Obsidian & Blood

by Aliette De Boddard

  "My Lord," I said, slowly. "I ask for no favours; merely for things to take their course. I want what should happen here, on the ninth level of the underworld, to happen." For the dead – the defeated – to find oblivion at Mictlantecuhtli's feet.

  "Why?" Again, genuine puzzlement. "Would you put your sister in danger?"

  He was a god – had been mortal, once, in the beginning of the Fifth Age, before He gave his blood to move the Fifth Sun across the Heavens. He couldn't understand us, not any more – couldn't understand fear and hope and despair, and the knowledge that I needed to bargain for this now before knowing who would win the fight – that I needed to put my own sister's soul in the balance, agree to consign her to Mictlantecuhtli's oblivion if she lost the battle – so that the Mexica Empire could be great, could follow the destiny set by the Southern Hummingbird – guzzling hearts and captives like a glutton, taking in riches from the northern deserts and the southern jungles until it choked on them.

  "I–"

  "Acatl?"

  They were shadows again – the fight a hint, like a painting hidden underneath a layer of maguey paper – and all I could do was guess, and hope against all hope – and do what was needed.

  "My Lord." I kept my voice steady, focusing on the polished bones of the dais, on the musty smell of earth and dry corpses. "A soul that comes before Your throne finds oblivion."

  "That is truth." I felt Him shift, high above me – waiting as He always waited, for everything to come to an end.

  "I–" The words caught in my throat – I kept my thoughts away from the fight, focusing them on the memory of the dead and the wounded – of Tapalcayotl, of Chipahua, of Acamapichtli. "What of a soul who dies before Your throne?"

  There was silence – flowing like the calm after a successful birth. At length, Mictlantecuhtli made a sound I couldn't interpret – a bark of laughter, of anger? "Look at Me, Acatl."

  "I–"

  "You're asking for no favours. You never do. You merely want Me to take my due as I have always done. You know as well as I do that there is no ceremony in Mictlan."

  Slowly, carefully, I pulled myself up – how was Mihmatini doing? Could she hold out for that long? – and looked him in the eye.

  His face was smooth, polished bone, His cheekbones spattered with drops of blood; His headdress was of owl feathers and paper offerings; His teeth were white, and as sharp as those of a jaguar. His eye-sockets weren't empty like those of a skull, but rather filled with a soft, yellow light, like the Fifth Sun at the end of the afternoon. "Few have asked this. Your need must be pressing." Between His teeth glittered light, too – a hundred stars, caught in His throat, in His empty rib-cage, imprisoned there to keep the Fifth Sun safe.

  "I do what I must." The words were ashes in my mouth.

  "For the Fifth World?"

  I could have said the Empire, but it would have been a lie – I wasn't sure I could believe in that anymore, not with our current Revered Speaker. Or perhaps I needed to believe in it – in the idea rather than the man, to make it all somehow palatable. "For balance, and our survival. And justice." For the warriors and the crippled clergy of Tlaloc, and all those dead before their time.

  "I see." His eyes were – no, not warm, for He was death, and would ever be cold – but there was sadness in them, and sympathy, and for a bare moment, as we looked at each other I had the feeling the He encompassed me, and weighed me, and understood me better than anyone ever would, and it was a thought as bitter as raw cacao. "I said it before, Acatl, it is not a favour – mainly an extension of rules."

  "Then You agree?"

  He was silent, for a while. "It sets an uncomfortable precedent. But you are My high priest, and I know your need. So go, with My blessing." He smiled – a bare uncovering of the stars that whirled within Him. "For what it's worth, Acatl."

  Something shimmered and tightened in the air. When I turned around, the fight had stopped shivering in and out of reality, and had become entirely real.

  "We shall meet again, Acatl." They were fading away, leaving me on an empty dais – with a sense of odd warmth running through me.

  Not a promise; a mere statement of fact. Almost all the Dead were His.

  I didn't move. I couldn't, for I stood on the threshold of the gateway, and I couldn't enter one world or another, lest the ritual fail. I kept my eyes on the fight ahead – Mihmatini was moving yet more awkwardly, stumbling every other step. On Coatl – Moquihuix-tzin's – face was nothing but sheer determination. He had lost his sword, but wielded the axe with the ease of one of Chalchiuhcutlicue's devotees – thank the gods he couldn't use his magic, not here in the underworld where Lord Death's wards were at their strongest.

  I called up the courtyard, briefly, and met Acamapichtli's exasperated eyes. The ahuizotls seemed to be all dead, though Neutemoc was limping, and Cozolli held her arm awkwardly. "Any time you feel like starting the ritual…"

  "We still have – a problem," I said. "Hold on, will you?"

  In the underworld, Nezahual-tzin was stirring, dazedly pulling himself up – and they were all so far away, stuck as if behind a pane of glass, neither of them seeing me – I would have screamed, but even as I shifted, Moquihuix-tzin sent Mihmatini's dagger flying – and closed in for the kill.

  "Mihmatini!" The scream was torn out of me before I could think, fear and rage mingling in one primal, unstoppable force that seemed to take its substance from my wrung lungs. "Mihmatini!"

  At the last moment she sidestepped and, for a moment, her eyes met mine, and saw me. She smiled, shaking her head – that same expression she had whenever I tried to mother her.

  Oh, Acatl. You're such a fool sometimes.

  It happened in an eye-blink – she rolled to the ground, avoiding the axe stroke which would have split her skull; her outstretched hand met Nezahual-tzin's, and she rose, holding something sharp and white – the aura of Duality magic around her flaring like the hood of a snake, an expenditure of power that must have utterly drained her – and, grasping the axe in one hand, used the other to drive her weapon into Coatl's chest.

  He gasped, and collapsed like a felled tree, while Mihmatini stood over him, her face expressionless, her hand dripping blood from the deep wound she'd taken from seizing the axe.

  She smiled up at me, then turned to Nezahual-tzin and pulled him towards the dais. I couldn't hear them at first – my sister seemed to be whispering furiously, and Nezahual-tzin, still dazed, mostly nodded – a fact which must have pleased her no end.

  At last, they stood below me. Nezahual-tzin smiled up at me. "As timely as ever, I see."

  I shook my head – now wasn't a time for jibes. "Are you–?" I asked Mihmatini. "I thought he was going to kill you." I thought I was going to lose her forever, that I'd bargained for nothing but one more death. "I–" It hurt, to breathe.

  "Oh, Acatl." Her voice was pitying. "Have more faith."

  I said nothing – I couldn't think of any smart answer to this. Instead, I turned to Nezahual-tzin. "Have you–?"

  He nodded, brusquely. "Let's get to it, shall we? I don't know how long I can stay upright."

  The courtyard shimmered into existence again – except that I stopped it halfway through, before it became fully material. I could see Nezahual-tzin, slowly breathing – calling down the Feathered Serpent's power until his skin glowed with pulsing magic – and Acamapichtli, his blind eyes thrown back, looking up at the sky, which slowly filled up with storm clouds. There was a noise like wings unfurling, and the distant rumble of thunder.

  And I – I, who belonged in neither of those worlds – I felt the touch of Mictlantecuhtli spread from the marks on my shoulder,a cold that seized my bones and muscles, and then my heart until I could no longer feel it beat. My hands curled up into claws, my skin reddening against the cold.

  "I stand on the boundaries

  On the edge of the region of mystery, on the edge of the house of the fleshless

  I stand on the boundaries

&n
bsp; On the edge of the gardens of flowers, of the expanses of grass…"

  And, as I spoke the words of the hymn – as Acamapichtli and Nezahual-tzin joined me – light slowly appeared, washing us all in a radiance that was neither the harsh one of the Fifth Sun, nor the green mouldy one of Mictlan, but something that had been there for the birth of the Fifth World, something that would always be there, underpinning the order we kept.

  "We stand for sickness, in the house of the living

  For the breath of the wind, in the region of the fleshless

  For life and death, caught on the threshold…"

  And there was… something, like a tightening, as if a loose garment had just readjusted itself: the world knitting itself back together. My gate wavered and shrank, and the nausea that I'd carried with me all this time finally sank down to almost nothing.

  "With this we will stand straight

  With this we will live

  Oh, for a while, for a little while…"

  And then the feeling was gone, and I sagged to my knees like a wounded man whose feverish rush of energy had just worn off.

  "Acatl!"

  "I'm fine, I'm fine," I said, but I could barely pull myself to my feet. I shouldn't have left the cane behind us. I turned back, to stare at Moquihuix's body – and, to my surprise he stared back at me, his face clouded with the approach of death.

  The weapon Mihmatini had used to stab him – a sharp reed which shone as if it had been dipped in gold – was still embedded in his chest. He didn't look like Coatl at all, but like his true self, a Revered Speaker lying in the dust of Mictlan.

  "Priest." His voice still carried far, as if he were addressing the crowd from atop his pyramid temple. His lips curled up, in a smile that was painful. "It is Tenochtitlan's destiny, indeed, to rule over the valley of Anahuac, to expand into the Fifth World and make everything theirs. I wish you joy."

  "Wait!" I said, but his eyes had closed, and his body was already shimmering out of existence, his limbs growing fainter and fainter, followed by his torso, and, last of all, the turquoise cloak which had marked him as a Revered Speaker and his quetzal feather headdress, crumbling into a fine powder which mingled with the dust.

  A wind rose, carrying a faint, familiar smell – rotting maize, or leaves – and his soul rose upon it; not the faint memory of a human, but a bright radiance made of hundreds of people: the people of the plague, the dead that he carried with him. He rose towards the dais, and was lost to sight.

  When I turned around, Nezahual-tzin and Mihmatini had both joined me on the dais. Nezahual-tzin was binding Mihmatini's wound, with a mocking smile. She was glaring at him, daring him to make a comment.

  "You'll be fine?" I asked.

  She shook her head. "Of course I'll be fine, Acatl. Don't fuss like an old woman. It doesn't become you."

  "Sorry," I said. "It's just that–" I saw, then, that her free hand was shaking, her back slightly arched, and I could only guess at the effort she used to hold herself upright. "Never mind. Let's go back."

  We came back to the Fifth World in the same courtyard we'd left from. It was bathed in sunlight, the corpse of Matlaelel and the bloody remnants of a few ahuizotls the only signs of the battle. And another corpse, too, shrivelled like a dried fruit, who might have been Coatl, who might have been Moquihuix-tzin: it was hard to tell anymore, with the decay.

  I'd expected a crowd of noblewomen, irate at our intrusion upon their lives – who were, I was beginning to understand, neither as weak nor as defenceless as I'd allowed myself to think.

  I hadn't expected the warriors: an army large enough to fill the place, their macuahitl swords glinting in the sunlight – and, at their head, the old woman and Teomitl – and my brother Neutemoc and my offering priest Palli, standing in their path with the desperate assurance of doomed men.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The Revered Speaker

  We'd appeared behind Neutemoc and Palli – which meant that the warriors saw us first, and, as their faces widened in incredulity, Neutemoc turned round to face me. "Acatl!"

  He looked exhausted – his jaguar's furs bloodied, his helmet split with a blow that must have narrowly avoided cleaving his skull. Palli himself was holding himself with easy, casual aloofness, as befitted both his position and the situation, but beneath it all, he had to be no less tired than my brother. "What in the Fifth World…?"

  I looked for Acamapichtli – who had withdrawn between the pillars, and was on his knees, helping his Consort bandage her wound. His gaze was mild, sardonic: it said, quite clearly, that he would take no part in this, that, Master of the House of Darts or Revered Speaker, it made no difference to him at all, and that the Fifth World would endure as it always had.

  Not unexpected, sadly.

  Teomitl moved, as fluid as a knife through human flesh – kneeling by the charred body of Coatl-Moquihuix, which lay between the warriors and us. "He's dead," he said. He wore rich garb – not quite that of the Master of the House of Darts, not quite that of a Revered Speaker, as if he were still uneasily caught between both functions. But his attitude was regal.

  The old woman inclined her head. "Good. That leaves only one thing."

  Teomitl pulled himself up. His gaze was unreadable; his face turned away from me or Mihmatini. "I know."

  I heard Mihmatini's breath quicken. She looked from Neutemoc to Teomitl. For a moment, anguish was written on her face, but then her hands clenched, and she wrenched herself from her immobility. She bypassed Neutemoc before he could stop her, and came to a stop in the centre of the courtyard – standing under the warm gaze of the Fifth Sun, which shimmered on the hundreds of wards she was weaving around her. "We won't let you pass." Her voice shook, but her hands were utterly steady.

  "We?" the old woman's voice was sarcastic. "I can't see anyone with you, girl."

  Mihmatini flinched – I couldn't see Teomitl's face, but never mind, it was too late for that; far too late. Slowly, with as much dignity as I could master, I walked in my sister's wake, ignoring the sharp glance Neutemoc threw at me – and came to stand by her side – blood to blood, brother to sister.

  The old woman cocked her head. "Two doesn't make an army."

  "Listen to me," I said. "This is foolishness, Teomitl. You can't possibly–"

  "We've already had this conversation." He still wouldn't look at me; his voice was low, emotionless, instead of the anger I'd expected. "This is what the Empire needs."

  "You know it's not."

  The old woman smiled. "You know he has a destiny, priest. You can feel it, hanging over him."

  Right now, all I could see was the jade cast to his features, the living remnants of Jade Skirt's magic, which had given us so much pain. "Yes, he would rule the Mexica, and rule them well. But not now. Destiny is for fools to manipulate."

  "He'll never be this ready."

  "What do you gain?" I asked.

  She laughed – low and without joy. "Tizoc is no better than his brother. They both used me and discarded me without a second thought. Now I grow old in the shadow of Mictlan, and I would see the better brother made Revered Speaker."

  As I had thought – an imperial princess playing at politics – and she was saturated with the magic of Grandmother Earth, probably what had aged her until she seemed old enough to be a generation above Teomitl.

  "As Guardian of the Sacred Precinct, I won't let you pass," Mihmatini said. She masked her hesitation well, but I wasn't sure whether it would be enough – the old woman was a canny practitioner.

  "Mihmatini…" Teomitl looked straight up, but his eyes were as shadowed as Coatl's had been, and I could read nothing from him. The Duality curse me, when had I ceased to understand him? "You have to understand."

  "I – I understand, but I don't approve. You'll break the Fifth World, Teomitl, worse than anything he's ever done." Her hands swung, pointed to the charred body on the ground. "And he hated us – hated us so much…" She couldn't quite repress the shiver that ran throug
h her. "All that for what? To grasp a toy you can't have now, like a spoiled child?"

  "You know Tizoc," Teomitl said. "You know his mere presence opens up the breach, that there will be more demons in the streets, more beasts of shadows taking people." He swung to look at me, and the light of the Fifth Sun dispersed the shadows over his eyes, letting me see the anguish in them. "You know this, Acatl-tzin. You know he'll kill us slowly, take us apart piece by piece. You know there's no other choice."

  "This will break us," I said, finally. What did he want from me? My approval? I was no longer his teacher; that much had been made abundantly clear. "You know it will."

  "I know." His voice was an anguished cry. "But there is no other way!"

  The old woman said nothing; she merely stood, looking smug.

  "I have to do this," Teomitl said, slowly, carefully. His voice gained strength as he spoke – becoming once again the confident one of a man who moved in the highest circles of power. "This is right." He hefted his macuahitl sword, holding it as if he could draw power from within the obsidian. His skin had the greenish cast of jade, of underwater algae, and his aura of magic had grown stronger.