A Magic of Dawn

Niente

The path had been so clear back in Tlaxcala. Every step had been laid out, and now it’s all confused and diffuse. The Sun Presence dominates everything, hiding the Long Path from me…

Niente bowed his head over the scrying bowl, immersing himself in the green mist that boiled up from the water, praying to Axat fervently, begging Her to give him clear sight, to show that the Long Path had not already been destroyed by the actions of those in the present. That was the danger: the future was malleable and changeable, and a single act by someone might alter everything.

There… That was Villembouchure, the city they had taken once before, and Niente saw the possibilities of battle there. He stirred the water with a hand, dissolving the image and pushing his mind further into the mists of the future. He didn’t want to see Villembouchure; he knew what should happen there-the path was wide and difficult to turn away. He wanted to see again the great city: Nessantico.

He wanted to see again the fate that awaited him there, the fate that would affect both Tehuantin and Easterner, that might shape the world with his own mold.

There… There was the great city, its strange, majestic buildings rebuilt, so unlike the stepped pyramids of Tlaxcala. But the mists around this future were heavier than they had ever been before, and the visions came too fast, too fleeting. There was his son’s face, and he was shouting at Niente, his face full of anger and fury. There was the glowing throne of the great city, but the shape sitting on it was uncertain: one moment it was a woman, then a man, then another, and there was a young man standing alongside it, wearing green robes, and from his hands boiled more mist that obscured Niente’s sight. For a moment Niente felt a stirring in the mists: was this a glimpse of the Sun Presence?

Where was the Long Path? Had it vanished? No, there it was again, but now faint, so faint, and overlaid with a dozen other possible futures when before it had been clear and certain. There was Atl again, and he walked yet another future. There was a paper, with strange writing on it, and the scroll was in flames, the words going to gray ash. There was a young woman with a pale-colored stone in one hand and a dagger in the other, and she governed yet another path. Faces wafted up toward him from the mist and vanished again: a man of middle years with a crown on his head, an old man with a metal nose, an old woman from whose hands sparks flew like a fire-rock striking metal, and again the young, green-robed man from whose mouth fire emerged, as if he were a dragon.

Niente had never seen these figures before-or at least not so clearly-but now they rose up in opposition to him, confusing Axat’s sight and seeming to bar him from the path he’d chosen. He sought to find it again, staring into the mists of the bowl and searching for a way past these specters. There… He saw it again, at last, but this time he also saw Atl laying still on the ground before the path, his head bloodied, and he recoiled in fear. No, Axat! he prayed. You can’t demand that of me… But the vision remained, and it was only beyond Atl’s corpse that the future he’d wanted lay…

The Long Path.

It still led to his own death as well, but he welcomed that. It would be a release from eternal pain. He welcomed the thought of falling into Axat’s embrace at last, of leaving behind the shriveled, tormented, and pained shell of his physical body. That would be no great sacrifice. He’d lived long decades, and he had been Axat’s devoted servant, and he had been both rewarded and punished for that. No, to find his own death would be sweet and he could embrace the Great Winged Serpent without fear, if beyond his death there was still the vision She had granted him. If his death sealed the Long Path.

In his visions atop the Teocalli Axat, Niente had glimpsed a world at peace for a time, a world where East and West respected their individual boundaries, where trade between them was open and free, where the best of both cultures merged into a new whole, where even the worlds of the gods seemed to come together. Yes, there were still battles and strife in this world, but the conflicts were smaller and more easily resolved. People being what they were, it wasn’t possible to find a path where there wasn’t bloodshed and conflict. But down that Long Path, the world as a whole was more benign, more accepting.

Now, Niente looked for that future. It was still there, but the vision was murky and disordered, and he was no longer certain he could find the way to it in reality.

“Taat?”

He heard Atl’s voice, and with the interruption, the green mist dissolved and he was merely staring at his own ugly, shimmering reflection in the water of the bowl. A droplet-like rain-hit the surface of the bowl, rings radiating out from it, touching the edges and rebounding in complex patterns, and Niente realized that he was weeping. He brushed at his eyes with his gnarled, clawed hands. “What?” he asked, blinking and raising his head. The back of his neck was stiff; how long had he been gazing into the bowl?

Atl was staring at him, and Niente wondered how long his son had been there. Perhaps he’d been muttering to the visions in the scrying bowl, as he sometimes did-what might Atl have heard? “What, my son?” Niente asked again, trying to soften his voice.

“The fleet is approaching the next large city, and Tecuhtli Citlali would like to speak to you regarding the vision you have had for this battle.”

“Yes, I’m sure he would,” Niente said. He sighed. Groaning with the effort of moving, hating how his back was bowed and how he shuffled like an old man, he lifted the scrying bowl and took it to the small window of the tiny room. He opened the shutter that kept out the spray and wind, and tossed the water out into the A’Sele. He wiped the bowl with the hem of his robe and handed it to Atl. “Take the bowl and purify it,” he said to his son as if he were an apprentice. “Tell Tecuhtli Citlali that I’ve just asked Axat to grant me Her visions, and that I’ll come to him as soon as I’ve rested for a stripe of the candle.”

“He won’t like that.”

“Indeed he won’t. And that’s part of why I do it.” Niente attempted a smile; he wondered if it showed on his face at all. “One thing the Nahual must teach the Tecuhtli is that we are equals, despite what the Tecuhtli likes to believe. We won’t reach Villembouchure for another day and more. There’s nothing he can do right now to seal our victory. Therefore, he can wait long enough for me to recover my strength.”

Atl grinned at that. He clutched the bowl to his chest. Niente saw Atl’s fingers close around it, almost possessively, stroking the incised figures of animals around the rim with familiarity. He is going to look into the bowl again, too. The realization came to him as a certainty. “I’ll do as you say, Taat,” Atl said. “I’ll give Tecuhtli Citlali your message.”

Niente nodded. Almost, he started to caution Atl not to use the bowl again so quickly, but he did not. You can’t stop him, any more than you could have stopped yourself. Say it, and you only guarantee that he will use it more.

So he said nothing. The vision of Atl laying dead overlaid his true vision. It was as if a corpse walked from the room, and he found himself weeping again and cursing the gift that Axat had given him.

He could not let his son die. That was not something a Taat who loved his son could do, no matter what the consequences. It didn’t matter if saving Atl destroyed the Long Path.

Please don’t set that before me, he prayed to Axat. Please don’t force me to make that choice.

He thought that he heard a distant chuckle in his head as he prayed.