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Authors: Cody Goodfellow
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the black cloud that hides their faces. I think we have fallen from favor with our gods, and I cannot say whither your nagual will fly when I let it loose. Most likely, it will merely rot in the bellies of the lords.”
“Then whence came the order of the god to raid Tlacopan, O my priest?”
“I gave it myself,” Ahuac made the mask grin, thinking this last would melt the ixiptla’s bravado, but he only nodded and smiled back.
The ixiptla meekly lay down on the altar, baring his chest to Ahuac’s obsidian blade. The priest noticed that the ixiptla’s flesh was indeed not so withered as he had expected, given that he took no food for a year. His lips and tongue were stained black, as if he’d eaten his face-paint.
The ixiptla laughed, sly eyes ensnaring Ahuac’s as he gagged on black foam. “I have not starved, all these months, my priest. I feasted on snakes and scorpions and poisonous frogs, which the poor gave to me in return for your fine food, and tonight, I have eaten enough to kill even your god. You Mexica are so chained to your rituals; you are more a slave than I. If you do not eat this flesh, your terrible lord will hurl earthquakes and plagues on the city… but this meat is death.”
The ixiptla shuddered, and bile leaked from his slack mouth, his muscles going to water beneath his painted skin. “Will you taste my name, priest? Will you savor my courage? My heart is a codex of venom. It holds all the future you need to see.”
“At last,” Ahuac hissed, “you reveal yourself.” The priest removed his mask and showed his face to the sacrifice. He raised the obsidian knife over the ixiptla and cracked his chest wide, as he had done it hundreds of times here and thousands in his dreams, ripped out his heart and held it up for the ixiptla to see.
Close before his clouding eyes, Ahuac bit into the beating heart and gorged himself on the envenomed blood. Choking now as it mingled with his own, Ahuac said, “Your name is Tezcatlipoca.”
Even as his own strength began to fail, Ahuac ordered the body of the ixiptla to be prepared for the feast.
He pulled up to the crosswalk at Hinterland and Blossom, in a big goddamned rush, but not too much rush to stop for a pedestrian. When citizens shirk their duties to their fellow man, he reminded himself to soothe the nervous twitch in his leg muscles as he braked, then everything goes to hell.
But the human toadstool just stayed planted on the curb, digging at a ragweed sprouting from a crack with one shiftless toe. Maybe lost, maybe just visiting this planet, but he was wasting the driver’s time. The selfishness of the patient black smear made him see red. “Enough’s enough, ped; move ‘em or lose ‘em.”
He kneaded the wheel, gunned his engine to urge him along, but no dice. Hours passed behind the driver’s sweat-streaked brow, an unforgivable sentence, until finally, the slacker feebly waved him on, evidently satisfied he’d stolen a sufficient chunk of the driver’s life. Standing still as a portrait on the corner, hooded from the rapacious blade of his stare. He peeled out to regain the lost time, but mostly to blow off steam, shouting out his window, “What makes you think you’re worth running over?”
The next day, in an unusually big goddamned rush, due to the sheets of black sleet holding traffic down to a blind baby’s crawl, he burned down Hinterland through the red light at Blossom with his gas foot crushed to the floor.
Shimmying across smoky black glass like a needle on a grooveless record, bathed in the dim red stoplight bloodglow, as the walker on the curb went all eyes to take him in. Sucker’s eyes. Twice shy and no time to spare playing the clown for another stinking ped. Off the curb at the light’s indifferent command to WALK, spasming like an epileptic bullfighter in an involuntary veronica, his foot snatched back from the scissorblade tire and scarred gunmetal tarmac, suddenly as precious as found money.
In any
“Then whence came the order of the god to raid Tlacopan, O my priest?”
“I gave it myself,” Ahuac made the mask grin, thinking this last would melt the ixiptla’s bravado, but he only nodded and smiled back.
The ixiptla meekly lay down on the altar, baring his chest to Ahuac’s obsidian blade. The priest noticed that the ixiptla’s flesh was indeed not so withered as he had expected, given that he took no food for a year. His lips and tongue were stained black, as if he’d eaten his face-paint.
The ixiptla laughed, sly eyes ensnaring Ahuac’s as he gagged on black foam. “I have not starved, all these months, my priest. I feasted on snakes and scorpions and poisonous frogs, which the poor gave to me in return for your fine food, and tonight, I have eaten enough to kill even your god. You Mexica are so chained to your rituals; you are more a slave than I. If you do not eat this flesh, your terrible lord will hurl earthquakes and plagues on the city… but this meat is death.”
The ixiptla shuddered, and bile leaked from his slack mouth, his muscles going to water beneath his painted skin. “Will you taste my name, priest? Will you savor my courage? My heart is a codex of venom. It holds all the future you need to see.”
“At last,” Ahuac hissed, “you reveal yourself.” The priest removed his mask and showed his face to the sacrifice. He raised the obsidian knife over the ixiptla and cracked his chest wide, as he had done it hundreds of times here and thousands in his dreams, ripped out his heart and held it up for the ixiptla to see.
Close before his clouding eyes, Ahuac bit into the beating heart and gorged himself on the envenomed blood. Choking now as it mingled with his own, Ahuac said, “Your name is Tezcatlipoca.”
Even as his own strength began to fail, Ahuac ordered the body of the ixiptla to be prepared for the feast.
He pulled up to the crosswalk at Hinterland and Blossom, in a big goddamned rush, but not too much rush to stop for a pedestrian. When citizens shirk their duties to their fellow man, he reminded himself to soothe the nervous twitch in his leg muscles as he braked, then everything goes to hell.
But the human toadstool just stayed planted on the curb, digging at a ragweed sprouting from a crack with one shiftless toe. Maybe lost, maybe just visiting this planet, but he was wasting the driver’s time. The selfishness of the patient black smear made him see red. “Enough’s enough, ped; move ‘em or lose ‘em.”
He kneaded the wheel, gunned his engine to urge him along, but no dice. Hours passed behind the driver’s sweat-streaked brow, an unforgivable sentence, until finally, the slacker feebly waved him on, evidently satisfied he’d stolen a sufficient chunk of the driver’s life. Standing still as a portrait on the corner, hooded from the rapacious blade of his stare. He peeled out to regain the lost time, but mostly to blow off steam, shouting out his window, “What makes you think you’re worth running over?”
The next day, in an unusually big goddamned rush, due to the sheets of black sleet holding traffic down to a blind baby’s crawl, he burned down Hinterland through the red light at Blossom with his gas foot crushed to the floor.
Shimmying across smoky black glass like a needle on a grooveless record, bathed in the dim red stoplight bloodglow, as the walker on the curb went all eyes to take him in. Sucker’s eyes. Twice shy and no time to spare playing the clown for another stinking ped. Off the curb at the light’s indifferent command to WALK, spasming like an epileptic bullfighter in an involuntary veronica, his foot snatched back from the scissorblade tire and scarred gunmetal tarmac, suddenly as precious as found money.
In any
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