Master of the House of Darts

by Aliette de Bodard

  We reached a smaller courtyard, which doubled as an aviary: wooden cages with quetzal birds surrounded a fountain. The gurgle of the water mingled with the harsh cries of the birds, the glimmer of sunlight playing off against the iridescent sheen on their emerald tail-feathers.

  A warrior stood in front of the fountain, gazing into the water. He had his back to us, but even so, I would have recognised him anywhere: that arrogant, casual tilt of the head, that falsely contemplative pose… except that it was all subtly wrong, distorted as through layers of water.

  "My Lord?" I asked.

  Nezahual-tzin didn't move.

  "My Lord?" A little higher-pitched – and a little more desperate. I could have dealt with his usual sarcastic, careless remarks, but at this moment I might as well have been talking to a stone effigy. I moved to the other side of the fountain and met his gaze, which was slightly vacant, as if he weren't quite there. I extended my priest-senses – wincing at the effort. There was a slight trace of magic; a touch of something. Not sickly and spread out like underworld magic, but instead firm and strong, as unmoving as a rock or as the Heavens above us.

  "It's all in the water," Nezahual-tzin said. The vacuous smile on his face was so uncharacteristic I wanted to shake it out of him. "Can't you see?"

  "No."

  He smiled – dazzling, mindless. "He's coming, Acatl. He's coming. Neither walls nor lines on the ground – neither rivers nor marshes were enough to hold him – not even a fisherman's net."

  I didn't waste time asking who "he" was. Instead, I rubbed at the scabs on my earlobes until they came loose, and said a short prayer to Lord Death, asking Him to grant me true sight.

  As I'd thought, Nezahual-tzin was saturated with the dark brown of Toci's touch – a veil that hung around him like the vapour of the sweatbath, billowing in the warm breeze, lazily unfurling deeper hues of brown; the smell of churned mud and dry, cracking earth, and in the distance, the faint cry of warriors fighting each other, for Grandmother Earth was also the Woman of Discord, She who brought on the wars we needed to survive.

  What had happened to him?

  He was still staring into the water, his grey eyes – a feature I'd always found uncanny – even more distant than usual, as if the fountain held the answers he'd always wanted. He was at rest, in a relaxed, non-threatening way that made my skin crawl. And where were his warriors – where was the escort, suitable for a Revered Speaker of the Triple Alliance…?

  My gaze, roaming, found his hands – and the familiar, trembling haze of freshly-shed lifeblood. "They're dead," I said aloud. "Your warriors. Aren't they? Killed to cast the spell."

  For a long, agonising moment, I thought he wasn't going to answer, but then, he looked up at me, his face cast into an expressionless mask once again – almost like the Nezahual-tzin of old. "Opened up like poinsettia flowers. Such speed and efficiency. One wouldn't think she'd be so fast…" His voice trailed off, and his gaze went down, towards the water.

  She? Was it the same old woman who had visited Teomitl so often? What part did she play in this, other than seemingly ensorcelling two of the most important men in the Triple Alliance?

  "Acatl-tzin," Ezamahual said. "What shall we do?"

  I cast a glance around the courtyard. It was deserted, well away from the usual rush of people within the palace. But still…

  His own people would probably know what to do with him, but they'd all be in the official residence of the Revered Speaker of Texcoco – literally next door to our own Revered Speaker's apartments, high on the list of places to avoid in the palace. Still… He'd been helpful, if only in his usual, cryptic fashion, and my conscience balked at the idea of just leaving him here.

  "Let's bring you home," I said to Nezahual-tzin. "Someone there will probably have a better idea of what to do."

  We all but had to drag him away from the fountain, but once we were away from the water he relaxed in our grasp and seemed to follow us – more, I suspected, because he had nowhere else to go than out of any desire on his part.

  "What's wrong with him?" Ezamahual asked.

  "It's obviously a spell," I said, curtly. "But I have no idea how to dispel it." And, more importantly of where and how he had managed to get it cast on himself. What was its purpose? Simply to prevent Nezahual-tzin from tracking the mysterious summoner of Toci's magic? Did his pronouncements make sense, or were they just part of the delirium of the spell?

  I didn't like any of this – then again, it wasn't as if the previous days had been particularly relaxing or likeable.

  The Revered Speaker's chambers were in a large courtyard, on the first floor of a building which also hosted the war council, the council of officials that had elected him and that oversaw most of the daily life of Tenochtitlan, from religious worship to problems of architecture and city layout. On the first floor, three entrance-curtains marked the rooms of the Revered Speakers of Tlacopan, Texcoco and Tenochtitlan. The platform was overcrowded by warriors, and the general atmosphere was tense – none of the She-Snake's black-clad guards could be seen anywhere, and the warriors appeared to be arguing among themselves. In the courtyard, the crowd seemed to be dispatched in small groups, talking among themselves in hushed voices, throwing us harsh glances as we passed them by. The atmosphere was tense, as taut as a rope about to fray.

  We made our way upstairs without being challenged. Nezahual-tzin drew a few passing glances, but no one seemed to know his face well enough, or at least they considered him not important enough. His gaze kept roaming – caught by the jade-coloured cloak of a veteran warrior, by the darkening blue of the sky above us, the smoke of copal incense hanging in the air, almost intense enough to be frightening.

  There were two warriors on guard at the entrancecurtain of Nezahual-tzin's rooms; they only took a look at us and waved us through.

  Inside, the chambers were as I remembered them: colourful frescoes of Quetzalcoatl the Feathered Serpent, depicting His descent into the underworld, the founding of His city of Tollan, and His departure onto the Eastern Sea on a raft of snakes – everything obscured by the potent haze of copal incense mixed with herbs and spices, a mixture that always made my head spin. I suspected Nezahual-tzin used it for entering divine trances, and wouldn't have been surprised to learn it had teonanacatl and peyotl mixed in – two hallucinogenic widely used by most priesthoods, but frowned upon by my own. One did not need trances or dreams to be reminded of the reality of death.

  The low-backed chair – Nezahual-tzin's throne – was empty, the jaguar pelts on the dais meticulously cleaned by the slaves, who scattered away from us as we went deeper into the room.

  Nezahual-tzin's breath had quickened; around him, something glimmered – the shadow of a great snake, slowly unfolding through my and Ezamahual's body, maw wide open, the feathers of its collar slowly gaining substance as we got nearer to the throne. The air was as thick as tar – tense, not with human intrigue, but with the growing presence of a god in the Fifth World.

  Nezahual-tzin had gone completely limp, his eyes closed, lolling in our grip, much heavier than I'd thought possible. The snake came streaming out of his mouth, rearing its head through Nezahual-tzin's boyish face – the scales mingling with the skin, the feathers becoming the feather headdress at his nape, yet somehow larger and more defined. The only sound we could hear was Nezahual-tzin's quickening breath – far too fast for anything mortal.

  The god Quetzalcoatl was trying to help his agent somehow; the one thing I did know was that we couldn't afford to be there when it happened. The Feathered Serpent might be the most compassionate of all the gods, but he was still a god – disinclined to take mortal frailty into account, especially when in a rush to dispel another god's interference.

  I gestured for Ezamahual to hurry – we crossed the last few steps to the dais in what seemed an eternity, and dropped more than deposited Nezahual-tzin in his chair. Then we withdrew as fast as possible.

  For a few moments, it seemed as though nothing
would happen. The snake continued to solidify, somewhat haphazardly – lidless eyes taking the place of Nezahual-tzin's grey ones; fangs appearing within the maw, as white as pearls fished from the depths. And then it reared up – not leaving the confines of Nezahual-tzin's body as I'd thought it would, but instead jerking the body upwards like a children's doll – there was a distinct crunch made by bones cracking, and Nezahual-tzin's head bent backwards at an angle that should have been impossible to maintain for a live human being. His eyes opened – and they were white, opalescent as a distant star, and his mouth was peppered with fangs, glistening with venom, the feathers of his headdress flaring outwards like a flower blossoming. He screamed, arms flailing and then falling down abruptly, released from the pressure that had held them – and then he crumpled like a rag on the dais, the snake fading away to nothingness.

  I let out a breath I hadn't even been aware of holding. "My Lord?"

  His breath again, loud, ragged. Gently, slowly, he pulled himself upright, his face paler than usual, but regaining colour with every passing moment until it was once more the dark of cacao beans. His eyes narrowed, the vulnerability gone in a moment, dispelled by a supreme effort of will. "Acatl. I see."

  I didn't think he did. Ezamahual and I had both witnessed his weakness, and no amount of pretence would remove that fact. "Can you tell us what happened?"

  Nezahual-tzin grimaced. "Not in so many words, no."

  "You were in trance in front of a fountain," I pointed out. I glanced at Ezamahual; he had thrown himself facedown on the ground. Oh, gods, I should have remembered – Ezamahual was peasant through and through, and he'd walked with enough reticence through the palace. "Ezamahual, get up," I said.

  "He's Revered Speaker…"

  "And you're a priest of the Mexica. You don't answer to him."

  "Not quite, but as a ruler of the Triple Alliance, I do appreciate the respect," Nezahual-tzin said. I threw him a warning glance strong enough to sear the feathers of his headdress, and he smiled back at me. "But Acatl is right. We can't possibly have any kind of conversation with you lying flat on the floor. Also, you did carry me from the fountain." He paused on "fountain", looking at me again, expecting further explanation.

  I shrugged. "I don't have much to add. I met you earlier in the palace and you wanted to track down the user of Toci's magic."

  "I remember that." Nezahual-tzin's voice was considered. "Not senile yet, you know. Quite the reverse, in fact."

  As befitted a devotee of the Feathered Serpent, god of Wisdom and Knowledge. I doubted he'd ever have many memory problems. But, if another goddess had interfered…

  "You lost two warriors," I said. "I suspect they were sacrificed to put the spell on you."

  "I see." He raised his hands, looked at them in the light. His face had gone hard. "And what are you doing in the palace?"

  "Looking for Xiloxoch," I said, as bluntly as he'd asked. "And for Teomitl."

  "You'll have gathered there are better places to be, in the current context."

  I would have pointed out that he'd stayed within – but of course he was Quetzalcoatl's agent, and probably immune to the plague altogether. "My sister told me Xiloxoch would be in the palace, but I couldn't find her."

  "I'm not surprised." Nezahual-tzin's voice was curt. "I can enquire after her."

  I shook my head. I'd already stumbled up the stairs of Tizoc-tzin's private chambers with the Revered Speaker of Texcoco – a man I'd been accused of collusion with a few months before. The last thing I needed in this time of paranoia was more fuel for that particular accusation to surface again.

  Though it might be too late for that. "Don't bother," I said. "We'll find her ourselves, if she's in the palace."

  Nezahual-tzin frowned. "I dislike unpaid debts."

  Which might or might not be true; I didn't know him well enough to say. He probably had an interest in investigating all of this, though I couldn't think why – and we wouldn't find out until it suited him to reveal his intentions. "Well," I said – half-suspecting I would end up regretting this, "you can look for Teomitl."

  Nezahual-tzin's grimace was almost comical – but then what he was saying sank in. "I can't involve myself with this."

  "Why not?"

  His gaze was level. "You know why, Acatl. I gave fair hints, but I can't do more. Tizoc-tzin is Revered Speaker of the Mexica, my peer in the Triple Alliance. What I think of him – doesn't play a part."

  "You're not saying–"

  "I'm saying what we all know. Teomitl has always been frustrated by his brother's behaviour. I wouldn't blame him for attempting to displace him, but I can't condone the attempt."

  "I can't either," I said. "I want him stopped before this foolishness takes its course." I wasn't even sure if that was the reason he had disappeared; if my worst fears were true and he had finally set himself irrevocably on this – at odds with the safety of the Fifth World – and with me. I–

  "As I said–" Nezahual-tzin shook his head. "I can't take part in this."

  Because – because, when and if the dust settled, and we had a new Revered Speaker, he needed to have remained neutral in order to ingratiate himself to whoever it turned out to be. "You have neither face nor heart." The words – the insult – were out of my mouth before I could think.

  Nezahual-tzin watched me, and said nothing. "Will that be all?"

  Why had I ever thought he could help in anything? I bowed, sarcastically, before my temper could fray any further. "That will be all, my Lord."

  I was so annoyed by the conversation with Nezahual-tzin that we went through several courtyards before I became aware the world was swimming again around me.

  Oh no, not again. What was wrong with me? This time, Lord Death hadn't touched me, and there were no shadows nearby.

  And yet… I had the same hollow in my stomach, the same slight sense of nausea, as if the Fifth World would tear itself apart at any moment – as if we danced on the brink of the abyss, unaware that the slightest step out of place would send us all tumbling down into darkness.

  Ezamahual seemed unconcerned – in all likelihood, he wasn't sensitive enough; he hadn't been there last year atop the Great Temple, when the hole in the Fifth World had gaped open, and I'd almost collapsed.

  But why here, of all places?

  Xiloxoch was not among the young warriors laughing and lounging near the steambaths. For that matter, neither was Teomitl, though the startled looks I got when asking about them looked slightly too guilty for my own peace of mind.

  One warrior, though, remembered Xiloxoch had come by, and had walked off in the direction of the prisoners' quarters – which was a better lead than no lead at all.

  As we walked back to the prisoners' quarters, leaving behind the bustle of the various courts, the sense of oppression didn't diminish. If anything, it became worse, pressing against my chest, making the air in my lungs sear. I felt as if my skin were sloughing off, coming away in flakes and whole pieces, and there was a vague sense of something, just beyond the borders of my perception – something huge and unspeakable that would swoop in at any moment, taking me with it.

  "Ezamahual?" I asked through gritted teeth.

  His face swam out of the darkness, eyes wide open in concern. "Is something wrong, Acatl-tzin?"

  Yes. No. Why was I the only one to feel this? "Yes. I need – to – stop for a while."

  I staggered into the nearest courtyard – which was next to the book-house and, at this late hour of the day, filled only with a few astronomers, staring thoughtfully at papers laid on the ground.

  "Forgive my imprudence," I said to the one who seemed the eldest – a wizened old man who was tracing glyphs within the grid of a calendar. "I need to cast a spell." Even the cane felt heavy in my hand. "It's – somewhat pressing."

  He looked up at me. "To Lord Death?" I nodded. "Just do it away from the book-house, will you?"

  We walked away from the book-house, to a relatively quiet part of the courtyard. On
e of the astronomers got up, throwing me a sympathetic glance, and went to sit closer to his companion.

  I laid the cane aside for the spell; to my surprise, I could stand well enough without it, with barely a tremor in my legs. Then I slashed my earlobes with my obsidian knife, and carefully drew a circle on the ground in my own blood, calling on Lord Death to bless this place – where my blood met the ground, the stone hissed like a scalded jaguar – the magic of Mictlantecuhtli Lord Death meeting that of the Southern Hummingbird.

  "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…"

  Silence seemed to spread from within the circle, along with a green, sickly light which oozed from beneath the ground, like sulphur from the cracks of a volcano. And when it touched me – when it wrapped itself around me, cocooning me in a magic as familiar as my own blood, my own skin – I breathed in a sigh of relief.