Etalcaxi moved through the dark jungle. His movements were the silent, efficient, and deadly movements of a hunter. His sandaled feet made no sound. His shoulders did not brush against the hanging vines. His face, illuminated in shifting patches of stark moonlight, was grim.
As he walked, the path magically cleared before him. Thorny branches that should have snagged his skin retracted into the darkness. Gnarled roots that should have tripped his feet smoothed themselves into the earth. The very jungle, his enemy, was paving his way. A week ago, he would have seen this as a blessing, a sign of his own importance. Now, he saw it for what it was.
The path opens, he thought. Of course, the path opens. The spider does not bar the way for the fly. The spider welcomes the fly into its web.
He was walking to the heart of that web, to the patient, beautiful cannibal that waited there. But he was not a helpless, struggling fly anymore. He was a fly that had sharpened its own stinger, a fly that intended to die poisoning its captor.
As he walked, the jungle, her jungle, seemed to taunt him with memories. Each one, once a treasured, secret jewel, was now a poisoned stone in his gut.
He saw the cenote as it had been on that first day, the sun a warm pillar of light, the water a brilliant turquoise. He saw her, laughing, her head thrown back, her green eyes sparkling with a joyous, mischievous light as she splashed him with the cool, clear water. The memory was so vivid, so real, he could almost feel the droplets on his skin, hear the musical sound of her laughter echoing off the stone walls. In that moment, he had felt a lightness, a joy he had not known since childhood.
Now, the memory pained her heart. Her joyous laugh was the cruel mockery of a predator playing with its food. Her playful splashes were a way to gauge his reactions, to see how easily her chosen prey would startle.
Every laugh was a lie, his mind snarled, the thought a venomous counterpoint to the remembered joy. A test to see how easily the prey would flinch. To see how tame it was.
The path continued to open before him, a courteous invitation. Another memory rose, unbidden. Her, kneeling before him on the sun-warmed rock, her expression one of focused, tender concern. Her cool, gentle fingers applying the glowing green salve to the scratch on his ribs. He remembered the instant relief, the tingling sensation of her magic knitting his skin back together. He had been filled with a sense of awe, of wonder. He had been healed by a goddess.
He saw the memory differently now. He saw a beast keeper, tending to a prize animal before a festival. He saw the careful application of a balm to a blemish on a pig's skin, ensuring the meat would be perfect for the slaughter.
Keeping the meat fresh, he thought, a wave of nausea rolling through him. Unblemished for the table.
The most vivid memory, the one that had been the source of his pride, the cornerstone of his blissful delusion, now painfully assaulted him. He saw the great ceiba tree, its roots a natural chamber, the floor a bed of soft, living moss. He saw her, her body moving with his, a symphony of passion and power. He felt the ground trembling beneath them, a deep, resonant shudder that had seemed to be the earth itself responding to the force of their union. He saw the magical, phosphorescent flowers bursting into instantaneous bloom around them at the very peak of their shared climax. He remembered the delirious, prideful thought that had followed: Did I do that?
A fool, his internal voice now screamed, a sound of self-loathing. A blind, rutting fool. He saw himself clearly now: a preening, arrogant idiot, so lost in his own pleasure, so convinced of his own legendary prowess, that he had mistaken the tremors of a monster's appetite for a magical response to his passion. She had not been sharing a moment of creation with him. She had been feasting. And the blooming flowers had been nothing more than the decorative garnish on a well-prepared meal.
And now Tlico, Citli, and the others will pay the price for my weakness, he thought, the weight of his foolishness so crushing it made him stumble. He leaned heavily against the trunk of a tree, his spear resting against the bark. His breath came in ragged, tearful gasps. He was filled with a wave of sickening self-loathing so powerful it threatened to bring him to his knees. He had not been her lover. He had been her willing, idiotic bait.
He pushed himself off the tree, his hand shaking. The moment of emotional weakness passed, He had a duty. He would not die a weeping fool in the jungle. He would not allow the monster the satisfaction of seeing his despair. He would die a Itzotec warrior.
He found a small, secluded clearing in the jungle. Methodically, he began a ritual of preparation. He sat on the damp earth, his spear laid across his thighs. He checked the sinew bindings that held the razor-sharp obsidian head to the ironwood shaft. They were tight, secure. He pulled a small, smooth, flat sharpening stone from the pouch at his belt. With slow, deliberate strokes, he began to chip at the flaked edges to sharpen the obsidian.
The repetitive, clacking sound of stone on stone was the only break in the jungle's soft, natural sounds. Clack. Clack. Clack. With each chip, he was sharpening more than the blade. He was sharpening his own resolve, chipping away the last vestiges of the soft, foolish man he had become. He worked until the edges of the obsidian were like black, frozen glass, capable of splitting a hair, of slicing through flesh and bone.
He put the sharpening stone away. He knelt. Using a piece of charcoal from his pouch and some of the dark, wet mud from the ground, he began to draw lines of war paint on his face. They were not the glorious, intricate patterns of a warrior to battle. These were the stark straight lines of a man preparing for his own death. A black line across his eyes, to sharpen his vision. A black line across his mouth. A black line down his jaw.
As he painted, softness of the lover vanished from his face. The fear was wiped away, sealed beneath muddy mask. Only the lines of the warrior remained.
There is no more Etalcaxi, the lover, he thought, trying to suppress all emotion. There is no more Etalcaxi, the fool. There is only the warrior. There is only the spear. And there is only the monster that must be ended.
He finished his preparations. In the distance, through the trees, he heard the gentle sound of falling water. He was close. He crept silently to the embankment overlooking the cenote, his movements the tread he would use when scouting a hostile border. He peered through a thick, leafy screen of ferns.
The cenote was below him, serene and beautiful, a bowl of silver and black under the moon. The magical flowers still cast a soft, ethereal glow, their light reflecting on the still, dark water. To him, it was the beautiful, deceptive lure of a monster's den.
And there, in the center of the pool, was Ixtic.
She was floating peacefully on her back, her long, dark hair a cloud around her in the water, her hands resting on her stomach. She was humming a soft, contented tune to herself, the same musical humming that had once filled him with wonder and desire, and now filled him with a cold, empty dread. She looked beautiful, peaceful, and unaware of the warrior watching her from the shadows above. To him, she looked like a sated beast, floating in its watering hole, digesting its recent, bloody meal of Nictex warriors.
His knuckles were white where he gripped the shaft of his spear. His eyes, peering through the leaves, were filled with mix of hatred, sorrow, and deadly resolve.