Blood & Fur

Chapter Eighty-Three: Tamōhuānchān

Chapter Eighty-Three: Tamōhuānchān

The Chilam tournament and Chikal’s ministrations managed the great feat of exhausting me to sleep.

By then, Eztli had departed our convoy and returned to the capital. I was careful to slip a small surveillance skull among her belongings, and those I had planted elsewhere in the palace would let me keep an eye on her from afar until the promised time; a moment which couldn’t come any sooner.

I arrived in the Underworld to find my father and predecessors patiently reading the First Emperor’s codex. Both greeted me with sharp nods of their shared body.

“My son,” Father said with paternal warmth. “We did not expect you to rejoin us so soon. Has something happened?”

“I had a taste of the war to come.” Though I wondered if the Sapa warriors I would face tomorrow would show half the fierceness of Chilam’s inhabitants. “Has your reading session been fruitful?”

“Alas, we could not find any additional information on the Gate of the Twin-Breaths,” the Parliament of Skulls replied with dejection. “This book only covers the First Emperor’s journey through this layer, and no further.”

“If this is truly the First Emperor’s memoir, then I must wonder what happened to twist him so,” Father said, his skeletal hand brushing against the ancient document. “When I read these letters, I see a sound mind full of curiosity and without a trace of cruelty. If he started showing signs of what he would become, I cannot see any here.”

That subject bothered me too. I believed myself mostly in control of my faculties, the occasional slip of magic notwithstanding. I felt no urge to drink blood or devour others the way that the First Emperor did as he eventually fell into madness. I had begun to feel the call of divinity, but I wasn’t yet bound by it.

This suggested that the next set of embers would be a pivotal moment. I briefly considered delaying my meeting with Quetzalcoatl until I learned more before deciding otherwise. My time was precious, and whatever horror I risked turning into paled when compared to the Nightlords’ cruelty.

“Has Mother given you any way to contact her in an emergency?” I asked Father. “A signal of some kind?”

Father’s skull perked up slightly. “Have you finally reconsidered, my son?”

“I have no intention of forgiving her,” I replied coldly. She had a long way to go before I ever began considering trusting her again. “But you’re right. I do need her assistance, both with the gate and other matters.”

“I understand.” Father closed the codex and did not push the subject further. He knew it would be for naught. “To answer your question, I do not know a way to call her, but... Ichtaca always said she would find me should I become lost.”

“Which implies she has a way of tracking you down,” my predecessors said. “We can think of one.”

So did I. I activated my Gaze and looked at Father's shadow. It didn’t take me long to notice a black feather engraved within it.

The Curse was almost always meant to bring down calamity upon a target or as insurance against betrayal, but Mother mentioned that a skilled user could achieve many more effects with careful wording. This feather carried little to no malice within it, so I assumed its purpose was to bind Father to her in a metaphysical way.

I honestly didn’t know what to make of it. It was a clever way to keep track of Father, especially during his time in Xibalba when the Lords of Terror might have absconded with his soul, but Mother’s willingness to cast a spell on her own husband spoke volumes about her possessiveness. Could I truly call that love? Then again, I had done far worse to Necahual, and transferring Eztli’s essence into another vessel was a contestable choice...

I pushed these thoughts away. If Mother’s curse bound Father to always find his way to her, then she would likely rejoin us once we left Tlalocan. While I had no desire to return to Xibalba, I could think of another place that would catch her attention.

I fit Father’s and the Parliament's childlike body into the carrying frame along with my belongings, then finally left Tlalocan on jet-black wings.

The flaming hail of Tlaloc had long since calmed down and cleared the sky of searing smoke, though the landscape remained a devastated expanse of smoldering ashes and wildfires. How long would it take for the last of these flames to die down? Weeks? Years? I knew the Burned Men would eventually emerge from their caves to rebuild a measure of civilization among the ruins of this devastated world, but I wouldn’t have the time to see it with my own eyes.

I followed the map included in the First Emperor’s codex to Matzakuy, the first city of the Third Cosmos. It took me a mere few hours’ flight to see its ruins. Great broken spires of stone as tall as mountains stood along the ruined horizon, their pinnacles bound to the earth by colossal chains long enough to encircle my capital’s walls. I mistook the formations around them for hills, until a closer look instead revealed the shape of colossal head-shaped statues bigger than Yohuachanca’s pyramids. Most of them had their eyes closed like sages trapped in deep meditation, though eons of incendiary winds had wiped away most of their features. Many had lost their mouths, their expressions forever trapped in one of grim silence.

A sense of wonder and melancholia seized me as I flew between its immense towers. The city’s buried houses of stone had to be a mere fraction of the settlement’s buildings which survived Tlaloc’s wrath, and yet a single district could hold my entire capital. My entire civilization existed in the shadow of an ancient empire. It made me realize just how small my people’s achievements were in the light of the cosmos’ ancient history.

What else would I find further below? The Second Sun’s mankind wasn’t particularly famous for its wonders, but the first were made up of giants, or so the stories said.

I glided down at the tallest tower’s feet and quickly noticed a large, sprawling chasm that descended deep into the earth’s bowels. I felt a current of wind flowing from it, strong enough to raise a cloud of ashes. I followed it into the hole and descended into the darkness.

My Gaze dispelled the shadows as I flew into a large cavern filled with spiraling brick stairs several floors long and equally large pillars. The vast empty space allowed me to progress inside easily enough among giant statues of mighty Tlaloc and massive stone slabs. I assumed this place used to be a temple once; one which hadn’t been disturbed since times immemorial.

I expected to find groups of Burned Men hiding in the hole, but only found petrified corpses trapped inside coffins of fossilized ashes. The dust-choked air flowed on my feathers like mud. I followed the flow of the wind until I noticed a faint source of light deep at the chasm’s bottom.

The Gate of the Twin-Breaths sang at the lowest level.

The pictures in the First Emperor’s codex didn’t do it justice. The gates were carved from a ring of gnarled and eternally burning trees large enough to let a longneck through and whose shape reminded me of a wandering maw, the door churned with spiraling winds. A tempest raged within its fiery confines, wild and thick, with swirling clouds and raging gusts sealed within the gate’s circular shape. It whistled a booming symphony that droned its way into my mind. I could hardly take my eyes away from this glorious, awe-inspiring chaos. It felt akin to gazing at a hurricane trapped inside a jar.

Mother was waiting for us in front of the threshold, standing alone on a platform of ancient stone.

She looked up at me with a steady gaze, yet one that betrayed the slightest edge of fear. I hardly paid her attention upon landing on the floor with my talons shifting into feet. Her eyes immediately lingered on the blazing inferno that raged within my ribs. A look of fascination crossed her face when she recognized the strength of Tlaloc burning inside my soul, followed by a mix of pride and sorrow. What a bitter sting, to see her child ascend where she had failed.

“My son,” she greeted me meekly.

I walked past her to peer into the Gate of the Twin-Breaths. The doorway that linked Mictlan to Tlalocan had given me a glimpse of the latter, but this one didn’t give me the same courtesy. So strong were the winds and so thick the clouds of dust that my Gaze failed to penetrate them.

I couldn’t tell where it led without crossing it first.

I continued to study the gate while ignoring Mother. I knew it was petty to treat her like this, but she deserved no less. Only when I confirmed that the Gate of the Twin-Breaths showed no inscription that would give me an inkling of how to cross it safely did I turn to face her.

“Mother,” I replied with the warmth of the coldest winter.

She didn’t answer for a moment, clearly rehearsing her next words carefully in her head. “I see that the rain of fire has ended,” she noted. “The wind whispered that it was your doing.”

“Great Tlaloc mercifully ended his punishment.” Claiming credit for it while in Tlalocan would have risked inviting the god’s wrath. “But I did argue on behalf of the Burned Men, yes.”

“I see...” Mother marked a short pause. The very idea that I would ask that kind of request to a god probably sounded utterly incomprehensible to someone so selfish. “I have done as you and your father asked. I have... I have released the souls within my employ back to Mictlan.”

“Your employ?” I scoffed at her phrasing. As if holding souls in a gilded cage in preparation for their sacrifice to the Lords of Terror counted as a simple job. “Did you apologize to Queen Mictecacihuatl while at it?”

“Of course not.” Mother recoiled with wounded pride. “Do you mean to insult me? You know very well the queen of the dead would not have let me escape her grip again.”

“I believe otherwise,” I replied coldly. “If you had the courage to sincerely come clean about your mistakes and sins, she would have listened.”

Mother glared at me. “Would you have the courage to face her, my son? After sending so many innocent souls her way, I doubt she would look kindly on you again.”

My jaw clenched. My first thought was to retort that I had ended the torment of a million more souls by convincing Tlaloc to lift his calamity, but the argument sounded hollow in my head. One good deed didn’t erase all of my crimes, no more than Mother’s decision to release her collected souls made up for her treachery towards Father and I.

I couldn’t deny the truth of her words, no matter how much I wished to. We had both disappointed the queen of the dead in our own way through our actions.

At least Mother seemed to have regained a measure of pride and authority since I last met her. I slowly lowered my carrying frame and opened it to free my father. The sight of his childlike skeleton walking out with a second head seemed to both amuse his wife and leave her uneasy. They hadn’t departed on the best of terms.

But Father wasn’t one to hold a grudge, nor show animosity.

“Ichtaca,” Father said without any reproach. “It is good to see you again.”

Mother nodded slowly, a brief flash of relief passing over her face. She must have feared her husband would show her the same disdain that I’d shown her. “Yes, my love,” she said. “I... I’ve done as you asked.”

“That is... good.” Father nodded, somewhat awkwardly. “That is good.”

An uneasy silence settled between them. I could almost cut the tension between my parents with a knife. Mother shifted in place with what I believed was sincere guilt, while Father appeared torn between holding her in his arms and standing his ground about his principles.

I had no time for this. Mother’s presence in this place meant that she had likely figured out this threshold’s secrets, and I would rather avoid being indebted to her if I could avoid it.

I faced the Gate of the Twin-Breaths and uttered a single Word.

“Open.”

My booming voice resonated across the hall with almighty authority. I heard cracks widen in the walls and then heard my parents’ and the Parliament's jaws snap open under the weight of my divine command, which I found quite interesting. It appeared that everyone who heard my Word was compelled to obey it, but if my order was too vague, then their minds interpreted it in the most simple way possible. I assumed that the spell followed a law of least effort.

The Gate of the Twin-Breaths nonetheless refused to budge.

In a way, I knew Father’s offer to join the Parliament of Skulls was a way to showcase his wife his own line in the sand. If she truly loved him, if she was dedicated to saving his soul, then she would have to truly work towards the Nightlords’ destruction. Hiding and cowering wouldn’t be an option anymore.

Condemning Father’s soul to an eternity of torment was far from ideal, but I respected his dedication. What he lacked in magical power, he more than made up with bravery and courage.

I guessed he was right too. Should I fail... at least we would comfort each other. And if I succeeded, he would hardly spend more than a few months with his soul imprisoned.

“Very well,” I said as I activated Bonecraft to reshape my father’s skull and bind him to the Parliament of my predecessors. “You may now join the Legion.”

The spell had originally been created to add new souls to the collective before I modified it to serve as a vessel for my predecessors’ spirits. I believe this was my first time using it for its actual purpose. Binding my Father to the Parliament proved frighteningly easy. The Nightlords’ curse that bound me to my predecessors hungered for more souls to latch onto and unlike the living, whose soul risked slipping through its grasp unless sacrificed, Father was both dead and willing. The shadowy chains of imperial despair happily coiled around his spirit and shackled him.

Father bore the ritual without complaint nor agony. He didn’t even offer a sound of protest. Quite the contrary, I felt his warmth and will flow through our bond. His presence among the collective was a drop of idealism in a centuries-long lake of bitterness.

“Are you well?” I asked him once we completed the ritual. My mind had touched the emperors’ gestalt in the past and nearly been overwhelmed in an instant.

To my relief, Father nodded sharply; with both his and my predecessors’ skull. “I am well, my son,” he said through both mouths, his spirit now one with those of hundreds of past emperors. “This maelstrom of thoughts... is nothing compared to the abyss of the First Fear.”

Mother’s back crumpled in her guilt. I would lie if I said I didn’t take joy each time she was reminded of her failures.

“Each of our members retains a sliver of individuality, though the oldest among us have lost their edge,” the Parliament spoke through their own skull. Unlike Father, they had enough experience to speak separately of their newest member. “You were one, and now you have joined many. With each new link in the chain, we slowly forget our own place within the whole.”

“A cycle which I shall see come to an end,” I promised them before taking their skulls into my palms. “I will have to absorb you so we can travel light, Father.”

“I understand.” Father briefly turned to look at his wicked wife. “Ichtaca.”

Mother ceased staring at the floor to meet his gaze.

“Please watch over our son in my absence,” Father asked. “I know he does not believe he needs you, but I believe otherwise.”

I struggled not to scoff at this absurdity. That viper, watching over me? I would rather take a red-eyed priest. At least I knew where they stood.

Nonetheless, Mother appeared to consider her husband’s words for a moment before hesitantly agreeing to his demand. “I... I shall do what I can.”

“I know you will,” Father said softly. “Thank you.”

“Itzili–” Mother caught herself and swallowed whatever thought crossed her mind. “No. Forget it.”

Father stared at her for a moment, then said, “I still believe in you.”

“I do not,” I replied as I called upon the power of Bonecraft to seize my Father’s body. I joined his and my predecessor’s skulls and bones to mine, disassembling their joined vessel and adding the parts to my body mass. It was only a temporary measure, for now, to spare them from whatever danger awaited us beyond the threshold.

Their corpse was gone in a minute, leaving me alone with Mother. For a brief instant, neither of us spoke a word to the other. Father was the bridge that kept us connected, and his absence left a chasm of reproach and bitterness in his place.

“He is too good for you,” I finally said.

Mother looked down at the stone. “I know.”

“If you try anything, you may expect no mercy from me,” I warned her. I didn’t think she would be stupid enough to risk it all, but a warning cost nothing. “What do you know of the Third Layer?”

“Less than I would like.” Mother crossed her arms and looked at the Gate of the Twin-Breaths in concern. “No dead souls remain from that era, and the fears that linger there do not interest the Lords of Terror.”

“Why is that?”

“Because the living no longer remember them,” Mother replied grimly. “The second mankind was unlike us, and the horrors that haunted their world differed from those that plague ours. Some never knew death, because they were never alive in the first place. All that I can tell is that Lord Quetzalcoatl crafted our ancestors there before releasing them back into the land of the living.”

In other words, we could expect anything beyond this threshold. The safer play would be to wait for Ingrid’s investigation into the First Emperor’s codex to bear fruit, but my now limited sleeping schedule made that risky. My nights had become more precious than ever, and I ought to cover as much progress as I could during these few hours.

“We shall enter the Third Layer now,” I said after filling my carrying frame with the First Emperor’s codex and putting it on my back. “Where are you and Astrid in the Sapa Empire?”

“I keep Astrid in a secure location away from the frontier,” Mother replied evasively. “As for myself... I suspect that we will meet soon in the waking world.”

Her wording gave me pause. Was Mother near the frontier? Or did she have agents among the Sapa army I would wage war with tomorrow?

“Keep your distance for now,” I all but ordered her. “Sugey has me under watch, and Tlaloc’s embers keep me awake much longer. Our nights may no longer align, which will make coordination difficult.”

Mother bristled and bit her tongue. She knew full well that I was delighted to remind her of her failure to contrast my success.

“I can sleep anytime I wish,” she replied. “I will know when you are ready.”

I squinted at her. “How do you do that?”

As I feared, I saw a flash of ambition pass through her face. She had another means of leverage over me, however meager it was.

“I use a spell to lull myself to sleep,” she answered. “Would you like to learn it?”

My gaze turned into a potent glare. “Intent on making me beg, are you?”

“No, not at all,” she replied quickly. “Nonetheless, it will require being cast in the waking world. It would be easier for me to teach you when we meet in the flesh upstairs.”

I snorted and faced the door. “Then let us go.”

Mother threw the jug into the Gate of the Twin-Breaths. I heard a faint scream as it vanished into the swirling hurricane at its center, the last cry of an infant whose life had ended before it could truly begin. The doorways rippled and fluctuated, its thick smoky winds twisting and bending in a maddening spiral. The veil that separated us from the dead world beyond trimmed a little, enough that I began to distinguish the distant light of bright stars piercing through the barrier.

I pressed a hand against the gale and while I sensed a little resistance, the winds harmlessly folded between my fingers. They swirled around me as I stepped through the threshold without bothering to see whether or not Mother followed in my wake.

I vividly recalled the time when I left Mictlan. Much like back then, crossing the frontier between the Underworld’s Layers weighed on my soul. While my body had no trouble passing through the wind, my spirit crossed a much stronger metaphysical barrier. I was leaving the demesne of one god for that of another.

A chill infested my bones as I abandoned the volcanic warmth of Tlalocan for much colder air. A maddening music echoed within my skull, its droning unlike anything I’d ever heard. I recognized the beating of drums and the whistling of harmonica among the frenzied serenade, but my ears failed to recognize most instruments.

I did identify something unfathomably familiar though; a weight pressing on my soul, fueling the baleful flame of hatred resting within my heart.

Evil.

The same miasma of corruption which pervaded Xibalba flowed into me from the other side of the threshold. I choked on it, wading through an invisible darkness clinging to my bones and skin; but where Xibalba had felt like a home to my owl-totem, this aura only inspired dread and disgust. I didn’t belong in whatever horror awaited beyond the threshold, and I swiftly realized why when I finally took my first step on the other side.

I’d entered a singing hell.

A strange and surreal landscape emerged before me under a dark sky kept alight by the shine of the north star and dimmer constellations. Mighty winds battered a burning horizon shrouded in darkness and swarms of black, obsidian-winged butterflies.

A vast landscape of skin and stone stared back at me, for the hills had eyes. They observe me from atop mouth-shaped caverns, moaning through their gnashing teeth or joining their voices to the chorus of the demented dead. Lanky, ominous buildings shaped like laughing skulls and covered in face carvings stood next to them. I noticed that one had a house-sized, twisted human ear growing out of its stone wall, while another tower seemed to be growing out of a giant egg. The few trees were black and gnarled, a few of them joining together in twisted shapes that reminded me of severed faceless torsos standing on their arms.

Dark figures danced and sang in circles around campfires and pyres. Most were hunched and bent like monkeys with blackened bones, but other figures seemed to be shaped from the very shadows, their limbs twisted in ways that shouldn’t allow any man to stand straight. Most of them bore black wooden masks covered in colorful carvings, while others bore pointed hats half their size. A few played instruments which I immediately recognized as human hearts whose aortas had been replaced with sounding horns.

I witnessed scenes of utter debauchery that would make the Nightlords look like prudes. I saw monkey men frolicking with fish with legs among gnarled obsidian flowers. I witnessed two monsters toss a third into a cooking pot piece by piece while it cried in pleasure. I paused as I saw a masked humanoid creature drawn and quartered while smaller figures beat it with sticks; all to the tune of that chaotic, frenetic song of madness.

“What...” I muttered under my breath in shock while Mother walked by my side. “What is this place?”

“Welcome to Tamōhuānchān, my son,” Mother replied, her face looking up to the black butterflies dancing under the north star. “Welcome to the birthplace of humanity.”