In the Ruins

Page 203

The city grew out from this hub by means of two broad avenues. The Sun’s Avenue woke to the east and lay down to sleep in the west, anchored at either end by a temple dedicated to He-Who-Burns in his rising and setting aspects. A second great avenue bisected the Sun’s Avenue, this one along the north-south axis dedicated to She-Who-Will-Not-Have-A-Husband. By this means the avenues divided the city into quarters, according to the instructions of the most ancient elders who had undertaken to construct the city in obedience to the dictates of the gods.
So it had been, until the day the great weaving had severed the city, cut it as with a knife in a line that ran right through the huge pyramid sacred to She-Who-Creates. Now, at dawn, Feather Cloak ascended the staircase of the great pyramid and halted about a quarter of the way up on a wide terrace. Here rested a pair of stone benches, shaded by recently built thatch shelters, and from this isolated way station she surveyed the city and the crowd. The Impatient One climbed the steps behind her and took her place on the other bench. They did not speak.
It was possible from the height to see clearly the gash that separated what had been exiled from what had never left Earth.
Brilliantly painted serpent masks flanked the steep stairs. Below, color flooded the long stretches of wall demarcating the plazas that lined the south and east avenues. As was the custom, murals covered every wall to remind the people of their ancient lineages: black eagles, golden phoenix, red serpents clutching arrows in their jaws, howling red dogs, white spider women with their wisdom nets, hawks and lynx and tawny spotted cats. Lizards and rabbits and the graceful, deadly jaguar, and all the others besides.
Yet on the northwestern side, as sharp as any line drawn in sand, lay that portion of the city that had been left behind in the wake of the great weaving. It was a city of bones, stone scoured to gray, roofs lost to time and wind and rain, the open shells of buildings, and grains of sand coating the ancient roadway. The contrast disoriented her each time she tried to view the whole. It was impossible for the gaze to flash from ancient past to vibrant present so quickly, just as it is impossible to see a crone standing beside her own child self.
It was strange to think that, just as she stood between peak and base, she also balanced between the ancient past and the unexpected present. Below, as many of her people as could make the journey had gathered in the plaza. They were a multitude without number: twenty multiplied by twenty, and by twenty yet again and once more.
She had lived all her life in a dry and dusty world, sparsely inhabited with a dry and dusty people, thin, weary, and withered. But the exiles made up no more than one in twenty of the multitude below. So many had returned out of the interstices of time, still plump and fiery, inflamed with anger at an ancient war she knew only from Eldest Uncle’s stories and those of her old grandparents and great-aunts and -uncles, now dead. Their fury was palpable, like the buzzing of bees, something felt in the air, through the stone, and in the motion of bodies gesticulating and swaying or standing in rigid stillness. They had walked in the shadows for fifty-two passages of fifty-two years, caught betwixt and between, neither living creature nor yet a ghost. They had not forgiven, and why should they?
They lacked the calm-minded clarity that allowed folk to make good decisions, she knew this, yet it still heartened her to see her people whole and living and strong. There were so many children, squirming and giggling and wiggling, held up to watch as the ceremony began.
The blood knives sang down the gods to witness, according to the law. Elders chosen from the clans, including Eldest Uncle, came forward to oversee that stones were cast fairly, and none cast twice. In lots of five, the household leaders came forward to cast their household’s vote in the black baskets or in the white.
Black represented the dark face of She-Who-Will-Not-Have-A-Husband. In this way, she turned her back on her petitioners. White represented her bright face, and in truth her regard was nothing to be hoped for. If the white baskets ran full, then Kansi-a-lari’s petition would be granted and the Eagle Seat and the feather cloak would pass to a new leader.
So came warriors wearing the mask of their lineage: a hawk, a lizard, a spotted cat, a long-snouted tepesquintli. Others were craftsmen with a feather headdress or short mantle or sash displaying their mastery at leatherwork or obsidian-knapping, weaving or paper making or carving, ceramics or surveying or mural painting or incense grinding. Farming households voted, as did the scribes who served the gods and the merchants who kept the blood of trade moving between towns. All those who tended to the life of the people had a voice, as the gods intended, but only one could lead—else chaos would reign as it had in the days of legend before the gods ordered all things to foster peace among the tribes.