In that place, in that time, I sank to my knees with Tizoc-tzin cradled against me, watching as if from a great distance, watching the Fifth Sun's grin grow wider and wider, as if He had always known I would fail, feeling, distant and cruel, Itzpapalotl's amusement, and Teomitl's frantic attempts to understand what was going wrong.
Surely I could set my feelings aside, for the sake of the Fifth World?
Surely.
But I had no lies or accommodations left, and my contempt was destroying everything. All I had to do was to believe in what I was doing, to see Tizoc-tzin as our worthy Revered Speaker, Quenami as our leader, and Acamapichtli as a peer. Only that, and I would rise, I would give back the breath that was in my body, and everything would be as it should with the world.
But Tizoc-tzin had cast my sister aside as nothing, Quenami had thrown me in jail, and Acamapichtli had tried to kill my brother. In the end, it was the pettiest things that defined me.
The Fifth Sun's light washed over us, strong and unforgiving, like a wave in a storm. I dug my heels in, but I could feel its strength, and knew that it was going to throw me out of the circle.
Too late.
My whole body tingled in the wash of light… No, that wasn't it. There was something that ached more, a dull pain throbbing in my hand. I looked down at Acamapichtli's mark, grey and diminished against the light's onslaught. A jaguar fang, perfectly formed, and the blood of a human sacrifice, all freely given to me. It had been for his own gain, as he had blithely admitted, but still, he had helped me. Still…
I saw again Quenami, his fists clenched, about to get himself killed against Itzpapalotl. He had dragged me to the top of the hill, I and Acamapichtli, even though he'd laughed and suggested we leave the weak behind.
Acamapichtli was smiling in my mind. "We will endure," he whispered. "We will do what needs to be done. We will–"
I hated them. I despised them for their beliefs, and for everything they had done in the name of gain and greed. But, in the end… In the end, Teomitl had allied himself with Nezahual-tzin, and I with Acamapichtli. In the end…
In the end, they were my peers and my equals, and the only ones who could see this through. In the end, when push came to shove and the Fifth World tottered on the brink of extinction – when even they could see the price of failure – I could trust them to do what needed to be done.
And that was the only truth.
"Acatl!"
"I am here," I whispered, and, gently, very gently, breathed out Tizoc-tzin's soul, back into the Fifth World, before joining my fellow high priests for the rest of the ritual.
TWENTY-FIVE
The Fifth World
Tizoc-tzin's formal designation was a small and subdued affair. With his brother's funeral over, and him still in a state of weakness, he simply opted for a quiet ceremony with the governors and the magistrates. The Revered Speakers of Texcoco and Tlacopan, his fellow rulers in the Triple Alliance, offered him congratulations, and sacrificed quails to mark the beginning of an auspicious reign.
Tizoc-tzin wasn't quite yet crowned, of course. That would come after the coronation war, when he had brought back enough prisoners and slaves for a true celebration. But, nevertheless, he was already invested, with enough power to keep us all safe.
After the ceremony he received us in his private quarters. There were no slaves and no noblemen, just Teomitl, Acamapichtli, Nezahual-tzin and I, standing barefoot amidst the luxurious decorations, and the exquisitely carved columns. Fine feathers fans and gold ornaments were casually strewn across the room.
Quenami was beside his master, richly attired, with coloured heron plumes at his belt, blue-and-black paint, and a stylised fireserpent winding its way across the hem of his tunic. The air smelled faintly of pine needles and copal incense, and there was the faintest hint of smoke, causing my eyes to itch.
"I am given to understand that we owe you a debt," Tizoc-tzin said. His eyes were sunken deep, his skin a pale brown, almost waxy, and he stumbled a little on his words. I wasn't sure if it was because something was wrong with his speech, if my delay in the ritual had cost him something, or if it was simply because he disliked uttering them. By the scowl on his face, there was at least some of the latter.
Nezahual-tzin shrugged. "I'm glad to see proper diplomatic relations restored between Tenochtitlan and Texcoco. I shall look forward to your coronation, my lord."
"I see." Tizoc-tzin bent to look at Nezahual-tzin, as if not quite sure what to make of him. "Perhaps you do," he said grudgingly.
"It's in our best interests." Nezahual-tzin's smile was wide and dazzling, that of a carefree sixteen-year-old. I wasn't fooled.
"And you." Tizoc-tzin turned his attention back to Acamapichtli and me.
"We did our duty," Acamapichtli said. "To the Revered Speaker and to the Empire." One of his arms, the one that had thrown the blade at Itzpapalotl, was a little stiff, and I didn't think it would ever move smoothly again. My own legs ached whenever I rose. Whatever Huitzilpochtli had said, there had been a price for entering the heartland. There was always a price.
Tizoc-tzin was silent for a while. His gaze moved from Acamapichtli to me and back again. "Then I am assured of your loyalty."
Not surprising, I guessed. A little saddening, but then I had known when we had brought him back to life. Death had changed nothing in him, no lessons had been learnt.
"You've always had our loyalty," Acamapichtli said effortlessly.
"I have pledged service to the Revered Speaker of the Mexica Empire," I said.
He noticed the omission of his name, that much was clear. His eyes narrowed. I fully expected him to demand something more of me, some show of obeisance, but he didn't.
"I see," he said, again. "So that's how things are." He leant back, his back straight once more, and turned back to Quenami. "The council is still empty, and we have to see about appointments. Teomitl?"
Teomitl rose from his crouch. For a moment, he and Tizoc-tzin faced each other, and I wasn't quite sure what I read in their gazes. It wasn't love, or even respect. Perhaps simply what my brother Neutemoc and I shared – the knowledge that, no matter how distant we might be, how difficult we might find getting on together, we still shared the same blood.
At length Tizoc-tzin nodded. "I need a Master of the House of Darts."
"I don't think–" Teomitl started.
"Nonsense. You'll do fine," Tizoc-tzin said. "If I can't trust family–"
"That's not the problem." Teomitl's face hovered on the edge of divinity again. "You know what's wrong."
"Do I?" Tizoc-tzin looked at him for a while more. His pale face was unreadable; his skin pale and translucent, enough to reveal the bones and the shape of the skull. He'd died. He'd come back. We couldn't pretend things were normal. "We'll have to see about another appointment for her. Some gift of jewellery or perhaps a grant of land. It would be unseemly for my brother to marry beneath him."
What? I looked at Tizoc-tzin. I had misheard. But, no, Teomitl still stood, as if struck by Tlaloc's lightning. "Brother–"
"You have objections?"
"No, no, I don't. But–"
"Don't get me wrong." Tizoc-tzin was still scowling, like an unappeased spirit back from the underworld. "I don't like this. I don't approve of this. I'll stand by what I think of your priest."
Always pleasant, I could see. But as long as he agreed…
"But you're my brother, and there will be no war between us."
Because he couldn't afford it, or because he loved Teomitl? I couldn't tell, not any more, what those two felt for each other. It seemed to me that something had broken in the hours before my arrest, when Tizoc-tzin had cast doubts on Mihmatini's reputation, something had come apart then, a mask broken into four hundred pieces, and things would never be the same.
Teomitl stood straight, as if to attention. "Thank you."
Tizoc-tzin scowled. "But you're getting the other appointment as well. Don't flatter yourself. It's time yo
u took part in imperial affairs."
"I know," Teomitl said. He bowed, very low, a subject to his Revered Speaker, but I could feel the impatience brimming up in him.
"That will be all," Tizoc-tzin said. "You may leave."
"Don't look so sad," Acamapichtli said, as he raised the entrance-curtain in a tinkle of bells. We walked down the steps into the courtyard – deserted at this hour of the afternoon – almost companionably.
"I'm not," I said, stiffly. "We got what we wanted, didn't we?"
He looked at me, a smile spreading on his face. "Of course. Because we worked together."
I wasn't in the mood for a moral, especially coming from him. "It's not an experience I'm anxious to repeat too often. Still, I suppose I don't have a choice."
Acamapichtli smiled. "You're learning." He clapped me on the back, like an old friend. "We'll meet again." And then he was gone, striding down the stairs as if nothing had happened, ready to play his little games once again.
Learning? I supposed, in a way, that I was, but not lessons he'd ever have understood.
Teomitl caught up with me at the exit to the courtyard under a fresco of butterflies and moths, a stream of souls rising up from the ground towards the huge face of the Fifth Sun. Nezahual-tzin fell in with us, casually and innocently, though he never did anything without cause. "So, I take it I'm invited to the wedding?"
Teomitl scowled, an expression reminiscent of Tizoc-tzin at his best. "You're the Revered Speaker of Texcoco. I don't think I could leave you out if I tried."
"How nice," Nezahual-tzin said. "I'll come with pleasure."
"I have no doubt." Teomitl shook his head, as if to scare off a nagging fly. "Acatl-tzin –"
"Yes?"
"He hasn't changed, has he?"
I shook my head.
"People seldom change," Nezahual-tzin said. We passed the imperial aviary where the birds pressed themselves against the bars of their huge cages, the quetzal-birds and the parrots, the herons and the quails, everything laid out for the Revered Speaker's pleasure. "They think they do, but in the end most change is an illusion. Perhaps the greatest one put in the Fifth World."
I knew. I knew that Quenami was going to continue grating on my nerves, that Acamapichtli would support me only as far as his own interests, that I would never be able to rely on them.
But, the Duality protect us, I was still going to work with them. "He's granted you a wife," I said finally. "Don't ask for more than that."
"It would be arrogant to. Not to mention out of place." Teomitl puffed his cheeks thoughtfully. "He'll deal with you, though, in the end. Quenami will convince him to."
"He has what he wanted," I said. "The Turquoise-and-Gold Crown. He should be more amenable now." So long as we didn't contradict him in anything. It was going to be a difficult reign. Thank the Duality I had the rest of my clergy with me.
"I guess so," Teomitl said, but he sounded unconvinced. "I'm not sure–"
"He's your brother. And the Revered Speaker."
"I know. I guess… I guess he's not who I thought he was." He smiled, suddenly carefree, pure Teomitl. "But it's not so bad, in the end."
This from a man who had just become heir-apparent to the Mexica Empire. I stifled a smile. "I'm sure you can live with it. Come on. Let's find Mihmatini and tell her the good news, and then I'll go back to the Duality House and finish Ceyaxochitl's vigil."
We strolled out of the Imperial Palace, past the Serpent Wall, and into the familiar crowd of the Sacred Precinct. The Fifth Sun was overhead, beating down upon us, the heavens bright and impossibly blue. Blood ran down the steps of the Great Temple, going underground to settle into the grooves of the disk, sealing again and again the prison of She of the Silver Bells, and the star-demons were gone. Everything was right with the world, or as right as it could be.
Except…
Except that, at the edge of the sky, I could see them, the same storm clouds as in the heartland, slowly closing in, grey and swollen and angry, a reminder of the god's presence. And I didn't need Mictlan's magic to see the skeleton beneath Tizoc-tzin's skin. We had put a dead man on the throne, an empty husk, animated only by magic and the blessing of a god.
When Huitzilpochtli's blessings and magic ran out – and they always did – what would happen then?
III
MASTER OF THE HOUSE OF DARTS
ONE
The Army's Return
The day dawned clear and bright on the city: as the Fifth Sun emerged from His night journey, He was welcomed by the drumrolls and conch-blasts of His priests – a noise that reverberated in my small house until it seemed to fill my lungs. I rolled to my feet from my sleeping mat, and made my daily offerings of blood – both to Tonatiuth the Fifth Sun, and to my patron Lord Death, the Fleshless One, ruler of the underworld.
This done, I put on a simple grey cloak, and headed to my temple – more for the sake of form, for I suspected I wouldn't remain there long, not if the army were indeed coming back today.
As I walked, I felt the slight resistance to the air, the familiar nausea in my gut – a feeling that everything wasn't quite right, that there was a gaping hole beneath the layers of reality that undercut the Fifth World. I'd been living with it for over three months, ever since the previous Revered Speaker had died. His successor, Tizoctzin, had been crowned leader of the Mexica Empire; but a Revered Speaker wasn't confirmed in the sight of the gods until his successful coronation war.
Today, I guessed, was the day I found out if the hole would ever close.
The Sacred Precinct, the religious heart of Tenochtitlan, was already bustling even at this early hour: groups of novice priests were sweeping the courtyards of the temple complexes; pilgrims, from noblemen in magnificent cloaks to peasants in loincloths, brought offerings of incense and blood-stained grass-balls; and the murmur of the crowd, from dozens of low-voiced conversations, enfolded me like a mother's arms. But there was something more in the air – a tautness in the faces of the pilgrims, a palpable atmosphere of expectation shared by the cotton-draped matrons and the priests with blood-matted hair.
The Temple for the Dead was but a short distance from my house, at the northern end of the Sacred Precinct. It was a low, sprawling complex with a pyramid shrine at its centre, from which the smoke of copal incense was already rising like a prayer to the Heavens. I wasn't surprised to find my second-in-command, Ichtaca, in deep conversation with another man in a light-blue cloak embroidered with seashells and frogs, and a headdress of heron feathers: Acamapichtli, High Priest of the Storm Lord. Together with Quenami, High Priest of the Mexica patron god Southern Hummingbird, we formed the religious head of the Empire. I didn't get on with Quenami, who was arrogant and condescending – and as to Acamapichtli… Not that I liked him any more than Quenami, but we'd reached an uneasy understanding the year before.
"Acatl." Acamapichtli looked amused, but then he always did. His gaze went up and down, taking in my simple grey tunic.
He didn't need to say anything, really. I could hardly welcome back the Revered Speaker of the Empire dressed like a low-ranking priest. "I'll change," I said, curtly. "I presume you're not here to enquire after my health."
For a moment, I thought he was going to play one of his little games with me again – but then his lips tightened, and he simply said, "A messenger arrived two days ago at the palace, and was welcomed with all due form by the She-Snake."
"You know this–"
"Through Quenami, of course. How else?" Acamapichtli's voice was sardonic. After the events of the previous year, we were both… in disgrace, I guessed. Not that I'd ever been in much of a state of grace, but I'd spoken out against the election of the current Revered Speaker, and Acamapichtli had plotted against him with foreigners, making us both outcasts at the current court. The She-Snake, who deputised for the Revered Speaker, wouldn't have wanted to countermand his master.
"And?" I asked. I wouldn't have been surprised if Quenami had given us only part of t
he information, to keep us as much in the dark as the pilgrims milling in the Sacred Precinct.
"Other messengers went out yesterday morning," Acamapichtli said. "With drums and trumpets, and incense-burners." I let out a breath I hadn't been conscious of holding. "It's a victory, then."
Acamapichtli's face was a careful blank. "Or considered as such."
What did he know that he wasn't telling me? It would be just like him: serving his own interests best, playing a game of handing out and withholding information like the master he was.
"You know it's not a game."
Acamapichtli stared at me for a while, as if mulling over some withering response. "And you take everything far too seriously, Acatl. As I said: the Fifth World can survive."
I had my doubts, especially given that the death of the previous Revered Speaker had resulted in city-wide chaos – which we'd survived only by a hair's breadth. "What else did Quenami tell you?"
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