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 through 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.
But I knew he had doubts, that there was a crack. I could – no, I might find it, but I needed to find it fast.
"You have to step aside."
"I can't."
"You–" His face twisted. "Why do you keep involving yourself in this, Acatl-tzin?"
Because… because it was the Fifth World, because I knew it would collapse if Teomitl did this. And something else – as usual, in the end, it is the smallest and pettiest things that define us. "You're my student. Whatever you do is what I taught you."
"Do you truly believe that?"
"I–" He was my beloved son, as akin to me as the blood of my blood; he made my face widen with pride, gave me the satisfaction I would never have as a childless priest. Neutemoc had said children went astray, but most children didn't end up endangering the safety of the Fifth World. It was his pride, his accursed pride, and his desire to do what he believed was for the good of the Mexica – regardless of whether it actually was good for them.
But…
He did have doubts. I had seen them. There was a crack.
Tizoc-tzin. He did all this because of Tizoc-tzin – because the man he had admired, the man who had taught him politics and tactics, had turned out to be such a disappointment. He did it because he didn't want Tizoc-tzin to rule us.
"There was someone else who reached for the Turquoise and Gold Crown in a time of turmoil," I said, slowly. "Someone who thought it had been denied to him for too long, and grasped it before he was ready."
Teomitl paused – his hand frozen in the act of lifting up his blade.
"If you do this, if you seize power now, when we're most vulnerable, then you'll be just like him. Just like Tizoc-tzin – throwing the Mexica Empire in disarray just for the sake of something you think should be yours."
"Don't listen to him." The old woman's voice was low and fierce. "He doesn't know what he's talking about. He's a priest who won't join the heights of the powerful; a poor, sad little dove who keeps looking down at the ground whenever an official passes him, doomed to always be carried in someone's arms, like a child wrapped in a mother's mantle."
Teomitl turned, halfway, to look at both of us. In the warm light of the afternoon, his haughty profile had never looked more like Tizoc-tzin's. "You're wrong," he said – not slow or stately, he'd never been much for either. "Both of you. I… I do it because there is no other choice. Because Tizoc will lead us into ruin." He turned, to look at me – his eyes wide, his face ordinary again, with no trace of Jade Skirt's magic, but his gaze as piercing as a spear. "Don't you believe this, Acatl-tzin?"
"You know what I think."
"No," Teomitl said. "I know you think the Fifth World can't take another change of Revered Speaker, not so soon. But what do you think of Tizoc?"
"I–" I was taken aback at the question – and the only thing that occurred to me was the truth. "He killed the clergy of Tlaloc, as surely as if he'd cast the spell himself." Over and over, we had seen evidence of his growing paranoia, of his instability.
"And you believe he should rule, until such time as he dies?"
"No." The truth, out of my mouth before I could call it back. "But I can't condone this, Teomitl. I can't – one doesn't become Revered Speaker or receive the blessing of the Southern Hummingbird by feats of arms."
"Ask the coyote's son," Teomitl said, with a small curl of his lips. I could feel Nezahual-tzin's presence behind me, but he was silent – as if this were merely between Teomitl and I. He had said, many times, that he wouldn't interfere. "He who came to his mat borne on the shoulders of Tenoc
htitlan's warriors."
"That's–" I took in a deep breath. He – I thought of Tizoc-tzin again, of the paltry forty prisoners, who hadn't even been sacrificed; of the confirmation that wouldn't even have the semblance of a real war, coming on the heels of a failed coronation war and a failed investiture ceremony. But I was High Priest; I served the Mexica and the Revered Speaker – it had been one thing to oppose Tizoc-tzin when he had been Master of the House of Darts, but now that he was Revered Speaker my loyalty was to him, and, like the She-Snake, I might disagree with his actions, and try to steer him back to the right path, but to conspire in order to depose him? It would have been against any order, any balance that I served. Teomitl was wrong: this was no way to solve the problem.
"I–"
I thought of the star-demons; of the plague; of Moquihuix-Coatl and the chaos in the city. Did I really want this – more souls creeping back through the cracks in the world, creatures of the underworld amongst us? I kept the balance – which was my duty, my destiny.
Just as ruling the Mexica Empire was Teomitl's destiny.
As he had said, there was no solution – no clean, clearcut way out of this tangle we'd worked ourselves into. Seeking to preserve the balance had led us to opening the rift, and this in turn had led to the plague.
We did it, Acamapichtli had said. I'd said we'd done the right thing, and not believed a word of it. Teomitl wasn't blameless, but it was also our insistence on preserving the balance at all costs, our fear of breaking the Fifth World's equilibrium, which had led us to this.
And, really, how long could we continue like this?
"You'll rule," I said, to Teomitl. "She's right, it's your destiny."
He grimaced. "If it's to tell me to wait, I've heard it all."
"I'm not asking you to wait for Tizoc-tzin's death." The words were lead on my tongue. "Let it pass, Teomitl. Wait until Tizoc-tzin is confirmed as the Revered Speaker – until he has a stable reign." And pray, all the while, that there would be no other major disaster. The breach was diminished, and the likelihood of this ever happening again was low – but low didn't mean non-existent.
"You're asking this as my teacher?"
I could have said yes, and we both would have known it for the lie it was. "No. You haven't been my student for a while." All children grew, and went astray – unable to fulfil their parents' dearest dreams. All students became men, and young girls grew and changed, too.
You're such a fool, Acatl, my sister's voice said in my mind. Always blind to change.
"I'm asking this as one man to another," I said.
Teomitl looked from me to the warriors – and then to Mihmatini, who still stood rigid, with her hands clenched into fists. "You're my wife. You wouldn't–" he said, and then shook his head again, recognising that she would. "Everything came together so beautifully."
"No. You only thought it was coming together. We saw everything coming apart." Mihmatini's voice was low and intense. "If you take one more step, I'll fight you, I'll swear."
I said nothing. My own position was already abundantly clear.
Teomitl looked from us to the old woman, who stood defiantly, her wrinkled face alight with a fierce passion. "You have to seize the moment, or you'll never amount to anything. You know it." Her voice rose, dark with hatred and spite. "He asks you to wait, but will you ever have such a great opportunity again? Tizoc has fled the city with the priests of Huitzilpochtli, the clergy of Tlaloc and of Mictlantecuhtli are busy with the breach, and you have warriors behind you. Such a situation will not occur again, you know it. They never do."
Teomitl was silent, for a while. At length, he looked up – at the Fifth Sun resplendent in the sky. "No," he said. "You're right. It won't happen again."
Her face split, in a wide, unpleasant grin of triumph, but Teomitl went on, "But I'll make it happen. Someday."
"You can't–"
He raised a hand, and even from where I stood I felt the pressure of Chalchiuhtlicue's magic – a shockwave that all but sent her sprawling against the pillars of the patio. "Don't think of telling me what I can and can't do."
The old woman sprang up, the magic of Toci rising around her in a tide. The shadows that rippled around her were the colour of earth, as brown as cacao beans or pinolli. "You–"
Teomitl's lips quirked up. "You wield the magic of Grandmother Earth, but I have other ones. And do you truly think the army would follow you, Chalchiunenetl?"
For a moment, they stared at each other, and then the old woman looked down with a grimace. "You win this. For now. Don't mock Grandmother Earth, boy. She'll come for you, too."
"In the end, we all come to Her embrace," Teomitl said. He appeared unperturbed.
"My Lord? " the leader of the warriors said.
"You heard," Teomitl said. "Go back. Tizoc-tzin is the rightful Revered Speaker. I'll take no action against that – for now." His eyes drifted, for a moment, in my direction: they were jade from end to end, the cornea drowned in murky reflections.
"You mean we came here for nothing?" The other warriors nodded, staring at each other with a definitely hostile mood.
Teomitl drew himself up, the jade-coloured light spreading from his eyes onto his face until he seemed a statue – and further, the whole courtyard dancing on the rhythm of underwater waves, everything smelling of brackish water and churned mud. "There will be no battle today," he said, and his voice, ageless, malicious, was no longer wholly his. "Leave this place."
The warriors looked from him to the old woman – whom they clearly didn't appreciate. Their faces were drained of colour in the light of Jade Skirt's magic, like those of drowned men, and they breathed heavily, as if something were constricting their lungs.
Faster than I'd thought possible, the courtyard emptied, until we were the only ones remaining – and Teomitl, still in the thrall of the goddess.
"Well, well," Nezahual-tzin said, speaking up. "Allow me to congratulate you on a wise decision."
Teomitl looked at him, as if unsure whether to strike him down.
"Teomitl!" Mihmatini said, sharply. "Let go."
He shivered, and sank to one knee, the divinity draining out of him like blood from a torn vein. His eyes rolled up, became brown once more. "Don't toy with me," he said to Nezahual-tzin, rising up in a fluid movement.
"Of course I wouldn't dream of it."
"Acatl-tzin. Nezahual. Acamapichtli." He bowed to us, and then, very stiffly, to Mihmatini. "If you'll excuse us."
She nodded. I watched them both walk away, into another courtyard. They were not holding hands. I wondered what they'd say to each other; wondered if, as with Tizoc-tzin, Teomitl's rash actions had created a chasm that would never heal.
Acamapichtli was speaking with his Consort in a low, urgent voice, with no eyes to spare for us. The old woman – Chalchiunenetl – had stayed. She was standing, looking at the charred corpse of Coatl-Moquihuix-tzin, the expression on her face indescribable.
"He was her husband, you know," Nezahual-tzin said, conversationally.
I hadn't even heard him come up to my side, but suddenly, he was there. "Her husband," I said, flatly. It couldn't be – she looked far too old for this – and then I remembered that served Grandmother Earth, and that her magic had probably aged and twisted her. "Does it matter?"
"Not anymore, no." Nezahual-tzin smiled, as dazzling as usual. "Well, I'll leave you to clean this up. The next few years should be… interesting."
There were explanations, and consequences, and, as Nezahual-tzin had foreseen, a substantial amount of formalities.
The plague didn't vanish altogether, but it became less virulent, less contagious. Of those not already dead, many would recover. But still – many would not, and many more would not rise at all from their sickbeds. The toll had been heavy.
Tizoc-tzin was coming back, and the She-Snake was making sure everything was ready for the confirmation ceremony. They'd bought slaves from the Tlatelolco marketplace, to replace the warriors wh
o had died – ironic, in so many ways, but the priesthood seemed to be the only ones aware of this. Otherwise, things seemed to go on as they should.
Mihmatini had gone home, after a very lengthy conversation with Teomitl – and a glance cast in my direction which expressed more than words. Whatever rift Teomitl had opened in their marriage was going to need more than a few hours' talk to solve.
Neutemoc, surprisingly, had barely said anything: he'd helped me argue with Quenami, shaking his head at some of the latter's more arrogant pronouncements, and remained behind in the palace, talking to his fellow warriors, and generally making sure that Tizoc-tzin, outwardly, would find the support he craved – an illusion that wouldn't hold for long, as we now all knew.
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