Quenami went on, "Everything is going according to plan."
I didn't like the idea that those two had a plan. "You call this –" Tizoc-tzin's voice was a hiss – according to plan? No wonder priests are such appalling strategists."
Quenami's face went as smooth as carved jade. "You're tired, my lord."
Tizoc-tzin looked up sharply. For a heartbeat I thought he was looking straight at me, but he was merely staring at Quenami, his face tense. "Yes," he said, thoughtfully. "You're right. I grow weary of this nightmare, Quenami." He lifted his cup of chocolate: the bitter smell wafted up stronger, as unpleasant as a corpse left alone for too long. I shook my head to clear the smell; the tendrils moved across Quenami's arms and hands in an unsettling effect. And as the smoke shifted, so did their voices, receding into the background.
"…over soon…" Quenami was saying. "Tomorrow… opposition removed quite effectively…"
What was happening tomorrow? What opposition? I needed to know. I bent further, and all but lost my balance as Quenami shifted positions. My hand passed a finger's breadth away from his head. He stopped, then, looked around him suspiciously. One of his hands drifted downwards, to pick an obsidian knife from his belt.
Time to go. I didn't know whether his spell would be effective, but I had no intention of finding out.
When I came out, the She-Snake was waiting for me, sitting on his haunches on the platform, watching darkness flow across the courtyard, as if it were the most natural thing in the Fifth World.
I said, slowly, "It can't be true. He wouldn't dare–" Do what, exactly? I hadn't heard much, but the little Quenami had said had made it clear those two were no longer playing by any rules I might have known. "It's some trick of your spell."
"No tricks," the She-Snake said. "Do you think me capable of inventing something that complicated? I'm a much more straightforward man than you take me for, Acatl."
"It's not what Axayacatl-tzin thought," I blurted out.
"He had his own opinions; and he had lived for too long in my father's shadow."
"Fine," I said. But I couldn't trust him. I couldn't possibly face the enormity of what he had shown me. "Then tell me Whose protection we are under, tonight."
"Do you not know?" the She-Snake said. "Ilamantecuhtli."
"The Old Woman, She who Rules?" I asked. The title meant nothing to me.
"Another aspect of Cihuacoatl, the She-Snake." He smiled when he saw my face. "Did you think my title was purely honorific? I serve a goddess, as much as the Revered Speaker serves Huitzilpochtli."
"The goddess of–"
He smiled again. "There is a temple, in the Sacred Precinct, the walls of which are painted black. Its entrance is a small hole, and no incense or sacrifices ever trouble the quietude. Inside are all the vanquished gods, the protectors of the cities we conquered, kept smothered in the primal night. The name of that temple is Tlillan."
Darkness. "And you–"
He looked at me, and his eyes were bottomless chasms. "In
the beginning was darkness, and in the end, too. She is the space between the stars, the shield that keeps us safe."
"And She is on our side?"
"As much as a goddess can take sides."
"Why would she be?"
"I told you. She is darkness, anathema to all light. She holds our enemies to Her withered bosom." The She-Snake rose, staring into the sky above.
"Huitzilpochtli is light," I said. The only light, the one that kept the Fifth World safe and warm, the earth fertile and the rain amenable.
"Every great light must cast a great shadow. And every shadow knows it cannot exist, without that light."
"I still can't–"
"It was not illusion." His voice was grave. "Think on it, Acatl, think on what you have seen. Think on what and whom you believe in."
I didn't know, not anymore.
FIFTEEN
A Prayer to Quetzalcoatl
I walked back to my house in much the same state as a base drunkard, one foot in front of the other, scarcely able to focus on where I was going. The tendrils of smoke were slowly dissipating, taking with them the coldness at the back of my neck. But the memory remained, of the She-Snake's face, pale against the darkness he had summoned, of Tizoc-tzin, hunched and frightened, of Quenami, plotting the gods knew what magic to dispatch his opponents.
Inside my house I all but collapsed on the reed mat. My sleep was dark and restless; I woke up several times, gasping for air, my eyes hunting vainly for any light that would dissipate the shadows gathering at the edge of my field of view, and fell back again into darkness, oblivion swallowing me whole.
When I woke up for good, the grey light before dawn suffused the room, and the long, pale shadows seemed too distorted and unreal to be much of a threat. I sat cross-legged on my sleeping mat, breathing deeply, until my heart stopped beating like a sacrificial drum within my chest.
"Think on what you have seen, Acatl. Think on what and whom you believe in."
The Southern Hummingbird blind me, this looked to be the worst in a series of bad days.
I made my offerings of blood to the Fifth Sun and to my patron Mictlantecuhtli, then strode into the courtyard, determined to find Nezahual-tzin, locate Xahuia and put an end to the whole sordid business before the council started to vote.
However, I had not expected Quenami, who, by the looks of him, had been sitting under the pine tree in my courtyard for a while. "Ah, Acatl," he said. "We need to talk."
I raised an eyebrow. "That sounds ominous."
Quenami shook his head, annoyed. "Between High Priests, that is." As usual, he made me want to hit something.
"Have you decided to play your part in the order of the Fifth World, then?" I asked, unable to restrain myself. "That would be novel indeed."
"Oh, Acatl." Quenami shook his head, a little sadly. "Such lack of tact. You are so unsuited for the Court. "
"Perhaps," I said. "But I don't intend to shy away from my responsibilities."
"I'm glad," Quenami said.
He seemed a little too eager, a little too easily contemptuous? Something seemed to have changed in him, as in Tizoc-tzin. Perhaps Teomitl was right; perhaps they had pushed back a star-demon, and were waiting for its inevitable return.
Still, they were both planning something. Something large and spectacular, and unpleasant, and I didn't know what.
"What do you want, Quenami?" I asked. The time for subtlety was past, if there had ever been one.
"Merely to know how your investigation was progressing." He smiled again a little too broadly. "And if there was any help I could offer you."
"I don't think so."
"You'd reject a held-out hand?" He frowned. I felt as if he were playing his part not for my benefit, but for that of some other observer, as if he was doing this only so he could say he had gone through the proper procedures.
"I have enough allies combing the palace and the city." Not effectively or with tangible results, but he didn't need to know that.
"I see." His eyes were dark, narrowed slits. "I see. You are… peculiar, Acatl."
"I'm flattered," I said dryly.
He went on, oblivious, "Alone at Court, you stand for the Fifth World, for the continued balance that keeps us whole. Most people are not so self-effacing."
My hands had started to clench into fists; I controlled them with an effort. Compliments had never been Quenami's strength, if he was being so lavish, he wanted something from me.
But I couldn't see what.
"You're unwavering. Dutiful, a loyal servant of the Fifth World."
"I'm sure you have better things to do than sing my praises," I said.
He shook his head. "Don't be so modest. Things are changing at Court, Acatl, and we need people like you at the centre, who will hold to their convictions no matter what. Loyal servants of the Mexica Empire."
There it was, the true sting. "Loyal," I said flatly.
"Aren't you?"
"Of course I am." I said, carefully detaching every word, "I served the previous Revered Speaker, and I will serve the new one, when he is elected. But I won't play in your powergames, Quenami."
"No." He sounded almost regretful. "You're much too wise for that. But you'll continue your investigation, won't you?"
"Someone," I said, barely keeping the irritation from my voice, "is summoning star-demons. I don't intend to sit still while they do." No matter what Tizoc-tzin or Quenami said.
"I see." Why did he look so pleased all of a sudden?
I decided to hit him where it hurt. "What does tar mean to you, Quenami?"
It was a spear thrown in the dark, but somehow it connected. I saw his face tighten, as if at some deeply unpleasant memory. "Nothing," he said, and that was the worst lie I'd heard him utter. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
Oh, but he had, and we both knew it. "Tar protects against water," I said, aloud. "It's connected with boats and sacrifices."
His face, which had begun to relax, tightened again at the mention of sacrifice. Sadly, it wasn't exactly surprising. Palli had already told me that someone had died in Axayacatl's room. "A councilman went missing," I went on, slowly. "Pezotic. I'm starting to wonder if he's alive at all, Quenami."
His face shifted again. How I wished I could read his expressions, but he had a tight control on them. "What wild tales you spin, Acatl."
It was clear I wouldn't get anything else out of him; not without more evidence. "Why are you here, Quenami?"
He smiled again, about as convincingly as a star-demon. "I told you, Acatl. To offer to assist you."
As if I'd believe him. "Well, I should think I've made my position clear."
Quenami watched me for a while. I got the feeling he was trying to decide how best to handle me. "Yes," he said, finally. "You have made that perfectly clear."
I was saved from thinking up a reply by Teomitl, who entered the courtyard with the brisk step of a warrior on his way to the battlefield. "Acatl-tzin!"
"Ah, I see your student is here. Don't let me stand in the way of your imparting of knowledge," Quenami said. He bowed to Teomitl, much too little to be sincere. Teomitl's eyes narrowed, but he actually managed to retain his self-control, a fact for which I was eternally grateful.
He waited until Quenami was out of the courtyard to speak, though. "I didn't know you were on speaking terms with him."
"I'm not," I said, curtly.
"Then why is he here?"
"That's the problem." Why had he come here? I thought back to the way he'd acted, much too friendly, much too smooth, in a way that even I could see. Either he thought me not worth deceiving anyway, or he was truly in a panic, unable to master himself. "Has anything happened at the palace?"
"Yes," Teomitl said. "But I'm not sure he would know."
"What?" I asked.
He did not answer at once, he was too busy staring at Quenami's retreating back. "Teomitl!" The Duality curse me, was everyone turning into copies of Nezahual-tzin?
"Tizoc-tzin gathered the remaining members of the council yesterday. They're going to vote in two days."
I looked up, into the clear sky. The stars were pinpoints, barely visible unless one knew that they were here. Two days, eh? And three or four more, for the ritual of coronation to take place. Perhaps we had a chance. Perhaps we could stand until then.
My mind came back to Quenami, and to more mundane matters. "He knows about the vote, no question." I thought again on what he had asked me. "He wanted to make sure where I stood."
"And?" Teomitl asked.
"I told him that I would stand by whoever was elected Revered Speaker." As I said this, I thought of the scene I'd seen the previous night. If my worst suspicions were right, then I had just made it clear to Quenami that I was a liability, a man they needed to neutralise, and fast. "We need to go back to the palace."
"Of course," Teomitl said.
"And to see Nezahual-tzin."
Teomitl's face froze. "That's a bad idea, Acatl-tzin."
"He made me an offer I couldn't refuse," I said. I explained, as best as I could, during the time it took us to cross the Sacred Precinct. It was early morning, and the crowds were there as usual, carrying offerings and worship thorns and leading sacrifices to the pyramid temples as if nothing were wrong. I caught sight of a woman with an embroidered cotton skirt who looked up at the Great Temple, her face frozen in cautious hope. Her earlobes were bloody, and she was whispering the words of a prayer.
As I expected, Teomitl's first reaction to my story was hardly enthusiasm. "I see. And you believed him?"
"I think he's honest." I was suddenly glad I hadn't had time to get into the details of my meeting with the She-Snake. "As long as it suits him to be, of course."
"I'm not surprised," Teomitl said. "He thinks too much of himself, that one."
"You seem to have developed a liking for him," I said, dryly.
"I've seen enough."
"From one meeting?"
"You forget," Teomitl said. "He was here, for a while."
They were much the same age; but somehow, it had never occurred to me that they could have met. From Teomitl's sombre tone, it must have been more than that. "You were still a child when he left Tenochtitlan, and so was he. People change."
Teomitl shook his head. "I doubt he has."
Clearly I wasn't going to be able to make him change his mind, and I didn't feel like arguing at this juncture. What I needed to do was understand who was doing what in this palace – and fast, before I stopped being able to work out things at all.
One of Nezahual-tzin's men met us at the entrance of the palace, by the red-painted columns, and directed us, not towards the boy-emperor's chambers, but to the sweatbaths.
We found Nezahual there in one of the bigger baths, seated on one of the low stone benches. Three attendants stood by his side. The firebox at his feet was already warm, and the feathers of his headdress drooped in the growing heat. His face was mottled, a dark shadow against the vapour, and his arms and legs bore the wheals of the rushes and of the blades of cutting grass the attendants had struck him with: thin raised welts, with blood barely pearling up through the broken skin.
His eyes were closed, and he didn't move when we came in. "Ah, Acatl."
"Impressive," I said. He was deep into his meditation, his eyes still closed; but obviously he saw on another plane than the Fifth World.
"A trick, as the She-Snake would call them." His voice was deprecating. "I see the pup is with you."
I didn't have to turn round to guess Teomitl's hands would have clenched. "Let's try to be civil here," I said, ignoring the fact that I was talking to one Revered Speaker and a man who could very well become one in the future. "As you said, the Fifth World is at stake. Whatever quarrels you have can wait."
Teomitl glowered at Nezahual-tzin, but he said nothing.
"I'm surprised to find you here," I said. "Sweatbaths don't belong to Quetzalcoatl." Several gods and goddesses took an interest in those places of purifications, not least among Whom was Tezcatlipoca, the Smoking Mirror, Quetzalcoatl's eternal enemy.
Nezahual-tzin smiled. The vapour swirled around him, coalesced into the shape of a huge serpent, so much clearer than the one I'd seen in his rooms that I could count every feather, every jewelled scale on the huge body wrapped around the boy-emperor. "Enemy territory is where you prove yourself, where you're most sharply defined against what you're not, what you'll never be."
"Interesting," I said. "Nezahual-tzin, there is something I need to ask you about Tizoc–"
He shook his head. "After the ritual. It can wait."
I wasn't sure it could.
"We're not here to talk." Nezahual-tzin leant back against the wall of the sweatbath. The serpent leant with him, growing larger and larger, its outline sinking into the wall, gaining colour and texture until it seemed a living fresco.
"Into the place of the fleshless, away from the abode of life
You came, You descended
Into the region of mystery
For the precious bones, for men to inhabit the earth…"
The serpent was growing larger; the world was receding, fading into insignificance, the city a child's map, spread on the ground far, far below us, the Fifth Sun so close we might touch it.
"You came, You ascended
Into the gardens of the gods, into the place of the Duality
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