An Excerpt: Apistli
Near Ixaya
For nine days, Apistli sat still outside the doors of the temple, eating and drinking nothing, carrying his grief from a place of chaos to one of learning. Grief is like fire in this way, he knew; powerful for those who can harness it, and all-consuming to those who can’t.
He knew which one of these he’d been. He closed his eyes and allowed the grief to wash over him, warming his blood and lingering in every memory of his son, sharpening the colors and singeing the edges.
It wasn’t the monks who kept Apistli out in the sun for nine days. They had welcomed him into the temple, offered him salted meat. This was the nature of the Way of Endless Water. The Deathless, as they were called by the fearful. They would have done the same for any living creature, their “siblings.” One of the Way had lain corn and water a short distance from where Apistli sat, far enough away as to not insult his fast, but close enough to signal that he was welcome in their company whenever the time was right. They refreshed the corn and water after the fourth day. No one ever spoke to Apistli during those nine days.
They were unfailingly generous. To him, of all people. Apistli wondered whether they knew who he was. They must. No one was untouched by the ongoing war. Not even the Deathless.
Again he thought of his son. Másatl had been born in wartime, had led his own men in raids, and had been assassinated. His entire life and his death had been shaped by the same conflict. Másatl had deserved peace. And he’d never seen it. Not a day of it. The body that he returned to the Basin of Spirits would be elaborately adorned with his many acts of heroism in battle. Too many for such a young body.
The silver wars kept the body artisans busy, thought Apistli grimly. The tattoos were many. Ink was low in the city of Ixaya.
Apistli greeted the grief like an old friend, welcoming it into every corner of his body. He let his mind linger on Tonalixko, emissary of the gods, whose likeness in ink graced the back of the hand, in a perfect circle. He moved his grief up his arm and through his heart and lungs and into his shoulder, where Metstli's silver vastness had been rendered in white ink. There, on his shoulder, Metstli bore the brunt of his rifle.
It was Tonalixko and Metstli -- together, the sun and the moon -- who worked through him to fire his weapon in defense of their people. Apistli's body, like everyone's, was only borrowed.
Once he was ready, Apistli pulled his legs out from underneath him and stretched, gently waking each muscle before standing. He walked to the doors of the temple, which were simple unadorned wood. It was nothing like the houses of worship of the Order of the Divine Mandate, which were enormous and elaborately decorated in silver. This temple was not much bigger than a house. All temples of the Way of Endless Water were unassuming, especially since their banishment. By law there could be only one true faith in Temictlan. And the Order of the Divine Mandate held a firm grip on Temictlan, like a weed with long roots.
He broke his fast with the corn they'd left for him and buried the cob in gratitude to the gods. He drank the cool water and gently set the clay cup on a nearby stone before opening the wooden doors and walking in.
The monks seemed to be expecting him. Nine of them sat in a straight line, facing him, their hands lightly clasped in their laps. They wore simple garments, all in undyed rough-hewn linen. Threadbare bandanas, unadorned and nearly worn through, covered the top halves of the monks' faces, concealing their eyes and their noses, so that no guest of theirs would be able to identify them later. Those bandanas, Apistli knew, helped keep them alive.
Behind them was a platform on which stood an immense wooden door. There was only a door, no room or enclosure behind it. No adjacent walls, or even a frame against which the door was set. The door was highly elaborated with carved and polished glyphs that Apistli did not recognize, arranged in five neat columns. Whatever this language was, it was beautiful. He'd never seen anything like it. This was not the lexicon of the People of Sun and Moon that Apistli would have recognized. Nor was it the strange line-writing of the People of Paper, nor the boxy runes of the People of the Red Mountains. This was entirely foreign.
The monk at the center of the line spoke. “Who is Apistli?” she asked. Apistli guessed the monk was female by the sound of her voice, though he couldn't be sure.
Apistli sat once again, as he'd been sitting for nine days. He replied in The Way of the Order of Endless Water. “Apistli is no one and everyone who is, who has ever been, and who ever will be.”
“Then whose body is this before me?” she asked.
“My body is borrowed. My skin, my heart, my thoughts, and my memories are all made of earth, which neither enters this world nor leaves it. Each one is borrowed from the collective, and will soon be returned.”
“And who is Másatl?”
Apistli looked up and met her eyes. He hadn't expected that. “Másatl is no one and everyone who is, who has ever been, and who ever will be.”
“And whose body does he wear?”
“No one's body, my...?” Apistli didn't know what titles the Deathless used, and so the sentence trailed off, unresolved.
“Sibling,” she offered, and smiled. “The Way of Endless Water has no use for titles. Not even yours, I hope you understand.”
“I do,” he said. And it was true, he did understand. The Resistance technically did make use of titles, but the army was too small now for those titles to have much meaning. And his own tribal legacy didn't matter in the silver wars. No one cared if you were First Among Warriors of the People of Sun and Moon if there were more of those People in the enemy's uniform than there were in your own ranks. “Másatl has already returned his body to the Basin of Spirits.”
A knowing nod from the monk. Stillness from the rest.
“What do I call you, my sibling?” asked Apistli. “Forgive me, you know my name and I don't know yours.”
“Huin,” she said. “You're here for Másatl then? You've heard rumors that we can bring the dead back to us, I'm sure. As you know, as a member of the Faithful, The Order of the Divine Mandate teaches that only the Keeper of the Living and the Dead can do that. And she hasn't done so in a thousand years.”
“I was told,” Apistli paused to reflect on his choice of words, “that the Order of Endless Water are not followers of the four gods. That you deny their existence.”
“You are half right,” said Huin. “We are not followers. But we also don't necessarily deny the existence of the four gods. We simply do not care whether or not they exist. We've shed our need for them.” She allowed this statement — this unfathomable heresy for which others had been hanged — its due space before continuing. “You look surprised, Apistli. And yet, you've just said yourself that we're all made of earth. Didn't you? There is no difference in the basic essential material between organisms. Bird, beetle, god, and man are all made of earth and water. Even our memories, our thoughts, our feelings. All made of material borrowed from the collective.”
“Yes. But their configuration matters. A beetle can't kill me. A man can. A bird can't bring back my son. You can.” Apistli knew they weren't rumors.
“You've prepared,” said Huin. “Good.” She turned to her right and nodded to the monk at the end of the far end of the line. He stood, bowed to Huin, and left through a side door.
A moment later he had returned, with a straw pack strapped to his back, and a pot between his hands. He set this all down exactly halfway between Apistli and Huin. The pot made a sound when it touched the earth that suggested it was filled with water.
From the straw pack, he drew a small brush, a firedisk, a bundle of dried corn husks, a buckskin pack, and a folded titanium device. With the brush, the monk cleared dust from the floor in a wide circle. When this task was finished, he returned the brush to the straw pack. The titanium device was unfolded and configured, forming a small stand on which the monk placed the pot of water. Under the pot, he arranged the dried corn husks. The firedisk was switched on, and once the small blue flame appeared over it, it was tucked under the dried husks. They caught fire almost immediately.
The hemp tied around the buckskin package was released. Inside were five stout sticks, each about the length and girth of his arm. Each exquisitely carved in glyphs like those on the door. Each must have taken its artisan hundreds of hours to create. And to Apistli's horror, all five sticks were arranged in the fire, between the husks and the pot. Such beautiful work, serving as firewood.
“Why?” asked Apistli, watching the fire curl around the sticks. “Why burn your sigils? These gifts that you toss on the fire... Why spend them now, on me? They must have taken hundreds of hours to carve.”
“More,” said Huin, “if you add the time it took to grow the pochote tree for this purpose.”
Finally, Apistli understood. It was then that Apistli realized that they had been expecting him. It must have been years ago, maybe decades, that Huin or her predecessor had foreseen that Apistli would appear at their temple, on this day, asking to retrieve Másatl from the Basin of Spirits. So they had seeded the pochote from which they would eventually cut five sticks, which would then be carved into sigils, and thrown into a fire to boil the water that would be drunk by Apistli.
All of this, they had known before Másatl had even been born.
Apistli, who had been sitting, tucked his legs beneath him to kneel. He placed his forehead on the earth. “My siblings,” he stammered. “Huin.” He didn't know how to continue. He couldn't tell them he was manifestly unworthy of such an honor. Nor could he suggest that he was worthy. He found there was nothing at all that he could say to meet the moment, and so Apistli kept his silence.
“Tell me,” said Huin, “of the strength.”
Apistli pushed himself back up onto his knees. “Yes,” he said, collecting himself. “Yes, of course.”
The monk who'd built the fire, whose name he didn't know, had spread before him on the buckskin a variety of roots, dried leaves, and succulents. Each of these he unbundled, one at a time, brought to his lips, thanked, and added to the pot of boiling water.
“I draw strength, and I return strength,” began Apistli, closing his eyes. “A stone in a river is immersed in, and changed by, the water rushing past it. And in its own small way, the stone redirects the course of the water immediately surrounding it. If the stones are many, this small, almost imperceptible act of resistance gives the river its depth, shape, and direction. The stone defines the contours of the river, and the river defines the contours of the stone. The stone, like all of us, is the dust of stars. The water has no beginning or end. I am the stone, drawing strength from the endless river and returning strength to the river.”
“May we draw strength from each other, and return strength to each other.”
Apistli smiled. “I didn't expect to hear ancient Kuautlali wisdom spoken here today.”
“Yes,” said Huin, also smiling. “But, actually, before it was Kuautlali, it was the greeting of the Way of Endless Water. Long ago, before it was made illegal and we were driven underground, the Way of Endless Water was practiced throughout all of Temictlan. But especially here in Kuautlali, where there were many devotees. And so, although most Kuautlali don't know it, much of their culture comes from the Way. Like this greeting.”
The monk who'd set the fire had completed his work. He knelt before the pot with his eyes closed and his head bowed. His prayers completed, he refolded the buckskin, now empty, and returned it to the straw pack. From the straw pack, he drew a small cup, and a ladle. Gingerly, he ladled some of the tea into the cup, and set the cup before Apistli. His work completed, he returned to his place at the flank of the line, bringing with him the straw pack.
“Why?” asked Apistli again. “Why me? Why this request?”
“Why are you surprised?” asked Huin. “You've made the request. You came to our temple. You prepared yourself for this.”
“Yes,” he said. “I know why I've come.” He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts. “And I suppose I've allowed myself to just hope that you had your reasons. Maybe I've allowed myself to believe that the monks of the Way of Endless Water would be sympathetic to our efforts, and find common cause in the Resistance.” Apistli removed the knife from its sheath at his side and placed it before him, parallel to his crossed legs. “Whether you were sympathetic or not, I am prepared to die today. And maybe, in my discovery that I was prepared to die, I've discovered that little else matters.
“But this is a surprise. The fact that you'd known that I would make my way here, to beg for Másatl's life. You've known for at least as long as it takes to raise a tree.”
Huin raised her head slightly as she replied. “It sounds to me, Apistli, as though the question 'Why me' might not be the right one.”
Apistli considered this for a moment. “You're right,” he conceded. “I suppose what I mean is this: What was it that compelled the Way of Endless Water to plant the pochote tree, to cut a branch from it, to carve the sigils, to make the tea, to offer to a humble traveler?”
It was a long time before Huin responded. “I don't know,” she said. “Some things are not meant to be understood.”
“You're for the Resistance, then,” offered Apistli. “Not you, but your temple. The Way itself. Whatever cosmic force it was, or spirit, or being, that compelled you or your predecessors to plant the pochote tree -- that force is on the side of the Resistance. Maybe there's a prophecy that Másatl returns from the dead to lead our warriors to victory over the United Silver Company. You must have known it since before Másatl was even born. Since before the silver wars even began, you knew. Or your predecessor did, before you.”
“None of us have any predecessors,” said Huin. “Nor do we have successors. I am no one and everyone who is, who has ever been, and who ever will be. My body is borrowed. My skin, my heart, my thoughts, and my memories are all made of earth, which neither enters this world nor leaves it. Each one is borrowed from the collective, and will soon be returned.”
“But the Resistance—"
“The Resistance,” interrupted Huin, “is small. Too small to have any place in your mouth or mine. The Resistance is a leaf in the breeze, holding your attention as the earth breaks under our feet.”
He looked down at the cup. The more he learned, the less he understood. “So this tea, then. Is this meant to help me see?”
“Maybe. It is teotilistli. It will nourish you and prepare you for your journey. It's not for me to know what your journey is, nor where it will take you.”
“Teotlistli,” he repeated, incredulous. “But that's a myth.”
“Myth is truth.”
“Sure,” he said. “But I mean it's not real. Teotilistli is not real.”
“Of course not,” said Huin. “Neither are you, nor am I, nor is this room, nor is anything in it or outside of it.”
“If this actually is teotilistli,” Apistli raised the cup before him, as if in offering, “and myth is truth, then why would my fate be any different from that of Tonalixko?” He turned the hand that held the cup such that Huin could see his tattoo of the emissary who doomed himself by drinking teotilistli.
“Because you are different beings, with different destinies ahead of you,” said Huin. “But you don't need me to tell you this. Or anything else that I've said so far. You already know it. You know it all. I can't know why it is that I must speak these words, or why it is that you must hear them, any more than I could possibly know why the wind must blow and the rain must fall. All any of us can ever know, at our most enlightened, is what is. And even that is tenuous. So now, Apistli, you must do what you've come here to do.”
Apistli looked down into the cup.
“Wait,” said another one of the monks, this one at the end of the line. She also sounded female to Apistli. “There is one more thing we need of you. Forgive me, Huin.”
“There is nothing to forgive,” said Huin. “Please. Proceed.”
“Apistli,” continued the ninth monk. “Before you die, I need to understand how it all began.”
“What do you mean?” Apistli turned back to Huin. “I don't understand. You know how it all began. You knew I was coming. The Way of Endless Water--” Apistli lowered his eyes, willing himself to control his confusion and his frustration, both of which were mounting. “My sibling, forgive me. I simply--”
“I am not your sibling,” interrupted the ninth.
Apistli looked up at the monks seated before him. He turned to Huin, expecting to see or hear some sort of reaction; a reprimand of the monk at the end, who'd spoken out of turn, perhaps. Or some sort of clarification of what she'd meant. Or, in the worst of cases, the revelation of an elaborate trap. Revolvers, drawn from behind the linen garments.
Huin remained still.
The ninth monk spoke again. “The eight monks beside me are members of the Way of Endless Water. I am not. I am here for myself. My mission is an altogether different one.”
“I see,” said Apistli. Slowly, his hand moved closer to the knife before him.
“But I am not here to hurt you,” she said. “I'm here to learn from you how it was that the First Uprising began. I need to hear it from you. I need your perspective.”
“First?” He furrowed his brow. “Will there be a second?”
“There is too much that I've missed,” she continued, ignoring his question. “Everything that happened while I was still alive, I missed. I did not yet have the sight of the dead.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You're dead,” he whispered. “You've come back from the Basin of Spirits.”
“I have. I am a chronicler.”
“I see,” he said again. “Who are you, exactly?”
The chronicler leaned forward, and turned to her right, looking down the line of monks at the one who sat at the center. Huin nodded back at the chronicler. With Huin's permission granted, the chronicler squared her shoulders. She untied the bandana and pulled it away, revealing her face.
Apistli sat up, his eyes wide. “It's you,” he said, breathless. “Impossible.”
“Impossible, why? Because I'm dead?” She said it gently. “Yes. I'm dead. Are you not here to ask the Way of Endless Water to return Másatl from the Basin of Spirits?” This last she said reverently. Maybe even lovingly.
She was strangely ageless. It was not that her face shifted from childhood to maturity; it didn't change at all. Rather, her face was steadfast in its presentation of all of the ages that she'd ever been, all at once. She was both child and elder, the wrinkles beside her lips and eyes deepened as she smiled; and also her skin was entirely without wrinkles.
“So tell me everything,” she said. “Even the things you think I know.”
Apistli glanced at the cup of tea at his feet.
“The teotilistli?” she asked, almost laughing. “It will still be warm when it's time for you to drink it.”
“Very well,” he said. He breathed in deeply, as he'd been trained to do when he was a young ranger. “I guess it started with the merchants from among the People of Paper. They came back to Temictlan in their tall ships, having been to Thyr, Eleanos, and Ximohe. They were clamoring for the stone of gods, refined and smelted. Silver, as your people call it. Kings, queens, and emperors around the world had developed a taste for it. And for nothing, really. Personal vanity. They had to wear our divine gift in their ears, on their heads, and around their necks. The rising mercantile classes and the old nobility had to have it. Silver foundries cropped up overseas, serving the need for silver versions of everyday items. Retired generals in Thyr mounted gleaming silver revolvers and daggers on the walls of their homes, memorializing battles, or honoring fallen friends. Silver plates, forks, knives, and spoons were made, with delicate engravings. Silver was rare everywhere else in the world, which made it precious. In the new Republic of Temictlan, it was abundant. The merchant class of the People of Paper became wealthy, selling to foreigners what our gods had left in the earth for us. So too did the artisans. They are engravers, as you know better than most. And I hope you'll forgive me, I mean no offense.”
She waved it off. “You can't take offense when you ask for the truth and the truth is spoken. But you should know, almost none of us became wealthy.”
“And yet, some of you did. Everyone else was dispossessed of their birthright. Impoverished. Stripped of our stone of gods.”
“They're our gods too, Apistli. And our gift. People of Paper all pray to the four. We too have been dispossessed by the few who became wealthy.”
Apistli nodded. “That's true enough, I suppose. Especially true for the nomadic People of Paper. The merchants roaming the three territories with their crafts, or offering their labor.”
“Like José Rogelio Izote?”
Apistli smiled warmly, thinking of the boy. “I expect big things from that kid.” Then he narrowed his eyes and cocked his head to the side. “How do you know about José Rogelio? He's only--”
“We're digressing from your story.”
He nodded, eyes still narrowed in calculation. “The earliest miners were local prospectors. They’d set up their camps, not far from their own homes, and would dig with pickaxes and spades. Transport, distribution, and insurance industries grew to service the new trade. There followed a period of technological advancement, as wealthy men from Puerto de los Espíritus, soaking with foreign money, stumbled over each other to develop the most efficient extraction techniques. Among them was Ernesto Zavala. He’d been a naval captain during the wars between the three territories, charged with the establishment and security of supply routes. He understood that whoever could safely transport the stone of gods to the coasts would dominate the industry. And so it was. Through a series of acquisitions, Zavala Silver became the United Silver Company. Within five years, the Company had a monopoly on all stone extraction and distribution in Temictlan. But you must know all of this.” Apistli shook his head wearily. “This can't be what you're hoping to hear. I'm starting too early.”
“It is exactly what I want to hear,” she said. “This was all before I was born. So yes, I know what happened. But everything I know is what I've heard from my parents, and from the other merchant families in our caravan. They talk. And we're silver merchants, you remember. Most silver merchants were on Zavala's side. All we know about the Resistance, as you call it, is what they print in The Voice of El Llano. And 'Resistance' is not what they call it.”
“The Voice of El Llano,” he sneered. “It's a tidy business, selling lies. It's like pulque. Once you get people addicted, they'll be banging down your door for more. Giving you whatever you want.”
“Lies are addictive?” she asked, smiling conspiratorially.
“No. Fear and outrage are addictive. Make us feel awful, and yet we can't get enough of it. Like taking a beating and then paying for more. The Voice is in the business of manufacturing fear and outrage.”
“Let's move on. So, he's bought out the press. I assume you think he's bought out the whole Assembly too.”
“Think?” Apistli glanced at Huin, who remained still.
“Enlighten me,” said the chronicler.
“You don't need me to enlighten you. Just think it through. Business was good. Foreign appetite for silver was bottomless, and so was supply. The only limiting factor in the Company’s capacity to make money was the pace at which they were able to extract ore, process it, and ship it. The faster the workers, the greater the margins, and the richer Zavala and his investors became. So the inevitable happened: Working conditions, which had never been safe, deteriorated further.
“Zavala is no fool. He had become a friend to those with political influence and an enemy to those without it. It wasn’t long before the occasional bribe to a select cohort of ascendant political operators soon expanded into an extensive payroll within the halls of the Assembly. The only check on his power -- and on his abuse of his own miners -- was the Assembly. So he purchased it.”
“And the people. They too were a check on his power, no?”
“The miners. Yes, they were. They rose up. And so did their kin. So the Company adapted. The United Silver Company became nomadic. Every day, their enormous drills and extractors big enough to blot out the sun would be resituated on new land, the location of which would be kept secret to everyone but the drivers, until drilling began. My own kin would emerge from the parked ambulatory and be lowered into the mines to pull the stone of gods out of the earth. They'd feed it to the extractor, giving away their birthright for a pittance with which to buy the food that in an earlier time had been grown or gathered.”
That seemed to evoke difficult memories in the ninth. Her eyes left him, settling on some distant place over his shoulder. “That's right. They said they had to centralize food production so that no one would ever go hungry again. Food would be grown by 'the efficient few,' I remember.”
“Yes. 'The efficient few.' I'd forgotten what they'd called it when the Assembly sold our lands to the industrialists with grand plans. Well, I suppose it worked. They were right, in a way. After centralization, there was more food in Kuautlali than there had ever been before. Even beyond Kuautlali. North, into El Llano, and Mitlahuic. This surplus of food, it sat in stacks in warehouses, to be sold to the few who could pay for it.”
“Most couldn't,” she added.
“That's right. Or rather, most Temictlani people couldn't pay the prices that those same industrialists could otherwise get from foreign markets. So our crops, which we were no longer allowed to gather and grow ourselves, were shipped out, destined for Eleanos, Thyr, and Ximohe. They'd become fashionable abroad.” Apistli lowered his gaze and nodded, remembering the Great Hunger.
“War was inevitable,” she said.
“It was,” he said. “In fact, I've often wondered whether the Great Hunger had been intentional. To lure us into a fight that would give them an opportunity to obliterate us.”
“If so, it hasn't worked, has it? It's been nearly twenty years.”
She smiled at him, and it occurred to Apistli that she'd meant to be congratulatory; celebrating his long, protracted rebellion. But Apistli understood the price of war. A single year of combat was a year too long. Twenty was unspeakable. “I've just tried to do what they've asked of me,” he allowed. “Fulfill my duty as best I can.”
She looked askance at Apistli. “Who was it that asked you to do something for them? You've lost me.”
Apistli smiled tragically. “There's been so much war that people don't remember the United Miners of Kuautlali -- the strikers who started this whole war. The whole thing began with peaceful protest. When the Company retaliated with violence, the miners came to me.”
“And what did you do?”
“Well, I acted quickly. I chose four of the warriors who'd fought at my side during the war of unification, and asked them to lead a series of simultaneous raids near Ixaya. Not far from here, actually. Four parties were sent to keep the Federal Defense Corps and the United Silver Company Sentinels occupied. Rangers were dispatched on horseback to disrupt communications between the four bases. A fifth party, the main body of warriors, attacked an extraction site, detonating Ximohan fireflies at both of the drills. In less than three hours, we were in complete control of the site. I sent one of the Company's speeders back to Puerto de los Espíritus, with the severed hand of one of the men who'd beaten the organizers of the strike, and a letter for Ernesto Zavala.”
“So that's the genesis of the Law of Apistli.”
He shook his head. “No. See, that's what I mean when I say that the miners have all but been forgotten. It was actually called the Declaration of the United Miners of Kuautlali. My name wasn't on it. I didn't come up with the terms of the offer, nor did I draft it. I just sent it. It was the Voice of El Llano who first called it the Law of Apistli, to make me look like some lone radical.”
“Well, it was pretty radical. It turned out to be a historic document, didn't it?”
“It was only meant to be an offer. The idea was that the people of Kuautlali would be willing to proffer a license to the United Silver Company, granting it permission to operate in Kuautlali. The letter described a system of assessment and tax, and demanded compensation for the ore taken out of the mine. There were also demands for better working conditions, and higher pay. The letter ended with a warning. Without a license, the United Silver Company would be understood to be operating illegally, stealing from the people of Kuautlali. The Company's leaders would be treated accordingly, and tried as thieves.”
“But you're glossing over the most important thing: the assertion that the silver found under Kuautlali land belonged inherently to Kuautlali people. The idea that they owned it, and that they needed to be paid for it, was revolutionary.”
“Zavala called it extortion.”
“He did more than that, didn't he?”
Again, Apistli remembered. He thought of the carts and carriages that had been overturned, dead horses and riders strewn about the roads. He remembered trying to avoid the rivulets of blood streaming dowhill between the cobblestones. There had been an oppressive heat that day, emanating from the fields and houses that had been set ablaze. He remembered the acrid smell of burning hair wafting from a window as he ran past. “He did,” he said solemnly. “The Slaughter of Ixaya.”
She honored his grief by repeating the name of the atrocity. “The Slaughter of Ixaya. May those who lost their lives walk in the blessed company of the gods.”
Apistli nodded wordlessly.
“That was it then, wasn't it? The undoing of the First Uprising.”
“No,” he said. “Actually, the Slaughter of Ixaya was when the uprising began in earnest. We organized a network of sympathetic farmers and fishermen from elsewhere in Kuautlali, and sent our warriors with mules to collect crops and fish for the people of Ixaya as they began the work of rebuilding. Farmers who’d lost their land to fire were taught how to hunt. Others were taught crafts, such as tanning, weaving, and pottery, with which they could make things to sell at the market. Some would join the cavalcade of warriors and mules if their crafts were portable.
“The stories that the artisans took with them to other cities in Kuautlali, and even as far as the borderlands of El Llano, accelerated the recruitment of a Resistance army. For the first time, some People of Paper joined the fight. An increasing number of People of the Red Mountains joined as well, seeing a likelihood that the war in Kuautlali could easily come north to Mictlahuic. Even if it never did, it was known in Mictlahuic that the People of the Red Mountains who worked the mines were vulnerable. And you know the desert folk. They're a proud people. Fiercely independent. They wouldn't stand to have their kin depending on anyone but their own for their protection. And so, legions of their men crossed the continent to be here, in the heart of the south, from the northern deserts of Mictlahuic.”
“Only their men made this trek?”
“Yes. Only their men. The People of Sun and Moon are alone in that regard, I suppose. Only we have female warriors.”
“I know,” said the ninth, wistfully. “I've met one.”
“You did more than that,” said Apistli. “You saved her life.”
The chronicler smiled in remembrance of her old friend, seeming to linger on a sweet memory, basking in its warmth. “Did she ever sing you the agonía I taught her?”
Apistli calmed his heart, as he'd been taught to do as a young ranger. “Yes,” he said. And then he sang the first two lines of the melancholy song he'd only ever heard from the lips of Másatl's mother:
We won't die tonight if we sleep with legs entangled.
Because that way, Death would have to break us both.
“That's all I remember,” said Apistli when he'd finished. “I remember her singing it, but in terms of the words, I can only recall those two lines.”
“That's alright,” she said. “That's perfectly alright.”
The room was silent. The eight monks before him were perfectly still. They suddenly reminded him of the stone godforms that one could find in the houses of worship in the jungle, with their legs crossed, indifferent to the moss amassing on their heads, backs, and shoulders. The ninth had also simply stopped speaking. She offered him no more questions.
“Is there anything else you'd like to know from me?”
But she didn't answer. She didn't even seem to hear him, she was so engrossed in her reverie. All nine were so still he wondered for one ridiculous moment whether time had actually stopped.
“Nothing else?” he asked again. “Huin?”
But no one spoke. No one even moved.
So Apistli raised the cup to his lips and drank. Setting aside the empty cup, he stood and faced the door behind Huin. “I draw strength,” he said, “and I return strength.” He walked around Huin, who remained still as he passed, and approached the door. He opened it, though there were no hinges or frame, and he saw that behind it there was nothingness. He did not see any sort of room, nor did he see the back of the temple, as he would if the door were false. There was neither light nor dark, nor image, color, or texture. There was a void; an absence of seeing, as if Apistli had acquired a curious blindness exactly the size of the door.
There was no sound either, nor scent. The bitter taste of the teotilistli had dissipated, as had nine days' worth of hunger.
He glanced over his shoulder and saw that all the monks of the Way of Endless Water were gone. So too was the chronicler. Or perhaps they had never been there. Nothing remained but the empty cup.
Apistli stepped through the threshold and ceased to exist. Or rather, he finally understood that he did not exist, nor had he ever existed. Nothing had. The temple did not exist. And in that temple that did not exist, there had been no Way of Endless Water, which also had never existed.
He wept for himself and for Másatl, who had never been real. But the tears rolling down his cheeks weren't real, and neither were his cheeks. There he was, at last, in a place of knowing. And yet, there he wasn't.
All was earth and water.