Quetzalcoatl in the Underworld

An illustrated story, part one

This is a creative experiment. Please let me know if you like it, in the comments. Encouragement will inspire me to finish it! - D

I looked out the window of my office. Under a sky streaked with neon clouds, the city of Xochicalco sprawled, a spirit-haunted dreamscape of monolithic pyramids and skyscrapers pulsing with bioluminescence. The horizon bled colors that can't exist in your world. Here, in this inter-dimensional hub, where one could barely tell the living from the dead and the deli coffee tastes like stale Styrofoam, I ran my operation — or what was left of it.

My name was Topiltzin, Quetzalcoatl, Quetz, Kukulcan or “Q” for short. I was the last of my breed. Long-forgotten, hiding out. I lived out of my detective agency, Q Services, located inside the flesh of a San Pedro cactus, its green walls palpitating, ever so softly, with slimy sentience. A ziggurat-shaped jukebox played jazz from Tzitzimime, realm of the star demons—discordant, meditative, otherworldly.

Q Services

The door opened and a dame stepped inside — okay, not just any dame. She was a burbling feminine cascade of liquid mercury, her form constantly shifting. I instantly saw through her disguise, recognized her from long ago: Coatlicue, great Earth goddess. The air grew colder, tasting of frost and forgotten lullabies. This was the last thing I needed, this visitation from a past I was always trying to forget but never could, because — see? — as a Creator Diety, one of the four pillars of the Universe, my dear, absentee father Omeototl had cursed me with omniscience.

Coatlicue

“Quetz,” her voice humming like a cicada choir. “I seek what was taken.”

I leaned forward, my chair made of singing bird bones creaked. “And what might that be?”

“My children,” she rippled, images of shattered mirrors and inverted pyramids dancing on her surface. “Stolen by the shadow keeper, guardian of lost souls.”

Mictlantecuhtli. Even in a realm as eerily etheric as Xochicalco, his name was whispered with a mix of awe and dread. I lit a DMT vape, its smoke forming cryptic hieroglyphs that wove evanescent tales of cosmic deceit.

Mictlantecuhtli, Lord of the Dead

“Look, sister, you know I am out of the game.”

What can you do when the past is nothing but a whirlpool of pain and shame? We exchanged a glance — both of us omniscient, so no words need be said. Coatlicue knew what had happened to me back there, in Tullan. Long ago, I was on top of the world, the great Wizard King, light bringer, Lord of the Dawn, but I got fooled, tricked, by my darker half, polar twin, Tezcatlipoca, Smoking Mirror. The story was in all the headlines, the gossip columns at the time, so there is no reason not to fess up about it now.