Tobias Buckell - Ragamuffin

Jerome stood up and walked over to Thomas.

Thomas turned. “Yes?”

“I’m going to leave before it get too dark.”

“Damn it Jerome, already?”

“Thomas…” I ain’t you friend, he wanted to say. But stopped. They were both in their twenties. Jerome here because of his father’s heroic status. Thomas because he was the oldest government man in Grammalton after the Azteca passed through. Neither of them would live up to the responsibilities put on them. John’s father was an old-father, one of the original settlers of Nanagada hundreds of years ago, near immortal due to strange, tiny machines in him from before the wars that destroyed all such things and left them stranded on this planet.

And Jerome was just Jerome.

“Don’t worry. I understand, you know. I understand.” Thomas looked out across the crowd and jerked his head. Two mongoose-men in gray uniforms walked over. They carried holstered guns at their waists, but not their famed rifles.

“Bed already?” one of them chuckled.

Jerome nodded. They took their positions at either side and walked him up the road along the flickering torches that were just being started up by runners along the many roads. The torchlight flickered by their faces, and they stared at him as they ran by.

He didn’t belong here.

Jerome tossed and turned in his bed, skimming just over the edge of a deeper sleep. He sat up finally, disturbed by some noise outside, and mopped sweat from his forehead with his sheet.

In the still air a steady thunder shook the windows.

The mongoose-man by his door came in. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” Jerome walked forward and opened the heavy wooden windows.

“You need leave them shut, in case,” the mongoose-man warned him.

Jerome looked out across the tiny flickering lights of lit torches at the sky, trying to see if there were any clouds.

None.

But the thundering increased. A trail of fire glowed white-hot in the sky as it crossed the far horizon and approached.

“What that?”

Jerome shook his head. “I don’t know.”

They watched it grow closer, the white-hot glow lighting up the night sky as it approached.

It couldn’t be a sign of anything good.

Jerome snagged mongoose-men khaki from one of the men his own size, his movements hurried.

“We all know what things returning from the sky go mean to the Azteca,” he said as he dressed. “Some of them go think Teotl returning to the earth from the sky.”

“But is it true?”

“Who know?” Jerome looked around the small house they all had shared for the last week. Eight mongoose-men, four of them dressed and at guard, the other four he’d woken up. “But that no meteor, coming in too slow, burning too long.”

“Clot,” someone swore.

“I know.” Jerome pointed at the dressed and armed men. “Get back to the party, bring all of everyone back, quick now. The rest of you, get ready and get you rifles ready.”

They stood still. “We think—”

“How many you all know what come out the sky just then?” Jerome asked. “None of you? Okay then, until any of we all know better, you best had move!”

“Okay, Jerome.” The four turned and took off.

“The rest of you all, get dress. Then we getting ready to board this place all up.”

“With what wood?”

Jerome looked down at the floor. “This nice hardwood plank right under we feet.”

The house was a small island in an ocean of danger. Jerome looked out of the windows into the flickering gas lamps of the Azteca city, then moved a bit until he could see the flattened top of the massive stone pyramid at the heart of the city.

Torches leapt to fire at the pyramid’s top. An ordinary but still chilling omen. Jerome walked over to one of the chests the mongoose-men had dragged all the way from Capitol City. Several rifles lay nestled in a bed of straw.

He picked one up, checked the bolt, and grabbed a box of ammunition.

“Careful with that,” a mongoose-man with a close-shaved head said, buttoning up his shirt and coming down the stairs.

“I know how to use this.”

“You jumpy.”

“I got reason. We go need to board up the window them, and then the door. If Teotl come from the sky, we go be ready.”

The mongoose-man laughed. “That an old bush legend.”

“You saw my father land from the sky in Capitol City in he flying machine, right?” Jerome spat. “You were in the city, right?”

The mongoose-man nodded. “Yeah.”

“Then don’t be no chucklehead. When the Teotl land, it go be in machine just like my father flew.”

Footsteps outside. Jerome walked backward to the side of the door. He loaded the rifle and waved the mongoose-man to the kitchen.

A man burst in. Jerome swung the rifle up and almost shot him before recognizing Thomas.

“Clot! Man, I almost shoot you.”

“Jerome.” Thomas reached over and pushed the gun barrel away.

“What going on?” Jerome asked.

“The fire just hanging over the city. A whole lot of bright lights.” Thomas wiped his forehead on his sleeve. “I ran all the way here, people saying the chariot of the gods landing in the city.”

“The Teotl.” Jerome looked around the house.

“They saying that.” Thomas grabbed him. “Xippilli say to stay put, he go send help.”

“Maybe, but even Xippilli go be in fight to save he own skin,” Jerome said. “The old priests, they go come out the walls now.”

After some thuds and the sound of ripping, the mongoose-man in the kitchen came back out holding several planks of wood. “Board it all up?”

“What you name?” Jerome asked him.

“Bruce Passey.”

“Mr. Passey, get every way into this house nail shut.” Jerome looked back at the tiny pricks of fire dancing over the rim of the sacrificial pyramid. He’d go down fighting rather than get dragged up those bloodied steps.

Xippilli had sat with the pipiltin and listened to the chatter of conversation flow around the table. The older pipiltin, such as the thin, scarred Ahexotl, had ignored the Nanagadans. Xippilli made a point by sitting near the man.

Since running for election in Capitol City and losing, Xippilli had turned to trade and business. His airships crossed the Wicked High Mountains to build a healthy flow of trade between Aztlan and Nanagada, but it was a trickle compared to the trade that could happen.

“That young nopuluca ,” Ahexotl said, leaning over and grabbing Xippilli’s shoulder. Xippilli had mastered his distaste at the older pipiltin using derogatory terms for Nanagadans. “The one that left in such a hurry.”

“Jerome deBrun, the son of the great hero John.”

“Hero to Capitol City, not here.” Ahexotl snorted. “Is he still opposed to opening Mafolie Pass?”

“I think so.”

“He will take no bribes?” Ahexotl owned almost every chicle-producing plant in Tenochtilanome, and he kept his monopoly secret. But most knew about his wealth. And though Ahexotl did not hold a high opinion of Nanagadans, he held a much higher opinion of wealth.

“I doubt it.”

“It would be shameful if he were to have an accident.”

That was a bit much. Xippilli turned. “It would, because Capitol City would riot if the son of one of their greatest heroes died. We’d hardly make things easier.”

Ahexotl had smiled at that. “It’s a good thing that you’re keeping a close eye on the boy then. He will not come to harm.”

Exactly. That was why Jerome and the mongoose-men with him remained in a house that Xippilli owned, and few knew about. “Yes.”

Ahexotl made Xippilli feel dirty every night he returned home. But Ahexotl and his friends had reformed most of Aztlan, outlawing human sacrifice and the continuous attacks on the Nanagadans. Almost bankrupted by the last war, Ahexotl wanted no more of massive wars. And most in the city felt as he did.