Chapter Twenty-Three: Wrath of the Condor King

Chapter Twenty-Three: Wrath of the Condor King

Once, when I trained to become a merchant, I received a wise piece of advice: the only thing worse than debt was being late for its payment. Especially once your debtor was called the Enemy of Both Sides.

When the wind blew on my face under dawn’s light, my body and mind tired from yet another night of terror and sorcery, I knew I would not get away with giving away meager gossip. The Yaotzin had shielded my words from listening ears against the promise of important information by sunrise; yet the sun had risen already. I could only pray that the chaotic forces of the cosmos had decided to show patience.

Patience is the virtue of the powerful, the Yaotzin whispered ominously in my ear as I triggered my Augury spell. Do not waste ours.

I joined my hands and considered what information I could share. I considered what gossip I had gathered, what secret betrayals and jealousies I had uncovered. The murder Sigrun committed on my behalf, the truth about the Sapa invasion, Chikal’s dubious allegiances... Most of what I had learned might come back to harm current and potential allies.

However, I had spent many days gathering information about my foes. I now saw a way to kill two birds with one stone.

“The Nightlords have lit a sulfur flame for the New Fire Ceremony tonight,” I whispered under my breath. “A flame from which they hope to harness great magical power.”

The Yaotzin desired to trade secrets that would harm others. Let the Nightlords’ enemies learn of their witchery.

The wind suddenly grew stronger. The quiet breeze became a gust strong enough to send one of my imperial headdress’ quetzal feathers flying away. I had the Yaotzin’s full attention.

“They intend to drain the strength of a powerful being.” I almost mentioned the First Emperor, but the Yaotzin only accepted the truth. While I strongly suspected the identity behind the source of the Nightlords’ wicked flames, I still couldn’t confirm it. Caution would prevail. Besides, I could always sell that information away later. “A being of darkness and hunger raging in a sulfur cage.”

No cryptic words nor dire prophecy answered me. The wind kept blowing, carrying my whispers away to those who would pay the price to hear them. I couldn’t tell if I should take it as a good or a bad sign.

“Was it sufficient?” I whispered under my breath. “Are we even?”

A great price you have paid, and the debt is settled, the wind answered me this time. The birds shall listen. Wings of gold and shadow talons, condor king and mother of witches.

“The birds?” Condor? I had never heard that word before. Mother of witches was almost as elusive, though I had my suspicions on whom it might be. “What do you mean? To whom will you share this information?”

An even trade you must make, the Yaotzin replied, never missing an occasion to shake me down. Foes of the sisters do not friends make.

Of course the wind would word its answer so cryptically. I would kill for a straightforward sentence. Still, the meaning sounded simple to me: the Nightlords’ rivals were not necessarily my friends. The enemy of my enemy was often just that, and no more.

I didn’t mind, so long as they would work to ruin the Nightlords’ plans first and foremost.

Once I had completed the Augury, I moved to my chambers with a headache and sore muscles. My enhanced Teyolia’s divine endurance still had its limits. Chikal’s training and a night spent praying over a cursed flame had left me drained.

I didn’t think awakening the sulfur flame had changed me in any way... or if it did, I couldn’t tell yet. I’d better take this information to Queen Mictecacihuatl. She would provide good advice.

As expected, I found Ingrid and her mother waiting for me, both of them clad in the most sumptuous of dresses. Servants, Necahual chief among them, had brought a harp and set the table for the evening dinner which I had missed.

“Lord Emperor,” my consort greeted me with a smile. The dark rings around Ingrid’s eyes indicated they had been there all night. “We thought ourselves bereft of your presence.”

“My apologies for the lateness,” I said as Necahual helped me remove my imperial headdress and cloak wordlessly. My silent guards took position in all corners of the room, observing the scene with their weapons in hand. “The goddesses required my presence longer than I expected.”

“Our emperor needs not to apologize to us,” Ingrid replied courteously. “Our lives and nights are spent at your leisure.”

Her mother proved more inquisitive. “If memory serves, the goddesses never kept an emperor for so long,” she pointed out. “I assume this New Fire Ceremony will be different from its predecessors?”

You have no idea, I thought. Although... Maybe she does have a clue. I can never tell with her. “We’ve reached the end of the fifty-two year cycle,” I reminded her. “Exceptional times call for exceptional rites.”

“I will consider myself lucky to witness them then,” Lady Sigrun mused with a smile and calculating eyes. “Our emperor’s reign is unlike any of those that came before.”

“The goddesses have recognized his exceptional destiny,” Ingrid flattered me. “Will our Lord Emperor eat with us?”

“I am too tired for it,” I confessed. Or to do anything else, truthfully. “Maybe after I rest.”

“Perhaps my mother and I can help you with that,” Ingrid replied coyly. “Let her massage your body while I soothe your soul to sleep with sweet songs.”

Recognizing the hidden suggestion for what it was, I lightly kissed Ingrid on the lips. The taste of her warm skin let me forget Yoloxochitl’s cold touch. “I would appreciate a lullaby,” I said. “And to wake up with you at my side.”

“Always,” Ingrid replied courteously.

At this point, we played the role of happy newlyweds perfectly.

A minute later, I was resting naked on my bed with my face against the pillow. Lady Sigrun climbed on my back to massage it while her daughter began to play a tune on the harp. The beautiful melody echoed in my chambers, with only the three of us and the silent masked guards to enjoy it. I could almost forget my troubles.

Almost. Whenever my eyelids threatened to close and lull me to sleep, I saw a sulfur flame flaring in the dark.

“Is that fear I sense in your flesh, my emperor?” Lady Sigrun whispered as her soft hands traveled across my back and elbows. Her daughter’s song drowned our discussion in its joyful chorus. “Your spine is straight and your flesh tight. What frightens you so much?”

That horror in the sulfur flame, I thought. “Disappointing the goddesses,” I lied.

“A fear all men share.” She traced a line along my spine. “But today’s dread runs deeper.”

I was starting to wonder if she could read minds. “How are you so perceptive, Lady Sigrun?”

“Lifelong practice, and a deep understanding of human nature.” She began to massage my shoulders. “You will not enjoy the former, but you might develop the latter. You show the potential for it.”

I hoped so. I still remained a student in the presence of a master.

“Do you know what these guards are?” I asked Lady Sigrun while glancing at our silent observers. Between their silence and eerie stillness, they might as well be made of stone rather than flesh. “Are you certain the song will drown out our voices?”

“So long as we keep our voices low,” my concubine replied with a hushed tone. “Even then, I do not believe these creatures are capable of speaking. They are no more than puppets of flesh without intelligence.”

She didn’t think they were alive anymore either. “What do you think they hide beneath their helmets?”

Lady Sigrun’s smile had a sinister edge to it. “Nothing.”

I was tempted to check for myself, but I had my fill of horrors for tonight.

“I must admit I am impressed, Lord Iztac.” Lady Sigrun sounded genuinely respectful, but she was such a liar that I could hardly tell whether or not she meant it. “When we first met, I thought you would be rather forgettable.”

“Forgettable?” I scoffed. “What does that mean?”

“I have shared the bed of nearly two dozen emperors before you,” Lady Sigrun said as she continued to massage me. “Many were brave and ambitious, a handful were cunning, some were cowardly... but very few were noteworthy. You can count yourself among that number.”

I smiled as a surge of pleasure traveled through my shoulders. Lady Sigrun had found a sore spot to soothe. “Did you flatter all my predecessors?”

“Yes,” Lady Sigrun replied with a light chuckle. “But I rarely meant it.”

And I knew better than to take her at her word.

“Now...” Lady Sigrun leaned down to whisper into my ear. “About that book you mentioned earlier...”

“I have the second volume,” I replied with a low tone, going straight for the kill. Ingrid subtly started playing a bit more aggressively to better cover our voices. “Not on myself, of course.”

“Of course,” Lady Sigrun repeated like a trained songbird. “What proof do I have that you speak true?”

“I can memorize and recite passages, if you’d like.”

“I would like to see that,” Lady Sigrun replied. “How did you even find this document?”

A dog god fetched it for me. “I cannot reveal my source.”

“I assume it is the same one that whispers well-kept secrets in your ears?” Sigrun studied my face, looking for a sign that she had guessed right. I let nothing through. “Why are you interested in these codices, my emperor?”

“Why are you?” I replied.

Lady Sigrun laughed lightly. “Knowledge without power is worthless, but power without knowledge is blind. Only those who understand the past can hope to shape the future.”

In short, she hoped to use these codices as leverage to gain power and influence in the future. How crafty and farsighted. Or at least, that was what she wanted me to believe. Besides the valuable information kept within the codices—intel that would help me navigate the Land of the Dead Suns—I wondered if the First Emperor encoded spells within them; sorcery I could use against his treacherous brood.

I suspected Lady Sigrun sought the secret power contained within those pages too. I was certain that she practiced a form of witchcraft right under the Nightlords’ noses, even though she was no Nahualli. For now, I would play the fool. It would take time to uncover her secrets.

“I share your opinion, Lady Sigrun,” I said, hiding my suspicion under a veil of caution. “I am curious as to how my empire was founded.”

“So am I.” Now that she had finished with the shoulders, Sigrun began to massage my thighs. “You know the official history is a lie. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be hiding this conversation.”

“I did it for both.” This discussion wasn’t going well. Then again, it didn’t start well either. “I have no desire to feed the Nightlords’ hunger, but their destruction shall free our respective people from their threat. Starting a war offered the best odds to do both.”

Green flames glowed in the reflection’s emerald eyes. “You traded the certainty of my homeland’s suffering for your potential survival.”

“Yes, I have.” I would shoulder that sin. “I fought back the best I could with the tools granted to me. What is done is done, though I take no joy in it.”

“What makes my people’s lives less valuable than yours?” The Mallquis could hear me, but he clearly did not listen. “I have felt the tremors of the land as it shudders in dread, the howling wind that whispers of coming calamity, the warnings of the stars. Your reign heralds an age of darkness where the deathless bats feast supreme. It cannot end any quicker.”

“It will end quicker if we work together,” I pointed out.

“Indeed.” Inkarri’s tumi floated back as if disgusted by my mere existence. “It shall end tonight.”

I squinted and quickly cast a Veil spell around me. The more we spoke, the more I realized my words were wasted on Inkarri.

The Mallquis had already made up his mind

“We Sapa have tried to slay the emperors for countless moons,” Inkarri said. “No sorcery could put them down for good. The flesh can die, but so long as the soul remains chained, the Nightlords can always recreate a receptacle to house it. Their sleeping souls did not fall through the Land of the Dead Suns either... until now.”

“Killing me will change nothing,” I argued one last time, still hoping for a peaceful solution, “and cost you an asset.”

“I think not,” the Mallquis said. “If you die here, Tlacatecolotl, your soul shall be wiped clean from the Underworld. Not even the vampires’ wicked progenitor will be able to recover your extinguished Teyolia. Your vile spirit will cease to be, and your body will become an empty husk unfit for the altar. The Nightlords will be too busy trying to salvage this disaster to wage war on my people. The chain of sacrifice will finally shatter, and the vile empire on which it rests along with it.”

“Then it is settled,” the spider said. The drooling Tzahualli had clearly been struggling to hold back its hunger. “I shall feed on your still pulsing Teyolia.”

“Yes.” The tumi turned its attention back on me. “If you truly fight to end the Nightlords’ terror and return the light of hope to the world, wicked emperor, then offer thyself to nothingness.”

Calling upon the power within my Teyolia, I triggered the Doll spell and cloaked it in a Veil. Talons of darkness erupted from my chest, invisible to the eyes of the Tzahualli and tumi alike. The latter descended closer to me, its legs trembling with giddiness.

“How much?” I asked.

“How much?” the spider replied.

“How much did this ghost pay you for this dirty deed?” I asked, waiting for the assassin to come closer. “I’ll give you twice the amount if you eat him.”

The tumi let out a rattle. “Do not trust nor underestimate this foul villain,” he advised his chosen assassin. “He is a powerful warlock. Finish him off now.”

“Now, now, no need to rush anything,” the spider said. Unlike its employer, its arrogance blinded him to the danger ahead. “Do you have two divine Teyolias to offer, owl-fiend? Otherwise, I’m afraid no meal will satisfy my gourmet tastes better than your own hea—”

Invisible talons of darkness gutted it.

Thick yellow blood sprayed upon my feathers from above. A surprised gargle of pain followed, the Tzahualli desperately covering a gashing wound below its head with its spidery legs so as to not bleed out.

I had hoped to decapitate the monster in one swift stroke the same way I had torn my own guards in half earlier, but it was too big, too strong. The best I could do was distract it.

“Here is your answer, condor king,” I told the surprised tumi. “The very same I had given the Nightlords when they decided to sacrifice me.”

I immediately turned my Doll spell against the strands binding me. My shadow talons shredded them apart, freeing my body from its sticky chains. My wings flapped with the strength of a mighty gust that sent the tumi flying backward.

“I refuse.”

These two had made the same mistake as all the others. They had underestimated me.

The furious Tzahualli let out a roar and fell upon me with all its weight and mass. But now that I was no longer bound, I flew away more swiftly. Though every inch of the cavern’s walls was covered in web, I had enough space to maneuver.

“It is true, I do want the Nightlords to perish,” I said. “But I would rather live to see it.”

I would not die on anybody’s altar. Not a vampire’s, nor a spider’s. No one would feed on me. No one. I had no guarantee my death would end anything either. The Nightlords had six hundred years to refine their ritual. My demise might cause them some trouble, but I doubted that it would cause Yohuachanca to collapse on itself.

If I were to die, it would be on my own terms.

My resistance left the Mallquis unmoved. “You shall not survive that long,” he warned me before barking orders to his assassin. “Destroy him.”

“Gladly,” the Tzahualli rasped through the blood pouring from its fangs. It leapt at me with strength and speed belying its immense size. I avoided a fatal collision, but it managed to grab one of my talons with its dirty hands. Its claws closed on mine with a grip strong enough to shatter stone.

I was strong, but not enough to carry a beast thrice my size. The Tzahualli pushed us down towards the cave’s bottom, where it could hold me at its leisure. It tried to catch my wings with another of its hands the same way its kind’s dead spawn had tried to on my journey to Mictlan, its fangs out and ready to bite.

It might have worked had I not been training in using the Doll spell. My shadow talons stabbed the monster’s hand and severed it from its body. With no bird to hold onto, the spider fell to the bottom of its lair with a loud crash.

This creature is no sorcerer, I realized. It seemed unprepared for my spells. Of course it couldn’t be a warlock. Its kind had been banished from the Land of the Dead Suns and it never faced a foe that could fight back. The body is strong, but the mind is weak.

“If you had any bravery, coward, you would have come to fight me yourself!” I snarled at the tumi. “Or confronted the Nightlords before I forced your hand!”

“I do what I must so that my descendants may live,” the tumi replied while conveniently floating out of my reach. “Such is a Mallquis’ duty. To endure deathlessness for the sake of the living.”

How quick were immortals willing to sacrifice lives other than their own. I might be walking the same path, but at least I did not pretend to be more righteous than I was.

I ignored the tumi and focused back on the spider below. If Inkarri could intervene to support his assassin, he would have already.

“I have your scent, fool,” the Tzahualli said as it prepared to jump at me again. “No matter where you run, I shall track you.”

“Who said anything about running?” I replied.

I was done fleeing and hiding.

But to kill this creature’s body, I had to crush its spirit first.

To do that, I called upon the Veil spell and cloaked myself in a fresh memory. My feathers burned with illusory sulfur and darkness surged from my Teyolia. I pushed back against the weight of the monster’s disbelief to shock it with a vision of the creature I had seen in the Nightlords’ flame. When I opened my mouth, my spell changed my words into a dreadful curse.

Ģ̵̙̹̜͚͙͑͌̌̅̒̋́̎͘͘͝i̷̛͕̯̗̥̬̙̪̭͕̲͎̦̫͋̏́̐̈́͜ͅṿ̴̡̞̲͖̖̪͋̄͆̍̉̓̾̕͜͝͝ę̸̭̹̙̪̺̯̏̉̅̒̀̑͗̈́͐͊̋ ̵̢̏̈̂͑͌̎m̸̨͕͓̲̄̿͂͂́͘è̶̢̨̳͙̞̺̯̤͉͔͊̕͝͠ ̴̢̳̬̩̙̹͙̣͓͚̬̉́͛y̸̠͖̋̃͛̑̀́̿͌ȯ̷̢͍̰̳̯͎͎̰͓̓͒̍͆̃̿̔̔̍̏͝u̶̗͎̹̙̞̅̔̋̽̄̽̈́͆̇̿̔̚r̴̼̱̰̬̯̠̃̃̈͛͠ ̷̥͇̠̱̳̪̈́̒̍̈́͑̀̽͋͆̐̀̋͊͆͜͝ş̷̹͈͚̘̣͔͍̈́̂̏̍̐̏̈͊̓͗̋͠ͅͅo̴̜͓͚̠͖̺̬͈̺͕̼̳͎͈̅̈̔͆̓̒̀͂͐u̴̡͚̩͕̩̾̓̄̅͋̇̉̀͝l̷͚͐̐̇͒!̷̳̤̥̲̠͈̺̘̭̒̅̾́

Whereas I had faced a god without blinking, my foe did not show the same bravery.

The Tzahualli screeched in fear and turned its back on me. It rushed into a corner of the cavern, perhaps looking for a hole to crawl in.

That was the opening I waited for. I swooped in from above and tackled its back with all my strength and viciousness. My owl instincts, exacerbated by my divine heart-fire, guided my claws.

Unlike this foolish spider, I did not play with my food. The bird within me was a hunter, a stalker in the night.

I went straight for the kill.

The Tzahualli’s Teyolia shone within its arachnid thorax, protected by humanoid ribs. My Doll spell unleashed ephemeral talons that split them open with a fearsome crack. It was only now that I realized how strong the spell was in close combat. Once I focused my power and will, I could crush stone and bend metal. The power of my soul trumped many times what my own hands could achieve. The Tzahualli thrashed and fought back in despair, but I held on to him with persistence and cleaved his back apart.

His heart lay exposed to me.

Like a crow tearing out a piece of flesh from a corpse, my beak extracted the Teyolia from its receptacle. The Tzahualli screeched in pain and agony, its soulbound scream reverberating through its web. The cavern’s walls cracked and shattered like glass. Whatever totemic magic that held its existence in place came to an end.

The ground collapsed beneath us and we swiftly crashed onto a stand of fossilized bones. I heard hundreds of voices let out cries of fear and surprise while our impact raised a cloud of ashen dust. I flapped my wings to clear it, revealing familiar crowds of undead.

The Market of Years.

We had crashed through the frontier between worlds and manifested back where I had woken up. The tumi had vanished from sight. All that remained were its servant’s dead remains beneath my feet.

“Poor choice of assassin,” I whispered as the Teyolia I had captured dissipated on its own. Death had claimed this hunter.

The next one would be more dangerous.

This assassination attempt had clearly been a rushed job, a desperate measure to slay me before my armies could mobilize. Inkarri had sacrificed preparation for the sake of expediency, selecting a tool unfit for the challenge.

Though I relished in my victory, I knew it was mostly meaningless. Inkarri remained safely out of my reach and tonight’s debacle had cost him nothing. If anything, he had learned not to underestimate me anymore. He would make a second attempt. A deadlier one.

Mictlan was no longer my sanctuary.

I had to leave.