Obsidian & Blood

  Inside, all was the same: the musky darkness, with the copal incense covering a rank smell that might have been, unsurprisingly, mingled sweat and sex; the goddess shining in the gloom, lounging on Her chair.

  'Acatl,' She said, and even my name on Her lips was alluring.

  My fingers clenched around the handle of the cage. 'I've brought you what you asked for.'

  She smiled. One of Her hands went, absent-mindedly, to rub at Her eyes, and something glistening fell to the floor. A tear, perhaps? But gods didn't cry. 'And you thought you could just drop them on the floor and be done?'

  I had hoped, but known it wouldn't be enough. 'No,' I said.

  I laid the cage, the rattle and the wrapped jade earrings on the floor, and slowly divested myself of my cloak. Around my wrists hung bracelets of sea-shells: an odd feeling for me, since my usual worship did not include music. I tried to forget how foolish I looked – Neutemoc, I did this for Neutemoc – and slowly started singing the words of the hymn:

'You were born in Paradise

You come from the Place of Flowers

You, the only flower, the new, the glorious one

Dwelling in the House of Dawn, a new, a glorious flower…'

  As I sang, I moved my wrists, so that the clinking sounds of the sea-shells accompanied the words I uttered, filling the silences with their voice.

'Go forth to the dancing-place, to the place of water,

To the houses of Tamoanchan…'

  Xochiquetzal shifted on Her chair. Was it just my impression, or had She grown larger? Her eyes shone in the gloom, like those of a jaguar about to leap. And Her smile… Her smile was dazzling, revealing teeth as neat and as sharp as those of sharks.

'Hear the call of the quetzal bird, o youths,

Hear its flute along the river, o women,

Go forth to the dancing-place, to the place of water,

To the houses of Tamoanchan…'

  She'd risen from Her chair, was walking towards me, growing larger and larger with each step, until Her shadow entirely enfolded me – and She kept smiling: the same smile that sent a thrill running through me – fear or desire I didn't know, I couldn't separate them, it was all I could do to keep singing…

'Hear… it calling out to the gods…'

  And then She was by my side, kneeling to touch the cage of the quetzal birds. It burst apart in a shower of sparks, and the male ascended into the air, a streak of emerald-green and blood-red. It kept flying upwards, even though I knew it should have hit the rafters of the ceiling; but the room had changed, become vast and unknowable, its walls the dense undergrowth of the jungle, the dais a brackish pool, smelling of mud and fragrant herbs.

  At the apex of its flight, the male quetzal folded its wings and plummeted downwards, its long green tail streaming behind it like the unbound hair of a courtesan. It sang as it dived: a hollow, highpitched sound that seemed to meld with its descent, and that sent a thrill through my bones, as if I were the one courting the female, I the one with lust raging through my veins.

  The female bird, still on the ground, raised its eyes. At the last possible moment, the male broke out of the dive and came to perch on the remnants of the cage, cocking its head questioningly. The female made a quick, nodding movement. And, in a blur of green and blue they were upon each other, mating with the desperation of butterflies about to die.

  Nausea, harsh, unexpected, welled up in my throat. I turned my gaze away from the birds.

  The Quetzal Flower was back on Her dais, smiling. In Her hand were the jade earrings: she tossed them up and down, unheeding of the stone's fragility. 'An interesting display, Acatl.'

  The room hadn't reverted: we could still have been in the southern jungle, or in the Heaven of Tamoanchan, where all living things were born. The smell of muddy earth, mingling with the memory of copal incense, was overpowering.

  I said nothing. In the face of who She was, all my words had scattered. The jade earrings went clink-clink in Xochiquetzal's hands.

  'Tolerable, I might say. Certainly a step in the right direction.'

  It hurt to… Gather my thoughts, I had to gather my thoughts. 'You promised–'

  She inclined her head, gracefully. 'Did I? Only in exchange for proper worship.'

  'It – has – been – offered,' I managed to whisper.

  'Has it?' the Quetzal Flower asked. Her voice was sly. 'Other things are expected of a worshipper.'

  A wave of desire swept through me, so strong I had to bite my lips in order not to cry out. I wanted Her as I'd never wanted any woman, any of my childhood loves, there could be no refusing her.

  Was this, I thought, distantly, what Eleuia had had: some power that had drawn men to her like bees to honey?

  Eleuia.

  Neutemoc.

  There was no time, not to let myself be battered into submission. 'I gave – you – your due,' I said, my voice breaking on each word. I felt like a fish, swimming upriver; like a dead soul, climbing the Obsidian Mountains, shards driven in hands and feet, a burning desire to yield, to vanish into oblivion…

  Too easy.

  'Give me–'

  'Your answer?' Xochiquetzal sounded disappointed. 'You could have so much more, Acatl.'

  'No,' I whispered. 'I – haven't come – here for illusions – for bliss–'

  'Bliss is My dominion, Acatl,' the Quetzal Flower said. But She had shrunk, become more human, if such a