Blood & Fur

Chapter Thirty-Nine: The Land of Darkness

Chapter Thirty-Nine: The Land of Darkness

A fresh human corpse lay naked on the dinner table, its pallid breasts cold as ice, its manhood turned blue by the snowstorm outside. Its shaved head stared at me with empty eyes and a ghastly smile.

I had no idea why this cadaver showcased parts belonging to both males and females. I suspected it was the result of the same kind of witchcraft that created my palace guards, or maybe the remnant of some older form of humanity preserved through the ages. Whatever its origin, I would be its end.

“Do not be shy, sweetheart,” Chamiaholom said as she guided my hand on the corpse’s chest, a wry smile on her wrinkled lips. “The dead cannot consent to anything.”

Chamiaholom decided to teach me Bonecraft through the practice of surgery. As I suspected from my adventures in Mictlan, where the dead lacked my flaming heart and breathed dust, bones fell upon the realm of the Tonalli. The Bonecraft spell didn’t differ much from the Doll: I used my Tonalli to connect with a target’s bones to control them.

However, their applications and limitations differed. Unlike the Doll, Bonecrafting required direct physical contact to influence the bones of another; and whereas the Doll spell involved either crushing or manipulating an object through the application of force, Bonecraft let me do more subtle things.

“Bones are like clay, dear,” Chamiaholom whispered into my ear with a grandmother’s kindness. “You can neither create more nor erase them, but otherwise you may shape them freely. Split, twist, break... amuse yourself.”

So I did. I applied my power to the chest and called upon the ribs to crush the heart they were meant to protect. The bones shuddered at my command, the muscles shrinking as the rib cageribcage closed in on itself. The corpse's pallid skin turned blue after I turned its insides into an icy mess of blood.

“This is too easy,” I said. “What stops me from killing anyone I touch by crushing their skull in on itself?”

“Nothing, if the mind is weak,” Chamiaholom cackled. “The stronger one's Tonalli, the more they resist alteration. Dead bones obey without complaint. The living cry and scream. The Nahualli and vampires, those who know themselves, will fight back.”

“I understand,” I said. “I may only alter a Tonalli weaker than my own.”

Being a Tlacatecolotl imbued with a dead sun's ashes meant I could probably twist any animal or normal human's bones with ease. Red-eyed priests and Nightkin would prove more of a challenge, not to mention the Nightlords themselves. I would probably need to consume more dead sun ashes before I could wipe the Jaguar Woman's smile off her face.

“You can do more than kill, dear.” My mentor put a kind hand on the corpse's face. “You can torture, mutilate, change... and disguise.”

I witnessed her expert craft firsthand. The corpse's face twisted. Its jaw retreated, its nose lengthened, and its eyes grew slightly apart. Within seconds, I found myself looking at a different person altogether: a bald man with strikingly masculine features.

Chamiaholom continued to tend to the corpse, reshaping the chest until the breasts vanished. The androgynous creature had become a man, or at least gained the appearance of one.

“I thought Bonecraft only affected the bones,” I said.

“Flesh follows the skeleton's shape, sweetheart,” Chamiaholom explained to me. “If you thoughtlessly reshape the skeleton into something untenable, the bones will pierce through their meat envelope and slay the subject... but if you act slowly and carefully, then you can transform them. Add arms, adjust the jaw, or change a face.”

“Including my own?” My hand moved to my chin. I activated Bonecraft and immediately sensed a resonance beneath my skin. “I can use the spell on myself.”

“Don't be so eager to break your own bones, dear,” my new mentor chided me lightly. “Pain is good when inflicted on others, but not on yourself.”

I held back the urge to test the spell on myself. I was no surgeon. I recalled what little I knew of the human body from Necahual’s work as a healer. I should learn more about the human skeleton before I attempted to grow claws.

Moreover, studying the corpse showed me one of the technique’s limitations. The space between the eyes had changed, but not their coloration. Flesh and organs followed the shape of bones, but my spell didn’t affect them directly.

“Is there no way to reshape the flesh itself?” I asked. “Change the eyes or the color of the skin?”

“Yes sweetie, there is a spell that can do that and more.” The old crone gave me a crooked smile. “A vampire spell.”

My thoughts turned to my palace’s guards and Yoloxochitl’s garden of man-eating flowers. I couldn’t see how Bonecraft could create either. “Vampires possess magic unique to them?”

“Of course, dear. Their lack of a Teyolia bars them from casting many spells, but their curse endows them with many other talents. Those who harness its darkness and hunger can wield great power.”

I feared as much. I had seen the Jaguar Woman use both the Doll and Veil in tandem, so I knew for a fact we already shared a few techniques. Spells unique to me, such as the Gaze, could take them by surprise, but I should always expect the unexpected.

“It will take you more than one session to master this spell, my sweet,” Chamiaholom said with delight. Were it not for the corpse in her horrendous living room, I could have found her charming. “We will spend such quality time together. First I shall teach you how to affect others, and then we will begin to practice on yourself. Strengthening your bones can make you faster, stronger, let you grow wings without Spiritual Transformation, or build armor that no arrow can pierce.”

“Is there any way to accelerate my training?” I asked. “No offense to you, but a year is a short amount of time. I have more trials to go through, not to mention sun ashes to consume.”

“I suggest you practice Bonecrafting on your slaves and concubines, dear,” she suggested with a dry cackle. “I once had a sorcerer student on the surface who felt the most lurid lust towards his daughters. He couldn’t bear to force himself on them, so he used Bonecraft to reshape his slaves into copies of his children and then raped them.”

I suppressed a shiver of disgust, but her suggestion did warrant consideration. Necahual was a healer by trade, so I could consult her for knowledge to shorten my training’s time. Practicing on other concubines sounded more risky than anything. Even if I stuck to subtle alterations like hastening the healing of bones or their shattering, they might notice something amiss. Perhaps animals? My menagerie held quite the number of expendable beasts for—

A terrible pain suddenly erupted inside my Teyolia, deep and sharp.

I collapsed to the floor in surprise and agony, my dreaming mind brutally collapsing on itself. The leashes around my heart-fire tightened. I could sense my so-called mistresses’ anger and fury through them.

“Oh my,” Chamiaholom said with a hint of disappointment. “You are being called upstairs, sweetheart.”

The Nightlords had found me.

I woke up with invisible hands closing on my throat.

I barely had time to open my eyes before an invisible force threw me against the cave’s stone wall. A surge of pain raced through my back. My legs dangled a few feet above the ground and my lungs gasped for smoke-filled air.

“I knew you were special.” The Jaguar Woman stood at the cave’s exit, with her sister Iztacoatl looming behind her. Her hood and mask did nothing to hide her cold fury. “I had such high hopes for you, Iztac Ce Ehecatl.”

My eyes immediately searched for Eztli’s presence. I found her near the exit, her arms bound behind her back by two Nightkin and staring back at me with frightened eyes. Whatever lies she hoped to feed the Nightlords fell on deaf ears.

“The stars told me that if we selected you as emperor, then your reign would inaugurate an age of glory and darkness. A time of bloodshed where Yohuachanca would reign supreme.” The Jaguar Woman’s teeth seethed in rage. “You turned the holy flame into our Sulfur Sun; the first emperor to do so in over six hundred years of work and disappointments. You held the glory of our triumph within your grasp.”

She pulled me closer, my body floating all the way to the cavern’s entrance. Hardly an arm’s length separated us.

“So why did this happen?” the Jaguar Woman hissed at me, the malice in her gaze almost as deep as her Dark Father’s bottomless hunger. “Why did he spare you?”

The sense of jubilation and triumph that possessed me before my sleep left my heart. For a second I was brought back to the hill of ashes, when all my pleas and tricks failed to convince the Jaguar Woman to spare Sigrun. Though Yoloxochitl’s death had rekindled the flame of hope in my heart, I was starkly reminded of the power gulf that separated me from the Nightlords. I didn’t even consider standing my ground with spells.

A single wrong move separated me from a fate worse than death.

“If our Dark Father had consumed you on that mountain, the line of emperors would have come to an abrupt end. So why did he spare you? Why did he consume our beloved sister instead?” Her grip tightened on my throat. A bit more pressure and she could easily snap my neck. “Answer me, slave.”

My mind furiously searched for a lie, but I kept enough sense to realize how futile it would be. The Nightlords would sense deception coming from a league away.

Instead, I had the presence of spirit to settle on a half-truth.

“I...” I rasped through sheer force of will. The Jaguar Woman did not bother to loosen her hold on my throat, so I had to force each and every word. “I heard him... speak... in... the flame...”

The Jaguar Woman looked into my eyes. I saw in them something I would have thought impossible from the cold-hearted monster: a hint of unease.

She feared the First Emperor as much as she craved his power.

“In his anger... he called you...” I gasped for air and then whispered the cursed word. “Traitors...”

The Jaguar Woman’s unease turned into a brief flash of fear. Her Doll spell’s hold over my body loosened instantly. I dropped on the cold, wet floor of the cavern and immediately gasped for air, my fingers instinctively scratching my throat. I expected a second round of violence and torment to follow.

I waited in vain.

The Jaguar Woman appeared to have forgotten my existence. The ancient Nightlord clenched her jaw and avoided Iztacoatl’s unnerved gaze. Both knew all too well what my words meant: that Yoloxochitl was only the appetizer of a feast of which they were the main course. Their hungry father didn’t want my soul, or that of the cattle they despised; he wanted them. He wanted revenge.

The Jaguar Woman was too spooked for the thought of punishing me to cross her mind anymore. Her fear had quelled the flames of her fury. For perhaps the first time in her centuries of ruthless oppression, her self-control had slipped. The ritual’s failure had shaken her godlike confidence with the hammer of doubt.

The sight filled me with joy.

A new Nightkin entered the cavern, its jet-black clawed wings holding a golden trinket; which I immediately identified as a Sapa tumi. The vampire presented the treasure to its mistresses. The Jaguar Woman’s eyes widened in shock as she all but swept the idol out of her thrall’s claws.

“Where did you find this?” the Jaguar Woman asked. The Nightkin whispered an answer into her and Iztacoatl’s ears, and though I didn’t hear their words I easily guessed them from the Nightlords’ frowns of fury. “The Sapa...”

“They knew,” Iztacoatl said, her suspicious eyes settling on me. “That was why they tried to kill him. When they failed to destroy the key–”

“They broke the hinge.” The Jaguar Woman crushed the tumi within the palm of her hand, the gold folding like paper under her vicious grip. “Why was I not informed?”

“I told you we should have waited, Sister,” Iztacoatl complained to the Jaguar Woman. “Something was wrong with the mountain. We could all see it.”

I caught a glimpse of the Jaguar Woman’s lips twisting into a snarl of rage in the darkness. However, she did not say otherwise. Mayhaps she was cunning enough to understand how overconfidence doomed her plot, or she couldn’t afford to alienate her remaining sisters.

I suppressed a sigh of relief. My plan to frame the Sapa for the ritual’s failure appeared to be succeeding without a hitch.

“The Sapa couldn’t plant their cursed idols without spies in our midst,” the Jaguar Woman said with cold calculation. “We must find them. This shall not happen again.”

“Can it happen again?” Iztacoatl clenched her jaw in skepticism. “Can the three bind the one without our sister’s help?”

“His brother?” I scowled at the news. Tlaxcala remained a valuable asset.

“His brother and his wife,” the priest replied. I did my best to hide my surprise. “We have no cause to suspect the former of complicity yet, considering their known animosity, but the latter might have collaborated with her husband.”

I didn’t know Tlazohtzin had a wife. Curses, of course he had a wife, he was one of the adult heirs of a wealthy commercial enterprise spanning the entire empire. I should have guessed that the priests would target anyone related to him.

I should attempt to spare Tlazohtzin’s family if I could. I owed him that much, after using him as a sacrificial offering in my plot.

“What’s the woman’s name?” I asked. “Who is she?”

“She is known as Zyanya Quiabelagayo,” the priest replied. “She is a noblewoman from Zachilaa. Far better born than her commoner husband.”

Zachilaa... yes, I recalled it as the capital of a country Yohuachanca absorbed a few hundred years ago. That region remained one of the empire’s wealthiest regions to this day. I suppose Tlazohtzin’s father arranged the match in hopes of expanding his operations there.

I might as well kill one bird with two stones: save an innocent and build my network of allies.

“Tlazohtzin’s brother Tlaxcala is an honest man,” I said. An honest scoundrel at least. “I would be surprised to learn he has anything to do with his brother’s deceit, and I wish him not to be harmed. I shall also interrogate this Zyanya myself. As a well-born woman from a southern tributary state, I might have some use for her.”

“As you wish, Your Divine Majesty.” The messenger marked a short pause, his fingers trembling. He wished to tell me something, but he dreaded my answer.

I narrowed my eyes at the delegation. “What is it? Speak your mind.”

“As Your Majesty wishes.” The messenger clenched his fists and gathered his courage. “I know it is not our place to question the goddesses’ wills, oh Godspeaker, but many among us are wondering...”

Why Smoke Mountain blew up and why the clouds are raining blood? I thought, Iztacoatl scowling behind me. Go on, show your false goddess your fears and doubts. Show her the cracks in the wall, so that she might fear the collapse.

“Has Lady Yoloxochitl forsaken us?”

The priest’s question almost threatened to make me laugh, but the oppressive aura coming from Iztacoatl dissuaded me. Instead, I feigned confusion. “What makes you think so, faithful one?”

“Lady Yoloxochitl’s priesthood suffered a set of calamities after the eruption,” the messenger replied with a trembling voice. He knew he should not address the subject in one of his goddesses’ presence, but his doubts proved too great to overcome. I wondered if the other priests had volunteered him for the role. “Faithfuls who had served her for centuries aged to dust in the blink of an eye. The young suffered from a weak heart or went mad. We had to chain them in the temples’ basement so they would not harm their brethren.”

I listened to this news with rapturous intention. This suddenly recontextualized the Jaguar Woman’s words.

Red-eyed priests received their immortality from ingesting a Nightlord’s blood. This tied their life to their mistresses, stopped their aging, withered their loins, and protected them from disease. They had sold their very souls to the vampires. With Yoloxochitl’s death, the people depending on her existence to survive now found themselves bereft of purpose and immortality. King Mictlantecuhtli had reaped their damned souls with interest.

I guessed I should consider Eztli’s survival a small miracle.

I suppressed a smile of triumph. Priests oversaw mandatory public rituals during the New Fire Ceremony. The news would spread quickly. Soon, thousands among the empire would wonder why Yoloxochitl’s favored servants suddenly all perished at once.

“Has the goddess...” the messenger gulped. “Has she forsaken us?”

Iztacoatl’s cold hand clenched my shoulder with a gentle grip before I could open my mouth.

“Yes, she has,” she whispered in my ear. “This disaster is a divine punishment for you mortals’ lack of faith. The priesthood failed my sister’s trust and suffered accordingly. Tell them. Tell them the consequences of failing a Nightlord.”

The lie was spoken with such authority and confidence that I would have been tempted to believe it, had I not witnessed Yoloxochitl’s demise myself. I had to admire Iztacoatl’s bold improvisation. She had managed to lay blame for a disaster at the victims’ feet.

“Our citizens’ lack of faith brought about the wrath of Smoke Mountain,” I lied to the congregation. “The goddess Yoloxochitl was so incensed by your failure to properly foster devotion among the faithful that she has decided to punish her followers. Failure to serve is failure to live.”

“I... I understand, oh great Godspeaker.” The messenger didn’t ask for more details, and neither did his terrified colleagues. I had already confirmed their worst fears. “Thank you for indulging this small man’s curiosity.”

“They may leave now,” Iztacoatl declared. “We must discuss an important matter in private.”

I quickly dismissed the priests with a wave of my hand. They quickly crawled back into the dark, leaving me alone with my captor and a set of silent guards. One could cut the tension with a knife.

Iztacoatl removed her hood and let her mask fall onto the ground. Her long hair cascaded upon her shoulders, while her inhumanly beautiful face smiled at me. The sight would have caused many men to fall to their knees in adoration. Not me. I remained firmly seated on my throne, quiet and wary.

“Repeat after me,” Iztacoatl said with a sweet, melodious voice. “This disaster is divine punishment for its people’s faithlessness. The First Emperor found their devotion and sacrifices lacking. Had you not convinced him to spare the world as our Godspeaker, the world would have ended. The people of the world owe their sunrise to you. To us.”

I couldn’t believe the gall of this woman. She and her sisters tried to rob the world of its sun, and now had the nerve to pretend they saved it? As they said, the shameless dared it all.

Iztacoatl kept piling more lies on my plate. “Meanwhile, my sister Yoloxochitl was so disappointed by her priesthood’s failure to inspire true devotion among the cattle that she denied them her favor. If they prove their faith again, she might return it.”

An unlikely prospect. “I see...”

She wagged her finger at me. “I want to hear you say it, pet.”

It took all my strength not to show distaste at the nickname. The world quaked, and yet it changed so little.

“This disaster is divine punishment from the First Emperor for his chosen people’s faithlessness,” I lied. “On behalf of the goddesses-in-flesh, I convinced him to give us mortals another sunrise. However, Lady Yoloxochitl punished her priesthood for failing to inspire faith among the good people of the empire. She might return her favor once the people prove worthy of it.”

“Good.” Iztacoatl kissed me on the forehead. Her lips were colder than the Rattling House’s snowstorm. “If you are wise, my beloved emperor, you will repeat this lie to everyone until you start believing in it too. Your survival, and my happiness, depend on it.”

I forced myself to smile back. “I live to serve.”

“No, you do not.” Iztacoatl put a hand on my chin and lightly forced me to look up at her. “Show me your true face,”

My heart skipped a beat in my chest. “I do not understand.”

“You do.” Her smile turned predatory. “Are you deaf? I ordered you to show me your true face.”

My fingers clenched on my throne’s armrests. “Goddess, I am not certain I–”

She slapped me on the cheek with a hand as hard as stone.

I had taken hits from warriors, Underworld demons, and Nahualli, but rarely one so powerful. Iztacoatl’s slime frame belied the inhuman strength and the weight behind her blow. My entire head hurt. I saw stars, and for a second I thought that the blow would tear my skull off my shoulders.

“Do you truly believe me as naïve as my sisters?” Iztacoatl snorted in contempt as I massaged my cheek. “Yoloxochitl lied to herself because she wanted your love, Sugey does not care, and Ocelocihuatl thinks that she has crushed your spirit. I know better. I can recognize a snake biding its time when I see one, one serpent to another.”

“You are mistaken,” I lied, seething through my teeth. “I’ve learned my lesson. Painfully.”

She slapped me on the other cheek. This time, the blow nearly threw me off my throne. My teeth clenched in rage, my heart and blood boiling with the fury of my soul. Behead her, tear out her throat, impale her heart—if she had any—or twist her bones until she choked on her own blood! I had so many ways to kill, each of them so tempting.

“Finally, you bare your fangs at me.” Iztacoatl grabbed me by my hair with one hand and forced me to look up at her. “It excited you to see my sister die, am I wrong? You felt vindicated for your foolhardy beliefs.”

She stuck out her tongue and licked my cheek. I would rather have been shat on by a slug.

“Do you know what excites me, human? Collecting pets.” Iztacoatl’s inhuman shadow loomed over me, with great wings and coils that were nowhere to be seen in her human disguise. “For the crime of rejoicing over my sister’s demise, Iztac, I will make you my personal project. You have earned my full and undivided attention.”

The Nightlord pinched my cheeks with her cold, icy hands, as if I were a delightful child who had embarrassed himself in an entertaining way.

“Unlike my sister, I don’t want your fear, Iztac. I want your adoration.” A forking tongue briefly slithered between her sharp fangs. “If you displease me, you will come to look fondly on that night where we executed dear Sigrun. If you entertain me, I will reward you with pleasures greater than anything you can imagine. I will reshape you, piece by piece, until you can no longer recognize yourself. By the time I am through with you, you shall do more than love me.”

She laughed to her heart’s content.

“You will worship me. You will venerate me. You will beg for my favor and attention... and I shall return none of it.”

She was close enough for my hand to punch her. I so desired to do it, to cave her skull in on itself with my Bonecraft spell and spill her brain out all over the floor.

But I held back. Unfortunately, such attacks would result in little more than pain and humiliation for now.

For now.

“Remember those words,” I dared to tell her, knowing she would not believe my lies. “When you fail miserably.”

“See?” Iztacoatl chuckled in delight. “You need a good whipping. I am currently in a very, very dark mood, so I need entertainment. I will gladly make you my toy.”

I did not bother answering with words. Instead, I glared at her with all of my endless hatred. It only served to amuse her further.

“So play on, puppet emperor,” Iztacoatl said with playful arrogance. “You will amuse me for what little time you have left.”

It will still be longer than yours, I thought. I promise you that.