Mercedes Lackey - Tregarde 2 - Burning Water

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BURNING WATER

by Mercedes Lackey

A Tor Book

First edition: February 1989

Dedicated to

Mary Jean and J. R. Holmes, who gave Diana a place to grow up

ONE

Lupe sobbed harshly, her voice muffled, as if smothered by the darkness all about her. She clawed

at the rubble that hemmed her in; her finger-ends were surely raw and bloody, but she couldn't see them,

and she was too hysterical to feel much pain. All she felt was panic, the panic of a trapped animal—for

she was trapped helplessly beneath tons of rubble, rubble that, less than an hour ago, had been the twenty-

story hotel in downtown Mexico City where Lupe worked as a maid.

Today was September 19, 1985. Mexico City had just experienced one of the worst earthquakes in

its history.

Ironically enough, it was also Lupe's birthday.

Less than an hour ago she'd been happy. It had not much mattered that she'd had to work on her

birthday; she had known that she was lucky to have this job at all. Less than an hour ago, she had

descended the stairs to the cellar storeroom singing. It would only have been a few more hours, and then

she'd have been off, free for the evening. There was going to be a party, cake—and handsome Joachim,

who worked as a bellman, had promised to come. She had a new dress, red and soft, like rose petals, and

Joachim liked red. One of the tourists had already given her a tip for bringing extra towels. And there had

been a full, unopened bottle of wine left behind after the party in room 1242. She'd hidden it in her locker,

for her party. It was going to be a good day, with a better evening to come.

The ashtrays she'd come seeking were kept in boxes next to the stairs; cheap little metal things

that the tourists were always taking. Somebody had overfilled the particular box she reached for and

several of them had fallen out and rolled under the staircase. She'd had to wedge herself under the

staircase to reach them. She hadn't minded; the cellar was well lit, and she was small enough to fit beneath

the staircase easily.

That was what had saved her.

For with no warning, the floor began to buck and tremble like a wild horse; the lights sparked and

went out. She screamed, or thought she did—she couldn't hear her own voice in the shrieking of tortured

metal and concrete. She'd been flung backward and against the wall, and hit her head, seen multicolored

flashes of light, then nothing.

When next she could think, she was hemmed in on all sides by concrete and debris, trapped in the

dark—a darkness so absolute that there was nothing she could compare it to.

The reinforced staircase had protected her; kept her from dying beneath the crumbling hotel.

She knew at once what had happened; Mexico City had suffered earthquakes before. But she had

never been caught inside a building by one; never known anyone who had been buried alive like this.

Lupe had survived the quake. Now as she stared into the darkness, she realized slowly that she

faced death in another, more painful form: suffocation, starvation, thirst—

Madre de Dios, she prayed wildly, I'm only seventeen! I have always been good—I can't die—

The air in her tiny, sheltered pocket was already growing stale. She panted in fear, and the air

seemed to grow thicker and fouler with each breath. The sound of her breathing was a rasping in her own

ears, for the silence was as absolute as the darkness. She rested her forehead on the wall in front of her,

feeling her chest constrict and ache. How long before the air became unbreathable?

That fear was enough to make her tremble in every limb. But worse than the rock that hemmed

her in, worse than the thickening air, worse than any of it was the terrible, menacing darkness all around

her.

Lupe was afraid of the dark; she had been afraid of the dark for as long as she could remember. It

was a vague fear she couldn't even define, just a feeling that there was something—waiting for her.

Watching. A something that lived in the dark—no, it was the dark.

And it wanted Lupe.

But it was rarely "dark" in Mexico City, even in the early hours of the morning. Certainly it was

never dark in the two-room apartment she shared with her sisters; the neon signs of the nightclubs across

the street saw to that. Her night-fears had been easy to laugh at until this moment.

Now she was caught in the very heart of darkness; thick, hot darkness that seemed to flow

sluggishly around her, seemed to be oozing into her very pores and trying to force itself down her throat

until she choked on it.

She could feel it now—

She gasped, coughed, and frantically scrabbled again at the wreckage hemming her in;

whimpering and hardly realizing she was doing so. She had barely enough room to crouch; impenetrable

rubble formed a tiny pocket around her—like the pocket holding the larvae of a tourist's "jumping bean."

But the larvae would grow wings and escape—

She never would. She would die here, and the dark would eat her bones.

She wailed, and pounded at the wall before her with aching hands. Trapped—trapped—

Lupe's mother had had no patience with her child's phobias. The census said they were Mestizo—

but Paloma had told all her children that they were truly Azteca, and descended from priests. "Look for

yourself, if you don't believe—" she had told them all, and more than once. "Go to the museum and see for

yourself." And so, dutifully, they had gone—to see their own high-cheekboned, beaky profiles (so unlike

most of their schoolfriends' round faces and snubbed noses) echoed at them from pots, from paintings,

from bas-relief. "You are of noble blood, the blood of warriors," she had scolded Lupe when the girl

confessed her nightmares. "How can you be so afraid?"

Mamacita, she cried out in her mind, what good is noble blood when the earth shakes? What good

is descent from priests when the dark comes to steal my breath!

She sobbed, the thick air tasting of her own fear. The smell of her own sweat was rank, thickening

the dark further. Her eyes were burning with tears as she continued to beat at the unyielding wall before

her. She knew it was useless—but what else was there to do? It was either that, or curl into a ball of

misery and die or go mad.

Maybe the Virgin would grant a miracle, and someone would hear.

She forced herself to pound on the wall, while her arms grew weary, and fists numb. Pound—

pound—pound—

Then the wall moved.

She started back, hugging her bruised fists to her chest with an involuntary intake of breath, afraid

now that she might have triggered a fate worse than the one she sought to escape—a second falling of

rubble that would crush her.

When nothing else happened, she reached out with one hand, heart in her throat, and pushed

tentatively at the spot that had yielded.

Again it moved—moved outward just the slightest bit. She tried to think, when the movement

brought no corresponding descent of stone on her head—what direction had she been kneeling? What lay

before her?

Carefully now, she felt along the wall; it was flat, or nearly. Cracked, cracks she could stick a

finger in up to the first knuckle, but mostly flat. It must be the basement wall, then, rather than a tumble of

concrete. She must be facing the back of the staircase.

Maybe the quake had opened up a hole next to the foundation! Maybe—maybe it was even a way

out—

Lupe didn't hesitate any further; the thought of a way out gave her arms a new and frenzied

strength. She shoved at the yielding place with all her might, bracing herself against the wreckage that

held her trapped; shoved until she thought she was going to tear herself in two. And when the wall

suddenly gave way, she was unprepared, and went somersaulting headfirst down a pile of dirt and rocks,

hitting her head on a stone and nearly knocking herself out a second time.

She sat up, after a long moment of dazed blinking at the false lights thrown before her eyes by the

blow on the head. Then she moaned and groveled in the dirt, for she realized she had merely exchanged

one prison for another.

It was just as dark here as it had been there; the only difference between "here" and "there" was

that now she could no longer touch the walls that held her prisoner.

That, in its way, made "here" even worse. The darkness was growing colder with every passing

moment; she was somehow certain of that. Colder; and flavored with the taint of evil, like a nest of

snakes. She could almost hear something breathing out there beyond the reach of her groping hands. The

thing that had always waited in the dark for her was here, she knew it!

She scrambled backwards, inching a little higher on the mound of dirt, trying to reach the pocket

in the rubble of the hotel basement that now seemed a haven of safety and sanity. But the dirt was loose,

and slipped and slid under her, and she could get nowhere near her invisible goal.

She became aware of a strange smell; sweet at first, then repellent. Rather like the smell of the old

catacombs where her mother had taken them all on the Day of the Dead.

But with the smell came something so welcome she ignored the faint charnel odor.

Light!

There was light out there—

Or was it only that she thought there was light?

She scrambled to her feet, peering hopefully into the no-longer-threatening darkness, clawing

sweat-sticky hair out of her blinking, burning eyes. Yes, there was light, a dim, reddish glow—and it was

coming from somewhere ahead of her.

So was the odor—but she ignored the smell in the rush of elation she felt at the promise of light.

With her hands out before her, she stumbled blindly forward, tripping on rocks she had no chance

of seeing, until at last there were no more rocks and the dirt under her feet was level and smooth. Then it

was no longer dirt beneath her feet, but stone, smooth stone, that the heels of her shoes clattered against

like castanets.

Abruptly her hands encountered stone at eye level.

She squinted, and made out the dim bulk of a regular outline against the dim glowing. She had

found the top of a low doorframe. Perhaps—perhaps another part of the cellar; perhaps the cellar of

another building. There was no way of knowing what kind of a jumble the quake had made of the

buildings. She ducked, and passed the threshold—

And the glow flared up, angry and hot before her eyes. It was like molten iron, red and glaring, so

that she cried out involuntarily and hid her face in the crook of her arm.

At nearly the same moment, she felt something slam down behind her, closing off the doorway

practically at her heels.

She whirled, going to her knees, and beat on the slab of stone that had fallen down to seal off her

exit, seeing only now in the raw red light that her hands were bloody, the nails split to the quick, the skin

gashed and the flesh torn and lacerated.

Something laughed soundlessly behind her.

Again she pivoted, plastering her back against the cold stone slab that blocked the door, mouth

dry with fear.

She saw she was in a low-ceilinged, stone-walled chamber. Although there was no apparent

source of light, the chamber was bright enough that she could easily see the colorful paintings on three of

its four walls. She couldn't look at them for very long, though; the garish colors and the light that pulsated

with every beat of her heart made it seem that they moved. They made her dizzy. The floor was black and

crusted—and it was plain that this was the origin of the sickly sweet stench. And on the fourth wall—

On the fourth wall, the wall opposite the door, was a block of stone like an altar, and behind it, a

statue. The statue, the paintings—they were like the ones she'd seen in the museum, only untouched,

undamaged by years of profaning hands.

Things of the Ancient Ones, the Azteca. She seemed to remember, vaguely, that all of Mexico

City had been built on ancient ruins, the ruins of the Aztec capitol, Tenochtitlan. And hadn't some of the

museum artifacts been unearthed when they had dug the foundations of this very hotel?

The statue was of a dead-black stone that reflected none of the light in the chamber, and pulled at

her eyes until she could no more look away from it than escape from this place. She knew, in a way

beyond knowing, that the statue was of the rarest unflawed black jade. Priceless, and peerless.

With that knowledge, a voice insinuated itself into her head; it hummed behind her eyes,

seductive, hypnotic.

She listened; she couldn't have escaped it even if she'd wanted to. And she didn't want to. It

promised, that voice, even if she couldn't yet understand what it promised. It soothed; it began to drive out

her fear. It was so good to listen to that voice, full of more promises than Joachim's, even. Almost, she

could almost understand it. It was telling her—that she was brave, and good, and beautiful. That she was

awaited here, long awaited. So good not to think, just to listen—thought ebbed away, and pain, and

finally, the last chill of fear.

In the moment her fear left her, she saw that the statue was the source of the chamber's

illumination; in that moment, the stench of the room vanished, replaced by a subtle perfume. The hurting

of her hands and arms ebbed away as well, and she looked down dumbly at her hands to see them not only

healed, but flawlessly groomed and soft, as only the hands of the lady tourists were. She looked up again

at the glowing statue—and now it seemed to represent the very pinnacle of desire. Fearful no longer, she

approached it; the sweet, hypnotic voice still humming behind her eyes, cajoling, promising.

***

"Sherry—"

Sherry Bryce Fernandez knew that exasperated tone of voice only too well. She braced herself for

another inevitable sample of her husband's sarcastic wit, and winced in anticipation.

"Are you quite finished?"

"Not quite—" she ventured, and Robert sighed dramatically.

"So what," he asked, with carefully measured venom, "makes this tourist trap any different from

all the other tourist traps we've gone past today?"

Sherry shook back her straight blond hair, held out the brightly brocaded huiple in nerveless

hands, and attempted to explain. "This is Tenejapa work, Bob—I had no idea there'd be any this far

north—it's the Chiapas women that do this kind of weaving—"

"Never mind," he interrupted, boredom and irritation showing only too plainly on his handsome

face, somehow getting past the concealing sunglasses he affected. "Don't get started. I suppose now you're

going to spend the next two hours dickering for that rag?"

"You know we don't have much to spend," she retorted, flushing. "And this could be very useful

to me."

"All right, all right—don't go throwing that argument in my face. I'll see if I can find something

worth shooting—" Robert backed out of the tiny cranny of the shop as Sherry turned her attention to the

keeper.

It wasn't as if he hadn't been getting plenty of pictures, she thought resentfully, as she

concentrated on bargaining the price of the huiple down to something she could afford. That was just

about all they'd been doing on this trip—shooting roll after roll of film, spending hours in the broiling sun

until the light was "just right"—it might be April, but April in Mexico was as hot as June in Dallas. This

was the first time Sherry had been able to track down anything in her area of interest—

She felt an immediate surge of guilt, and tucked a wayward strand of ash-blond hair behind one

ear with nervous habit. That wasn't fair—this was supposed to be a working vacation. And it was Robert's

assignment that was paying for it, not hers. She was just lucky that the magazine had been willing to pay

for two plane tickets, otherwise she wouldn't be here at all. And Robert would be the only one enjoying

the sights of Mexico City—

And the temptations.

Now it was her turn to fight down exasperation. Robert couldn't help himself; he just wasn't made

for monogamy. If he just wasn't so damned good-looking—one of his models had likened him to a "young

Fernando Lamas."

And that little slut was right—too damned right. He attracted women the way a rock star attracted

groupies.

He had all the smooth moves, too; women practically threw themselves into his arms. Especially

his models, once they figured out (and it didn't take long) that he wasn't gay.

She stole a glance into the street, and saw that he was totally engrossed in setting up a shot of

another vendor's wares; pacing restlessly up and down, trying out camera angles, totally immune to the

curious glances of passers-by. Her heart lurched as it always did when she caught a glimpse of that craggy

profile, especially now that his sarcastic expression had been erased by the concentration he was

maintaining. And God, that body—even after six years and a child, the sight of his muscles rippling as he

moved was still a turn-on!

She dragged her own attention hastily back to her bargaining, grateful for her fluency in Spanish.

To have a blond Americano begin a sharp bargaining session in their own tongue usually threw

shopkeepers off balance enough to give her a real advantage.

To this day, she still didn't quite know why Robert had married her. God knows he'd gotten

everything he wanted out of her without that.

Maybe he had been telling the truth when he proposed; maybe it was love. Half the time she was

sure it was—half the time she wasn't sure of anything.

This trip had seemed like a godsend, a chance to prove to Robert that she was still just as

attractive as she had ever been. Bobby stayed with his grandparents; she'd made a conscientious effort to

leave behind every T-shirt and pair of blue jeans she owned; to slough, if only for two weeks, her holdover

hippie image. It was supposed to be the honeymoon they'd never been able to afford.

And this was Robert's big chance, too—the chance to get his work seen by everyone who meant

anything in the Dallas fashion scene. Granted, he was just out here on spec for Travel World—cheap

airfares and cheaper offseason hotel rates had made their benefactors seem more generous than they really

were. But Travel World's execs had an experiment they wanted to make—their hopefully innovative

notion was to take destinations thought to be "over exploited"—like Mexico City—and make them look

interesting again. Mexico City was chosen as the test case because it was near Travel World Magazine's

Dallas headquarters, it was inexpensive, and it was probably the last destination any experienced traveler

would choose. If this test issue generated interest—and income for the advertisers—the project would go

into full production.

And Robert—if his work passed muster—had a chance of becoming a staff photographer—a

chance for a secure position. That was the carrot, the big prize he was really hoping for.

Security—Sherry had never thought there'd come a day when that was something she longed for.

God, it all depended on Robert, and whether he could work enough magic with his camera to

make tired old sights seem new and entrancing.

Or so he thought. Sherry had experienced enough disappointment in her marriage to Robert to

convince her that this trip was the time to further an idea of her own.

Once upon a time Sherry really had been a holdover hippie; her handcrafted clothing outlet had a

small, but devoted clientele, though Sherry had been more interested in the craftwork itself than the

money it brought in. But that phase had ended three years ago . . . .

The whole world and what was important had changed for her the first time Bobby (poor

asthmatic little baby) had gotten seriously ill. The hospital had wanted money in advance, and Robert

hadn't worked in weeks. They'd ended up borrowing from Robert's parents (who weren't all that well off

themselves), after a frantic midnight phone call.

It was then that Sherry realized that it had been her money, not Robert's, that had been paying

most of the bills. It was then that she decided to take her work seriously, and began researching craft

techniques and expanding her circle of customers. She had gotten the feeling lately that she was on the

verge of a breakthrough—what she needed now was something new and different in the folkloric look to

make her own name. Research had convinced her she just might find what she needed right here.

The ancient Aztec garb of brocaded huiple and wrap-skirt was timeless, practical—and might be

just different enough to provide the answer she hoped for, once updated for the eighties. The Aztec wrap-

skirt with the double ties and pleats was looser, easier to move in than contemporary skirts—and far less

apt to "get away" from the wearer. And the huiple, a loose, sleeveless blouse held close to the body in

front, but loose in back to catch the breezes, was—so far as Sherry was concerned—the ultimate in

summer comfort.

She finished her bargaining in a rush, and hurried out into the street with her purchase clutched

under her arm. Robert was glancing around with a crease between his thick brows; she knew that look.

There was something not quite right about the shot he wanted to take. He spotted her coming toward him

as she slipped between two plump, gossiping women, and smiled.

Her knees went weak again. God, that smile—it was like Apollo parting the clouds and bestowing

his blessing. No matter how feckless, how unfaithful, how neglectful he was, all he had to do was smile

and she knew she'd never have the guts to leave him.

"Sunshine! You're exactly what I need! Go stand over there and look touristy—" he pointed

toward a display of Aztec-replica pottery. This lot was rather better than the usual; it looked real. She

draped the huiple gracefully over one arm and posed artlessly, seeming totally unconscious of the camera.

She was an old hand at this—she'd started out as Robert's very first model, after all.

And as usual, Robert was right. Her pink sundress (her own design—that might do her some

good, too) and long blond hair contrasted nicely with the dark pottery and white adobe, making the scene

seem more exotic than it really was. Robert snapped off a dozen shots from as many angles in a few

minutes, passed the grinning potter a couple of pesos, and took her elbow with an expression of

satisfaction.

"Now where?" she asked. She was perfectly content to be dragged anywhere he wanted, now that

he was in a good mood again, and now that she had a prime example of exactly what she was looking for

in her possession.

"The ruins, I think." He eased the strap of his camera case a little further up on his shoulder.

"Haven't they been done to death already?"

"Maybe—that's what I want to check out. Maybe some different angles, dramatic lighting—I don't

know, maybe I can stage something . . . ."

He went introspective and brooding on her, with one of his typically instant mood-changes, and

she knew better than to interrupt his train of thought.

The earthquake had been eight months ago, and parts of the city still looked like a war zone. The

plunging prices of oil had brought as much economic disaster to Mexico's economy as to Texas—more so,

in some ways. The earthquake had just been the mud-frosting on a rock-cake. Recovery was going to be

painfully slow—

"Robert—" she tugged at his arm, bringing him out of his reverie. "Over there—quick—"

"Over there," in a courtyard complete with the week's washing hanging out to dry in the hot sun,

was a group of eight or ten kids dancing. For the moment, if you couldn't hear the rock beat coming from

the ghetto blaster (fortuitously just on the edge of the group), you'd swear they were performing some

quaint native dance. For a wonder the girls were in skirts instead of jeans. Granted, they were cheap Cyndi

Lauper imitations, but they were also colorful, borderline folky, and rather cute. Robert got half a dozen

shots before one of the boys started moonwalking.

"Good eye, Sunshine," he applauded as he waved down a cab. "I'll have to crop the radio out, but

that was nice composition."

She couldn't help herself, no matter that he'd probably be snarling at her before another hour was

over. For now, she had his approval, and she glowed.

***

Robert stared at the ruined pyramid as if it had personally offended him, and Sherry sighed. There

was no shade out here; the sun was bearing down on both of them mercilessly, but Robert showed no

signs of wanting to move on. She squinted into the glare; sunglasses weren't helping much. She wanted a

margarita and a cool place to sit, badly.

She knew what his reaction would be to her suggestion that they come back later—a sullen snarl.

He had taken these old ruins as a personal challenge. He was obviously bound and determined to make

something interesting out of them, or die in the attempt.

She shifted uncomfortably on the crumbling stone step, and scanned the few other people she

could see, hoping for something interesting. Unfortunately they seemed equally divided between earnest

and impoverished college students and pudgy middle-aged American tourists, all of them squinting

against the sunlight reflecting off the white stone pavement.

The Ugly American lives, she thought wryly, wondering for the thousandth time why it was that

the skinny students wore the jeans, and the pasty, middle-aged monuments to cellulite exposed their thighs

for all the universe to gawk at.

She fanned herself with her hat, wishing she could somehow capture the incredible blue of the sky

in a dye-lot that didn't look garish. White stone, green vegetation, blue sky—sun so bright it had no color

at all, and not a cloud to be seen. It was gorgeous, and looked as if it would make a perfect photo. But that

brilliant sun was the problem; any pictures taken now would look washed-out by the bright light.

Besides, they'd look like a thousand other pictures of these ruins. What Robert needed was a setup

that would convey the age and awe-inspiring quality these ruins had, without looking contrived or like

every other picture of an Aztec ruin. Or worse, come off a poor second to the latest round of adventure-

movie stills.

Too bad I can't convince some Aztec ghosts to show up and pose for him, she thought idly,

brushing damp hair off of her forehead. It would be just what he—

She started as a girl came around the corner of the pyramid she sat on.

My God—

For a moment, she thought the girl was a ghost. The features, the profile—she could have posed

for any of a hundred paintings and carvings back in the museum. Hair so black that it held turquoise-blue

highlights, smoldering eyes that took up most of the upper half of her face, a complexion like gourmet

coffee lightened with the smoothest and finest of cream. And her costume—

My God, it looks like she copied it from that painting of Smoking Mirror and his priestesses—

The colorful, elaborately brocaded huiple and wrap-skirt were perfect replicas of those in the

painting, so far as Sherry could remember. And the workmanship of both made the blouse she carried in

her bag seem like the rumblings of an amateur weaver.

The girl moved as gracefully as a hunting cat, carrying herself with a dignity that was totally

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