“Taat Niente?” Father Niente.
The query was accompanied by a touch on his shoulder that broke his concentration, and Niente grudgingly lifted his head from the futures swimming in the bowl’s waters. The emerald light illuminating his face faded with the spell’s passing, and his soul returned to the city with a shudder. He was standing atop the Teocalli Axat, the high, stepped pyramid that was the temple of the moon-god Axat. The Teocalli Axat wasn’t the highest structure in the city-that honor belonged to the Calli Tecuhtli, the House of the King, though the Teocalli Sakal, the sun-god’s temple, was only a few spans lower. Still, from the summit on which Niente stood, all of Tlaxcala was laid out before him: the canals that served as streets glistening straight as spears and crowded with acal, the small, paddled watercraft used for transportation within the island city; the huge plazas bustling with people on their unguessed errands; the market with its thousands of stalls. Beyond the market rose the Calli Tecuhtli, its facade decorated with the bleached skulls of vanquished warriors. Out beyond the city and the lake in which it sat, the great valley was ringed by snow-capped peaks, with a trail of fuming ash wind-smeared across the summit of the volcano Poctlitepetl and its neighboring mountains. The sun had already slid behind the slopes though the western sky was still ablaze, the flanks of the lower clouds touched with the colors of burning while the east was a deep purple in which the first stars glimmered.
The magnificent view from the summit of Teocalli Axat never failed to stir Niente, never failed to make his heart beat harder in his chest. He loved this land. His land. And he was grateful to Axat for giving him hope that it could become the seat of a greater empire yet.
“Taat?” Father.
He turned finally to the young man, panting from his long climb up the steps of the temple, his arms crossed over his chest-Niente’s son. “I hear you, Atl,” he said. “It’s later than I thought. I’m sorry. Did Xaria send you?”
Atl grinned at him. “Na’ Xaria says if you don’t get home soon, she’ll throw your supper to the dogs and you can fight them for it. She also said that you’d be sleeping with the dogs as well.”
Niente smiled in return. The expression pulled at the scars of his face. He knew what that face looked like, knew what his decades of casting Axat’s spells and peering into the scrying bowl had cost him, as it had cost every nahualli who utilized Her power so deeply. His left eye was a white, blind horror, his mouth sagged on that side also, as if his flesh had melted there. Ridged, hard scars furrowed his face and body; his muscles wobbled in sacks of skin as if they had shriveled inside him. He appeared at least two hands of years older than he was.
But none of the other nahualli would dare to challenge him and try to wrest the title of Nahual from him. No. He was the famous Nahual Niente, whose spells had driven the army of the Easterners from their cousins’ land along the coast, who had accompanied Tecuhtli Zolin across the Great Sea to the Easterners’ land, the empire of the Holdings, who had burned their great capital city, and who had warned Tecuhtli Zolin of the consequences of his pride even when the Tecuhtli had refused to listen to him. He was Nahual Niente, who with Tecuhtli Citlali had razed the last Easterners’ fortress in the Hellins-the city of Tobarro-to the ground and ended the Holdings’ occupation of the Hellins forever.
He was Nahual Niente whose fame approached and even exceeded that of the great Mahri.
No, the nahualli were content to let Axat take Niente when She would. They were content to watch his body burn slowly away at her bidding, a little bit each day. The nahualli who might want his title were content to be patient, to wait.
Even his own son, who was also one of the nahualli.
Niente rubbed the golden bracelet around his right forearm: the sigil of the Nahual. Atop the teocalli, the youngest nahualli were lighting the oil cauldrons which would burn all night. They inclined their heads to Niente-“Good evening to you, Nahual Niente!” they cried, and he could almost believe the sincerity in their voices. The cauldrons were already lit on the other teocaltin of the city and atop the Calli Tecuhtli. All over the city, lanterns clawed at the night. Tlaxcala glowed yellow in the darkness of the valley, a city that never slept.
Niente slapped Atl on the shoulder. At two hands of age, his son had an athlete’s body, and though he was trained as a nahualli, he could as easily have entered the warrior caste. “Let’s get home,” Niente said to him. “I’m hungry enough to eat those dogs if they get in the way.”
He threw the water from the bowl onto the stones and wiped the brass with the hem of his robe. He slipped the bowl into its leather pouch and slung it around his neck. The two started down the long, steep staircase, Niente moving carefully and noting that Atl stayed close to his elbow. Had Atl been any other of the nahualli, he might have been insulted, but he was glad for Atl’s attentiveness.
As they descended, Niente saw a young man in the blue garb of the Tecuhtli’s staff hurrying up the stairs toward them-one of the Tecuhtli’s pages. Niente paused, letting the boy approach. The page bowed, prostrate on the narrow stone steps, at Niente’s feet. “Up,” Niente told him. “What’s your message?”
“The Tecuhtli requests your presence, Nahual.”
Niente laughed aloud at that, which startled the boy. “I guess the dogs will be well fed tonight,” he said to Atl. “Tell your Na’ Xaria that it’s the Tecuhtli’s fault, not mine.”
The Calli Tecuhtli was in the next calpulli, the neighborhoods into which the city was subdivided by the canals and large boulevards. Niente followed the page along the terra cotta flank of one of the aqueducts that provided fresh water to the city-the waters of Lake Ixtapatl being rather brackish-and over one of the many arching bridges of the island city to the plaza before Calli Tecuhtli. Ahead of him, the pyramid of the Calli rose like Poctlitepetl itself, its summit also smoking, not with ash and lava but with the fires of oil cauldrons. The plaza was bustling with people: visitors from the other cities come to see the glory of the capital Tlaxcala; citizens petitioning one or another of the innumerable bureaucrats who actually ran the city; scarred and tattooed High Warriors who served the Tecuhtli. All of them stepped aside before Niente with inclined heads and muttered greetings as he followed the page up the steps. At the third level of the pyramid, the page stopped, leading Niente to a curtained alcove a little way down. He tapped on the call drum outside and lifted the thick, woven tapestry, gesturing to Niente to enter.
The room-the outermost room of the Tecuhtli’s apartments-was lavish. The walls were brightly painted with figures of birds of prey and solemn warriors. Warm woven rugs covered the floor. Citlali sat in a carved wooden chair cushioned with many pillows, a table with several dishes steaming in front of him. “Ah, Nahual Niente. Sit. Eat with me; no doubt poor Xaria has already given up on you for supper.”
The red-dyed tattoo of an eagle, the insignia of the Tecuhtli, seemed to wriggle on Citlali’s wide, shaved head as he spoke. He gestured to a chair set on the other side of the table. “Thank you, Tecuhtli,” Niente told him, sinking into the chair with a sigh. “I’m afraid I forget the time too easily.”
“You look more tired than usual.”
“I am,” Niente admitted. “Axat is a hard taskmaster, and She doesn’t care what happens to Her servant.”
“And what did you see in the scrying bowl today?”
Niente leaned forward and lifted a cover from one of the dishes. He took a flat corn cake and slathered meat on it, folding it over. He gnawed at it hungrily. The battle raging in the waters of the scrying bowl… The strange architecture of the buildings… The enemy in their steel and shields… The blood, the fire, the death… And the long path of peace… And the cost of that Long Path; he knew that also. “I saw enough,” he said as he swallowed, “to guess why you’ve asked me here, Tecuhtli.” He sighed. “I don’t look forward to crossing the Lesser Sea again.”