Blood & Fur

Chapter Twenty-Five: Mother & Son

Chapter Twenty-Five: Mother & Son

Ash rained relentlessly upon Tlalocan, each flake burning as if it came straight out of the oven.

The Land of the Dead Suns’ second layer was even more sterile and lifeless than the first. Mictlan had been an unliving city of the dead bustling with activity. The marshes and lakes of tears surrounding it had been gloomy, but hospitable enough for lost souls to travel through.

I could hardly believe any form of life or unlife could survive long in Tlalocan as I observed it from above. Vast volcanic wastelands of fine pumice, pulverized glass, and soot-buried ruined cities covered a smoldering landscape. What the cinders didn’t coat like mountain peak snow, raging flames consumed. The sky rained fire and the land churned smoke through great stone pits and sundered mountains. The wind howled as it carried the heavy smell of sulfur and burning flesh.

None of the layer’s hazards touched me above the clouds. Flames and cinders alike slid over my blue-painted feathers and the mask of Tlaloc I carried on top of my owl face. These symbols protected me from the wrath of the layer’s angry, jealous sun... for now at least. The carrying frame weighed heavily on my back. Even in my Tonalli form, its heavy load slowed down my flight considerably.

My mother showed none of my issues. She did not need paint and a disguise to protect herself from the rain of ash. It bothered me greatly until I used the Gaze spell. When sunlight poured out of my eyes to reveal the hidden and the invisible, I noticed a very subtle detail about my mother: a current of air swirled around her talons and feathers, so close to her I could hardly notice it with the naked eye. That wind coated her body like a protective cloth, repelling the fading flames and ash.

“What do you carry?” Mother asked me as we flew. “It must be precious for you to bring such cumbersome cargo.”

I hesitated to answer truthfully. I did not trust my mother yet, and I doubted I ever would. She clearly lived up to her reputation as a criminal and spirit thief. I only followed her because she possessed the knowledge I needed, and because I wanted to confirm my father’s survival. I couldn’t trust her with the First Emperor’s codex, let alone the urn that the goddess Chalchiuhtlicue asked me to deliver to her husband Tlaloc.

A silence settled between us, which my mother swiftly broke. “It is best that you do not bring your package into Xibalba proper,” she warned me. “If it is so precious that you will not share its content with your own blood, then the twelve Lords of Terror would delight in using it against you.”

“The Lords of Terror?” I’d read about them in the First Emperor’s codex. “They are the demonic masters of Xibalba, are they not?”

“They are its masters and its prisoners both,” Mother replied with a short nod. “Those primordial nightmares have existed in one form or another since mortals first experienced fear. They taught me a great many things.”

“But you do not trust them,” I guessed.

“Trust is for fools. Do not bring anything to Xibalba that you might lose or see turned against you. The Lords test the strong and drag the weak to hell.” Mother looked forward to the horizon. “Everyone can enter Xibalba, but only the truest of the brave can escape it. For most mortals, it is hell. For a sorcerer, it will be a training ground. Once you pass the Lords’ trials and win your freedom, then you will be ready to conquer Tlalocan and meet with its master. You will leave the House of Fright as a powerful sorcerer, or not at all.”

A powerful sorcerer...

My mother clearly possessed greater sorcery than me from her years of experience. Still, a doubt kept gnawing at me. If she possessed the kind of magic I needed to take down the Nightlords, why hadn’t she confronted them herself yet? Why would she rather hide than fight?

I could only see two reasons. The first was that all the power in the world wouldn’t guarantee success against the Nightlords; a prospect I tried very much not to think of. The second option was that she simply didn’t care enough to make an effort to overthrow them, even with my life on the line.

I didn’t know which option I liked the least.

“How does that spell protecting you work?” I asked Mother after canceling my Gaze spell. I’d better fish for information as soon as possible. “You seem to command the wind itself.”

“This spell is called the Cloak, my son,” she replied. “An Ihiyotl defensive spell born of the Ehecatl wind.”

“The Ehecatl?” That was the patronym given to those born under the auspices of the Wind month, like me. My name Iztac Ce Ehecatl literally meant ‘the white born on the first day of the wind.’ This system allowed priests and soothsayers to make predictions based on birth. “Not the Yaotzin?”

“The Yaotzin draws its power from the curses of humanity,” my mother replied. “The Ehecatl is born from its thanks and blessings.”

In this world, every force begets its opposite, I thought as I remembered the red-eyed priests’ old lessons. Male and female, light and day, blessing and curse. Where Quetzalcoatl whispers to kings who govern with a just heart, Tezcatlipoca encourages the slaves to rebel in freedom’s name. Where Xipe Totec taught man how to cultivate the earth, Huitzilopochtli told mortals how to master fire.

Perhaps those false priests could speak the truth now and then.

“That wind never whispered to me.” How wonderful it would have been to hear it. All I ever listened to were threats, tales of sorrow, and cryptic prophecies.

“Because it is weak.” My mother let out a snort. “Gratitude is rare, while anger is plentiful.”

No matter how sad it sounded, I didn’t argue with her. I had learned that lesson from experience.

A lesson that my mother had apparently put me through willingly, leaving me at the mercy of Necahual and fools who hated me on sight for how I looked. I could have forgiven her for running away from the Nightlords—many nights spent in their company had taught me to fear and loath them both—but leaving me and Father behind? That I could not get past. Nor the fact she had only bothered to contact me again after I had awakened my owl-totem. I had the very distinct impression she wouldn’t have cared half as much if I hadn’t been a Nahualli.

My mother Ichtaca was not a nice person. Our very meeting earlier had made that clear. If I had any illusion that she might have hidden a good heart beneath those black feathers, I now stood corrected.

But for all her coldness and twisted ideas of parenthood... She remained my birth mother and a witch of great power. The moment she gave me details about that Cloak power, I immediately sought to make it mine. The flame within my heart desired more spells, more magic to use against the Nightlords.

“What spells do you know?” my mother asked me.

My hunger for knowledge must have shown in my body language. “Spiritual Manifestation, the Doll, the Veil, the Gaze, and the Augury.”

My mother paused for a short instant, the silence only broken by the noise of distant thunder and eruptions. “To learn five spells in a week’s time is nothing short of astonishing,” she said, “but insufficient to take on any of the Nightlords. We will need to follow through with an intense training regime if you are to survive the year.”

I snorted. Her words reeked of condescension. “I wouldn’t have been in such a position if you had been willing to teach me earlier.”

“And how?” My mother looked over her wingspan, her blue eyes meeting mine. “A Tlacatecolotl only awakens in those who taste death. Would you have preferred that I try to drown you in the crib in the hope you would survive with powers?”

“It would have beat stabbing myself in the chest.” I matched her gaze as we passed through a sulfurous cloud. “How did you even awaken your totem yourself?”

She turned away from me to stare at the landscape ahead. “By being strangled when I was six.”

Her cold words took the wind out of my sails.

My mother did not elaborate further, her gaze set on the journey ahead. Her comment alone spoke more than any speech.

My father hadn’t told me much about his wife even when he was alive. I’d only learned details from him, Guatemoc, and other villagers. That she was a witch from another place than Acampa and who settled there after marrying my father, but not much else. No one would tell me how they even met.

Now that I knew my mother to be a Nahualli, a dark picture easily formed in my mind. The soothsayer who oversaw my birth considered me cursed, but she also forbade everyone from harming and killing me for fear of unleashing the evil within me onto the world.

However, I knew for a fact some people in Acampa wouldn’t have minded seeing me exiled or watching me perish, though they never dared to take matters into their own hands. They certainly didn’t help me eat during the drought. Those cowards probably believed the curse would only apply to them if they slew me personally.

My mother probably received a similar prophecy in her youth... and faced madder fools than those who lived in Acampa.

A terrible noise drew me out of my thoughts; a deep, mighty screech cutting through the sound of distant thunder and earth-shattering stones. I glanced around in search of its source, but I could only see fire clouds.

“Down,” my mother said, pointing at a dust-filled ravine below. “We need to take cover.”

“Wouldn’t it invite the Burned Men to hunt us?” I asked. “Unless they can fly?”

“They cannot,” my mother conceded, “but their dead gods can.”

She dived toward the ground before I could ask for more details. I briefly hesitated to follow after her until I heard the screech again, louder, closer. Whatever creature made the sound seemed to have picked up on our presence.

I’d been warned by both Mictlan’s inhabitants and the First Emperor’s codex that greater terrors than Burned Men haunted Tlalocan. Ancient spirits of the old world who had perished in Tlaloc’s flames or great terrors that were buried underground by King Mictlantecuhtli so they would not prey on the dead’s souls.

Could one of these entities be after us?

Having recently survived a tussle with a spider-totem eager to eat my soul, I was in no hurry to confront another challenge. I followed after my mother as we descended closer to the ground. We passed by the petrified remains of calcified forests and descended into a dry canyon of old craggy stones. How many centuries had they spent battered by the wind and ashes? Hundreds? Thousands?

Whatever the case, the whole place was coated in ash now. As strange as it sounded, the closer we approached the ravine, the quieter the noise became. The cinders seemed to smother every sound coming their way.

My mother found a jagged hole in the canyon wall wide enough for us to enter; the remains of a cave that hadn’t been entirely obstructed. She landed first and retook her humanoid form before taking cover inside. I swiftly imitated her. The cavity was roughly large enough for three men to venture into, its dark walls were covered in hardened volcanic rock. A few old inscriptions and paintings were carved into their surface.

“Stay on your guard,” my mother warned me. “The Burned Men usually live underground. This tunnel might lead to one of their hideouts.”

I guessed as much from the cave paintings. This place had been inhabited, and might still be for all we knew. I activated my Gaze and swiftly illuminated the tunnel. It went on and on into the canyon’s depths, far beyond what my light could reach.

The noise outside continued to strengthen. Its source had to be less than a mile away from the canyon.

“What are we hiding from?” I asked my mother. If only my Veil spell worked under Tlaloc’s sun, we could have turned invisible and hidden better.

“Azcatlapalli,” she replied while being careful to stay in our hole’s shadows. “See for yourself.”

I dared to move near the hole’s edge to peek at our pursuer. Its shadowy wingspan passed over the canyon and briefly obscured Tlaloc’s sun. At first, I thought the creature was simply so high in the sky that my mind played a trick on me... but the longer I observed, the more I felt in awe of its immense size.

The... bird—if one could call that thing a bird—was large enough to carry an adult longneck within its talons. If the creature once had feathers, the flames of Tlalocan had burned them away long ago, leaving only festering flames and flayed burned flesh caked in smoldering ash. Its translucent wings reminded me of that of a bat, except each was long enough to cover an entire district. A backward-sweeping crescent of flesh adorned its skeletal head alongside a massive beak and two burned black eyes filled with seething hatred. Smoke arose from its ribcage like the last remains of a dead fire; I saw no flames burning within, no Teyolia to fuel that undying cadaver.

Only malice kept it moving.

“Father?” It surprised me to hear him mentioned in my mother’s plans.

“Why do you think I took his soul with me when I fled Mictlan?” Mother glanced at the sunlight peeking through the hole. Our pursuer was still out there, waiting for us. “I hoped to revive his Teyolia in the Land of the Dead Suns and give him a chance at ascension. So far I have had little success. The Underworld cannot birth new life.”

I mulled over what she said. I always assumed Mother moved on from Father after abandoning us; that she had found another family to replace us with. Assuming she wasn’t lying, then she had been waiting for him to die so they could reunite here in the Underworld. I struggled to reconcile this information with the rather poor image I had formed of her.

Abducting your dead husband’s soul so they could both undergo a dangerous journey to become gods sounded almost romantic...

“Do you love him?” I asked softly. “Father?”

“Yes,” Mother replied without hesitation. “As much as I love you.”

She meant it as reassurance, I took it as a warning. I truly needed to check on my father’s soul as soon as possible.

“Why do you want us to become gods?” I asked her. “So we would no longer need to fear the Nightlords?”

“In a way,” Mother confirmed. “Once we stand at the top of the world, no one can harm us. We will no longer have to fear death or slavery. We will no longer be subject to this universe’s rules, for we will write them. Power is freedom, my son. Freedom from fear.”

I nodded sharply. Her motive didn’t differ much from mine. It was a terrible thing to be weak, to see your life at the mercy of someone stronger than you. My mother might lack the chains binding my soul, but the threat of the Nightlords ruled her heart all the same.

I could only hope neither of us would transform into their abominable progenitor.

“You said you saw the First Emperor,” Mother said, changing the subject. “When?”

“Shouldn’t you know, if you have been using the Yaotzin to keep tabs on me?”

“I want to hear the details from your own mouth.”

After a moment’s hesitation, I recounted what happened last night to her. At this point, I needed any help I could get to sabotage the ritual. If Mother was genuine in her desire to help, now was the time to prove it.

My mother listened to my tale in silence. Though she kept her composure, I caught a hint of tension in her body language. She feared the Nightlords’ ritual as much as the gods themselves.

“Queen Mictecacihuatl is correct, the Nightlords likely intend to reshape reality through their ritual,” she said. “However, I do not think they intend to drain the current sun of its strength. Instead, I suspect they wish to replace it.”

I squinted. “To replace it?”

“Think about it, my son. The Nightlords have spent over six centuries convincing their empire that their father had become the sun in the sky. They repeated the New Fire Ceremony at each year’s end, retelling the lie over, and over, and over again. The rehearsals are over, and the play will unfold when the universe itself is likely to believe in it.”

It took me a moment to connect the dots, and a chill traveled down my spine when I did. I remembered Queen Mictecacihuatl’s warnings that the cosmos was at its most malleable at the end of a fifty-two year cycle. The power of magic and chaos reached its apex then.

“They want to turn the lie into truth,” I realized, horrified by the scale of the vampires’ ambition. “They want to place their progenitor in the sky as the new fifth sun.”

My mother nodded. “No sorcerer has ever attempted a ritual so complex and powerful. But it has a chance of succeeding, which is all that matters.”

“Why?” I whispered. “What would they gain from it?”

“I cannot say for certain, but if my hypothesis is correct...” Mother joined her hands together, her gaze utterly focused. “First of all, it would cause their progenitor to feed on the souls of the dead. Anyone perishing will have their Teyolia consumed by the sulfur sun. Such a buffer of life may very well keep the First Emperor’s hunger sated.”

A process which, considering how the vampire curse worked, likely meant that mortal souls would not pass on to the Underworld anymore. A vampire god’s belly would become the new afterlife for all living beings.

“Letting their progenitor usurp the sun will likely grant the Nightlords immense power,” my mother continued her explanation. “Vampirism will become a cosmic keystone, and all those affected by it will share in the bounty. Moreover, a sulfur sun fueled by their progenitor might not burn them like the current one does.”

“The day will no longer offer sanctuary to the living,” I guessed. A prospect that angered me almost as much as the afterlife’s destruction. The very thought of these parasites parading under the sun they once crawled away from disgusted me.

Worse, it meant the vampires would shed their only known weakness. They would no longer need fallible priests and servants to operate in the sunlight. They would become unstoppable, and the world would know eternal terror days and nights.

Not on my watch.

I couldn’t resist taunting more. “Do you think the Nightlords are no longer a long term problem?”

“I have flown into that one, have I?” Mother’s jaw clenched in frustration. “I will admit that I find this development... concerning.”

What a gentle understatement when faced with a potentially sun-shattering calamity. “Then do you have any idea how I can extinguish their sulfur flame?”

“You can’t,” Mother replied dryly, “But you won’t need to. A powerful ritual is akin to a play. It requires actors, props, and a stage. All must play their role to perfection. If any element is disrupted, then the ritual fails.”

“The Nightlords and I are the actors,” I summarized. “The sulfur flame is the prop, and Smoke Mountain is the stage.”

I could read between the lines: if I couldn’t destroy the flame, then I ought to sabotage another aspect of the ritual.

“The Nightlords won’t let you interfere with their prized flame, and they will force you to play your part whether you like it or not,” Mother stated. “However, securing the world’s largest volcano is harder than preventing a single flame from dying out. You will have an easier time sabotaging the stage itself, so that it crumbles beneath the actors before the ceremony can reach its apex.”

I laughed at her absurd suggestion. “And how am I supposed to destroy a mountain?”

“You don’t,” Mother replied. “Have you heard of the Curse?”

I shook my head. “I have heard of curses, but from your wording I assume it is a unique spell?”

“The kind only a Tlacatecolotl can perform,” she confirmed. “Owls are doom’s messengers. By temporarily binding your Tonalli to an individual, you invite calamity to strike them. The ground crumbles under their feet. Their house collapses. Accidents become frequent. Their children sicken and die. The Curse takes and takes, until death comes as a mercy.”

The idea of cursing vampires with bad luck immediately appealed to me. “I assume it won’t affect the Nightlords?”

“I doubt it will,” Mother confirmed, much to my chagrin. “Their magical defenses surpass your current stage of power. However... there is always a loophole to exploit.”

Mother grabbed a black feather from her owl mask. Blackened flames coursed through its vane and stained it with malice. She then planted it on the ground like a cursed flagpole.

“The Haunt is a more powerful version of the Curse that targets a location rather than an individual,” Mother explained. “By marking an area with your Tonalli, you curse the very land to suffer from doom and calamities. It won’t matter if you cannot arm the actors if the stage itself collapses on them.”

My eyes widened in astonishment as her mad plan became clear to me. “You want me to curse all of Smoke Mountain?”

“Not for long, and not all of it.” A verbose way to say ‘yes.’ “The Haunt’s duration depends on multiple factors. The size of the area, its thematic resonance with death and doom... What you need is to trigger the curse on the New Fire Ceremony’s eve, to stain it with calamity. Then all that can go wrong for those performing the ritual will.”

I clenched my fists. “I will be performing the ritual.”

“The Haunt’s curse will not affect its caster,” Mother replied. “But I won’t lie. There will be terrible consequences that I cannot predict for many, many people. The ritual’s failure will induce an equally terrible backlash.”

I meditated on her words. I could see the blood written on the walls. The Nightlords’ six-hundred year long ritual was meant to alter the cosmos itself. Its backlash might mean anything from natural disasters to something equally calamitous. I had no way of predicting the consequences; only that they would be catastrophic.

However... The alternative meant letting the Nightlords reshape reality itself in their own image. It meant the destruction of all mortals’ afterlives and the start of a dreadful era where vampires ruled supreme. I could hardly imagine anything worse short of extinguishing the Fifth Sun, and even then the dead’s souls would pass on to Mictlan.

While I hoped to find a less drastic solution to sabotaging the ritual, if all else failed... if all else failed, I had to consider that alternative.

Besides, while it sounded callous, a calamity befalling Yohuachanca on the onset of a major war with the Sapa would serve my purpose well. It might force the Nightlords to expose themselves on the frontline to reassure their living and undead followers alike.

“How must I proceed?” I questioned my mother.

“You will need to mark Smoke Mountain with your Tonalli’s feathers,” she explained. So far so good. “Moreover, to increase your odds, you should perform a counter-ritual. A series of actions aimed at symbolically striking against its actors that will strengthen the curse.”

“You mean the Nightlords?” I remembered Queen Mictecacihuatl’s warning that symbolic representations of a god could affect the real deal. I assumed the Haunt worked in a similar way. “So I must, what, destroy statues of them? Burn dolls made in their image?”

“Usually, yes.” Mother’s expression darkened. “However, considering the Nightlords’ power and the scale of their ritual, the curse will demand greater effort.”

A shiver traveled down my spine as I realized what kind of price could pay for my foes’ demise. The only price that death magic hungered for.

“You will need living dolls.” Mother’s blue eyes flickered in the dark. “You will need sacrifices.”