Sky Knife Read Free

lived with the priests, Blood House had always been kind and patient with him. Blood House would know what to do.
    To the south of the Great Plaza, on a small hillock, stood the southern acropolis, home of the priests and attendants to the temple. No red-painted step marked the acropolis’ boundary, for no disaster would rain upon the city if anyone besides the priests entered, but still, the people of the city gave it a wide berth. As soon as Sky Knife climbed the first step, he left the crowd behind.
    Sky Knife pushed aside the blue cotton drapery that hung over the main entrance and stepped inside. A fire burned inside the main room, which was shallow, but wide. Stone benches lined the walls. The meager light from the fire lit the center of the room, but the corners and vaulted ceiling were left in the shadow of midnight. Sky Knife turned away from the fire and walked toward the dark entrance of Blood House’s personal quarters; as a priest, Blood House’s quarters were close to the airy, open front room. Attendants were crammed into smaller, smoky rooms deeper in the stone structure.
    Blood House’s quarters were dark. The feeling of unease that had plagued Sky Knife all night blossomed into a terrible dread. He retreated to the fire and pulled out a flaming brand. He walked back to Blood House’s quarters.
    Blood House lay on the stone bench that served as his bed. His hands were clamped down on a tobacco leaf that had been pressed against his bare abdomen. His tattoos, which normally stood out in stark contrast with his lighter skin, now seemed blurred, as if Blood House were bruised over his entire body. Blood stained Blood House’s face around his mouth and nose. In contrast to the blood that stained Sky Knife’s arms, which was dark and sticky now, almost dry, the blood on Blood House’s face was bright and wet.
    Sky Knife, trembling, stepped closer. He touched Blood House, but the priest’s skin was clammy and cold. He did not seem to be breathing. In the flickering light from the small tongue of flame Sky Knife carried, it was difficult to tell anything at all for sure, but inside he knew. Blood House was dead. No wonder Cizin had appeared. The god of death gloated over the bodies of priests as he gloated over no other—for they knew the secrets of the gods, and kept the rituals pure and holy. How sweet it must have been for Cizin to breach the wall of good luck around the temple and appear on its very summit. How terrible for the city of Tikal.
    Grief tugged at Sky Knife’s heart. Blood House had been a good teacher, a mentor to Sky Knife. The priest had had a gentle soul and a kind way that had helped Sky Knife in his first frightening days at the temple, when his grief over his parents’ deaths had been new and raw. Stone Jaguar was a hard but fair man, a man Sky Knife could respect, but Blood House alone had been someone Sky Knife could not only respect but admire.
    Sky Knife brushed away the tears that rained on his cheeks and pushed his grief away. He put the flickering light as close to the body as he dared, looked at the tobacco leaf, and tried to think around the hard knot of sorrow in his heart and mind.
    From around the edges of the tobacco leaf dribbled a dark, sticky liquid. A tobacco leaf over tobacco juice—Blood House had treated himself for some sort of bite or sting. Gently, Sky Knife lifted the edge of the leaf. Two small puncture wounds marred the priest’s skin.
    A bite. Bleeding, bruising. A relatively quick death. Sky Knife knew what had happened here. The snake called Yellow Chin had bitten Blood House. Yellow Chin lived in fields as well as jungle, but rarely entered the city itself, and never entered the dwellings of man if it could help it. Sky Knife shook his head. He knew Blood House had not left the acropolis all day—none of them had, until the time for the ceremony. So Yellow Chin had had to come here.
    Yellow Chin might