Sky Knife Read Free Page A

still be here. Alarmed at the thought, Sky Knife swung his meager light about, looking for a small, brown and black serpent with the diamond pattern on its back. The room was cluttered with the copious garments Blood House had planned to wear to the sacrifice. Yellow Chin could be hiding in a fold in any one of them. Or behind the water jug, or any of a dozen other places in the dark corners of the room. Sky Knife backed out of the room slowly, unwilling to touch anything.
    Sky Knife turned and ran into someone. He yelped and dropped his makeshift torch.
    â€œWhat took you so long, boy?” asked the tremulous voice of Death Smoke. “Did you find Blood House?”
    â€œYes,” whispered Sky Knife. He stepped away from the older man. “Dead. He’s dead.” Sky Knife’s voice cracked with emotion.
    â€œWhat?” shouted Death Smoke. “That can’t be—the ceremony went perfectly. There’s no room here for bad luck.” He shoved Sky Knife aside and mumbled the fire-calling incantation. Flames spouted into existence above Death Smoke’s head, filling the vaulted ceiling, and illuminating the entire room and Blood House’s quarters with a brilliant blue light.
    The blue drapery to the outdoors was swept aside and Stone Jaguar strode in, his jaguar skin cloak still in place. “What’s going on?” demanded Stone Jaguar. His searching gaze swept past Sky Knife, dismissing him. “Death Smoke? Claw Skull went ahead and kindled the new fire. It would have been unlucky to wait any longer. Where’s Blood House?”
    â€œIn here,” called Death Smoke. “It would seem that the ceremony didn’t go as well as we thought. Yellow Chin has been here.”
    Stone Jaguar’s face wrinkled in a terrible frown and his face purpled in rage. Sky Knife backed up, unwilling to call attention to himself while Stone Jaguar was so angry.
    â€œYellow Chin?” said Stone Jaguar. “The Bolon ti ku take the Yellow One and cast him into the lowest hell,” he hissed. “Itzamna!”
    Sky Knife’s gut twisted painfully as part of the import of Stone Jaguar’s words hit him. Yellow —the color of death, the color of evil. Of course it had been Yellow Chin who had come to do the bidding of Cizin, the Yellow One. Cizin wasn’t content to merely gloat over this death; he revelled in it. And had shoved the noses of the priests in it for good measure.
    Angry as Stone Jaguar was, he needed to know what Sky Knife had seen. “The Yellow One,” Sky Knife said softly. “He was here.”
    â€œOf course he was,” snapped Stone Jaguar. “He has taken Blood House.”
    Sky Knife fought the urge to run out into the night, away from the priest’s anger, away from the bad luck that undoubtedly clung to this entire building.
    â€œNo,” said Sky Knife. He straightened his shoulders and spoke firmly. “He was on the temple. After the sacrifice. I saw him. Actually, I heard him first. He sneezed.”
    â€œCan’t stand the smell of tobacco,” cackled Death Smoke from the other room. “Thought I heard sneezing, too, but I didn’t see anything.”
    â€œHe was on the temple? ” roared Stone Jaguar. “Has our luck deserted us completely? Cizin here, and only an attendant with a bad luck name saw him?”
    Sky Knife lowered his gaze and dropped to his knees before Stone Jaguar. He knew his name was bad luck, even if his mother said she’d received instructions in a vision to name her child after the Knife of Stars that swung in a slow circle overhead during the year. Still, Sky Knife thought his work in the temple, his efforts to please the gods, merited him luck. To hear Stone Jaguar as much as blame him for Cizin’s presence rocked him.
    But then, Stone Jaguar had never been happy that the previous Ah men, Vine Torch, had sponsored Sky Knife to the gods’ service. Vine