(S)He Who Brings the Rain

"Corrupt fool." The voice was deep, reverberating like a storm in the distance. "Is she still virgin?"

"She was already defiled, Lord" The priest cried, pressing his face into the stones.

"Lies!" The being thundered, the sound sinking through my skin, and my bones shuddered. "Your last service to me will be your suffering."

I turned my head away as another violent series of bolts lit the room. They seemed to come from all corners of the room, but struck only the priest.

The screams of the priest were of unimaginable pain. The air grew heavy with the tangy odor of burning blood, followed the mouth watering aroma of cooking meat. The room grew stiflingly hot. The rancid smell of ruptured entrails overpowered me, as the stink became nauseous. I struggled to keep my bowels from voiding from sickness and terror.

When the bolts stopped again, I couldn't stop myself from looking at the priest burning and writhing helplessly at the feet of divinity. For who else, but the God Tlaloc, could call a storm within the tiny room to lay waste to the priests that had violated and then murdered the virgins he had called into service.

The God watched the priest wreathing at his feet coldly. By the God's will alone the priest was still alive. Tlaloc looked down at the burnt mass at his feet for several minutes then his ghastly blue eyes flashed to me, still laying on the stone table just below the serpent statue. He lifted his foot, then stepped down on the priest's skull. Thunder rumbled in the distance as the God chuckled, and the skull shattered beneath his heel.

I closed my eyes, holding my breath and hoping that he would pass me over. Praying that the deity would take pity and not turn his lightning fire on me. I felt hot breath over my sex, and heard the God take in a deep breath, smelling me. He exhaled loudly. I jumped as his warm hand cupped my bruised cheek gently. "Xochitl," he whispered my name, his voice still resounding with power but it was no longer sending tremors to my core.

I opened my eyes, turning my face away. Fresh tears streaking down my cheeks afraid to look at his face. No one living should see the face of a God. I shook violently my fear of the bolts of fire worse than drowning a million times over.

"See me as I am, and fear not. The priests did not take what I need from you." His voice was soothing, as he took my arm and pulled me up to sit at the edge of the table. "Before you are rewarded in Tlalocan, I have a job for you,"

"Yes, Lord Tlaloc," I whispered, feeling calmer than I had just seconds ago. I turned my head to look at the God as he stood and stepped back from me.

The God stood over me, draped in a strange buckskin leather tunic that hung past his knees. He looked like the statues made to honor him. His eyes were large and colored like rolling storm clouds lit by a sickly blue-green otherworldly glow that flashed every few seconds with lightning. The flesh of his face and arms was white like the snow that covers Iztaccihuatl. A mass of curly short hair the color of dying maize framed his face. He looked my age, despite the defined cheekbones and the crow's feet at the corners of his eyes.

He smiled at me. His lips raising to reveal a mass of sharp white obsidian, his canine-teeth elongated like the teeth of a jaguar. "I know you have questions, Xochitl. But, you must get dressed now. The night grows short and we must make it back to the mountain before Tonatiuh rises from Mictlan."

I stood and walked slowly to my clothes, shaking violently. I glanced down at my discarded blouse and my eyes were drawn to the smoking remains of the priests. They had been reduced to blackened meat and bone, barely recognizable as human.

Rumbling laughter drew my attention back to the God as he examined the serpent statue. He walked around the vessel slowly. I heard him take several deep breaths, as he moved around to the front of the statue. He peered deeply into the mouth overflowing with sacrificed hearts.

I had picked up the skirt, and begun the slow process of re-wrapping it, when the God reached into the craw of the statue. His hand moved through the contents until he pulled out a nearly perfect looking heart.

Tlaloc examined the heart, turning it slowly in his hand. His lips curved upward revealing his dagger-like fangs, and his otherworldly eyes flashed as he turned to me. He brought the heart slowly to his lips, and I could see his tongue move against the heart then his teeth were tearing into the muscle. The blood within the heart had set too long to run fluidly down his chin, it fell from the ruptured organ to land sickening plop on the stone floor.

I froze in mute terror as the God's teeth penetrated the organ, before gathering the strength to finish tying the sash to hold the cueitl securely at my waist. My stomach turned and I had I turn away from the God. Shaking, I reached and picked up my blouse. I fumbled with the huipil, and dropped it twice before I was able pull the simple garment over my head.

Tlaloc had finished his bloody treat by the time I had finished dressing and turned back to him. He licked the blood from his lips and walked toward me. "We will travel to my mountain in the way that Gods travel. There will be some pain, but you must not struggle." He wrapped his arms around me, cradling my face against his chest. "Close your eyes."

I closed my eyes, frozen, as the God held me tightly against him. His heart beat like a drum against my ear. His arms were like snakes twining around me. The air grew hot and began to hum around us. Tiny jolts of pain bit along my skin. I whimpered as lightning flashed against my closed eyes. The pain grew as the electric shocks grew more intense. Thunder rumbled and my skin felt as was going to burst into flame. I started to struggle against the burning of my skin.

"Be still and the fire will not burn you," Tlaloc rumbled, his hand holding my head firmly against him. "But, struggle against it, and it will kill you." His arms tightened around me as the magic storm swirled around us. "Almost there."

Slowly, the burning faded back to tiny pinpricks of pain against my skin. The lightning flashed less and less. Tlaloc's arms loosened around me, and his thumb stroked against my bruised cheek. He held me against him long after the air had cooled, as Yoalli Ehecatl danced around us. "You may open your eyes now."

I opened my eyes. We stood in a clearing before a small hut, and behind it I could make out a shrine in the moonlight. The altar room on the great temple was gone.

"The hut belongs to my priest," the God whispered to me, his thumb still moving gently against my cheek.

I tensed against him, the thought of more corrupt priests driving my panic even higher. My breasts and cheeks still burned with the punishing attention I had only moments ago suffered.

"Calm," he hushed me, and liquid calm flooded through my veins. "He is loyal and will care for you. I should have sent him to find you. Those horrible priests raped and killed three girls before they summoned you to my temple. It was only chance that I visited the temple tonight. The lure of all of the sacrifices was too much for me to resist."

Tlaloc released me, stepping back as a priest in a long dark blue xicolli came out of the hut. The priest was only an inch or two taller than I. His black hair gathered into a long plait that brushed the backs of his thighs as he walked toward us. He looked nothing like the priests that maintain the temples in Tenochtitlan. They were filthy monstrous beings with partially shaved heads, forever covered in sacrificial blood.

"I will show you to your room in the shrine," the priest told me, his Nahuatl heavily accented. He gently took my arm and lead me down the path around the hut to the entrance to the shrine. "You need to rest. I will bring you your meal when you wake up. Then I will take you to the pool to bathe, and to the temazcal to steam and purify your soul."

I glanced over my shoulder at the God. He gave a close-lipped smile, his glowing eyes flashing rapidly. Lightning flashed around him, and then he vanished. I startle, and the priest gripped my arm a little harder.

"Our God has many duties. He will return tomorrow after night has fallen. He will explain your purpose then," he whispered as he turned me to the shrine. He lead me inside, our steps echoing through the maze of torch-lit hallways leading into the mountain itself. "He told me that you were nearly raped by the priests at Huey Teocalli, and that he has punished them."

"How did he tell you?"

"I hear him when he wishes to speak to me." The priest responded simply, releasing his gentle hold on my arm. "I do not know how. But it has been like this for years. Our God brought me into his service when I proved unfit for sacrifice when I was twelve."

We stopped in front of a small door. The priest stepped directly in front of me and examined my face closely. "Your cheek will bruise." He said with a sad smile, then he reached and opened the door.

The room beyond was small, but held raised bed of reeds covered in blue cloth. The bed sat against the wall opposite the door, with a small window cut into the rock high up on the wall. There were two mats for sitting, and a short wooden table against the wall to the right of the door. A small candle burnt on the table filling the room with soft light.

I walked across the room, and ran my hand over the softness of the bed. It was covered in woven cotton, and stuffed with down feathers. My bed, at home, was a hard mat of woven reeds. "This is for sleeping on?"

"Yes. It is your bed," the priest laughed.

"I've never slept on anything so soft," I whispered turning back to the priest.

"You are dear to our God. He has a great purpose for you," he told me. "You will help bring the rains, and save the people of your valley from starvation."

"I don't understand." I sat on the plush bed, watching the priest as he hovered just a step from the doorway.

"I know you do not. And I can tell you no more," the priest said with a shrug, stepping out into the hallway. "You must sleep soon. I will bring you some chocolatl to help you sleep. You may call me Iztali." He closed the heavy door, and I heard a beam slide across it, locking me in.

I heard Iztali move down the hallway, and I took several deep breaths trying to process everything that had happened since my simple dinner of atole with my parents and siblings. Within moments of the priest leaving the wave of calm from Tlaloc's influence receded, and I began to cry.

My cheeks and breasts throbbed from the priest's hands. Though they hadn't actually taken my virginity, they had raped me. Their rape left me feeling hollow and dirty. I was so afraid of what I would be made to do when Tlaloc returned tomorrow. And even though he seemed kind, the priest scared me. I knew that my mind was incapable of understanding the God himself, but I knew his eyes would haunt me for the rest of my life, however long that may be.

I didn't know how much time had passed, before the beam across my door was lifted. Iztali came in carrying a large mug of frothy brown liquid. He handed me the mug, and then wiped away my tears. "Drink. It will soothe your nerves and help you to sleep."

I sipped the drink cautiously, it was heated but not hot. I took a larger drink, relishing in the rich flavor of the chocolate drink with several spices added giving it a spicy and sweet flavor. I moaned, and drank down the rest of the mug in a few large gulps.

The priest looked on, his eyes wide with surprise, laughing. "I have never seen someone drink down chocolatl that quickly."

"I've never had chocolatl before." I handed him the empty mug.

"Truly?" Iztali asked, he sat my mug on the small table, and sat on the bed.

As he turned to me, I startled. He seemed kindly, but he was a priest. And I knew very well the cruelty priests were capable of.

"His influence has worn off," The priest said, nodding in understanding.

"When you left," I told him, forcing myself to remain seated on the bed. "I want to cry and scream. I'm so afraid of everything I have felt and seen tonight."

"Yet, you sit and drink chocolatl," Iztali laughed.

"I can do nothing more. You have me trapped here. Wherever 'here' is," I whispered.

"You are at the sacred site on the mountain," The priest told me simply. "I'm here to comfort you. I will not hurt you in any way. I have been ordered to keep you as calm as possible until our God returns. He will calm you then, instruct you, and then you will get to work."

"I don't understand any of this. I think that I have already died and I am on the path to Mictlan. That my journey to my afterlife just isn't what we had been told it would be. I think that the priests took my heart and threw my lifeless body down the steps of the great temple." I lay down on the soft bed, and wept.

Iztali lay down beside me, wrapping me in his arms. "If you are dead, then what do you have to fear?"

"Everything." I turned my back to him and cried.

He held me, humming a child's song. Letting me cry away the terrors and wonders of this night, until I fell asleep.

Chapter 2. Learning to Ride the Storm

________________

I woke covered in warm blanket of leather and rabbit fur. The door was open, and Iztali was in the doorway looking in on me. He held a tray with two bowls of pozolli and two mugs of chocolatl. His smile was kind as he handed the meal to me.

Sunlight streamed in through the tiny window, as I ate my meal of thick meaty stew. I couldn't remember eating anything so good in my entire life. "You have a strange accent," I told the priest between mouthfuls.

"I am far from my home. My people worship our God, but there he is known as Chaac," Iztali told me, sitting down on the cool stones in front of me.

"How did you come to be a priest of Tlaloc so far from your home?" I asked swallowing mouthful of stew.

"I was chosen to be one of four children guaranteed as sacrifice in my village. We were covered in sacred mud, and lowered into the cenote to tread water until we could swim no longer and drown. But I would not sink. Even exhausted, I floated at the surface of the water."

The priest closed his eyes, and continued speaking. "I watched as the other boys slipped beneath the surface of the water. I watched them as the sank into the darkness. Then additional sacrifices were offered to the God. It was left to the God to take those he wanted. The priests would retrieve those that survived after a day and a night, and they would be honored in the village. I watched most of them drown.

"The day passed, then the night. The sun rose, and the ropes were lowered to bring the survivors back to the surface. I was brought out of the water as well.. My family was ridiculed, and were cursed by the Gods. Because I would not drown I was banished from my village and forced into the jungle. The priest in our village said that if I remained, my failure to go to my watery death would destroy our village." Iztali opened his eyes, and turned his attention to finishing his pozolli.

He set his empty bowl aside, and sipped from his mug. "I began to hear the God whispering to me on my second night of exile. I had found shelter in a cave. A storm was tearing through the night, and I could hear laughter in the storm as Chaac, Tlaloc, rode the storm on his way to my village. I prayed to him, begging his mercy and forgiveness for my failed sacrifice. I heard his laughter as he showed me the destruction of my village. He told me that because I had not drowned, I should have been honored by my people. The priest had damned my village to eternal torment."

"I wandered in the jungle for days, but it wasn't until I nearly fell prey to a jaguar that the God showed himself to me. He killed the great cat, and gave me it's body. He explained to me that I was bound to him for my entire life, and he brought me here with his magic. He explained that every failed sacrifice has a purpose, and that my purpose is to serve him in this shrine," The priest chuckled. "So here I am. And the jaguar skin keeps me warm at night."

I let the priest's story settle in my mind, as I tried to imagine how terrifying it must have been to have been dropped into a well, to be expected just to die. Though I still believed that downing would be easier than the death that the priests of Huey Teocalli suffered.

When I had finished my meal, the priest took the empty bowl and mug, and vanished into the hallway. He returned a few moments later. "It's time for your bath. Our God will be here just after sunset, and he is eager to begin."

"Begin what?" Fear knotted in my stomach and I fought to keep my meal down.

"I cannot say," Iztali said frowning slightly. "But I can feel his excitement. I have never felt an emotion so strong from him as this."

"I'm afraid," I told the priest, standing slowly.

The priest nodded in silence, and led me through the maze of hallways. We emerged from the shrine and into a hidden garden in a fissure of the mountain. A small stream fell from a waterfall into a pool just beyond the garden.

"Undress and wash in the pool," The priest instructed me.

I removed my blouse and my skirt and waded into the brisk water obediently. I felt the priest's eyes following my every movement, but I did not fear this priest in his pure blue xicolli and his long braid of clean black hair. He would do as Tlaloc bid.

I washed the sweat from my skin, and scrubbed under my arms. I cleaned my tender breasts carefully, wincing at the bruises. I passed my hands dismissively between my legs, and worked down my legs.

"Clean between your legs as well. I must apply an ointment to you in the temazcal. The God will touch you there," Iztali told me, his discomfort obvious, as he turned to pick up my discarded huipil, my sash, and long swath of rough fabric that was my cueitl.

I felt my cheeks blaze, as I moved into deeper water to wash between my legs. I ran my hands over my skin scrubbing at the sensitive flesh. After several minutes, I began slowly making my way out of the pool. "I think I am clean."

The priest nodded, and walked back through the garden to the temazcal, just a few steps from the rear door of the temple. He ducked and walked inside the steam hut. The air inside was already heavy with fragrant herbs which were smoking on the low banked coals.

"Please sit, and enjoy the steam. Take deep breaths, the herbs will help keep you calm," Iztali said, motioning to the granite bench against the back wall of the hut. He stepped out through the doorway, and removed his robe. He took time to fold his xicolli and set it and on the roof of the temazcal. My clothing was left in a pile on the ground.

I watched him through the doorway, as fear of his nudity coursed through me. He was not erect, but I knew from my horror with the priests that the small bit of flesh between his legs could quickly become something so much more frightful. I sat and pressed my legs tightly together, my hands covering my breasts, as the priest came back into the hut.

Iztali sat beside me, and gave a sad sigh. "I know that this is terrifying to you. I am regretful for what I must do." He laid a hand gently on my knee.

I jerked under his hand, and fought not to move away. "What - what are you going to do?" I stuttered, my eyes darting to the tool between his legs.

"Not that, I assure you!" He said with a snort, following my gaze between his own legs, the corners of his mouth turning up. "Our God would do more than call the storm to cook me alive. First, I must braid your hair. Then I must touch you, inspect you, and oil you."

I nodded, and turned so he could braid my hair and tie it with a small cord. When he had finished he pat me gently on the shoulder.