We had to leave most of the bodies in the water. The ahuizotls were feeding, and not even Teomitl's commands could make them abandon their grisly meals. Out of about thirty dead on our side, and the priests of Tlaloc on the other, we'd retrieved only four: two of my novice priests, one Duality warrior, and Ixtli.
On the way back, I found myself riding in the same boat as Neutemoc, watching the water part around the prow.
My brother was silent, as he had been on our journey to Amecameca. But this time the silence wasn't filled with pent-up aggressiveness, or things we'd failed to say to each other.
"You'll be fine?" I asked.
He said nothing. He watched the water, moodily. "I don't know."
"You can't go back," I said, finally.
"No," Neutemoc said. "You never can. But you can always dream of what could have been."
"And destroy your life?" I asked, more vehemently than I'd meant to. "Sorry."
Neutemoc shook his head. He dipped his hand in the water, watching the droplets part on his skin. "It doesn't matter," he said. He sighed. "Huei–"
"There's no need to talk about her," I said, more embarrassed than I'd thought.
Neutemoc didn't speak. "She told me to forget her," he said. "To find myself another wife, to raise the children."
"She told you that?" There would be no divorce, but nothing prevented him from taking on a second wife. He'd be more than able to support her.
"In the temple," Neutemoc said. "I don't know what I'll do."
My chest contracted. "You don't have to decide right now."
"No," Neutemoc said. "I guess not. What will you do?"
"I don't know," I said, truthfully. There would be accounts to make to Ceyaxochitl – vigils for Ixtli and the dead priests – and life would, I guessed, go on much as it had always done.
Neutemoc snorted. "A fine pair we make." His face closed again. "So you killed the child?"
"Yes," I said, curtly. And Eleuia, too; and perhaps Father. I wasn't sure.
"Going down alone into Tlalocan… You'd have made a good warrior, you know."
I shrugged. "Some things aren't made to be."
"Perhaps not," Neutemoc said at last. "But you'd still have made it, if you'd wished to."
"I didn't," I said, finally, and it was the truth, the only reason I'd chosen that path on exiting the calmecac.
We passed through the streets of the Moyotlan district, and saw everywhere the ravages of the flood: the canals which had overflowed, bringing water into the courtyards of the grand houses, knocking down the wattle-and-daub walls of the humbler ones. In the water were wicker chests, reed mats, codices – and the bodies of those caught by the flood, facedown in the canals, as unmoving and as unbreathing as Ixtli's warriors.
People were out in the streets, salvaging what they could from the retreating water. I saw a woman carrying a very young child around her shoulders, trying to recover a rag doll, and my heart tightened.
Ceyaxochitl's flotilla moored on the quays at the foot of the Sacred Precinct. Her warriors helped lift the dead and the wounded out of the boats.
"I guess I'll be going back to my household," Neutemoc said. He grimaced. "Mihmatini is going to flay me alive."
I could imagine what words Mihmatini would have for us. "Tell her you've almost died. That helps."
"It never does," Neutemoc said, with a quick, amused smile. He walked a few steps away from me. "You're not coming?"
I blinked, genuinely surprised. "No," I said. "My place is in my temple."
Neutemoc said nothing. His face had gone as brittle as clay.
"Come to my house when you want, Acatl. I…" He struggled with the words. "It will be less lonely with you around."
My heart contracted to an impossible knot of pain; and the only words I could find seemed to come from a distant place. "Yes," I said. "When my affairs are in order. Thank you."
I watched Neutemoc walk away in silence. Next to the last of the boats, Teomitl was talking with Ceyaxochitl, punctuating his narrative with stabbing gestures. Giving a detailed account of what we'd done, I guessed.
They were both walking towards the palace. The palace, where Tizoc-tzin and Axayacatl-tzin would be waiting for their wayward brother: a brother who would one day, the Duality be willing, take his place as Revered Speaker for the Mexica Empire.
My work was done.
I turned away from them, leaving them to their conversation, and followed the warriors with the corpses, back into the safety of my temple.
As I'd foreseen, many things needed to be organised. Under my direction, the dead priests and Ixtli were laid in empty rooms, where the survivors could start the preparations for the vigils. The wounded were laid out in the infirmary, along with Ichtaca, though he seemed to suffer from nothing more than extreme exhaustion.
Once, I would have conducted the vigils. But instead, I made sure that everything was ready; then I retreated to the top of the pyramid shrine, where I browsed through the records of the temple, reading all I could about the dead novice priests.
Cualli of the Atempan calpulli, son of Coyotl and Necahual, born on the day Three Eagle of the year Five Rabbit… Ihuicatl of the Coatlan calpulli, son of Tezcacoatl and Malinalxochitl, born on the day Thirteen Crocodile of the year Six Reed… They had died for the continuation of the Fifth World; for what they'd always been pledged to. They were with the Sun.
But it wasn't enough. It would never be enough. I bore the responsibility for their deaths, and I would make sure that they had not died in vain. I would make sure Ixtli had not died in vain.
"I thought I'd find you here," a voice said.
Startled, I looked up, expecting Ichtaca. But it was Teomitl: still wearing his mud-stained clothes, still pale and exhausted.
"I thought you'd be at the palace," I said.
Teomitl shrugged. "Perhaps later. They'll be busy, in any case."
"They'll need you."
His eyebrows rose. "How about you?"
I made a short, stabbing gesture. "Me? I don't think so."
"You saved the Fifth World," Teomitl said.
"And I should expect some recognition?" I asked, more scathingly than I'd intended. "I don't think I'd accept it."
Teomitl laughed. "You haven't changed so much, have you? Still loathing politics."
I'd have to enter that arena, sooner or later. I'd have to second Ichtaca in the running of the temple, to take my true place as High Priest. But there were limits. "Why are you here?" I asked.
Teomitl said nothing. He walked towards the altar under the impassive gaze of Lord Death. "I have proved myself."
"You should be glad," I said.
He spread his hands, an unreadable expression on his face. "Perhaps. But it shouldn't end here. If I want to take my place."
His gestures were quiet, measured: the mark of an adult.
"Go," I said, gently. "Claim your place."
Teomitl shook his head. "Not without you."
"My place is here."
"I know," Teomitl snapped; and for a moment I saw again the impatient youth who had first come to me in my temple. "But I still need you."
"What for?"
He laughed, bitterly. "Do you think me wise, Acatl-tzin? Do you think me mature enough to handle the Jade Skirt's gift of Her magic?"
Startled, I said, "There will be plenty of priests willing to–"
"Flatter me for their own gain!" Teomitl snapped. "I came for you."
Unable to see where I stood, I flung his words back at him. "Do you think me wise? There's little I can teach you."
"You know about magic."
"A little," I admitted, cautiously.
"Enough for me, then."
I could probably teach him to control Chalchiutlicue's magic – and to have enough patience – but… "Is this what you want?"
"Don't be a fool," Teomitl said. "Do you think I came this way for nothing?"
In many ways, I realised, he hadn't changed: still impati
ent, abrasive, arrogant. But still quick to lend his heart, and to expect trust in return.
Since Payaxin, I had not taken on an apprentice, even less one of Imperial Blood. "I…" I started, and realised I had been running away from this possibility for so long I couldn't even envision it. "You'll have to show me some respect," I said, finally.
Teomitl's smile was like a sun rising. "I'll work on it. Besides, I have to get your consent for courting your sister, haven't I?"
I made a mock-frown, hiding the mixture of unease and pleasure his request gave me. "We'll see about that, young man. When this night is over."
I stood on the platform of the shrine, and watched the light finally fade behind the rain-clouds.
Below me, Teomitl was descending the stairs. "Come on, Acatltzin," he called. "The vigils have already started."
From behind him came the mournful sounds of the deathhymns, and the reedy music of conch-shells, signalling the first Hour of the night: that of Xiuhtecuhtli, the Fire-God.
I sighed and gathered my grey cloak around me, before following Teomitl down the stairs in the growing darkness.
Above us, the clouds had broken a little, leaving just enough space for the light of one star to fall upon my temple. It was the most beautiful sight I had seen in a long time.
"Come on, Acatl-tzin!"
I was a priest of Mictlantecuhtli. I would neither have children, nor know the glory of warriors.
But this – the vigils and the conch-shells, and the setting sun that would rise again, and Teomitl, waiting for me on the steps with unbounded impatience–
This was my place, and my legacy.
II
HARBINGER OF THE STORM
ONE
A Hole in the Fifth World
I felt it when it happened, even from where I was: sitting atop the platform of my pyramid temple, so high that the city below seemed a mere child's toy.
It was as if the entire world were exhaling: a slow, ponderous shift that coursed through the streets and the canals of Tenochtitlan, through the closed marketplace and the houses of joy – extinguishing the glow of the torches in the water, muffling the voices of the singers and the poets in the banqueting halls, and darkening the moon in the sky.
The Revered Speaker Axayacatl-tzin – the protector of the Mexica Empire, the link between us and our patron god Huitzilpochtli, the Southern Hummingbird – was dead.
I looked up at the Heavens. The sky was clouded, but a faint scattering of stars shone through, already smeared against the dark background, their light growing stronger and stronger with every passing moment.
They were coming down; the star-demons, eager to walk the streets and marketplaces of the city, to rend our flesh into bloody ribbons, to open up our chests with a flick of their claws and pluck out our beating hearts. Huitzilpochtli's divine power, channelled through the Revered Speaker, had kept them away from the Fifth World, the world of mortals.
But not anymore.
I took a deep breath to steady myself. It was not unexpected, by any means; but still… The boundaries between the worlds had become weak, effortlessly breached, and the work of summoners would be easy. Creatures would soon prowl the streets, hungering for human blood. Not a propitious time. We needed to brace for it; to be ready for the worst.
Footsteps echoed beside me: my Fire Priest, Ichtaca, second in command of my order. In one hand he carried a wooden cage with two white owls, their yellow eyes wide in the dim light. The other hand was tightly wrapped around the hilt of a sacrificial obsidian knife.
"Acatl-tzin," Ichtaca said, curtly bowing his head. The "tzin" honorific was muted, added to my name almost as an afterthought. In that moment, that I was High Priest for the Dead and he my subordinate didn't matter. We were both kindred spirits, both aware of the magnitude of the threat. Until a new Revered Speaker was invested, the whole of the Fifth World lay defenceless, as tantalising as feathers or jade to an indebted man.
I nodded. "I have to go to the palace." I had a place in the funeral preparations, small and insignificant. My patron Mictlantecuhtli, Lord Death, was not the god most honoured in the Empire. But, nevertheless, I couldn't afford to stay away at a time like this. "But let's see about the wards first."
Ichtaca didn't move for a while. On his round face was something very close to fear; unnerving, for Ichtaca had faced down gods, goddesses and underworld creatures without ever losing his composure.
"Ichtaca?"
He shook himself like an otter just out of a stream. "Yes. Let's do that."
We descended the steps of the pyramid temple side by side. The temple complex lay below us, low, one-storey buildings fanning out around the central courtyard, shimmering with the remnants of magic. It was not an hour of devotion, and most of my priests were sleeping in their dormitories. Everything was eerily silent, the examination rooms deserted, the bells sewn into the embroidered entrance-curtains gently tinkling in the breeze.
The pyramid temple was in the centre of the courtyard. At the foot of the stairs leading down from it was a large stone circle, engraved with the insignia of Lord Death: a skull, a spider and an owl. Dried blood stained the grooves, remnants of the previous times the wards had been renewed.
Ichtaca and I each took an owl from the cage before moving to opposite ends of the circle, I at the foot of the stairs, Ichtaca facing the temple entrance.
At my belt hung my own obsidian knife, blessed with the magic of Lord Death. I slit the owl's throat open, feeling its warm blood stain my hands. Then, with the ease of practise, I opened up the chest, and sought out the heart between the ribs, balancing it on the tip of the blade. The obsidian quivered, beating on the rhythm of coiled power. I laid the heart carefully on the boundary of the circle, and, with the blade dipped in blood, traced the contours of the circle with the knife. Blood pooled in the recesses of the carvings, shimmering like dust in sunlight.
Ichtaca started chanting.
"Above us, below us
The beautiful place, the home of our mother, our father the Sun
Above us, below us
The region of mystery, the place of the fleshless…"
It was nothing so spectacular as the aftermath of Axayacatl-tzin's death. Rather, green light slowly suffused the circle, a faint, ethereal radiance that carried with it the dry smell of dead leaves, the crackling noise of funeral pyres, the rank taste of carrion… the breath of Mictlan, the underworld.
I slashed both my hands, let them hang over the skull, as if in blessing.
"Above us, below us
An order as solid as a rock
The mountain upheld, the valley held in Your hand
We, Your servants, Your humble slaves,
We give our blood, our precious water
For that which maintains life
For that which maintains the Fifth World…"
The light slowly spread, sinking into the earth and the frescoes of the buildings until nothing but wisps remained hovering above the circle. Overhead, the stars were fainter, an illusion afforded by the protection, for nothing but Huitzilpochtli's power would banish the star-demons.
Ichtaca rose carefully, his silver lip-plug glistening in the moonlight. "It's done. Hopefully they'll last long enough."
I tore my gaze from the sky, unable to dismiss the heaviness in my stomach. If experience had taught me anything, it was that whatever could go wrong usually did so. "Let's hope they do. I'll leave you to wake up the priests while I go to the palace. Can you spare me Palli? I'll need an escort, if only to keep up appearances."
Ichtaca grimaced. He was much fonder of forms than I was. "It goes without question. You will–"
"Change into full regalia. Yes." I sighed. "Of course."
"And the rest of the priests?" Ichtaca asked.
"You know it as well as I do," I said, a recognition of competence, with no animosity. "Prepare the mourning garb and the chants."
"I'll see to it." Ichtaca's gaze was sharp again, his mind set o
n the tasks ahead.
Mine too, however, there was one significant difference. Ichtaca was looking forward to his work. I, on the other hand, had absolutely no wish to go into the palace – not late at night, not right after the emperor's death, when the infighting would have started in earnest. A Revered Speaker's successor was not determined by blood ties, but appointed by the council; and the council could be bribed, coerced or otherwise convinced to vote against the best interests of the Mexica Empire.
Not to mention, of course, the fact that more than half the people awaiting me at the palace despised or hated me, with the whole of their faces and of their hearts.
The Storm Lord strike me, it was going to be an exhausting night. As I'd promised Ichtaca, I changed into full regalia before leaving. The owl-embroidered cloak and the skull-mask were definitely magnificent, calculated to impress even the most arrogant of noblemen, but it was a warm and sweltering night. I felt trapped in a portable steam bath, and it did not promise to get better any time soon.
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