Chapter Text
Prelude: Tezcatlipoca (in many incarnations at once)
Tenochtitlan (location of present-day Mexico City) – circa 1420
It was hot and humid, and the sun shone down upon the land, warming the earth, enabling crops to grow and keeping people and animals alive. The sun was what kept the world going and it needed to be refueled with human sacrifice, a sacrifice of human blood and human hearts, so it would continue to keep shining down on the world in the coming year. The city was thrumming with excitement and anticipation. It was the fifth ritual month and time for Toxcatl, the festival dedicated to Tezcatlipoca, the God of Smoke and The Obsidian Mirror, also the God of Night, Sorcery and Destiny.
The air was filled with drumming and chanting, the sweet, cloying smell of burning incense permeating the air, the atmosphere of Tenochtitlan thick with optimism and hope. The priest stood tall at the top of the Templo Mayor, patiently waiting for that year’s incarnation of Tezcatlipoca to arrive.
Tezcatlipoca, the God of Smoke and The Obsidian Mirror, having lived a whole year as a human, had been feted and indulged with food and women. He’d been given everything he desired except for his freedom. The human incarnation of Tezcatlipoca had been fattened up and spoiled during the year that the man had been captured, and now dressed in his finery, the living embodiment of Tezcatlipoca had arrived at the Templo Mayor and was slowly climbing up the steps. The small, still-human part of him, the part that had been the young warrior from the neighboring village who had been captured in battle, was screaming in fear and panic, but Tezcatlipoca quashed him, choosing instead to take control of the man’s body and climb the stairs slowly and deliberately. Regally. He was a god, after all, and his duty was to sacrifice himself to the sun so that the world could continue to live. It was his responsibility. The sacrifice of a god was the ultimate offering to the sun, and he willingly made this sacrifice every year, as he had vowed to do.
On the outskirts of Tenochtitlan, Tezcatlipoca’s nagual Tepeyollotl – his animal form – prowled, catching the scent of death in the air, knowing that he would smell Tezcatlipoca’s fresh blood soon. Every step that the black jaguar took was soundless, and he snarled to himself, thinking of the satisfaction he would get from this year’s sacrifice. The human that they had chosen was comely, healthy, and well-muscled. He had maintained his lovely form during his year as the embodiment of Tezcatlipoca. He’d refused to succumb to the excess that he had been presented with, as had other human incarnations in the past. There had been many a year where Tezcatlipoca allowed himself to grow fat during his year as the indulged human incarnation of the god, but not this year. This year, Tezcatlipoca was sleek and toned, his body perfumed and groomed after his ritual bath. He was clean and healthy, still the warrior so mighty that it had taken three jaguar knights to capture him in battle the previous year. The powerful muscles in his thighs and calves rippled as he climbed up the stairs, brown skin oiled and gleaming with health.
The nagual could see him and licked his lips in anticipation, for soon he would feast.
All along the bottom of the Templo Mayor, jaguar knights and eagle warriors stood, maintaining order as the human embodiment of Tezcatlipoca kept moving up the stairs. The drumming and chanting grew louder and louder the closer to the top Tezcatlipoca got. The crowd’s excitement was palpable and the knights and warriors, the best of their kind, were on their guards, making sure that nothing would disturb the ritual.
The human incarnation of Tezcatlipoca walked alone, head held high, his headdress on his head, calm and unafraid. Tezcatlipoca was also in the jaguar knights, seeing himself walk up the stairs through the jaguar knights’ eyes. Tezcatlipoca had a strong connection with those dressed like his nagual, even though as warriors, they were all dedicated to his brother Huitzilopochtli, the God of War. But the jaguar knights had taken on his form, after all, embracing the ferocity of his nagual, and through their eyes Tezcatlipoca watched himself, stately and deliberate, climb those stairs to the top without any hesitation, to where the priest, skin painted all in black, awaited him.
This year’s embodiment of Tezcatlipoca was a worthy sacrifice indeed.
The jaguar, Tezcatlipoca’s nagual, yowled in anticipation. This was the main sacrifice. Earlier, he had witnessed the first sacrifices. Captured enemy warriors had been tethered and given their ritual false weapons and then forced into gladiatorial combat against four jaguar knights and eagle warriors who were fully armed and wearing their battle armors and costumes. As they did battle, the knights and warriors called forth the powers of the jaguar and the eagle, two sacred animals of the Mexica, the people of Tenochtitlan. The bloodbath had been a work of art, its beauty as pure as a poem or a sculpture, as the jaguar knights and eagle warriors worked to disarm and ritually dismember the honored enemy before his heart had been removed from his chest while he was still alive. Each of these battles had been fiercely fought and Tezcatlipoca was satisfied with this year’s tribute.
And now it was time for the main event. When the human embodiment of Tezcatlipoca reached the top of the Templo Mayor, he turned and raised one arm, hand triumphantly fisted, and all of Tenochtitlan roared their approval, as did Tezcatlipoca in his nagual form. Then he turned to the priest and bowed his head.
Tezcatlipoca ruthlessly quashed the fear that threatened to overwhelm the human he inhabited. With steady hands, he took the bowl of octli and drank deep, three gulps as was the ritual, feeling the burn of the fermented liquid slide down his throat, a fiery flame in his belly, before he returned the bowl to the priest. The priest took the bowl and drank, three gulps as well. The priest’s helpers, also holy men themselves, their bodies also painted black, came to rid Tezcatlipoca of his ceremonial robes and headdress.
It was time.
Clad only in a loincloth now, Tezcatlipoca took one more look at the people gathered at the plaza by the Templo Mayor and he gave them one last ferocious grin. Then he turned to the priest and allowed him and his helpers to lay him on the column on which he would make this most important sacrifice. Tezcatlipoca had never found himself to be a coward or to walk away from a task that needed to be done. He embraced what he had to do and did it willingly and with enthusiasm. As he laid on the column, he kept his eyes on the sun that was burning hot, and when he blinked, his vision was clouded with dark blots caused by the brightness of the sun. But his eyesight no longer mattered as within minutes, he would be one with the sun, living with the sun and nourishing it, so that the sun would continue to rise and set for another year and his people would continue to live.
Tezcatlipoca laid there, breathing calmly, knowing that in a moment all of it would cease. He would cease to breathe and his human body would perish while Tezcatlipoca would fulfill his destiny and rise up to the sun. His death and the deaths all of the others that came before and after him had been foretold. Tezcatlipoca had to die every year to ensure the continuity of his people, the Mexica. It wasn’t the first time he had done this and it wouldn’t be the last time, either. He would be reborn in the next human incarnation, the next human worthy to be his human form for the year, until he was sacrificed again, in the next Toxcatl festival.
The priest raised the obsidian knife high, and Tezcatlipoca smiled, as he was the god of obsidian and the obsidian knife was a part of him. He was Tezcatlipoca who was to be sacrificed, he was the obsidian knife that was going to be used to take his life, and he was in the priest holding the knife. Tezcatlipoca watched himself from all the different eyes that he could inhabit. With this obsidian knife, Tezcatlipoca was being honored even as he was being sacrificed. The priest was chanting the ritual prayers to the sun and to Tezcatlipoca, and Tezcatlipoca could feel his hold on the human body beginning to loosen. It would not be long now.
When the obsidian knife came down and struck his body, Tezcatlipoca watched as arterial blood spurted out of his chest cavity in huge gouts and sprayed the priest’s and his helpers’ faces and bodies in a flood of bright red, the brightness of the blood contrasting starkly with the black-painted skin of the priest and his helpers, dousing them in patterns that spoke of the health and the bounty of Tezcatlipoca’s blood. Blood to feed the hungry sun. And he watched as the priest cut his still-beating heart out of his chest and raised it to the sun, speaking the ritual words that would make this highest of offerings, one of blood and the human heart, and of the blood and heart of the god Tezcatlipoca himself, enough teyolia in this one offering to last the sun an entire year.
Tezcatlipoca closed his eyes and found himself rising up to be consumed by the sun, its fires purifying him as he burned up. It was not the first time that he had been burned in the fires of the sun. It reminded him of the time during the first age when he had himself been the sun. The pain he felt was welcomed and familiar, and he could feel the sun quenching its hunger on the teyolia – the heart – that had been offered up to it.
The black jaguar prowled around Tenochtitlan for another few hours. All of their fates had been saved for another year. Eighteen more Mexican months – one whole year – of sunlight had been guaranteed by Tezcatlipoca’s sacrifice.
In the morning, the priests and the nobility of Tenochtitlan as well as Tezcatlipoca’s nagual would feast on the stewed body of the human Tezcatlipoca, as was tradition. The priest would charge the best, bravest, worthiest of jaguar knights to bring the nagual his helping of the bounty and leave it in a ceremonial bowl at a crossroads, as Tezcatlipoca also habitually challenged young warriors at the crossroads.
The jaguar padded away after he had eaten his fill. He would return in a year when it was time for Toxcatl and the renewal of the sun yet again.