Harbinger of the Storm

by Aliette de Bodard

  I couldn't believe they would.

  ELEVEN

  The Obsidian Butterfly

  I must have slept again. The priest's healing spell was more effective than bandages, but still no miracle. I woke to the bright light of early morning. A whole day had elapsed, lost to my healing.

  Teomitl was nowhere to be seen; not surprising, given my student's inability to sit still at the best of times.

  Mihmatini lay curled up in sleep behind me, looking oddly young and innocent – she who was eighteen, almost too old to be married and have children of her own already. I revised my opinion of Teomitl's disappearance. I wouldn't have been surprised if he had slept elsewhere, rather than cast a slur on my sister's virginity.

  Good.

  Everything ached, from the ribs in my chest to the stiffness in my legs, and I felt even more empty than before, as if hope and joy had drained out of me into the hole in the Fifth World.

  I got up. My head didn't spin, a vast improvement over my previous awakening, and I could stand steadily on my legs. Slowly, carefully, I dressed again into something suitable for the High Priest for the Dead, and went back to the Revered Speaker's room.

  The room was subdued, the few priests for the dead left were renewing the blood around the quincunx with their own, making sure that nothing untoward could follow the Revered Speaker into the underworld. Palli himself was sitting cross-legged at the centre of the quincunx, watching a silver plate which depicted the progress of the soul through the nine levels of Mictlan. From time to time, his lips would move around an incantation, and he would nod. Everything appeared under control.

  I leaned against a wall, watching them, the familiar chants and litanies washing over me, reassuring and unchanged. For all the chaos and the uncertainty, death remained constant, always by our side, something to be relied on no matter what else might transpire.

  A refuge, a goddess had once told me accusingly. I'd flinched at the time, but now I knew that she was right, and that it was nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone had a refuge: some in pomp, some in family. Mine was a temple and chants and bodies, and the god that was everywhere in the Fifth World, underlying even the most boisterous songs, the most vivid flowers.

  At last, there came a pause in the rituals. Palli looked up, and his eyes met mine. He gestured to another of the priests, and motioned him to take his place at the centre. Then, carefully, he stepped out of the quincunx and walked towards me. "Acatl-tzin."

  "Tell me what's going on," I said.

  "Revered Speaker Axayacatl-tzin is on the third level," Palli said. "Nothing unexpected so far."

  The third level was the Obsidian Hills, still a relatively friendly place by underworld standards. If something bad happened, it would be on the deeper levels, where the beasts and creatures of the underworld prowled. "And the search?" I asked.

  Palli grimaced. "For the place of the star-demon summoning? I put all the priests the order could spare into this. So far, no one has reported anything useful."

  I suppressed a curse. A full dozen priests searching the palace, I knew the place was huge, but they had the help of spells, and surely one of them would have found something useful by now. "I see. Send to me the moment they find something."

  Palli nodded. He hesitated, then said, "Acatl-tzin, one more thing. You remember the tar you noticed on the floor?"

  I had to cast my mind back a day and night, to the ritual in which I'd spoken to Axayacatl-tzin. It seemed a lifetime ago. "Yes," I said. "It seemed odd, but…"

  Palli's face was pale. "I did think it was familiar," he said. "Someone died in this room."

  "The Revered Speaker," I said, carefully, without irony.

  "It's an older death. A… sacrifice."

  In the Revered Speaker's private rooms… Not in a temple, not on an altar?

  "An older death," I said, slowly. "A powerful one, then, if you can still detect it." I thought, uneasily, of the missing councilman both Manatzpa and Echichilli had been angry about, the one that seemed to have vanished from the records and from the palace. What had been his name again?

  Pezotic.

  "Yes," Palli said. "A powerful death." His lips twisted. "I'm not sure, Acatl-tzin, but something is wrong about this."

  "What?"

  "Too much power," Palli said.

  I bit my lips. There were ways and means of amplifying the power received from a human sacrifice, but almost all of the ones I could think of required a High Priest's initiation. "Can you look into this?"

  Palli grimaced. "I can try," he said.

  A full human sacrifice. An old, powerful death. Something was going on in this palace. Something… untoward. Even before the Revered Speaker's death, then. But he'd died of natural causes; we were sure of that, at least.

  Then what was happening? Some ritual to undermine the Empire at its core? "Do you know what they used the magic for?"

  Palli shook his head. "Something very large."

  "But not the summoning of a star-demon." If that had been the case, he'd have told me long beforehand.

  "No. The magic's wrong for that," Palli said. "It feels beseeching. Desperate."

  "Hmm," I said, thoughtfully. I didn't like this; I couldn't see how it fitted in with anything – with Manatzpa, with Ceyaxochitl's death – but it didn't augur anything good. I added it to my questions for Manatzpa, once I managed to see him.

  I finished with Palli, and wrote a message to Ichtaca, asking him to send someone to the Duality House in order to prepare the funeral rites for Ceyaxochitl.

  Then, still weak and trembling, I went to see the She-Snake, the only person who might have an idea of what was going on in the palace.

  I'd expected to have much further to go, but I found him in the council room, sitting on the reed mat at the centre, eating a meal. As he ate he listened to a report from one of his blackclad guards. His round face was grave.

  "Acatl?"

  I didn't feel in the mood for apologies or pomp, but I did gingerly bow.

  "Glad to see you recovered," the She-Snake said. He dipped his chin, and the guard moved away slightly. I was left with the full weight of his gaze on me. It was peculiar, he was soft, and middle-aged, and I would have expected him to be drab. But the gaze, piercing and shrewd, gave him away.

  "I, er, understood you visited me," I said.

  "Indeed." His voice was grave. "Had I known about Manatzpa, I might have done more than visit. But no matter. It is done now."

  I waited, but nothing more seemed to be forthcoming. "I need your help," I said.

  "My help?" He sounded mildly amused.

  "You keep the order in the palace. Don't tell me this situation makes you happy."

  His lips thinned to a muddy line, but his expression didn't change. "I expected trouble when Axayacatl-tzin died. I'm not surprised."

  I doubted much would ever surprise him. "But you want the attacks to cease?" I pressed. I remembered, uneasily, what Axayacatl-tzin had told me about the She-Snake's unorthodox manner of worship. But even if it was true, he would want to be seen maintaining order.

  "I see. What did you have in mind?"

  "I want men."

  "They are in short supply."

  "Look," I said. "Those star-demons, they're being summoned here, inside the palace wards. Someone, somewhere, has converted a room for the purpose."

  He was quick to seize my meaning. "And it's a large palace."

  "I've had my priests search it, but we're not enough."

  "Surely, you would need magical training to find such a spot."

  I shook my head. "It's going to be large, and bloody, and definitely not discreet." Not given the amount of power that had been expanded to call so many star-demons down into the world in such a short time.

  "I see." The She-Snake pressed both hands together, thoughtfully. "I see." At length, he looked up, and fixed me again with his gaze. "I'll send the men I can spare. Was there anything else?"

  "Do you know where the other H
igh Priests are?"

  That same mirthless smile quirked up the corner of his mouth. "Quenami is with Tizoc-tzin. Acamapichtli… I fancy we won't see much of Acamapichtli in the days to come."

  "I don't understand."

  "Oh, come, Acatl." His gaze was pitying. "He threw his weight behind the Texcocan princess. Gambled it all, and lost it all."

  "He's…" I started, and stopped. Nothing short of death or treason could remove a High Priest from his post.

  "He's in disgrace, if that's what you mean. Not that he wasn't before, mind you."

  The whole business with the Storm Lord trying to take over the Fifth World. Acamapichtli seemed to have a singular gift for backing the wrong person or god.

  I'd have pitied him, if he hadn't been the man who'd tried to condemn my brother to death. "If we were to arrest all the men who backed the wrong person in this struggle, the palace would empty itself fast," the She-Snake said. He still sounded amused, as if he secretly relished the chaos.

  I didn't trust him. I couldn't.

  "Arresting the waverers might give people a reason to stop playing," I said darkly, and took my leave from him.

  I made my way back to Teomitl's room, where I found Mihmatini still sleeping. Thank the Duality; if she'd woken up and found me gone, I might not have survived her sarcastic remarks.

  I looked up at the sun. It was almost noon, and I'd eaten nothing all day. I managed to find a servant in one of the adjoining courtyards, and sent him to the kitchens for a meal.

  While I waited for his return, I mulled on what Palli had told me.

  A death – a powerful one – and star-demons. Perhaps a last entreaty against chaos, made by a desperate man? But why tar, and why the Revered Speaker's rooms? There was a place for rituals like this, in the Great Temple, the religious heart of the city. Why there, unless it was something specifically connected to the Imperial family?

  The bells on the entrance-curtain tinkled. "Come in," I said, keeping my voice as steady as I could.

  It was Yaotl, still garbed in his warrior's costume. He looked worse than before. The blue paint did not mask the dark circles under his eyes, or the paleness of his face. He cast a distant glance in Mihmatini's direction, but made no comment. "I heard you got into more trouble," he said.

  I said nothing. There was nothing I could say. In the light, his eyes were huge, a reservoir of grief that spilled over into the Fifth World.

  "She died just after dawn." Yaotl did not bother to sit. I thought he didn't want to remember that he was my social inferior; not now, not when his whole world seemed to come undone around him.

  "I felt it," I said. I hesitated. I knew all the words, all the empty things one could say when Lord Death has taken his due. They meant nothing save comfort to the living. But Yaotl served the Duality, and he would know that death was part of the eternal balance, that destruction and creation were entwined like lovers, making and annihilating the world in an endless dance. "I can't believe she's gone," I said, settling for the truth.

  Yaotl's lips thinned to a line. "Me neither. I keep expecting her to rise from her funeral mat and take charge." His gaze wandered again. "I hear you arrested the poisoner?"

  "I think so," I said, cautiously.

  "It's all over the palace." Yaotl's voice was grim.

  "And Xahuia?" He didn't look as though he had caught her, but one never knew.

  "Gone to ground, too well hidden."

  I nodded. "Even if she wasn't guilty, I don't think her activities were entirely lawful."

  Yaotl barked a short, unamused laugh. "Resisting arrest alone would have been enough. We found the paraphernalia of sorcery in her private rooms: mummified animals, dried women's hands, arms preserved in salt baths…"

  "The Smoking Mirror?" I asked, thinking again of Nettoni's touch on my skin.

  "Yes," Yaotl said. "But nothing tied to the summoning of star-demons."

  "I think that was Manatzpa," I said, feeling less and less convinced the more I thought about it. "You need to find her."

  "I'm looking for her." Yaotl could barely hide his exasperation. "It's a big city, as you no doubt know."

  I suddenly realised how we looked – two men meant to be allies, tearing at each other, no better or no worse than the rest of the Court. "Forgive me," I said. "It's been a long couple of days."

  "For both of us." Yaotl smiled, a pale shadow of the terrible, mocking expressions he'd throw at me. There was no joy in it whatsoever.

  Then again, I guessed I didn't look much better.

  The heavy silence was broken by the jarring sound of bells struck together. Teomitl had lifted the entrance-curtain with his usual forcefulness, and was striding back into the room. He was followed by the servant I'd sent for a meal, who appeared much less eager.

  "Acatl-tzin," Teomitl said.

  I rose, gingerly, leaning on the wall for support. "I take it you were able to speak to him."

  Behind him, the servant moved, to lay his tray of food on one of the reed mats. He bowed, and was gone.

  Teomitl barely noticed any of this. "I spoke to Manatzpa, yes." He looked a fraction less assured, a fraction less angry. The arrogance I'd seen over the past few days had almost faded away, leaving only the impatient adolescent, as if whatever Manatzpa had told him had shattered Tizoc-tzin's influence.

  "And?" Yaotl asked, shaking his head impatiently. "Did he confess?"

  Teomitl looked at him blankly.

  "The murder of Guardian Ceyaxochitl," I prompted him.

  "Oh." He did not look more enlightened. "We didn't talk about that."

  "Then what about?" Yaotl was fuming by now.

  "About the star-demons." Teomitl's face was hard again, on the verge of becoming jade. "He's said that he'll only talk to you, Acatl-tzin."

  I briefly woke Mihmatini to let her know where we were going. She made a face of disapproval I knew all too well, a mirror image of Mother's when my brother or I had broken a dish or muddied a loincloth. "You haven't eaten anything."

  I pointed to the tray the servant had left. "I had maize soup. And a whole newt with yellow peppers."

  Her gaze made it clear she wasn't fooled. "Acatl, you're in no state to walk."

  "I feel much better." And it was true; utterly drained, but much better. The pain was gone, leaving only the dull feeling that nothing would ever be right again.

  Mihmatini made a face that told me she didn't believe me. "I should come with you," she said.

  Teomitl put a hand on her arm gently. "No. Not now."

  "But–"

  "Out of the question," I said. My judgment might be a little shaky now – a little pale and empty like the veins in my body – but there was no way I would let her walk into Tizoctzin's chambers.

  "Acatl-tzin is right," Teomitl said. "My brother won't be happy to see you, and this isn't the time for this."

  "Teomitl…"

  He shook his head again. "No."

  And that effectively ended the conversation, though Mihmatini glowered like a jaguar deprived of its prey. "I'll be waiting for you," she said, and the way she spoke made it doubtful she'd hand out hugs or flowers.

  I could feel Yaotl's amused gaze on my back all the way to Tizoc-tzin's chambers; but he said nothing.

  I wondered what Manatzpa could have to tell me. How he could not hate me, when I had been the one who had brought him down? Most likely he would taunt me. I doubted that he would bend. In that way, he was very much like his nephews Tizoc-tzin and Teomitl. But there might be something to be gleaned, information that would help us. For if my gut feeling was right and he was not the summoner of star-demons, then we still had someone out there, busily plotting our ruin.

  I'd expected some silence in Tizoc-tzin's courtyard; or at any rate, some mark that something was wrong with the palace, but it seemed like nothing had changed. Warriors gathered on the platform, laughing among themselves. Noise floated from Tizoc-tzin's rooms, the singsong intonations of poets reciting compositions, the laug
hter of warriors, the deep rhythm of beaten drums. But underneath, in the wider courtyard, were other warriors, dressed far more soberly, their long cloaks barely masking the whitish scars on their limbs. They talked amongst themselves, casting dark glances at the finery on the platform; the other part of the army, the true warriors, the ones who would support only a veteran, not a mediocre fighter like Tizoc-tzin.