Aztlan: The Courts of Heaven

MICHAEL JAN FRIEDMAN

Copyright © 2012 by Michael Jan Friedman

Cover and design by Aaron Rosenberg

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information contact Crazy 8 Press at the official Crazy 8 website:

www.crazy8press.com

First edition

Aztec Names: A Pronunciation Key

a
as in father
e
as in net
i
as in police
o
as in note
u
as in flute
au
as in flautist
ai
like the first e in eye
c
hard before a, o, or u and soft before e or i
ch
as in choose
cu
like the qu in queen
h
as in hello
hu
like the w in way
l
as in lose
m
as in make
n
as in nose
p
as in pie
qu
like the k in kite
t
as in tell
tl
like the ll in llama
tz
like the ts in cats
x
like the sh in shell
y
as in you
z
like the s in sun

Foreword

S
top!

The Aztlan books, featuring 21st-century Aztec sleuth Maxtla Colhua (did I really just write that?), are meant to be read
in order
. To do that, you need only know two things. One is that
Aztlan: The Courts of Heaven
, which you presently hold in your hands in one format or another, is the
second
book in the series. The other is that
Aztlan: The Last Sun
is the
first
.

Simple, right? I mean,
I’d
have trouble with it, but I’m pretty sure you won’t.

Now, if you choose
not
to read the books in order, the universe won’t go flying off its hinges. At least, there’s no data to support that conclusion. Well,
hardly
any.

On the other hand, there are spoilers in this book that will reveal the identity of the murderer in the previous book. So you’re forewarned. If you don’t care about the spoilers, do as you wish. The ball, as Maxtla might say, is in your court.

As for why anybody would want to
write
a 21st-century Aztec murder mystery . . . hey, why not? I love murder mysteries and I’ve always been interested in the Aztecs, and . . . well, if chocolate and peanut butter can go together, I guess Mesoamericans and whodunits can hook up as well.

And then there’s the whole End of the World thing. I guess that figured into my motivation as well. Something intriguing about a society whose plans only extend to the end of a millennium. Not like
we
would do that, right?

Yeah, right. Can you say Y2K?

My recommendation? Read
Aztlan: The Last Sun
. Then read
Aztlan: The Courts of Heaven
. Then clamor for a third book on every social medium you can find. Okay? Okay.

Sure glad we got
that
straightened out . . .

A
huitzotl, one of the emperors in ancient days, once called his great, high-walled ball court in the city of Tenochtitlan “the place of possibility.”

Of course, there were really only
two
possibilities in Ahuitzotl’s ball court. One was that you won and became an overnight celebrity, rewarded with all the delicacies you could eat and all the women you could love. The other was that you got heroically drunk, trudged obediently up the steps built into the side of a sun-baked pyramid, stretched out on a stone altar, and watched a priest cut your heart out.

But I knew what Ahuitzotl meant, because it isn’t just the outcome of a match that can go either way in the ball court. It’s every moment that leads up to it—every pass, every goal-kick, every body-bruising block. Each one is a miracle of possibility all by itself, unscripted, unpredictable, untamed by the will of the gods.

Everywhere else in life there are age-old prescriptions, paths to walk and paths to shun. We are told when to sow our fields, when to harvest our crops, when to celebrate life, when to mourn our dead. It’s all laid out in our calendar, beat by beat, as unchanging as the tides.

But in the ball court, even the gods can’t wait to see what will happen next.

That’s why people, especially people on the Mirror, say that everything between the stone walls is a surprise.

That wasn’t true just in Ahuitzotl’s ball court. It was true of ball courts everywhere—even the third-class rehab in which I played my men’s league games every thirteen days. We were bumping for bragging rights, nothing more than that. No beans at stake. Just the chance to show the gods what we could do with the humble mortal forms they had given us.

Ahuitzotl’s comment notwithstanding, I had always prided myself on being able to study an opponent’s habits and anticipate what he would do next. Most of the time I was right. Yet that one late afternoon halfway through the season, the Gophers’ center had surprised me by taking a shot at Atl’s knee.

There was no mistaking it, no possibility of misinterpretation. The bastard hadn’t gone for the ball. He hadn’t been anywhere near the ball. He had
purposely
gone for the kid’s knee.

Atl was a show-off, I had come to learn. He had lots of youthful energy, which was what you wanted in a defender, but he sometimes expended a little more of it than he had to. As I say, a show-off.

And he liked to celebrate a little too much after he scored a goal, which he had done earlier in the match. And we were beating the Gophers 6-1 with a few minutes left to play, which wasn’t quite the outcome they’d had in mind.

But that was no reason for the Gophers’ center to try to cripple Atl as the two of them dug a ball out of one of the corners.

Of course, I didn’t think about any of that until later. When I saw the guy kick Atl in the side of his knee, I didn’t think at
all
. I just went after him. If I had gotten to him before any of my teammates, I don’t know what I would have done. Lucky for me that Huemac plowed into him first.

Huemac was big and strong, like one of those old-fashioned carriages they had on the rails before the Emperor replaced them with new ones. He sent the bastard who had kicked Atl crashing hard into the stone wall, dragging a long groan of pain out of him. And he didn’t stop there. Before the guy could get up, Huemac was sitting on top of him and pounding him with his fists.

Ecatzin and Ocelopan grabbed Huemac and pulled him off the guy. But by then the guy’s teammates had gotten into it, and so had the rest of us Scale Beetles. It was a mess.

A
bloody
mess.

Fortunately, it didn’t last long—maybe a minute. Then it devolved into a shouting match, the ball court ringing with our threats and accusations. Finally even that broke up, and we hobbled off to our respective locker rooms.

We never actually finished the game, but we knew the league would give us the win. So we had that consolation. But Atl’s knee was so sore and swollen he could barely put any weight on it, and it was far from our only casualty. As usual, Huemac had a broken nose. I had a sizable cut below my eye. And Atl’s pal Panitzin, our other defender, was holding his ribcage as if he had cracked something in it.

“Lizard turds,” said Huemac, dropping heavily on the wooden bench in front of his locker. He sounded like he just had a bad cold, but a glance at the mash that had been his nose made it clear the problem was more serious than that.