Carlos Fuentes - Terra Nostra

They extinguished the lighted braziers on all the steps and upon the apex of this temple. Whirling swiftly, I looked all around me. The platform was square, with steps descending on all four sides, and with two narrow troughs down the sides of each stairway. There was a large square block in the center of the platform, a stone three spans — or a little more — in height, and two spans in width. And behind this stone there was a great fire, its flame now extinguished, but its secret ardor of bubbles, oil, and hot ash unsatiated, its flames quick to rise at the touch of one of the many torches on the ground beside many black stone knives shaped much like an iron goad. I walked to where one of them lay amid the thinning smoke and picked it up: it seemed to be made of hardened volcanic ash. And I dropped it in fright when I looked up; several repulsive men were approaching me, their faces painted black and their lips glossy and sticky, as if smeared with honey; they were dressed in long black tunics and their long black hair stank even at that distance. They were singing quietly as they steadily advanced toward me like an unarmed phalanx, and they held the tails of their pleated tunics spread wide as if to hide something behind them; they sang and nervously pointed toward my footprint in the white mound.

“He appeared, he appeared…”

“Thus it was spoken…”

“Last night we spread the container of ground meal…”

“We waited in silence…”

“All night…”

“We danced in silence…”

“All night…”

“Thus it was spoken…”

“That he would this day return…”

“He who is invisible…”

“He of the air…”

“He of the shadows…”

“He who speaks only from the shadows…”

“Have mercy upon us and do not harm us…”

“We shall honor you upon this day…”

“We seek your favor…”

“We fear your evil…”

“It is You…”

“Night…”

“Arrived in the day…”

“Shadow…”

“Appeared with the sun…”

“It is You…”

“Smoking Mirror…”

“It is You…”

“So it was spoken…”

“The footprint in the ground meal…”

“The track of a single foot…”

“We will survive…”

“He has returned…”

“Smoking Mirror…”

“Has returned…”

“Star of the night…”

“Has returned…”

“By day…”

“Has returned…”

“Conquering his twin, the light…”

“Has returned…”

“Hero of the night, victim of the day…”

“Has returned…”

“Honor to the fearful god of the shadows…”

“Honor to the shadow that dares show himself by day…”

“Honor to the conqueror of the sun…”

“Smoking Mirror…”

Mirror and smoke, mirror of smoke, smoke of mirror: with difficulty I deciphered these words and I clung to their meaning as the voices of the men dressed and bedaubed in black converted them into a litany. And clearly, no combination of words could better describe the plain of dust, the cradle of rocks where that day I had awakened, the pyramid on whose summit I now found myself, with the magnificent whiteness of the tall volcano behind me. Mirror: the sky, the snow, and the rock. Smoke: the land, the music, and the people. That I understood, and as I understood I was consoled. The reason for my uneasiness was of a different origin: the words of the sorcerers had the ring of portent; they marveled at what had happened; my arrival, the testimony of my footprint in the ground meal they had sprinkled there the night before, were proof that I was the one they had waited for.

I was ringed by the malodorous sorcerers, who raised their arms like the wings of the crow; as they approached I could smell and see the blood daubed in their long hair, upon their faces, their clothing and hands. With fear I recalled the animal in the aged mother’s hut, pure shadow, a black silhouette inseparable from the night, the executioner of the sun, and I told myself that the spirit of the beast dwelt now in the bodies of these sorcerers. They feared what the beast had done. And so the beast might not kill the sun by night, they would kill the night beneath the sun. I saw my footprint in the ground meal: I was the night that they had waited to capture. In me they would hold the night captive. They surrounded me: they surrounded the mound of spilled meal bearing the mark of my foot, and the chant of those magi, Sire, was directed toward me, it was I they called “Smoking Mirror.”

They let their arms fall, and behind them I saw the woman of my desire, my lover, the Lady of the Butterflies. I say it thus, with serenity, to compensate for the disturbance her presence caused in me. To see her again I had confronted all dangers, rejected all temptations, overcome all obstacles. But now, as I looked at her, I was looking at a stranger. She was not looking at me.

It was she. And she was another. She was seated upon a throne of stone, on the skin of an ocelot. No butterflies fluttered about her head. Her head was bare and her long black hair, like the priests’, was smeared with blood. She wore a garment of jewels joined together by threads of gold with no cloth to dull the reflecting glitter of agate and topaz, amethyst and emerald; and beneath her sumptuous gown her woman’s flesh showed smooth and flowing and naked. At the foot of her throne lay mounds of yellow flowers and pullulating serpents and centipedes, creatures of caverns and dry darkness. At her side lay a broom and long branches of odorous herbs. And at the feet of this terrible lady rested the spider: I recognized her by the spider, and by my lover’s painted lips. And from between the opened thighs of the woman projected the head of a red serpent, as if the seed of my love-making in the jungle had gestated.

I looked at her, pleading: “My Lady, do you not know me?”

The woman’s cruel eyes did not return my gaze. Two of the sorcerers seized my arms and the others raised high their daggers as they walked to the steps on which were ascending, singing and softly weeping, six women led by young warriors. Sire: you can never have imagined warriors of such elegance and luxury; in all their movements, and in the opulence of their attire, they revealed a care of breeding and of destiny similar to that of the finest charger or the fiercest mastiff. Tall feather crests, copper ear ornaments worked to resemble little dogs; lip rings made from oyster shells; leather necklaces, feathers tied about their shoulders, and, to their feet, the cloven hoofs of the stag. Their faces were covered by ocelot and eagle and alligator masks; the mouths of the women were painted black and they exuded a heavy perfume, they wore no clothing but hummingbird feathers stuck to their flesh, leaving bare their shame, and they wore many bracelets and necklaces on their wrists and neck and ankles. Wailing, they were half carried by the warriors, and some stroked the men’s chests and others stared at them with a melancholy gaze and a resigned smile and sad recollection, and all of them were weeping, saddened by their abandonment. Then one of the warriors approached the stone seat where sat the Lady of the tattooed lips. And he said:

“You who cleanse our sins and devour our filth, soiling yourself so that the world may be purified, cleanse our sins; here are the whores who were chosen from among humble families of conquered peoples to satisfy our impure desire; tear that desire from our breasts and allow us to do battle without anxiety, our only desire that of serving the gods and their incarnation upon earth, our Lord of the Great Voice. Into the indecent bodies of these women we have emptied our man’s weakness and impurity so we may be strong and pure upon the field of battle. Take them. They have fulfilled their time on earth. They have served. But now they serve no purpose. We renounce the flesh to dedicate ourselves to war. Take them. We offer them to you, you who devour filth, on this day of the Smoking Mirror.”