Gary Jennings - Aztec

In the evenings I left my house to seek not company but solitude, in which I could reminisce and repine and yearn unobserved. Of course, I would not have objected if that solitude had been interrupted by one longed-for encounter. However, as I have told, that has never happened yet. So it was only with wistful hope, not with expectation, that I walked the nearly empty night streets of Tenochtítlan, from end to end of the island, remembering how here had occurred a certain thing and there another.

In the north was the causeway to Tepeyáca, across which I had carried my baby daughter when we fled from the flooding city to safety on the mainland. At that time Nochipa could speak only two-word sentences, but some of them had said much. And on that occasion she had murmured, "Dark night."

In the south was the causeway to Coyohuacan and all the lands beyond, the causeway I had crossed with Cozcatl and Blood Glutton on my very first trading expedition. In the splendor of that day's dawn the mighty volcano Popocatepetl had watched us go, and had seemed to say, "You depart, my people, but I remain...."

In between were the island's two vast plazas. In the more southerly one, The Heart of the One World, stood the Great Pyramid, so massive and solid and eternal of aspect that a viewer might assume it had towered there for as long as Popocatepetl had towered on the distant horizon. It was difficult for even me to believe that I was older than the completed pyramid, that it had been only an unfinished stump the first time I saw it.

In the more northerly plaza, Tlaltelólco's wide-spreading market area, I had walked for the first time holding tightly to my father's hand. There he had generously paid the extravagant price to buy me my first taste of flavored snow, while he told the vendor, "I remember the Hard Times...." It was then that I had first met the cacao-colored man, he who so accurately foretold my life to come.

That recollection was slightly disturbing, for it reminded me that all the future he had foreseen for me was in my past. Things I had once looked forward to had become memories. I was nearing the full sheaf of my years, and not many men lived more than those fifty and two. Then was there to be no more future for me? When I told myself that I was at last rightfully enjoying the idle life I had labored so long to earn, perhaps I was just refusing to confess that I had outlived my usefulness, that I had outlived every person I ever loved or who ever loved me. Was I only taking up space in this world until I should be summoned to some other one?

No! I refused to believe that, and for confirmation I looked up to the night sky. Again a smoking star hung there, as a smoking star had hung over my reunion with Motecuzóma at Teotihuacan, and then over my meeting with the girl Ce-Malinali, and then over my meeting with the white visitors from Spain. Our astronomers could not agree: whether it was the same comet returning in a different shape and brightness and in a different corner of the sky, or whether it was a new comet each time. But, after the one that accompanied me on my last journey southward, some smoking star appeared in the night sky again in both of the two subsequent years, and each time was visible for nearly a month of nights. Even the usually imperturbable astronomers had to agree that it was an omen, that three comets in three years defied any other explanation. So something was going to happen in this world and, good or bad, it ought to be worth waiting for. I might or might not have any part to play in the event, but I would not resign from this world just yet.

Various things did happen during those years, and each time I wondered: is this what the smoking stars portended? The happenings were all remarkable in one respect or another, and some of them were lamentable, but none seemed quite momentous enough to have justified the gods' sending us such ominous warnings.

For example, I had been only a few months returned from my meeting with the Spaniards, when word came from Uluumil Kutz that the mysterious disease of the small pocks had swept like an ocean wave over the entire peninsula. Among the Xiu, the Tzotxil, the Quiche, and all the other Maya-descendant tribes, something like three of every ten persons had died—among them my host, the Lord Mother Ah Tutal—and almost every survivor would live the rest of his or her life disfigured by the pock marks.

However uncertain Motecuzóma was about the nature and intention of those god-or-men visitors from Spain, he was not eager to expose himself to any god disease. For once, he acted promptly and decisively, putting a strict prohibition on any trade with the Maya lands. Our pochtéa were forbidden to go there, and our southern frontier guards were instructed to turn back all produce and merchandise coming from there. Then the rest of The One World waited in apprehension for some months longer. But the small pocks were successfully contained within the unfortunate Maya tribes and did not—not then—afflict any other peoples.

Some more months passed, and one day Motecuzóma sent a messenger to fetch me to the palace, and again I wondered: does this mean that the smoking stars' prophecy has been fulfilled? But, when I made the customary supplicant-in-sackcloth entrance to the throne room, the Revered Speaker looked only annoyed, not stricken with fear or wonder or any of the other larger emotions. Several of his Speaking Council, standing about the room, appeared rather amused. I myself must have looked puzzled when he said:

"This madman calls himself Tlilectic-Mixtli." Then I realized that he was not speaking of me, but to me, and was pointing at a glum-faced, shabbily dressed stranger held firm in the grip of two palace guards. I raised my seeing crystal for a look, and recognized the man as no stranger, and I smiled first at him, then at Motecuzóma, and I said:

"Tlilectic-Mixtli is his name, my lord. The name Dark Cloud is not at all uncommon among—

"You know him!" Motecuzóma interrupted, or accused. "Some relative of yours, perhaps?"

"Perhaps of yours as well, Lord Speaker, and perhaps of equal nobility."

He blazed, "You dare compare me to this filthy and witless beggar? When the court guards apprehended him, he was demanding audience with me by reason of his being a visiting dignitary. But look at him! The man is mad!"

I said, "No, my lord. Where he comes from, he is indeed the equivalent of yourself, except that the Aztéca do not use the title Uey-Tlatoani."

"What?" said Motecuzóma, surprised.

"This is the Tlatocapili Tlilectic-Mixtli of Aztlan."

"Of where?" cried Motecuzóma, astounded.

I turned my smile again to my namesake. "Did you bring the Moon Stone, then?"

He gave an abrupt, angry nod and said, "I begin to wish I had not. But the Stone of Coyolxauqui lies yonder in the plaza, watched by the men who survived the labor of helping me roll it and raft it and drag it...."

One of the guards holding him murmured audibly, "That cursed great rock has torn up half the paving of the city between here and the Tepeyáca causeway."

The newcomer resumed, "Those remaining men and I are near dead of fatigue and hunger. We hoped for a welcome here. We would have been satisfied with common hospitality. But I have been called a liar for speaking only my own name!"

I turned back to Motecuzóma, who was still staring in unbelief. I said, "As you perceive, Lord Speaker, the Lord of Aztlan is himself capable of explaining his name. Also his rank and his origin and anything else you might wish to know about him. You will find the Aztéca Náhuatl a trifle antiquated, but easily comprehensible.

Motecuzóma came alert with a start, and expressed apologies and greetings—"We will converse at your convenience, Lord of Aztlan, after you have dined and rested"—and gave orders to the guards and counselors that the visitors be fed and clothed and quartered as befitted dignitaries. He motioned for me to stay when the crowd left the throne room, then said: