A Book Of Tongues Read Online Free PDF Page B

the Rev had taken pains to make so
damn sure he wasn’t.
    But that was Chess, and this was Ed, who didn’t love Reverend
Rook at all — not more than his life, at any rate.
    So all Morrow did in response was grit his teeth hard, stop his
ears and take to his heels, shotgun snapping up like a third arm,
already cocked. And left ’em to it.

CHAPTER FOUR
    That dream again. How many had he had already — a seemingly
infinite roster of dreadful variations, each just as grotesque as the
next? How many would he have to?
    This time, he sat at his Rainbow Lady’s left hand on a dais made
from bones. Her dragonfly cloak spread out behind them both
to form a living tapestry, each dim-brilliant wing aflash, their
collective buzz a rising ghost-whine.
    She laid her small hand upon his arm, murmuring: Even the
dark world has its seasons, or tides. And this, Our Flayed Lord’s
young man-skinning month, is one of our shallowest points . . .
when the waters recede far enough to show the mulch beneath.
The endless death-muck swamp from which all life can — and
will, and must — be reborn.
    Look down, little king . . .
    Elevated far above the crowd, he saw the Sunken Ball-Court’s
fetid playing grounds teem with competitors — all splendid athletes,
once upon a time. But now they were sadly denuded parodies, skins
black with putrescence, slipping and sliding back and forth over
drained-pale flesh rendered vaguely pink again with strain.
    The skull-rack walls rang with groans of effort. Some played
half-blind, their eyeballs long since spilled out upon their cheeks on
glistening strings; others played by sound alone, sporting necklaces
cobbled together from their defeated opponents’ teeth, strung upon
intestines.
    Ixiptla, she called them. Even closer, her breath stirred his
hair — but not rank, as he’d expected. Smelling instead of something
fresh and green, a springtime scent, familiar enough to be doubly
wrenching when re-encountered in this horrid place.
    Ix-what? he asked, only to hear her rippling silver laugh, a many-layered chime of wind-blown glass.
    Ixiptla , she repeated. Gods’-flesh. Sacred victims. How
generously they spill their blood for us, even here! Playing out
the old games, so they can serve themselves up to us like maize.
For they have all been Him, in their time — all aspects of the
Year-dancer, the Flute-player, best of all shared dishes. Xipe
Totec, Our Lord the Flayed One, who breeds flowers from meat
and flies from fruit, whose many deaths create and destroy the
world.
    Crashing up against each other with a rotten gasp of impact
while their rucked hides bulged, flapped open along the backbone,
to display a sudden flash of naked spine: calculated as a whore’s
culottes, yet far more . . . intimate.
    Ah , she breathed once more, she who had no real breath. Aaah,
but the pulp of men is SWEET, little king. Red-ripe with pain,
cradled in clicking yellow bone — and the heart itself, so precious
when proffered thus, especially if given in love. Man’s-heart set
unwrapped in its cracked cage of ribs, a jade ball . . . earthquake
anchor, skull-flower, jaguar cactus fruit. . . .
    I don’t — he started to say, then choked it off. Seeing how each
player’s empty chest swung wide, then slammed shut again with the
game’s give and take, crunching. That they were nothing but raided
lock-boxes given just enough life to blunder back and forth through
the rising water, kicking up puddle-spray with their bare, bony feet.
    A second hand hung from every wrist, cured-glove-limp, nails
and all. Skeleton palms rose to spike the ball off whatever wall
seemed nearest, sliming it with rot — after which the gamesters
would yell out in triumph, catch it on the rebound, and start over
again.
    He shook his head, bile flushing his throat, and demanded — What are you people? Goddamn demons?
    We are the Gods , she said. We were you; we love you. Why
would we not? Your love keeps us alive.
    I ain’t no damn part at all