Sky Knife (28 page)

Sky Knife tumbled down the slope, scraping hands and knees on rough stone. The jaguar-skin cloak protected his back. He slid to a stop at the bottom, skinned but otherwise uninjured. A few rocks tumbled down after him and struck him in the legs. Sky Knife glanced around quickly. Surely someone had seen him, heard him.

But the farmers stared blankly in front of them, each appearing to be lost in his own thoughts. Sky Knife looked back up to the entrance to the passage. Bone Splinter peered down at him. Sky Knife waved and stood on shaky legs. Blood dripped from shallow scraped on his knees and forearms. Old scabs had been torn away. Some hung loosely along with small strips of skin. Sky Knife pulled them off. The wounds stung, but not badly.

Bone Splinter's descent was a little more graceful than Sky Knife's. The warrior lowered himself until only his fingertips supported him. He let go and dropped onto the debris. Bone Splinter half slid, half ran down the slope without ever losing his feet.

“Are you all right?” asked Bone Splinter.

Sky Knife nodded. “A little cut up, but nothing serious,” he said. He pointed toward the passage where Death Smoke and the farmer had disappeared. “There's where Death Smoke went. We'd better see what he's doing.”

Bone Splinter grunted. “Right,” he said. He glanced around. “But what about all these peasants? Will they give us away?”

Sky Knife walked to the nearest man and waved his hand in front of the man's face. The man did not react. Sky Knife pinched the man's forearm hard. Still nothing. The man breathed deeply and easily as if asleep.

“I think they're drugged or there's a spell on them,” said Sky Knife. “We can't help them now.”

Sky Knife stood and looked around the room. In the shade of the next boulder sat a small girl. Sky Knife walked by a peasant woman to get to the girl and knelt by her.

“What's your name?” he asked. He touched the girl's hair. She stared ahead of her blankly as the others had done.

Bone Splinter knelt on the other side of the girl. Sky Knife held the girl's hand briefly. It was cold, but Sky Knife felt a pulse in her wrist.

Bone Splinter put a massive hand over Sky Knife's and the girl's. “Whatever Death Smoke is doing, it means the death of these people,” he said. “You can smell it.”

Sky Knife nodded. The smell of blood he had noticed in the passage was nearly overwhelming down next to the floor. Mixed with it was the pungent smell of decay. Over everything was the rotten fruit smell of the temple glow.

“Death,” said Sky Knife, “would seem to have taken residence here. Perhaps that's why Cizin was in the acropolis—this place is his home.”

“At least for now it is,” said Bone Splinter. “Such a foul stench could only be pleasant to a foul creature like Cizin.”

Sky Knife stood and reluctantly left the girl in the shade of the boulder. He wanted to take her away, but in looking around the room, he saw many such little girls, and small boys as well. Each of them stared blankly. If Sky Knife was going to rescue them, he would have to rescue them all. That meant facing Stone Jaguar. And Death Smoke.

Sky Knife walked carefully to the opposite side of the room. The rubble made footing tricky. Occasionally, Sky Knife had to climb over a large rock. He left blood behind on each of them, though the bleeding was very slow. He sat down on a dog-sized rock and looked at his knees and elbows. Blood continued to seep out of his wounds.

“What's the matter?” asked Bone Splinter.

Sky Knife shook his head. “I don't know. These scrapes should have stopped bleeding by now.”

Bone Splinter knelt, grabbed Sky Knife's wrist, and examined the elbow. “What do you think it means.”

Sky Knife looked toward the passageway where Death Smoke had gone. “Perhaps it's because of all the sorcery.”

Bone Splinter released Sky Knife's wrist and stood up. Sky Knife stood up as well and continued toward the passageway.

Sky Knife stopped at the beginning of the passage. This passage was narrow and high, the top shrouded in darkness. No balls of blue and green lit the corridor; what light there was was provided by cavern behind them. Sky Knife's shadow stretched out ahead of him.

He stepped into the passageway, Bone Splinter just behind him. The glow from his serpent tattoo lit his way.

The corridor curved away slightly to the left. Although it looked flat, Sky Knife could feel the rise of a gentle slope as he walked.

Sky Knife had no idea how far he'd walked—one hundred yards? two hundred?—before the corridor widened out into a round room about twenty feet across. To his right, the narrow corridor continued.

Sky Knife stepped into the room and headed for the other opening in the walls.

“Wait,” said Bone Splinter.

Sky Knife turned to him. “What is it?”

Before Bone Splinter could answer, Sky Knife felt it, too. Although Sky Knife thought he could hear something, he felt the vibration more in his gut than heard it. The vibration spread through Sky Knife's body. The pain of his wounds receded, and his fear bled away.

Death Smoke entered the room from the opening on Sky Knife's right. He walked up to Sky Knife, peered into his face, and grunted. The older man's fetid breath swept by Sky Knife, but it didn't disgust him as it usually did. He felt terribly, unshakably calm. He couldn't remember ever feeling this way before.

It was wrong, though. Sky Knife fought to struggle, fought to remember at least a little fear, a little pain. But it was beyond him. Only the heavy burden of stillness lay on him.

“I knew you'd come,” said Death Smoke. The sound of the older man's voice slid into Sky Knife's mind like water. It dripped pleasantness and tranquility into his soul.

“Stone Jaguar said you wouldn't, but then, he's underestimated you from the start, hasn't he?” asked Death Smoke. “Saving the
chic-chac
—that was brilliant. Even now, after its death, it aids you.”

Sky Knife fought to open his mouth, but the muscles of his face remained stubbornly outside his control. Sky Knife knew he should ask Death Smoke all the questions he had. But as soon as he thought of anything, it slid away beyond his reach.

“It doesn't matter now, anyway,” said Death Smoke. He moved away, toward Bone Splinter. Sky Knife wanted to turn his head, to keep the older man in sight, but he couldn't move. “My spell holds you as it holds the farmers. Ignorant peasants that they are, they were easier to snare. But you are untrained and were unable to resist my spell for very long.”

Death Smoke walked back to the opening from which he'd come. “Come along,” he said.

Death Smoke walked away. Sky Knife's foot jerked forward and he took a step. Then another. And another. Awkwardly, but steadily, he made his way down the corridor.

At the end of the corridor, Death Smoke paused and glanced over his shoulder. “Once you see, you'll understand, Sky Knife,” he said. “Your death will aid the greater glory of Tikal.”

Death Smoke walked into another monstrously huge cavern lit by globes of blue and green fire high overhead. In the center of the room stood Stone Jaguar. He held a heart in his hands; before him, on an altar, lay the body of a man.

Light streaked from the heart around the cavern, but instead of rising to the heavens as usual, the light entered Stone Jaguar. Even through the terrible calm, Sky Knife felt a tinge of horror—Stone Jaguar did not offer the sacrifice to the gods. He kept it to himself.

Sky Knife stepped forward into the room unwillingly with a jerky step, right behind Death Smoke. The stench of blood and decay hit him all over again. Sky Knife wished he had control of his body so he could turn and run. Even under the spell, his gut twisted and Sky Knife felt like he might vomit.

When the light had faded, Stone Jaguar threw the heart behind him, where it joined others in a pile. Sky Knife stared at the quivering mass behind Stone Jaguar, his brain barely able to comprehend the meaning of it. The mass must represent hundreds of people, slaughtered on the altar to give power to Stone Jaguar and Death Smoke.

A single heart rolled off the pile and Sky Knife suddenly understood. The hearts were not dead—they lived. The heart at Stone Jaguar's feet continued to beat. Stone Jaguar picked it up and pitched it back onto the pile.

In the back of his mind, Sky Knife screamed.

31

Death Smoke descended the steps that led from the corridor to the floor of the cavern. Sky Knife followed helplessly. His skin crawled with the tingle of sorcery, but the feeling was vile, like the smell of fouled water.

At the bottom of the steps, Death Smoke strode easily forward around heaps of bodies, ignoring the way they jerked spasmodically. Death Smoke stepped on an arm of a young woman and her fist clenched as if in pain. Another arm, this one without a body, dug its nails into the rubble-strewn floor and crawled slowly out of Death Smoke's way. Sky Knife was suddenly glad he couldn't look around him. He could see more than enough without turning his head.

Stone Jaguar stood on the small pyramid in the center of the cavern. The man's face was ravaged with anger; his lips curled back into a snarl. He wore only a blue loincloth and a necklace of jade. Stone Jaguar stared at Sky Knife with such hatred, Sky Knife cringed despite Death Smoke's spell. The tingle of sorcery grew stronger until it thrummed along Sky Knife's skin from neck to ankles and made him want to scream.

Stone Jaguar motioned to two naked men who stood behind him. The men, blood-coated and bent over with weariness, came forward, picked up the corpse on the altar, and threw it off the side of the pyramid. The two men returned to their places without blinking or reacting to the sights in the cavern in any way.

A small ray of warmth lit Sky Knife's heart from the tattoo at his neck. The dreadful calm in his mind shifted just a little. Sky Knife tried to move his hands, but they were still beyond his control. At least now, he had a little hope that he would be able to free himself from Death Smoke's spell. But what about Bone Splinter? Sky Knife could not turn around to see the warrior, but he heard the big man walking behind him. Perhaps if Sky Knife could free himself, he would be able to help the other man.

Death Smoke continued walking toward the pyramid at the center of the cavern while Stone Jaguar's gaze never left Sky Knife. Finally, they arrived at the base of the structure.

“Come here,” commanded Stone Jaguar.

Sky Knife's legs took him up the nine steps to the top of the structure. His feet squelched in the layers of dried and almost-dried blood on the steps. Some of the blood slid between his toes. It was warm and slick.

Sky Knife's feet brought him halfway across the top of the pyramid, close enough to Stone Jaguar to touch him if his hands had been under his control.

“Pretentious boy,” growled Stone Jaguar. “First you wear four stripes of paint as if you were royal, and now you wear the cloak of the High Priest! I will be well rid of you.”

Another sliver of warmth crept into Sky Knife's heart. A healthy, warm feeling flowered in his chest and spread slowly to his shoulders. The sorcerous burden of calm relaxed a bit more.

Stone Jaguar reached out to grab the jaguar skin cloak, but it billowed up and back, out of his reach, as if a sudden wind had caught it. Sky Knife felt no breeze, only the awful tingle of sorcery against his skin.

Death Smoke laughed. The sound surprised Sky Knife, as it came from just behind him. He had not heard the other man come up the steps.

“I told you the cloak was no longer yours,” said Death Smoke. “If Sky Knife is allowed to touch it, it is the will of the gods.”

“What gods?” asked Stone Jaguar. “The gods of Tikal should be protecting me, not him. I am the one acting in their behalf. I am
Ah men
of Tikal.”

“Perhaps the gods see it differently,” said Death Smoke. “Or perhaps they have become too confused by the foreign influences in our city.”

Stone Jaguar stepped back. “I will have my cloak back,” he said. “Sky Knife will not wear it to his grave, confused gods or no.”

Sky Knife wanted to ask Stone Jaguar so many questions, but his lips and jaw remained fastened shut.

“You will never wear it again,” said Death Smoke. “I have seen it.”

“You were the one who saw your own death, yet here you are, younger and healthier than I've ever known you,” said Stone Jaguar. “Perhaps your sight is what is confused.”

As the other men bickered, Sky Knife concentrated on his hands. Slowly, so slowly, he found he could twitch his fingers. He took a deep breath and a tendril of fear swept back into his mind. Sky Knife could have cried with relief.

“The time draws near,” said Death Smoke.

“Oh, shut up, old man,” said Stone Jaguar.

“Be careful what you say to me,” whispered Death Smoke. “You could not have done all this without me. It was I who drew the farmers here for you to sacrifice. You have made nothing but mistakes. You called Cizin—and cannot now drive him away. You thought Sky Knife was no threat, yet here he is.”

“He is under your power,” said Stone Jaguar. “So he is no threat.”

“But he got here,” insisted Death Smoke. “He should not have been able to come so far without training. And you could not even kill him when you had the chance.”

“It is just as well. He can die on my altar tonight. And don't forget your clumsy attempt to poison him. Drinking the water of the pool, a test of a priest—bah.”

“What about you?” shouted Death Smoke. “You threw a rock! You,
Ah men
and
Ah nacom
of Tikal, threw a rock at a boy.”

Sky Knife made a fist carefully and flexed his toes. The warmth from his tattoo had spread over his entire body and into his mind. Sky Knife fought to keep his revulsion at the sights in the cavern from showing on his face.