The Sun Child -- Arcana Series -- Torquere Press, Feb 2008
Chapter One
Like every hunt of recent times, the haul was sparse. Scarcely enough to provide the Temple with adequate supplies, let alone the rest of the settlement. Yet the people still cheered their return, chants offered to the gods in gratitude that the men had returned home safely.
Once, the threats without had eclipsed those within. Once, he would have lost several men to greater, stronger predators. Now, there were no great predators, and what remained turned and fled at the sight of them, as though their approach signaled death.
Wild creatures bore a greater intelligence than their credit, Yaotl thought. Soon they would have to hunt farther afield, to discover where the animals dwelled now the expanding settlement was encroaching on their territory. Longer treks into the mountains, into lands some of his men had never seen would make the expeditions dangerous again.
Despite the unrewarding hunt, the streets appeared to teem with more life each time they returned, as if more mouths to feed could counter the lack of resources. More dejected slaves scrabbled in the streets, more dirty-faced urchins sat at their parents' feet, watching their passage with dark unfathomable eyes.
His men had wives and families to return to. One by one they dispersed into the crowd, into cries of relief and joy. Women laughed, children squealed for attention.
Acatl was the last comrade to leave his side. As a beautiful wife and three wide-eyed children waited dutifully and patient, he elbowed Yaotl, and grinned.
"For you next, eh, Yaotl? If the fools at the Temple allow it."
Yaotl looked at Acatl's family, and attempted to imagine they were his, that he would return from a hunt to this. To softness and subservience, to the evidence that try as the gods might, his blood would continue.
Acatl's wife glanced at him, darting looks as if she gazed upon an animal, and either full eye contact or none at all would be all the provocation the creature required to attack.
"My duties are to those fools at the Temple," he told Acatl. "Not to my frivolous needs."
Acatl bellowed a laugh, before he was smothered by his children and wife, each clinging to him as though the gods had delivered him personally.
"Ah, you have no needs, Yaotl! You're an aberrant creature among men!"
Yaotl continued on toward the Temple, alone.
With each step he ascended to the entrance, the sound of the crowd fading. Here was only a cool, blessed silence, the hushed footsteps and rustling robes of the slow shuffling Elders as they drifted past him, as insubstantial as the spirits to whom they prayed.
Yaotl prayed too, kneeling at a brightly painted image of Yolihuani at the sacred altar.
Prayed, but didn't hope for anything anymore.
"Yaotl."
He raised his head, nodding at the Elder who approached, hunched over with age.
"It was a poor yield, Ueman Otli," he said, head bowed. "But the men and their families will be well fed for now."
An image of Acatl's family drifted across his mind. He dispatched it as soon as it came.
"As the Priest foretold." Otli looked thoughtful. "Then it is just as well…"
Yaotl watched the smile crease the crumpled face, crackling the skin like the leaves when they turned gold, then red, and then black by the sun.
"What is?"
The old man smiled, clamping a deceptively strong hand against his arm. "It is time."
Yaotl's eyes widened. "You began?"
"It was unfortunate that you were away," Otli nodded. "But that which is prophesized must be followed."
That explained the crowds outside and the thrum of energy and expectation in the throng. They were all hoping to catch their first glimpse of their savior.
"Take me to him."
Otli hesitated.
"Perhaps after your journey you would rather--"
"Take me there." Yaotl repeated. "The sooner I meet him the better."
"Indeed." Otli nodded. "We have warned him of your arrival, of course."
Yaotl frowned at the choice of words, especially when Otli's fidgeting and hesitance led him to wonder whether he was the one who should be fearful.
"Is there a problem, Ueman Otli?"
"No, no..." The old man insisted. Smiling again, he gestured to one of the narrow stone corridors leading deeper into the Temple. He fell into a slightly uneven step beside Yaotl as they walked. "He is merely...not as expected."
Yaotl raised a brow. "He's been in your care fifteen summers; do you still fail to predict him?"
"His status has changed, Yaotl." Otli's smile became a little wry, a little tired. "As the butterfly breaking free of its cocoon is blinded by the brightness of the flowers upon which it lands, so too the Sun Child is overwhelmed by the luxuries of life so long denied."
The Sun Child. Even after knowing the tale for as long as he'd lived, Yaotl still could barely comprehend that he would soon meet its incarnation.
Yolihuani created the Sun Child to watch over his creations, to warm the waters, make the earth fertile and rich, to kiss the people with the protection and power of the sun. Yet the Sun Child grew indolent and tired of his duties, and the people suffered. Rains washed away crops; the waters grew too cold to sustain the fish. Yolihuani, disappointed in the Sun Child's behavior, decided to banish him for eight moons: four young, when only the first sliver of moonlight graced the skies, and four old, when the fullest radiance of the moon shone down onto the land. Before his banishment the Sun Child had to watch the deterioration of the abundance he had created; the plants withered, the days grew shorter and colder and the people grew weaker. After the cycle of eight moons, Yolihuani asked the Sun Child whether he wished to return prosperity to the people. Horrified at the state of the world during his banishment, the Sun Child agreed, and returned to the people, burning and blazing brighter than he ever had before, giving his very life energy to ensure the people never went without again.
Twenty summers ago, when Yaotl had been too young to remember it, the Temple Oracle had prophesized the return of the Sun Child in his human guise. He would be the one to end the decline of the people, to restore the fertility of the lands and the waters. His sun would beam benevolently upon the people once more.
Now, the time had come. For eight moons, four young and four old, the Sun Child's banishment would be revered and celebrated with every resource the settlement had left. He would want for nothing, and once the cycle was complete, neither would the people.
Yaotl had never met him. The Temple Elders had kept the Sun Child's human incarnation in sacred isolation. As a child, those guarded rooms deep in the Temple had transfixed Yaotl, and he had spent countless hours sitting outside, wondering about the creature within. The Sun Child could hardly be a normal child like him; the Sun Child was special, chosen. Yaotl was merely an orphan raised by the Temple Elders.
Raised to be the Sun Child's guardian, for the extent of his banishment.
Noises drifted from behind the stone doors that had once been silent.
Laughter. No, not laughter. Giggling.
Yaotl looked at Otli. Otli shrugged, a forced smile gracing thin lips.
"As I said, he is not as we expected. However, he is the Sun Child, and for his time with us, each of his whims will be indulged, as Yolihuani would have done. It is a small price to pay for the reward he will provide."
A strange doubt tickled the back of Yaotl's mind, as though a forgotten seed had been planted a long time ago and had only now chosen to sprout to life. Are you certain, he wanted to ask, that this is the Sun Child? Are you sure that he is the one who will allow the people to think of a future for the first time in as long as Yaotl could recall?
He didn't ask. Otli would have told him if there was any uncertainty.
Pushing the doors open, he took a breath, standing straight and tall as he prepared to meet the Sun Child.
It was an apt name, he decided. 
Three of the prettiest girls in the settlement were draped around the figure at the far end of the room. It was a larger room than Yaotl had ever imagined while he sat in mock guard outside, its ceiling high and ornately carved, balanced on stone pillars. Paintings of the Gods danced in wild abandon along the walls, and the group at the far end of the room reclined on a mound of furs and blankets, rich fabrics and tones that Yaotl could almost feel under his fingers. One of the girls offered the Sun Child a stone bowl full of fruits, the colors and freshness of which made Yaotl's senses awaken even from this distance. The other two were responsible for the giggling, and they continued to do so, albeit more quietly, as he approached and knelt, head bowed.
"I am Yaotl. I am your guardian."
Another soft trickle of laughter, this time a little deeper. It brushed over him like sunset, warm and slow.
"Yes. I know."
He looked up, immediately lost in eyes the color of hillside fields in the first flush of the year's cycle, vivid and green, and his doubts fled for shadowed safety in the face of such vibrant beauty.
This was the incarnation of a God. It could be nothing else.