Burning Woman and the Ghost Lance
Chapter 3

Statement of the prisoner, Dr. Tlatlasihuatl. January 16, 1993 CY

I was born to a noble family in the city of Cuauhtémoc, in the province of Chihuahua, in the democratic nation of Anahuac, in the solar year five of Calli, the house, and the sixth day of Malinalli, grasses, ruled by Patecatl, god of medicines. Since your people have adopted the European Gregorian calendar, I will say it was on the fifth of December, 1954 in the Common Year.

I was celebrated as a child prodigy practically from birth. As the eldest daughter of a noble family, the finest education was mine to explore. My people have always believed in gender equality, particularly in regard to mathematics and the sciences.

At least, that was true when I was growing up. I don’t remember the revolution, being little more than a toddler at the time, and only learned the details of the Spring of Death many years afterwards. My parents were powerful enough to be spared, and they in turn sheltered me.

By the time I was ten summers old I could speak, read, and write in five European languages, as well as Nahuatl, the language of my people.

At twelve summers, I began to study the works of the greatest scientists throughout the world. After reading of their bold experiments, I began to duplicate their work in a laboratory my parents had built for me. I envisioned bold new hypotheses, conducted new experiments, and formed new conclusions that were the equal of the greatest scientists in history. Then, in my arrogance, I felt ready to surpass them.

During my fifteenth summer, I designed a great device to generate electricity. I commanded my family’s artisans and goldsmiths to draw ten-stone weight of gold into fine wire and forge special iron spindles with crank handles, and then spent many weeks winding the wire on the spindles. The frame was made of teak-wood, the bearings of jade lubricated with whale oil, and the insulators were made of ceramic pots formed in the shape of the heads of jaguars. I experimented with the great device until the following summer, when I had a special platform constructed. It was a cage of gold wire suspended on a wooden frame by ceramic insulators.

A day came when I gathered my friends and family together to demonstrate the wonders of my experiments. I stood on the platform clad in special boots, gloves, and apron made from the boiled sap of the rubber tree. I raised my arms and commanded the slaves to turn the crank of the dynamo, and the great device game to life.

I felt the electricity crawl up my skin from the soles of my feet to the tips of my fingers like an army of fire ants. Through clenched teeth, I commanded the slaves to turn faster. Arcs of electricity covered my body, though I was not burned, even though my people call it Chantico, the sister of Xiuhtecuhtli, the old god of flame. I could see the glow radiating from my body reflected on the faces of my audience. I felt powerful. I shimmered with cascades of light, like unto the aura of a god. I then saw the fear in the eyes of my mother. I wished to release her fear and assure her that I was in no danger, for I had learned how to become one with the sister of fire! Alas, I found that I was unable to speak. A form of paralysis prevented me from moving a muscle. I began to doubt for a moment, to allow myself to believe that there might be danger. Indeed, my arrogance had blinded me to the very real threat of complete annihilation. I was playing with powerful forces that I barely understood and was now helpless against.

It was the fear of a slave that saved me.

One of the slaves became so frightened that he released the handle of the great device and attempted to step off the insulated platform. The instant his naked foot touched the earth while his other foot remained on the platform, the little sister of fire was free. There was a flash of bright blue light, the smell of smoke and ozone, and the great device died.

I should explain in more technical terms. Electricity is merely lightning in captivity. Like living things, it yearns for freedom. I believed at the time that the electricity could not harm me so long as it remained in its cage, ungrounded. However, once freed, it became lightning again, and burned the slave to ashes, as well as melted the wiring of the great device.

My mother was grateful that I was unharmed, but my father chastised me for wasting a useful slave. He ordered the great device dismantled and the gold reclaimed. He sent me off to apprentice in the dental-working guild, far from home, with orders to avoid any further intercourse with the sister of fire.

From that day forth, however, my name was no longer Matla of Cuauhtémoc. My people called me Tlatlasihuatl, or the Burning Woman.

Thus, at the brittle age of 16, after less than a year of training, I was apprenticed with a dentist in the city of Minatitlan, on the river Coatzacoalcos, far from the dry plateaus and mountains of my home. Someday, I would like to return…

The next five years went by slowly. Dentistry bored me. The stinking mouths of fat fishermen could scarcely hold my interest, nor could the orders of my father dissuade me forever. The little sister of fire beckoned to me, and I was loath to ignore her call.

At that time, dentists used mirrors and oil lamps to illuminate the mouths of their patients so they could see clearly. I found this arrangement primitive and frustrating, so I constructed a simple arc lamp with charcoal rods held by a copper and ceramic frame that allowed me to adjust the distance between them. A smaller version of my great device provided electricity, though I had to use cheap copper wires instead of gold. The light from the electric lamp was almost too bright, and I had to construct a metal hood to shield it, with an adjustable pinhole to give a beam exactly where I needed it. After that, it proved superior to any light sources with which I was familiar.

Another detail that disturbed me was that dental work was very painful to the patient. In the customs of my people, this is not normally a problem.

Oh, I think I should explain that part…

The people of Mexica, whom you call Aztecs, have long believed in the enlightening power of pain, a belief that returned to popularity when the formerly democratic, and far more enlightened, government of Anahuac had been overthrown in that infamous Spring of Death in 1957, by the fundamentalist cult of the Obsidian Jaguar, who is sometimes called Tezcatlipoca. As in ancient times, self-injury and mutilation once again became common religious practices, and advocates preached a feeling of spiritual ecstasy beyond any other.

In fact, I had spent most of my apprenticeship conducting experiments on the nature of pain. I discovered that the “spiritual ecstasy” derived from the infliction of great pain was no different from taking a large dose of laudanum or opium. I concluded that the human body is capable of generating a natural opiate in response to extreme pain. Like the extract of the poppy, the body’s own opiate is highly addictive.

I began to realize that the state religion of the SEOJ was spreading an addiction to self-injury that was destroying its citizens. Hundreds died each year from excessive blood loss or infection due to self-injury. I had also noticed that many of my patients came to me with perfectly healthy teeth, but still insisted on having a tooth or two removed – just for the pain. Some of them were already running out of teeth and were requiring a bridge. Soon they were coming to me for full dentures.

I experimented with various anesthetics, and finally concluded that diethyl ether was the safest and least addictive. Perhaps if they felt no pain, I reasoned, my patients would come to me only for necessary dental work.

Alas, there came a day when I left a bottle of ether open in my examining room with a patient while I went to instruct a new slave on how to turn the crank of the dynamo. I turned the handle briskly, demonstrating the correct motion.

Of course, as soon as the arc light sparked, the little sister of fire summoned her elder brother. In other words, it ignited the ether vapors that had filled the small room, incinerating my patient and setting fire to the building. Xiuhtecuhtli raged that day, and fire spread to the building next door by the time the Acolytes of Tlaloc, the Rain God, arrived to try to put it out. Half the city burned to the ground before they had finally extinguished the blaze.

Since that time, the Obsidian Jaguar government ceased the construction of public buildings using wood or other flammable materials. Almost all modern buildings in the empire are made of stone, cement, or brick. Because of me.

This is also the reason I was banished – “never to return upon pain of death”.

Just when I thought I had outgrown the old nickname, the newspapers labeled me the Burning Woman again. It was the name shouted by the angry mob on the dock, as my ship pulled away from the still smoldering city of Minatitlan, and steamed down the Coatzacoalcos to the sea.

Captain’s log. January 16, 1993 CY

The prisoner is claiming to be the notorious “Burning Woman” who started the Great Fire of Minatitlan of 1975. She is also claiming it was an accident, which seems to contradict some of the newspaper reports from the SEOJ at that time. I recommend further investigation before accepting her story.