Chapter 16: Citlalín
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Author’s Note: September 15 and 16 mark the anniversary of Mexico's independence. I dedicate this week's chapter to the Mexican Republic, my birthplace and true home. And as is appropriate to shout on this holiday, "Viva México!" Don't forget that you can chat with me about Hall of Mirrors inside my Discord server.
-Cesar Torres
Chicago
Hall of Mirrors by Cesar Torres
Copyright @ 2022 Cesar Torres. All Rights Reserved.
Hall of Mirrors by Cesar Torres
CHAPTER 16: CITLALÍN
NESTOR BUÑUEL
Nestor couldn’t keep his hands from shaking. Each stone along the jaguar’s hide revealed new horrors, new joys and hidden pleasures, and they did so through sound, as the low-frequency music they emitted told a unique story for each one.
“Such a fearful little creature, you are,” the jaguar said. The cat turned his head sideways to watch Nestor approach the jewels along his hide.
The jaguar was as big as a school bus, and Nestor caught himself holding his breath because as anxiety overwhelmed him. Nestor chose the fourth jewel in the lower line. His open palm barely covered the surface, but he pressed down on it.
As the stone’s music flowed deeply into his body, he recalled memories that weren’t his, and they fell into his mind in a jumbled heap. The consciousness who had owned this heart had murdered men and women, by the dozens. This person had lived during what seemed to be the late nineteenth century. He thrived at night, stealing coins from those he murdered. The city had been Guadalajara, and Nestor could see its majestic, cosmopolitan splendor, as if through old, faded images, like moving photographs. The streets were very quiet at night, and the killer hung around alleyways and near the exits of saloons and nightclubs. He slashed throats, maimed eyes, and the screams of his victims rushed forward in Nestor’s mind like a music video gone haywire, and he felt a deep, deep sorrow. Nestor knew these types of horrors. They were the crimes he had investigated and sought justice for back on Earth. Yet the person who he was remembering had lived a long time ago. He was a tall male, with a long face and hard jaw, a pencil-thin mustache and a missing pinky finger. And he had loved the taste of blood at the expense of human dignity. He killed for the thrill of killing, and he felt no remorse.
Nestor pulled his hand back and wiped tears from his eyes.
“So you do cry,” the jaguar said.
“Huh?”
“I once heard a story,” the jaguar said. “According to the tale, not too long ago, two humans traveled through Mictlán in their corporeal form, just like you’re doing so now. They say that those humans that walked through the Coil could cry salty tears like yours.”
The jaguar stood up and paced around Nestor, circling him, and releasing hot, blood-tinged breath onto Nestor’s face.
“But you’re not HER,” the jaguar said.
“Who?”
“The Wanderer. That was the name of one of the two humans who walked through this realm.”
Nestor felt a deep, mostly forgotten type of shame and embarrassment flood back. His cheeks flushed, and he took a step back, only to stumble onto the one of the legs of the creature. The creature had said her.
Did it know?
Could it tell?
Could it feel?
“I have never been to Mictlán before,” Nestor said.
“Of course not, fool. You’re a he. You’re not HER.”
“Who?”
“The woman who traveled through the Coil. She did what no one else could: she and her brother arrived here in human form. She was one of the first signs of the prophecy.”
“I don’t know the prophecy,” Nestor whimpered. He was so scared now, and the animal that towered over him gave off a new kind of radiation, almost like heat, despite the fact that this kingdom of Mictlán was always cold.
“We are now in the era of the Sixth Sun,” the jaguar said. “It’s a new age, unlike any of the previous five. And this age has been foretold through many prophecies. The first prophecy came to me from Lord Xolotl, who lives in the mountains and volcanoes at highest levels of Mictlán. He said that in this Sixth Sun, the Rift would happen.”
“I have heard of the Rift,” Nestor said. “Tecolotl said it must be stopped.”
“Yesssss, you have met my cousin Tecolotl, then. Son of Mictecacíhuatl and Mictlantecuhtli. He’s known to visit Earth every so often. You surely have smelled his smokeflesh,” the Jaguar said, widening his eyes. Inside the pupils, glyphs spun in infinite loops, hypnotic, and deadly.
“Tecolotl said the Rift is opening gates between worlds.”
“He is correct. The Rift is allowing your realm to open up into this one, like water seeping through a cell’s membrane. But this is not the only opening. There are twelve other worlds in which the Rift is opening doorways. It was Lord Xolotl who first announced that prophecy. ”
“I know who Xolotl is. Head of a dog, and the body of a skinny human. He carries souls from the land of the living to—well, here.”
“I am surprised you know his name. Most of the souls I consume in this canyon have never heard of Xolotl, or any of the inhabitants of The Coil. They speak of gods I have never known. Gods with names, like Jesus, Allah, Bible, Crypto, Dollar, and many more.”
“I have a teacher back where I’m from,” Nestor said. “He teaches me about Xolotl and the other gods, or Lords, rather. He taught me that the Mexicas venerated Lord Xolotl.”
“The Mexica, the Toltec, the Olmec. I know of the peoples you speak of. They have called me and the inhabitants of the Coil by name many wheels ago, although with each passing wheel, they say our names less often.”
“The Mexica’s descendants are still alive where I’m from, but their stories are somewhat forgotten,” Nestor said.
“The second prophecy came from Xochicalco up above us,” the jaguar said. “They foretold the misery and doom that will come when the Rift opens. In fact, they are one of the strongest opponents to the opening of the gates.”
“We just came from Xochicalco. We leapt from its peak.”
“I know. I heard everything that happened up there,” the jaguar said. “And Xochicalco remains as mercurial as ever, hoarding knowledge, selfish and suspicious of visitors. That pyramid will always ensure that the secrets of Mictlán remain hidden here. That’s their agenda.”
“I don’t’ want any secrets from Xochicalco. I simply asked them if they could help us reach Iztépetl. It’s the same thing I’m asking of you.”
“That’s what you seek?” the jaguar roared. “Such arrogance.”
The jaguar flicked his tail, snapping it across Nestor’s back like a whip. Pain broke out across his shoulders, and he fell forward six feet, scraping his face on a rocky surface that was cold as ice. He scrambled up to standing, and ran away from the animal. But the jaguar was too quick. He coiled his tail around Nestor’s neck and yanked him hard back down to the ground.
From the Journal of Felix Calvo, October 27, 2030
I wanted to stay on the lakefront, but I ran into more blockades and more cops.
Tecolotl sometimes dove above my head, always moving closer to the water, just half a mile North of Nayy Pier, yet I could not reach that place.
I don’t know why the lake mattered so much, but by now, I was sweating like a pig, my face was covered in a fine film of dust, and I made a choice. I took one of the underground walkways that connect the running path on LSD to Michigan Avenue.
Traffic on the Magnificent Mile had come to a total standstill; motorists blared their horns, and more than a few stepped out of their cars to record the long line of cars that were absolutely stuck. People had stepped out of high rises and condos to gaze at the polidrones that whizzed in every direction, and the majority of people looked northward, where a column of smoke rose from Soldier Field. I could taste the collective fear in the air, almost like tasting a penny at the tip of my tongue.
I turned right on Chicago Avenue and walked west toward the subway station. If I hopped on the train, I could be home in 40 minutes or so. Police in armored gear walked past me, headed in the opposite direction.
As I crossed the street to enter the subway station, I noticed a line that started at the stairway and extended two whole city blocks along State Street.
From over my shoulder, someone shouted at me, “Hey girl, the line starts all the up there. No cutting.”
More sirens went off in the distance, and I felt a type of failure. Tecolotl was no longer in my sights, and I felt afraid for my life. But I grabbed a place in the queue, and started chewing on my nails. It was at that moment that it occurred to me that something really horrible might have happened to Nestor at his interview with Puttock, because my phone still had no texts from him at all.
NESTOR BUÑUEL
“I will never show you the way to the mountain of Iztépetl,” the jaguar said. “Did HE send you here?”
“He who?”
“Who else. Lord Tezcatlipoca. Tezcatlipoca the Black.”
“The Smoking Mirror? No.”
“You must be one of his spies,” the jaguar hissed.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nestor said. He tried pulling away the noose the jaguar had made with he tail, but he was too weak against the giant predator. Nestor felt his windpipe close, and even in this absolute darkness, he saw colored dots flood his vision as the lost bloodflow to the brain.
“He’s not lying, oh wise one,” said Puttock. He had shaken off the spiders and was now taking small, measured steps as he approached the jaguar. His hair was a ragged nimbus over his head, and his eyes had taken on a silvery, look; hungry, desperate, but also highly interested.
“You! Tell me what you know!” The jaguar loosened his grip and walked over to Puttock. Nestor collapsed on the ground and breathed in fresh air, as he saw the muscled haunches of the creature move toward Puttock.
“I know who Tezcatlipoca is, my lord,” Puttock said. “He is the governor of all darkness. He is the Enemy on Both Sides. The god of transformation and magic.”
“YESSSS,” the jaguar said, “and Tezcatlipoca is a corrosion in my heart. I wish him dead.”
“Please oh mighty one, help me understand why that is,” Puttock said.
The jaguar took a deep breath of air into his lungs, and when he released it, a cloud of smoke, tinged with the flavors of incense, myrrh and gold, burst forth. It was dense as mud, but also light and airy as a feather. And it blotted the world out.
Inside this tenebrous breath, the Jaguar revealed a story told through images. Nestor saw it as clearly as if he were seeing a movie in 16K. He witnessed a vast building shaped like a teardrop, suspended in a vast void, with a giant moat that looked like a mouth full of sharp teeth, two eyes on the side of its head that gave off black light, and a lure at the top of its head that also glowed with a sinister hue of radiating energy. Nestor had seen an animal like that before in a nature documentary on YouTube. It had lived deep in the ocean, where no light penetrated, and it swam slowly, a terror with a face scary enough to turn those who looked at it into stone.
The animal in the documentary had been an anglerfish, and this massive building inside this new vision looked exactly like one, except thousands of times bigger. And yet, here in Mictlán, this structure had no color to speak of, since no light ever penetrated this kingdom. Inside the mouth of the anglerfish, thousands of jaguars lived in small villages and communities, set up in many prides with a robust civilization of their own.
The air was very still, and then a beam of sound burst forth from the lure a the top of the building. A siren went off, signifying death and suffering. The jaguar, this very jaguar with the jeweled hide that was hunting them now, emerged from the moat of the anglerfish city. He had several of the stones marking his hide, but not as many as he had today, and his face looked smoother, younger. He fought an invisible creature who slashed him and punched him down to the ground. The jaguar bled and screeched, and his fur split open to reveal black flesh and blood. He leapt over the moat of teeth, and ran off into a grassy field, faster than any Earthly jaguar. Nestor understood the scene immediately. The jaguar had been banished from the city by the invisible attacker.
“That was my fight against my own father, Lord Tezcatlipoca, who fought me in his invisible form. He cast me out of my own city. That metropolis is one the most beautiful cities of Mictlán, and the Smoking Mirror shat on me. Tezcatlipoca banished me and sentenced me to live down in this canyon for eternity, feeding only on human hearts and bathing in my misery.”
“You’re a fallen angel,” Puttock whispered, as a smile spread across his lips.
“All I ever wanted was to make beautiful things, and my father disagreed. He said I was full of pride and conceit.”
“What things?” Nestor said.
“I became skilled at creating were-jaguars, creatures that fused the best features of humans and felines.”
Nestor could sense by now that this creature liked to have his ego stroked. So he took a chance.
“You come from a distinguished father. Surely your mother was also just as powerful?”
The jaguar hissed, purred, then hissed again.
“I have two fathers, you stupid human. Two powerful fathers. Lord Tezcatlipoca had a brief but passionate affair with the god Tepeyollotl, known in your speech as Mountain Heart. It was here in this canyon where they once kissed, made love, made a commitment to each other through many wheels, and where Tezcatlipoca borrowed the animal skin that Tepeyollotl wears when he takes on human-like form at dusk. Tezcatlipoca used his dark magic to put a spell on Tepeyollotl’s magical skin. And three days later, the skin gave birth to me. I owe much to my father Tepeyollotl. In fact, if you look up above you, at the mountain that crowns this canyon, you can feel him. Yes, that vibration you feel inside you is his voice. Tepeyollotl is the god of caves, earthquakes, echo, and also the god of jaguars.”
“But he couldn’t save you from being exiled,” Nestor said, stating a fact.
The jaguar licked his lips and focused his eyes on Nestor. Inside the pupils, glyphs constellated by the millions, like galaxies.
“That is true, bearded one. In the multiple realms in which we live, Tezcatlipoca and his three brothers, the other three Tezcatlipocas, have immense power. Tepeyollotl is a lord of very few words. And although he is one of the mightiest mountains here in Mictlán, even he is not as powerful as Tezcatlipoca the Black.”
Puttock clicked his tongue. “So Tezcatlipoca the Black rejected you for wanting to be more creative than a god.”
“It’s in my nature to imagine, to create, to build,” the jaguar said. “I designed and erected new buildings and living sanctuaries, inside the city of the jaguars, unlike any that had ever been built before. If you use your tongues and your noses, you can locate the city I built. It is located inside an ocean, suspended inside its own air bubble, here in Mictlán. When I completed it, my brothers and sisters collapsed in tears at the sight of my architecture.”
“Your father silenced your imagination,” Puttock said. “Punished you for it.”
“He accused me of wanting to start my own kingdom to usurp his power.”
“That’s what I would consider a fallen angel, for sure,” Puttock said. “Where is Tezcatlipoca the Black now?”
“You must not know who my father is, if you ask such an ignorant question.”
“Teach me, jaguar,” Puttock said.
“Tezcatlipoca, my father, is everywhere. He’s one of the few gods who can extend his rule across all worlds, even all the way into the nine levels of Mictlán.”
“Is Tezcatlipoca here now?”
“Your understanding of reality is very limited,” the jaguar said, as he spat on the ground. The cat took a large shit in front of the two men, marking his territory, and detonating a pungent wave of smells. It became evident to Nestor that this creature had a deep, forlorn and unknowable intelligence that existed above and beyond what he would expect from a jaguar from Earth. And the jaguar’s indifference to Nestor and Puttock almost hurt like a slap in the face.
Puttock changed his posture to stand erect, and he came face to face with the giant cat, casting his eyes downward to avoid a direct attack, but certain in his steps forward.
“I’ll give you anything you want, in exchange for one thing,” Puttock said.
“You have nothing to offer me,” the jaguar said.
“I have my service to pledge, lord.”
The jaguar mumbled something to himself, and the music that emanated from the jewels on his flanks quieted down.
“No one in this canyon has ever offered me their service.”
“Take my pledge, and show me your wisdom. And I will only ask for one thing.”
“Be careful what you ask for, human.”
“It’s something special, and beautiful. I would like to know your name.”
There was silence, and it seemed to stretch for hours. The jaguar paced in a tight circle, thinking, and his music slithered through the air, almost as if it were following his tail, as he sniffed at the ground and the air, showcasing his muscular legs, his rich fur, revealing his essence to be virile and timeless. His testicles swung between his legs, large and heavy, their scent pungent and almost fungal. The cat hummed a song to himself that echoed inside Nestor’s ears and rattled his chest. That hum bounced off the walls of the canyon in thousands of forlorn echoes. The predator was thinking.
“All right,” the jaguar said. “But if I agree to your offer, you will be bound to me forever.”
“Yes,” Puttock said. “Please.”
“I am Citlalín,” the Jaguar said, and his name issued forth from its lips in a series of staccato beats and undulating wind-instrument-like melodies that reminded Nestor of an oboe. The ground shook, and beneath their feet, dozens of worms sprouted from the rocky ground. The name Citlalín echoed throughout the canyon, and from up above, flying creatures took off in flocks, as if they had heard a death knell.
“I am Steven Puttock, my lord.”
“You called me a lord,” Citlalín said. “You know what that word means?”
“I’m not sure.”
“A lord is what you call a god. Or a lady, a goddess.”
“And indeed, I see that’s what you are.”
“My father would think it arrogant of you to give me such a title.”
“Perhaps he doesn’t recognize your potential, lord. Perhaps your father is envious.”
“I would enjoy seeing my father’s rage.”
“Please, Lord Citlalín, let me serve you.”
“Let it be so,” Citlalín said.
The jaguar backed up a few steps, and from deep inside his throat, cracking sounds emerged. His tongue slithered out of his mouth, and in a series of sudden jerking movements, he opened his jaw wide, wider than any earthly cat ever could. His upper jaw flipped so far back that his eyes collapsed under a fold of flesh, and all that was left was a giant neck gaping wide open like a fountain filled with teeth. Blood poured from sections of the jaw that had ripped open, like a loaf of bread ripped apart by strong hands.
Citlalín’s claws lengthened, and his tail split into four smaller tails, each one black as tar, and alive with its own intelligence, like a quartet of eels. The muscles in the creature flexed and grew, and a horrible sound emerged from his chest, as if another creature were waiting to burst through the flesh. It was the sound of impending doom, like a tornado in the near distance.
Suddenly, Puttock’s smile collapsed, and confusion spread through his face. Nestor wasted no time. He ran toward Puttock, grabbed him by the wrist and yanked him as hard as he could, away from Citlalín.
“Get the fuck off me!” Puttock said. He resisted but Nestor was physically stronger. Against his will, Puttock ran hand in hand with Nestor, as Citlalín crackled and shrieked, his body turning into a flower of black fur, teeth and pestilence. His shape became spider-like, but the four muscular jaguar legs remained intact. They twitched, readying themselves to sprint and pounce.
Nestor ran as hard as he had ever run in his life.
Just a few hundred feet away, Nestor spotted a section of the canyon walls that had holes, roughly the size of a human child, like a honeycomb in a bee colony. Nestor and Puttock could run ahead as much as they wanted, but the ground here was flat and offered no natural cover. Citlalín would be able to pounce on them within seconds, even if they got a head start. But the caves wouldn’t be big enough for the jaguar to reach them.
Puttock resisted, and he was slippery as a fish. Nestor wished he had a pair of handcuffs to secure him, but all he had now was his bare strength.
“We have to go back to Citlalín. Don’t you see what he’s offered us?”
“He only offered it only to you,” Nestor said.
“We have to trust him.”
“Fuck that. You go in first. Use your hands to guide you, and don’t look back,” Nestor said, as he shoved Puttock into the opening in the wall. Puttock was very lean and stringy, and he would be less likely to get stuck than Nestor, whose wide back might cause problems. He would deal with that once they were inside. He glanced over his shoulder, and he saw Citlalín darting across the canyon, shaped like a vile flower made of flesh, fur and teeth. His jaguar roar shook the ground and bounced endlessly off the walls of the canyon.
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