had turned nearly gray with the dust.
I must look just as bad. Gah. I really need a bath. Don’t suppose they have water around here, though.
She thought about the nasty rivers they’d crossed and gave a little shudder.

A clanging sound broke the relative silence, and their dog-headed guard peered at them through the bronze bars of the cell door. “You’ve a visitor, maggots. And she’s a goddess, so keep your distance and know your place.”

The door swung open at his touch and a short, dark woman swept into the cell. She wore a red cotton skirt and
huipil
, a sleeveless blouse, both items decorated with black crescent moons. The hem of her skirt was spattered with mud and what smelled like excrement, a mixture that smeared her bare feet and calves as well. Her long, black hair was swept back in a braid and atop her head sat a strange conical hat with white cotton tassels. Under expressive brown eyes, her broad nose was pierced by a crescent moon shaped ornament fashioned of bone. A triangle of black spread its way across her mouth to end under her chin. In her right hand, she carried a rustic, ancient broom.

“Whoa,” Johnny muttered, “an Aztec witch.”

The goddess leaned forward, sniffing at him. “Ah, the smell of early puberty. You will have need of me later in life, little man. You will discover both sides of my nature. But to respond, no, I am not one of your European witches. The broom is for sweeping away filth, disease, and sadness and the hat is a gift from my beautiful Huasteca people, crafted nearly three millennia ago. I am Ixcuinan, the Paradox, Queen of Sin and Forgiveness.”

Carol nodded. She recognized their visitor now. She had read about her in one of her father’s books. “They also call you Tlazolteotl, don’t they? Goddess of the life cycle.”

Ixcuinan reached out her hand and patted Carol on the cheek. A warm, sisterly feeling spread throughout her soul. “Indeed. I embody living movement, from the moment of your birth to the final confession you make before death, and all the earnest attempts at happiness in between. I urge you toward sin, but only so far. Just enough to know its taste. Then I devour it for you, allowing you to cleanly pass Beyond.”

“Ah, that explains the
chapopote
on your chin.” Johnny didn’t seem impressed by the presence of the goddess.
Typical guy.

“Yes,” Ixcuinan replied, unperturbed. “One day, if your soul chooses this route upon your death, your sin will stain my mouth as well, Juan Ángel Garza. I suspect you will be less dismissive then. In any event, I have not come to sing my own praises. I am here to offer you aid.”

Carol’s eyes widened. “Why would you help us?”

Ixcuinan’s free hand went to her dangling silver earrings, making them jingle musically. “There are many residents of Xibalba who resent Tezcatlipoca’s heavy-handed usurpation of Mictlan. It is true he established this place here at the root of the World Tree, but its governance was placed in the hands of Lord and Lady Death. His interference runs counter to the natural order. I understand how frightening we must seem to you, but for thousands of years there was a discernible, noble purpose to our existence. As balance incarnate, I am disgusted by the Dark One’s goal of universal destruction. He would like nothing better than for you two to be trapped in Xibalba, driven to despair by your inability to save your mother. Then would you either misuse your
xoxal
, splitting the World Tree and freeing the
Tzitzimime
to wreak havoc on the cosmos, or surrender that savage magic unto Tezcatlipoca’s hand, thereby ensuring the same end. No, you must leave this city, and quickly, too. We are few, those who dare flout his authority, but powerful. Gods of vice and excess, for the most part, like the Ahuiateteo, who would be nothing should humans cease to exist.”

Johnny smirked. “Great. Our new allies are the drunken junkie gods.”

Ixcuinan laughed warmly. “Oh, I believe they will enjoy that label. Clever boy. Do not discount our abilities, however. We will come for you soon and escort you to the next level of your journey. Till then, rest unburdened.”

She swept her broom in an arc that passed over both their hearts. Instantly, Carol felt refreshed and energized, as if a great weight had been lifted from her soul. Before she could speak her thanks the door swung open and the guard spoke brusquely. “Lady Ixcuinan, your pardon, but your time with the humans is at an end.”

The goddess smiled, her teeth gleaming white against the stain of sin. For a moment, her features blurred and an older, wizened face seemed to shine from behind her flesh. Then she spun about, her braid whistling through the air, and hurried from the cell.

~~~

Several hours later, rescue had still not come. Johnny raised his eyebrows pointedly, nodding at the cell door.

“Uh, looks like the drunken junkie gods are too high to save us. Figures.”

Carol sighed. “I’m sure they just got delayed or something.”

“Maybe. Or maybe the Ish-Queen was doing Tezcat’s will, faking us out, making us freak even more.”

Carol didn’t want to believe that, but when the cell doors opened to reveal the city guard, waiting to escort them to their deaths, she collapsed inwardly.
I guess I thought I saw something in her that wasn’t there. The Virgin. Tonantzin. Some spirit of sisterhood that could make her my ally.

From their cells the twins were led along a narrow tunnel that angled upward till it ended right at the temple’s base. Thousands of were-creatures, demons and monsters thronged about the ziggurat, and as Carol and Johnny emerged, a roar of excitement went up that set the very ground to trembling.

“Hey, cool.” Johnny smiled and winked. “We’re famous. All the demons are cheering us.”

“They’re excited to see us sacrificed, Johnny.”

“Yeah, but that’s something, no?” He laughed and turned to the guards. “Famous, notorious…all the same, huh, guys?”

“Shut up and climb the stairs, human,” the captain growled, wresting the shield from Johnny’s grasp.

“Sheesh!” Her brother’s hands shot into the air in an exaggerated gesture of exasperation. “I’m going, dude. Hello. My adoring fans await. Got to give them a
heart-felt
performance, no? All my Xibalban rivals will just
eat their hearts out
, seriously.”

Carol rolled her eyes and groaned.
Is this really the time for your cheesy jokes? They’re going to kill us!

We won’t die. You even said it—the Little People have our backs. I’m guessing the Lords of Nasty are going to yank out the pieces of jade.

Yeah, well, I’ve been thinking about that. Aren’t they going to notice that those
aren’t our hearts
? Won’t they just, I don’t know, reach back in and remove the real ones?

I think we just have to have faith, Carol. There’s really nothing else we can do. If Quetzalcoatl or God or whoever wants us to get Mom and defeat Tezcat, they’re going to have to step up and protect us. I’m done worrying.

The guards prodded them roughly, and Carol began to climb. The steps were steep and slick, but thankfully the pyramid’s sides were slanted at a relatively comfortable angle. Nonetheless, after finishing the first set of steps, standing on a broad stone landing upon which the second level of the ziggurat had been built, her leg muscles burned fiercely. By the time they’d reached the third such landing, Carol was out of breath, red-faced, and sweating like mad.

Panting, Johnny gasped sarcastically, “Good workout, huh? Got to recommend it to my jock friends. Oh, wait. I hate jocks. Now I’m
really
recommending it. Especially for the prize they get when they reach the top.”

A guard shoved him toward the last flight of steps. Carol followed quickly, not wanting any more prodding from those painful clubs. She kept her eyes down, focusing on her aching feet, postponing the need to look up at the temple proper. Finally, though, she reached the top and had to take in the tableau. The cube-shaped temple sported a large obsidian mirror which faced her. Immediately in front of it was a huge stone receptacle in the shape of a jaguar, its back hollowed out to receive, she imagined, the hearts of sacrificial victims. Between that basin and the twins rose the altar, a massive slab of granite, mottled with stains that were certainly old blood.

“Whew! Two hundred and sixty freaking steps!” Johnny stretched, his joints popping. “I see you’ve got my bed ready. Perfect. I am
super
tired.”

Arranged on either side of the temple were the Ajalob; the red and green lords to Carol’s left, the black and white to her right. From within the temple, High Lord Kisin emerged. He now wore a black robe that reached his bare feet. His face was painted black, and a black powder that smelled to Carol’s heightened senses like crushed scorpions and spiders had been rubbed into his forearms and neck. In his left hand he twirled a deadly looking obsidian blade.

“Indeed.” His gaunt face spread in a wicked smile. “Then do climb right up, living boy, and rest a while.”

Johnny shrugged, but Carol could hear his heart pounding as he approached the slab and pulled himself onto it. Immediately, a lord from each of the four quadrants of Xibalba moved forward and took hold of an arm or leg, immobilizing her brother. Kisin moved toward him, brandishing the blade. He began chanting in some dark, ancient tongue. A shadowy force gathered in the air like a silent oblivion, and smoke began to pour from the mirror, curling its way along the top of the pyramid, twisting around the altar’s base.

“O, Tezcatlipoca, Lord of the Near and the Nigh, Night Wind, Enemy of Both Sides. Receive this life that we end for you, and may such a death herald many more, until a darkness pervades the living world and Mictlan erupts upon the Earth.”

Carol felt her brother’s thin courage falter as the knife blurred upward in the high lord’s hand.

“Wait!” he cried, and his soul struck out wildly, despairing.

Carol could bear no more. Mustering all of her energy, she opened her mouth to sing, intending to send notes of pure
teotl
pounding against Kisin. The first quavering note had barely left her lips, when he shook his head and pointed his free hand at her, closing his fingers together in a gesture of silence.

“Enough of your twittering, little bird.”

She found herself frozen in place, unable to move or speak as the black blade sliced through the air.

Don’t look.
Johnny’s last thought flitted through her heart, but she couldn’t avert her eyes. Kisin cut open her brother’s chest, hacking through his shirt, and with a deft movement he plunged his hand inside and drew forth a pulsating red mass. He lifted it high into the air and was immediately rewarded by the raucous cheers of thousands of monsters in the streets below. Then, with a fiendish flourish the high lord tossed the heart into the hollow in the back of the stone jaguar.

The four lords released Johnny’s limbs as he went limp. Kisin motioned to the guards. “Send this filth rolling down the steps. Let the Ahuiateteo and their ilk feast on his flesh.”

The guards seized Johnny’s body roughly and prepared to flip him over the edge. The Captain of the Guard, however, interrupted them. “Here. Set him on his shield and let’s watch him rush at them willy-nilly.”

Carol wanted to scream but her throat was locked. The undead soldiers dropped Johnny’s unmoving form into the curve of the stolen shield and sent him rocketing down the steps of the ziggurat.

Kisin crooked his fingers at her, and against her will Carol moved toward the slab. With jerky movements, she climbed atop it and lay down, her brother’s blood warm and sticky beneath her back. The four lords wrapped dead hands around her ankles and wrists as Kisin intoned his ancient chant. Sinking deeper into herself, Carol tried not to listen, tried not to see. The knife arced up through the gray sky, and she fled from consciousness before it could fall.

Chapter Sixteen

Emerging from a deep pool of nothing, Johnny felt water soak him from head to feet. Someone was drenching him.

Then he felt the pain. Sharp. Deep. Aching. His chest felt like someone had reached a hand in and…
Oh, yeah.

“Wake up, little man. You must transform to heal yourself.”

Johnny groaned. He just wanted to lie where he was, maybe sink back into oblivion away from the agony.

“You are extremely close to death, Juan Ángel. Shift.
Now.
”

He felt something stir within him, excited and unbridled at last. His
tonal
, free from the effects of white ash. Almost whining with a will to burst free from human form, it nudged at Johnny spiritually, urging him to step aside and cede control.

Johnny was happy to oblige.

With a powerful bound, the jaguar leapt to all fours, Huitzilopochtli’s cape merging with its fur, crowding the black spots more densely. Johnny peered through its eyes at Ixcuinan, who was turning toward a body lying twisted and broken upon…

Wait. What’s this stuff? We’re on a huge pile of human bones!
The uneven surface shifted beneath his paws as he moved closer to the goddess of filth and cleansing. The body she was kneeling beside came into focus.

It was Carol.

Johnny made a muffled sound somewhere between a cry and agonized wail and Ixcuinan reached back to caress his head gently between the ears. Her touch soothed him to the root of his tail. The goddess shifted her attention back to his sister, upending a large clay jar filled with clean water and washed the blood and ash away from Carol’s face, neck and arms.

“Carolina,” she muttered. “Come back to yourself. You must transform. You are badly injured, nearly dead. Find your
tonal
, daughter mine. Let it shape your broken flesh, heal your hurts.”

She continued coaxing until Carol’s body jerked and heaved, the wolf pushing its way through the girl and then freeing itself from her clothes.

Thank God,
she thought at him weakly.
You’re alive.

Just barely. If it hadn’t been for our friendly neighborhood witch here…I guess you were right, Sis.

Ixcuinan stood, regarding them both. “I cannot hear your communication, but I can imagine you wonder why I delayed in rescuing you. The truth is that this was always the plan and we could not risk revealing the details. Once High Lord Kisin removed your false hearts and sent your bodies tumbling down the pyramid, the Ahuiateteo spirited you away to this place, where the bones of the devoured are laid to rest and, for a time, the Ajalob will believe that we feast on your flesh. But when they take up the red jade for their own ugly nourishment, they will learn the truth. So we must hurry. There is no gate barring your way out of Xibalba. The Black Road runs unimpeded right across the border. There is nothing deeper in Mictlan we need to keep out.”

Without another word, she turned and began to make her way across the mountain of bone. Johnny bent his head to his amulet and bit lightly on the screech owl feather. In seconds he was scooping up his shield and Carol’s clothes.

Good thinking
. Carol wagged her tail briefly then set off after Ixcuinan. Johnny followed closely, his wings catching the noxious breeze that blew out of the city gates. As they made their way down the gentle slope of the ossified hill, Johnny relived the final moments before High Lord Kisin had slit him open. Though he had struggled to keep his cool, to stand up to the Ajalob as he had to many school bullies, in the end he had wanted to bolt and run. When that knife had begun its descent, he had felt for a moment the desire to agree to anything, to abandon this crazy quest, to help the dark forces tear down the foundations of the universe itself in order not to feel Kisin’s hand reach inside him and wrench at his vital organs.

But I survived it. Both of us did. We faced one of the crappiest, scariest things anybody ever has, and we’re okay.

The realization emboldened him.
Two more obstacles, and then we face ol’ Tezcat himself,
he thought at Carol.
I think we’re going do it.

Yeah, how much worse can it get?

Right?

Ixcuinan and Carol reached the bottom, and Johnny landed beside them, shifting back into his human form and dressing himself with Huitzilopochtli’s cape. He was perfectly healed, with just the faintest line of a scar across his diaphragm.

“You might want to switch to girl mode,” he said, but the wolf shook her head. “Okay, suit yourself.” He slung his shield over his shoulder and scooped up his sister’s clothing and shoes, double-checking for the jewels.

Ixcuinan motioned for them to keep moving. They crossed a glittering plain of feldspar and finally reached the Black Road, which seemed to disappear a short distance away at the horizon.
 

“What did Xolotl say was next?” Johnny mused aloud.

Ixcuinan gave him a strange glance. “The hound assisted you?”

“Yeah. Didn’t you get the memo? The Feathered Dude has got our back. Well, except for back there just now.”

“Oh, Xolotl could have never passed the gates of Xibalba. Not without an army, and that is not Quetzalcoatl’s way.”

“That’s what everybody keeps telling us.” Johnny tried not to sound like a pouting child. “Anyway, he said that next we’re going to face obsidian winds and a putrid lake. Doesn’t sound too bad. But then, there were a bunch of things he failed to mention about the other deserts, so…Yeah.”

Ixcuinan nodded. “He has indeed neglected to mention several complicating factors. For example, the air above Apanhuiayo makes flight…”

A sound like wind sweeping over loose gravel made them all spin around. A narrow swath of grass was weaving its way across the feldspar toward them, growing at a dizzying speed, tendrils reaching closer and closer. Across the path ran two figures, moving so fast they were almost a blur. The grass reached the edge of the Black Road and quickly twined upward into the air, forming a humanoid shape that stepped free of the verdant trail and faced Ixcuinan. The other two figures joined the humanoid. One was a tall, thin creature with black fur and the features of a hare, and the other looked like a were-lizard.

“The Swamp Thing, Frank from
Donnie Darko
and the Lizard from
Spider-Man
,” he couldn’t help but blurting out. “You guys have
got
to be the drunken junkie gods, right?”

The rabbit-like god grinned. “To be sure, I am presently more sober than I would prefer, but we are indeed three of the Ahuiateteo.” Turning to Ixcuinan, he dropped the smile and spoke more softly. “The Ajalob have discovered our deceit. They are furious. Our other brothers engaged them so we could warn you, but they cannot hold them long.”

Ixcuinan gripped her broom tightly. “How soon?”

The grassy creature hissed. “They are on the Black Road, less than one thousand
cuahuitls
distant.”

The reptilian god flicked its tongue at the air. “We will need all four of you, Lady.”

Before Johnny could ask what that meant, Ixcuinan touched his shoulder and pointed her broom at the horizon.

“Juan Ángel, Carolina, you need to run as fast as you can to the edge of Xibalba. Neither the Ajalob nor the city guard can follow you into Itzeecayan, Land of the Cold Razor Winds. We will hold them off until you reach its border. Remember, Mictlan was not always a place of evil. I wish you success. Now go.”

She hunched over, muttering mystically, then she suddenly stood, slamming the butt of her broomstick against the surface of the Black Road, once, then twice. Four women now stood in her place: a girl the same age as the twins, a young woman, a middle-aged matriarch, and an old, wizened crone. They glanced at the twins and screamed in unison.

“
GO!
”

Carol exploded into motion, her lupine form darting toward the horizon. Johnny bent his head and followed as fast as he could. When he found that he couldn’t keep up, he half-shifted into a were-jaguar and quickly made up the distance between them. From behind him came sounds of battle: explosions, clanging weapons, cries of anger and pain.

The border’s just ahead
, Carol’s voice muttered in his mind.
The Black Road narrows, and there’s like a low wall on either side of an archway. No gate, like she said. Just a little toll booth or something on the left.

They made a final dash for the exit. Two sentries rushed from the guardhouse onto the road, obsidian-tipped spears at the ready, ember eyes narrowing above their ragged nostrils. Carol leapt onto one, snarling as she tumbled him senseless to the ground. Johnny snapped the other’s spear easily, clawing at his zombie face before passing under the arch and down a slope into the next desert.

He was first greeted by the sound of howling, shuddering winds that whipped across a stony plain, then by the blades. It was a small one first, shaving its way past his shoulder, taking a hunk of fur with it.

Johnny took a step back. “What the…?”

Then came larger shards, one of which slammed into his thigh before he pulled the shield off his shoulder, to crouch behind it for protection.

Carol, get behind me! These freaking winds are blowing razor-sharp hunks of rock everywhere!

He immediately felt her hot breath on his back as she took refuge.
Any ideas?

Well, the Little People probably gave us something to deal with this, no?
He looked down at his amulet. One of the two bits of animal matter that he hadn’t tried was a thin, hollow tooth.

Crocodile
, he realized, relying on his animal senses.
Thick skin. That’s the answer.

He let Carol know. She had also found something, a sickle-shaped claw that she believed belonged to a giant armadillo.

Awesome. We’ll be slow, but we’ll be armored.

After helping his sister arrange her clothes in a sling across her back, Johnny grabbed the tooth and shifted. It was an odd feeling, moving with short powerful legs that slung his belly so close to the rocky soil, and the reptilian instincts he had access to were very different from those of mammals and birds. But he was close to the ground, where the constant gale was less intense and fewer obsidian razors reached. With an awkward, deliberate gait, he began moving along the wind-eroded road. Carol followed close behind.

I don’t know about you,
he thought after a while,
but once through this whack place is enough for me. When I die, I’m going Beyond the Catholic way.

Well, dork, considering all the sins you’ll probably commit, I’m betting you’ll spend a good, long time in Purgatory or whatever.

Nah, a lifetime of being your brother makes me automatically a candidate for sainthood.

Ha. Ha. Seriously, though…are you alright? The Ajalob were pretty brutal with you. I felt so bad that I couldn’t help you.

Well, it was pretty lame, but…I think we had to go through it, you know? Face that horror. I’m betting what’s got Mom is way worse.

Yeah, I, uh, kind of blacked out before they cut me, but they just hurled my body down the steps, not like your ride on a shield. When Ixcuinan coaxed me back…I don’t even want to think about that pain.

Bad, huh?

That’s pretty much an understatement. I don’t know how I was able to focus long enough to shift. But I see where you’re going with this. It’s going to be ugly, isn’t it? Saving Mom.

I think so, yeah.

Well, then it’s a good thing this is taking for
ever
, because I really needed a break.

Any of the blades hurt you yet?

Oh, I feel them, but they’re not doing any damage.

Ditto here.

A comfortable pause came then as they trudged across the stony landscape. Johnny ran scenarios through his mind, the sorts of tricks he might need to try in order to get his mother free. Sitting in the Xibalban jail, he had found a single strand of black hair stuck in one of the feathers that fringed Huitzilopochtli’s shield, and he’d carefully knotted it into place with his other of animal bits and DNA. He had no idea whether the idea at the back of his mind was feasible, and he really hoped that he wouldn’t have to try it.
Insurance,
he told himself.
A backup in case nothing else works.

Amazingly, the twins met up with no further obstacles as the terrain sloped ever downward. The horizon became a circular wall of rocky sand, sloping off in all directions. Looking straight ahead, Johnny could make out a thread of white descending directly opposite them. He glanced to the left and then to the right: red and green paths curved downward.
The other three roads.
They were nearing the center and bottom of Mictlan.

The winds whipped crazily around in circles for a few minutes, and then they were past Itzeecayan. The absence of the roaring gales was jarring, even for a crocodile’s limited hearing. Johnny shifted into a human again and looked around. The gloomy light from the eternally gray sky was reduced even more by the sloping land all about them. Looking toward the center of the Underworld, Johnny saw another body of water, broad and still like a lake, curving annular around the heart of Mictlan, shrouded in thick mists just a few miles away.