Stay inside like old men? No, I couldn't. I had work to do.
Nevertheless… it would have been highly irresponsible to go further without some kind of precaution. Mihmatini's spell had its uses, but, as much as the Duality was arbiter and source of the gods, They were not the ones to whom I owed my allegiance, and Their protection would not be the most effective I could call on. I made my offerings of blood to the Fifth Sun and to Lord Death, singing the hymns for the continuation of the Fifth World, and pulling my worship-thorns through my earlobes.
On my wicker chest were two sets of clothes: one was a simple grey cloak, appropriate for a priest for the Dead; the other was the ornate, owl-embroidered monstrosity of my regalia complete with skull-mask and feather headdress. The grey cloak was far more comfortable, likely to be far less noticed, but the days when I could have worn it had all but passed. Ichtaca was right: I needed to show myself, and this included wearing the regalia. With a sigh, I folded the simple cloak back into the chest, putting it under the folded codices I was working on. It was, after all, unlikely I would need it in the days to come.
I walked into the Sacred Precinct in full regalia.
The dizziness did not return, though I watched for it. The world remained crisp and clear, the sky above the Sacred Precinct a brilliant blue, with the familiar smells of copal incense smoke, underlain by the rank one of blood. Ahead, atop the Great Temple, the sacrifices went on unabated: a body tumbled down the steps, coming to a rest in the grooves that surrounded the pyramid's base – the painted white skin spattered with blood.
Everything seemed well: the Empire strong, the gods watching over us, a Revered Speaker about to be confirmed in a burst of glory, and his coronation war a resounding success.
How I wished I could be fooled by such appearances.
Ichtaca met me at the temple entrance. I could tell that he was either preoccupied or in a hurry, for the black streaks on his cheeks were slightly curved instead of straight, as if he'd applied them with shaking hands. "Acatl-tzin."
"I presume something has happened."
Ichtaca grimaced. "Teomitl-tzin sent word. Pochtic – the Master of the House of Darkness – has regained consciousness, but there are two further warriors affected. One of them is dead."
Dead already? The sickness was spreading – I rubbed the tips of my fingers together, as if I could wash it away from my skin. How was it contracted? "And the others? The ones Acamapichtli had in confinement?"
"I've heard no news."
Well, there was nothing for it. "Send priests for the funeral rites, and remove the bodies. We need to examine them in an isolated spot. Did they die in the palace?"
Ichtaca shook his head. "I think at the House of Youth, but I'll check."
A group of grey-clad novices passed by us. By the reed-brooms in their hands, it looked they were going to sweep the courtyard, cleansing it in honour of Lord Death. "Do check," I said. "Nothing else?"
Ichtaca spread his hands. His nervousness was palpable. "The merchant: I did find which god he worshipped, but–"
I sighed. Ichtaca had always been a staunch believer in Mexica superiority, and the past few months had hit him badly. "Tell me," I said, gently.
"Tezcatlipoca, the Smoking Mirror."
Lord of the Near, Lord of the Nigh; god of war and youth, protector of sorcerers. Nothing too surprising there, sadly – even the viciousness of Yayauhqui's punishment was characteristic.
"Does it help?"
I couldn't lie to him. "I'm not sure. It certainly doesn't put him at the forefront of suspects: the epidemic seems to be coming from Tlaloc."
"Again?" Ichtaca asked.
Two years earlier, the Storm Lord and a splinter group of His priests had attempted an elaborate plot to unseat Huitzilpochtli's dominance – using the Revered Speaker's weakness to raise up an agent in the Fifth World. They would have succeeded, too, but for our order.
"He's a god," I said, slowly. "The Duality only knows what He's plotting." I paused, then.
"What is it, Acatl-tzin?"
"The Flower Quetzal," I said slowly. Xochiquetzal had been the Storm Lord's ally – as interested as He had been in the end of the Fifth World.
"You think She's involved in this again?"
I thought of Xiloxoch. "I don't know. But it's a possibility."
One I didn't care much for. A scheming deity was bad enough, but an alliance of gods…
I nodded. "Before I go, I need a ritual performed."
"Which one?"
I'd had time to mull it over on my way to the temple. Mictlantecuhtli, Lord Death, was seldom invoked for defensive magic – unless one counted summoning creatures such as the Wind of Knives or the Owl Archer from the underworld. But this particular sickness, it seemed, was under the auspices of Tlaloc the Storm Lord. And the magics of the underworld and of Tlalocan cancelled each other out.
"It's not a ritual," I said at last. "At least, not per se. I just need you to provide a little… help."
We repaired to one of the examination rooms, under the hollow gaze of Mictlantecuhtli. As I'd asked, Ichtaca had gathered only offering priests for this – the novices would have been all too glad to take part in something like this, but they hadn't yet learned the fundamental lesson of the priesthood: that magic might be awe-inspiring, but that the heart of our devotions lay elsewhere. That Lord Death did not give us more than was needed, or grant us our prayers, but that we could rely on Him to stand by His rules, that he was not cruel or capricious, but merely there, awaiting us all.
And it was my role – and Ichtaca's – to teach them the importance of the small things, of the devotions at night, of the examinations of corpses with knives and small spells, of the offerings that came day and night to give their lives the rhythm of faith.
At the feet of each priest lay a pile of quetzal feathers, and a single lip-plug made of jade. On Ichtaca's signal, they cut a thin line across the back of their hands, and let the blood drip onto the feathers and jade.
Ichtaca – who was part of the circle, started chanting a hymn to Lord Death:
"Only here on earth, in the Fifth World
Shall the flowers last, shall the songs be bliss
Though it be feathers, though it be jade
It too must go to the region of the fleshless."
Where the blood touched the feathers, they gleamed – a dark hue of green, the miasma of the underworld. A cold wind was blowing across the room, making the priests' grey cloaks billow like the wings of some gaunt and skeletal bird.
"It too must go to the region of mystery
Only once do we live on this earth
We came only to sleep, only to dream
Only once do we live on this earth."
I took a deep breath, and tightened my grip on my obsidian knife. I had offered no blood, but that did not matter. To call on what I intended, I needed no offerings, merely my presence, there in the very centre of Lord Death's largest temple – I, who had been consecrated High Priest, invested with the breath of the underworld.
I felt it rise within me: the lament of the dead, the grave voice of the Wind of Knives, the careless smile and wide eyes of the Owl Archer, the hulking shapes of beasts of shadows – and everything that presaged Mictlan in the Fifth World: the old folk laid out on their reed-mats, struggling to breathe for yet another day; the peasants feeling the first aches in their backs, the first creaks of their joints; the women in the marketplace with their wrinkled faces and streaks of white in their hair; the children, learning that no year resembled the one past, and that time had caught them all, more surely than a fisherman's net; all those on the road to the throne of Lord Death – and to oblivion.
"In the house of the fleshless
In the house with no windows
We go, we disappear
Only once do we live on this earth."
The world contracted. A cold feeling ran over my entire body, as if I'd just put on chilled clothes after some time standing be
fore a brazier. And the feel of the underworld, instead of abating, continued unchanged. I saw the skulls under the faces of the priests – smelled the coming rot, and the blotches that would spread over their skins as the blood stopped flowing within their bodies.
I wouldn't be able to maintain it for long, for it took its toll on my own energy. I'd expected to be frightened, or disgusted, but I wasn't. Cocooned in a power as familiar to me as the taste of maize, I felt… at ease, relaxed even for the first time in days. I had lived with the awareness of death for years – not as a distant event in the future, but as real as the blank eyes of corpses, as the blotches on pallid hands.
It would have to do.
I crossed the Sacred Precinct as if in a dream. A cold wind blew around me, reducing the bustle of the crowd to the silence of the grave and the crackle of flames on a funeral pyre. Indistinct faces brushed past me, and the only things that seemed real were the shadows of the temples, from the round tower of Quetzalcaoatl the Feathered Serpent to the familiar pyramid shape of the Great Temple dwarfing the Sacred Precinct.
I didn't feel quite ready to face Teomitl yet – what would I have flung at him, save worries I couldn't quite substantiate?
Instead, I made my own way to the quarters of the Master of the House of Darkness and found him awake, tended to by his personal slave. One of the She-Snake's guards was at the entrance; he let me pass, though I knew he would soon be reporting my coming to his master.
The Master of the House of Darkness looked, if anything, worse than on the previous day – his raw skin shining in the morning sun, glistening with the particular glint of pus and scabs. His torn eyelids had puffed up, all but hiding his eyes. With my new, sensitive eyesight, I could trace the incipient rot in every streak on his forehead and cheeks and smell the swelling pus, a rancid odour that threatened to overwhelm the smoke of copal incense.
"My Lord," I said. "I am Acatl, High Priest for the Dead."
"I know who you are." The voice sounded slightly peeved. "I might be on my mat, but I'm no invalid, and certainly not at Mictlan's gates yet."
I wasn't entirely sure I agreed, but I didn't say anything. I sat cross-legged in front of him – an honoured visitor – and spoke as if nothing were wrong. I prayed his diminished eyesight wouldn't let him see the way my gaze wandered downwards – of that, if he did see, he would misinterpret it as a sign of respect.
"So," Pochtic said after a while. "Here to investigate the attack on me, then?"
"Among other things," I said, carefully. He was obviously used to be being in charge – which wasn't surprising, given his high position in the army. "Can you tell me more about what happened? I found the mask on the ground."
Pochtic's ruined face did not move. "He was waiting for me in my chambers. I never did get to see his face – before I knew it, he had me pinned, an arm locked around my neck. And then he slid the mask on." He gave a shudder – the act of memory itself was too painful. "I don't remember anything except waking here, afterwards."
He spoke like a warrior: frank, honest, not mincing words and making no efforts to hide anything.
Or did he? His account was not only fragmentary, but singularly unhelpful – as if he'd worked on it to give as little information as possible.
"Hmm," I said. "He grasped you by the neck. That would indicate a man taller than you."
His mouth set in a grimace – his hands clenched as the split lips contracted, opening up the hundred tiny wounds he'd sustained. "I suppose so."
With him lying down, it was hard to tell – but I remembered the ceremony of welcoming for the army, and the four members of the war-council following one another. Pochtic, in his crimson feathers and black-trimmed mantle, had towered over Teomitl – who wasn't very small himself, either. So either our assailant was uncannily tall, whether he was human or not – I could think of several creatures that would fit that description. Or…
I needed a way to look at his neck – one that would be discreet enough to draw no suspicion. If he was lying, and in some ways involved with the epidemic, the last thing I needed was to be spooking him.
If I rose now – with the words he'd spoken fresh in his mind – he would suspect something. I had to gain time, instead. "Asphyxiation," I said. "It's a common ritual used by the priests of Tlaloc."
"I have little to do with the Storm Lord," Pochtic said, not without disdain. "My service is dedicated to Tezcatlipoca the Smoking Mirror, Lord of the Near, Lord of the Nigh – and to the other gods of war."
"You don't think someone could have attacked you for precisely this reason?" I asked.
Pochtic snorted. "I maintain good relations with the gods and their priests. Nothing particular happened in the last few days that would justify this."
His eyes flicked, just a fraction, as he said that – and for a moment I saw raw fear in the pupils. He knew, or suspected what he'd been attacked for.
What was going on?
"So you didn't know your assailant? You're sure that you wouldn't have caught a glimpse of him – have any inkling or any suspicion why you were picked for that kind of death?" I rose as I said that, and walked nearer to him – and, as I expected, Pochtic followed the direction of my voice, tilting his head upwards. His cloak slipped, a fraction, uncovering his neck and the top of his shoulders – a fraction, but it was enough for me to see that there was no mark whatsoever there.
No, wait.
There were faint bruises on both shoulders, not far from the neck area. I'd only had a short look at them before Pochtic settled down again, but they were familiar, from a thousand examinations. Palm marks, facing upwards. In other words, someone had forced Pochtic down on his back, and put the mask on – and left him here, flopping like a fish on dry land until the air in his lungs gave out.
Then he had seen his assailant – or a shadow, at least. Why lie about it?
"I've told you," Pochtic said. "I don't have any idea what's going on."
"You're a strong man," I said, slowly. "I'm surprised you were overwhelmed that easily."
Pochtic's eyes glittered with something I couldn't place – shame, fear? "He held me like a rag doll," he whispered. "And then I couldn't breathe. Do you have any idea how horrible it is – your lungs starting to burn, your mouth struggling to draw air through jade? I– all your life, you breathe. Day after day, moment after moment – and suddenly you can't see anything, can't focus on anything but how powerless you are?"
He was Master of the House of Darkness: a rich, powerful man, who had everything he could ever want – physicians waiting on him, servants to satisfy the least of his desires. Like Eptli, he believed himself designed for greatness – and then, in a moment, everything had been snatched from him. He had been reminded that – like precious stones which cracked and broke – he was destined for Mictlan, the underworld, the place of the fleshless.
I knew the fear in his eyes – I had felt it myself. But in him it seemed to be compounded with something I couldn't place. Did he lie about his assailant because the latter had been small, and he was ashamed? Or was it something else?
Either way, this wouldn't be solved here. To accuse him of lying would bring me nowhere and would only anger Tizoc-tzin further – not the most intelligent of ideas, given his current mood.
NINE
Enemies of the Empire
I was walking out of Pochtic's quarters, when, through a courtyard, I caught a glimpse of Teomitl, walking by a woman in a simple red skirt. She did not wear the two horns of married women, but there was an ivory comb in her hair. Her face was lathered with makeup, giving her skin the yellow sheen of corn, and she walked with the familiar, swaying allure of a woman used to seducing men.
A sacred courtesan. Xiloxoch? I couldn't see any other reason for him to talk to someone of her status – not now that he was married, in the process of founding a household of his own.
Though Teomitl didn't look seduced – if anything, he looked angry, the facets of his cheeks taking on the colo
ur of jade, and his eyes hardening into small, glinting stones. The aura of his patron goddess Chalchiuhtlicue, Jade Skirt, was strong enough to hurt my eyes.
"Teomitl!" I called.
He slowed down a fraction, but barely acknowledged me. He was in regalia – not the peacetime one, but rather the frightful spectre, the war costume of the Master of the House of Darts. It made him look wild, untamed – from the dishevelled plume of quetzal feathers fanning out from the back of his hair, to his head, emerging from between the jaws of a sculpted skeletal beast. "This is Xiloxoch." He smiled, but the expression never reached his eyes. "Nezahual-tzin brought her to my quarters."
And what pleasure Nezahual-tzin would have derived from it, no doubt. "So you're accompanying her back to the House of Joy?"
Teomitl made a small, stabbing gesture with the back of one hand. "No. I'm taking her to the military courts."
"For visiting a prisoner?" Surely there was no law against this?
The light around Teomitl flared up, became blinding. "You don't understand, Acatl-tzin. Xiloxoch has serious accusations to make."
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