Servant of the Underworld

by Aliette de Bodard

"Coming forth from the beautiful place

  From the misty house, from the verdant house

  From the bliss of Tlalocan…"

  Beyond the water-glyph, meadows were coalescing into existence, covered with the whiteness of maize flowers, lit by the warm afternoon sun. Somewhere, children were laughing, with such careless innocence that my heart ached.

  "Coming forth from the water's edge From the verdant house, from the bliss…"

  Something pushed at me: two cold, dripping hands laid upon my shoulders. Startled, I lost my balance within the water-glyph and set one hand outside of the line of blood.

  The meadows wavered, and were lost. The children's laughter slowly faded into insignificance. The golden light lost its warmth and colour, turning instead into a harsh, white radiance that outlined the bones under my skin. No. No. There was nothing left now; nothing of innocence, nothing of comfort. I could have wept.

  The veil across the water-glyph hadn't returned either. Puzzled, I looked around me. I'd expected to return to the temple if my spell failed; but this was clearly no Fifth World place. Under my feet, the earth was black, and utterly dry. In fact, it wasn't earth. It was dust.

  "Acatl," a voice said, behind me. "What a surprise."

  Trying hard to contain the frantic beat of my heart, I rose and turned.

  The harsh, white radiance came from a dais made of bones: skulls, arms and legs, ribcages poking out at odd angles. And on the dais… Mictlantecuhtli, Lord Death, and His wife, Mictecacihuatl, watching me as one might watch an unworthy insect.

  I wasn't in the Fifth World at all. Somehow, I'd found my way into the deepest level of Mictlan.

  Because there was nothing else I could do, I bowed. "My lord. My lady. I wasn't expecting to be here either."

  Lord Death smiled: an eerie expression, stretching across His sunken cheeks. "Understandable. But one place leads to another."

  "Tlalocan?" I asked.

  Mictlantecuhtli crossed both arms over His skeletal ribcage. "The dead all take the same path. It's only the end of it that differs."

  "That still doesn't explain why someone pushed me out of Tlalocan."

  He smiled again. "You seem to have lost the Storm Lord's favour, if you ever had it."

  There was an obvious reason. "I annoyed His High Priest recently," I said.

  Mictlantecuhtli shook His head. "By the look of it, I would say it's an older offence."

  "I don't see which one," I said, finally. But it was a lie. I knew why. I knew the only vigil I hadn't undertaken; I still remembered Father's drowned body, lying in the emptiness of the temple for the Dead – and of how I'd run away, unable to face the reproach still etched in every one of his features. Some things I just could not find the courage for.

  Lord Death said nothing. He wasn't a god who judged, after all. He just received all the dead no other god had claimed. He wasn't fussy.

  "There is no way in, then?" I asked.

  "Not into Tlaloc's dominions," Mictlantecuhtli said. "If you've lost His favour, it's likely you've also lost Chalchiutlicue's."

  I'd never been a worshipper of the Goddess of Lakes and Streams, and She wouldn't forgive my unfulfilled vigil. Father, after all, also belonged to Her.

  "I was trying to find a priestess. Eleuia," I said, finally. Mictlantecuhtli, after all, was my patron. He would perhaps be inclined to offer hints. "Something is going on."

  "In the Fifth World?" He asked. "Something is always going on. But it doesn't concern Us."

  "It concerns the other gods."

  "The Old Ones?" Mictlantecuhtli said. "And the newer ones – the upstart?"

  "Huitzilpochtli."

  Mictlantecuhtli ran His bone-thin fingers on the fibulae and femurs that made His throne. "Yes. The Imperial upstart and Tonatiuh, His incarnation as the Sun-God." He sighed, an uncannily human sound, although not a feature of His death-head's face moved. "My dominion is here. My power is here. Why should I look elsewhere? Let the others squabble over the Fifth World. I see no need to."

  "So you don't know?"

  "No," Mictlantecuhtli said. "I don't know what Eleuia would have known, or why she died. I presume that's what you want."

  "Yes," I said. "But–"

  He smiled again. "All I can offer is My knives, and some advice. Be careful of what you meddle in, Acatl. Cornered animals have a way of turning on you."

  "I don't see what this has to do with anything," I said slowly, not daring to question him further, not in His dominion.

  Lord Death shook His head. "Perhaps nothing. Perhaps everything. I think you can find your own way back, Acatl."

  I'd never been this deep into the underworld, though I had caught glimpses of Mictlantecuhtli Himself before. I knew, theoretically, the path I would have to follow: back through the City of the Dead, the Plain of the Shadow Beasts, and through every level, until I could cross the River again and go back into the Fifth World.

  "I–" I started.

  I could feel Their amusement. "The gate is that way," Lady Death said, Her bony face stretched in a rictus grin. She gestured, and a cold wind blew around us, raising the dust at Her feet. Underneath was stone: cold, unyielding. And as the dust lifted, it revealed the carved pattern of a quincunx, pulsing with magic.

  I stepped towards it but Mictecacihuatl caught my arm in a grip as unyielding as the embrace of death. Her bony hands probed my flesh, cold, unresponsive. I tried not to wince as Her pointed fingers slid into my wounds.

  "You've bled much," She said. "Mostly in Our service."

  I didn't speak. I was trying not to let Her see my pain.

  Mictecacihuatl smiled: a grin that revealed yellowed teeth, as clean as animal-picked bones. "I suppose that after going all the way down here, you deserve something for your pain."

  Light blazed around Her, sinking under my skin. Something tightened, impossibly compressing my bones, pressing my flesh against my rib cage – stretching me thin, as if on a funeral altar. The smell of rot grew strong, and then faded into the dryness of crumbling bones, of the dust at my feet. My wounds were closing one by one, not so much healing as being drained of pus, of blood, and each wound closing hurt worse than it had opening. I struggled not to scream.

  When She released me, I crouched, panting, by the side of Her quincunx. I was unmarked again, even though my skin tingled, as if blood were returning to every vein in my body at the same time.

  Lady Death was smiling again. "A fitting gift, I should think."

  Standing where I was, in the deepest level of Mictlan, there was nothing I could answer to this; nothing beyond a croaked "Thank you, My Lady", which rang insincere. It had been a healing, but I almost wished it had not taken place.

  "My pleasure," Mictecacihuatl said. "Go, now."

  I did not need to be told twice. I stepped into the quincunx; and I welcomed the blurring of the world with relief.

  When everything coalesced again, I was in the examination room, my wounds still tingling: an unpleasant reminder of what I had just undergone. Neutemoc, who had been kneeling by the altar, jumped up with a start.

  "I thought you'd never come back," he said.

  "How long has it been?" I asked.

  "Two hours or more."

  It had felt much shorter, but the time of the gods wasn't our own.

  "Did you see her?" Neutemoc asked.

  I shook my head. "I couldn't enter." I was too ashamed of myself to go into details.

  "But–"

  "It all depended on the Storm Lord's goodwill. And He wasn't very co-operative, to say the least."

  "So you couldn't find her." Neutemoc sounded disappointed. I wanted to scream at him to stop being obsessed by her; to do something about his own wife, his own family. But all I would achieve was to set him further against me.

  The smell of blood was strong, sickeningly so. My water-glyph had all but vanished, absorbed in the aborted passage to Tlalocan, but the smell had insinuated itself everywhere. "No, nothing learnt. I'll go and see if
I can get something to clean the room," I said.

  Neutemoc was watching Eleuia's body again, and didn't answer me.

  When I came back with a reed broom, I found Teomitl in the courtyard, obviously waiting for me. His crutch was gone; his wounds were healed, far too quickly to be natural. I presumed his family – clearly noblemen, judging from his attire – would have had access to spells to facilitate his recovery. Teomitl himself was still as lean and as sharp as a jaguar on the prowl, still bursting with that boundless energy.

  He bowed when he saw me: the sketchy gesture of one unused to obeisance. "Acatl-tzin," he said. "How are you?"

  How was I? Angry – at Neutemoc for being such a fool; at Huei for being so easily manipulated; at myself for being blinded by my old illusions. And frustrated at being unable to enter Tlalocan. Although I didn't know what I would have done, had I met Father there. "I've been better," I said, curtly.

  "You freed your brother," Teomitl pointed out.

  "Hmm." I didn't feel inclined to talk about Neutemoc in front of Teomitl. Searching for another subject of conversation, I remembered that he had been one of those besotted by Eleuia. "We found Eleuia's body."

  Teomitl's face froze, minutely: disappointment, carefully masked. "Can I see her?"

  Inside the room, Teomitl knelt by Eleuia. He noted, I was sure, the bruises and the missing eyes and fingernails, but giving no hint of any expression whatsoever. He whispered something to her, but I couldn't hear his words. Something he likely didn't want me to hear.

  I busied myself with the broom and some cold water, and energetically scrubbed the ground clean. When I finished, both Neutemoc and Teomitl were still watching Eleuia's body, with the same hunger in their eyes.

  The Duality curse them both. What had they seen in her?

  After Teomitl was done, he walked out again and stood in the courtyard, watching the sunlight play on motes of dust. He was silent, uncannily so, seemingly hunched in the shadow of the frescoed walls. He breathed slowly, evenly, his eyes unfocused.

  "I should have known," he said. "They always die."

  "Who?" I asked.

  He shook his head. "They're always the same, haven't you noticed? They walk as if the world had no hold on them. But the gods catch them, sooner or later."

  I was beginning to suspect that he wasn't talking about Eleuia, and that I had misjudged him. He hadn't been infatuated with her, but with someone else. "Teomitl–"

  He straightened up as if I'd struck him. "I came with news, Acatl-tzin. You were looking for Mahuizoh of the Coatlan calpulli."

  "Yes," I said, tearing myself from my questions about Teomitl with some difficulty. Mahuizoh. I still needed to interview him: I still needed to find out who had tried to kill Neutemoc.

  "He has come back into Tenochtitlan," Teomitl said.

  "How do you know?"

  Teomitl shrugged. "Rumours make their way, even into the calmecac."

  Was he still sweeping the courtyard of the girls' calmecac? His manners, at any rate, had not improved. He still had the same unthinking arrogance that chafed at me: a glimpse of what I might have become, if I had chosen the path of war at the calmecac. But that was irrelevant.

  "Do you know why he left the city?" I asked. It sounded far too convenient.

  Teomitl shook his head.

  I sighed. "Come. Let's go see him."

  We extracted Neutemoc from his moody vigil over Eleuia's body. While we strode to Mahuizoh's house, I told him what he needed to know.

  "Her lover?" he asked, plainly crestfallen.

  Sometimes, my brother could be such a child. "Yes," I said, stifling another sigh. We were talking about a man who had a good motive for wanting Neutemoc dead, and all he could think of was that he'd had a rival.

  Teomitl walked by our side, not saying anything. In the afternoon sunlight, his skin shone. Seeing him side by side with Neutemoc, it was easy to know what Teomitl's protection spell was: a much stronger version of the one Mihmatini had cast on my brother. Huitzilpochtli's protection, a fitting spell for a warrior. Teomitl's eyes went from Neutemoc to me; but clearly he was still thinking on Eleuia. Not, not on Eleuia – on whomever he'd really been infatuated with.

  At the entrance to Mahuizoh's house, no slave tried to stop us. When I'd come with the Duality warriors, they'd been fearful. But to receive a Jaguar Knight in full regalia was an honour, judging by the way they bowed to Neutemoc.

  "The master is at home," the slave said. "He'll be delighted to see you."

  Mahuizoh received us in the reception room, sitting on the same dais as old Cocochi. He was dressed, not in his Jaguar Knight uniform, but in a simple loincloth, with a cape of white cotton falling down his shoulders. For a man in his mid-thirties, he was still going strong: the flesh of his arms firm, his face almost as smooth as that of a young man.

  "I gather some of you attempted to visit me earlier," he said, after I'd introduced everyone. His gaze was curious, not hostile: the hostility was reserved for Neutemoc, who was blithely unaware of it. But I wasn't fooled. Mahuizoh was a clever man. He had to be, to balance both his affair with Eleuia and his belonging to the Jaguar Knights – two utterly incompatible things.

  "We were looking for you," I said. "To ask some questions."

  "Indeed?" His gaze still didn't reveal anything. And yet he had to know the reason we were here. "If you must."

  The only way I'd get something out of this man was by shattering his composure. "We found a body this morning, near Chapultepec. It belonged to Priestess Eleuia."

  He stared at me, for a while. Blinked, slowly, very slowly. "I see," he said, finally. And then, more softly, "I see." He was shaking.

  "It was suggested that you slept with her," I added.

  Mahuizoh looked at Neutemoc, the hatred on his face unmistakable. "I wasn't the only one, was I?"

  Near me, Teomitl shifted. "The Imperial Courts cleared Neutemoc of wrongdoing."

  Mahuizoh smiled. "I see you're not even brave enough to defend yourself," he said to Neutemoc. "You send pups to sing your praises."

  Teomitl went still, one hand on his macuahitl sword, tightening around the hilt. "You call me a pup?" he asked.

  "An unbloodied pup," Mahuizoh said. His teeth were as white and as sharp as the fangs of a jaguar. "Anyone can see that."

  "I took a prisoner," Teomitl said.

  "What a feat," Mahuizoh said, his voice mocking. "One man against… how many of you untrained youths? Four, five?"

  It was a deliberate insult, for Teomitl wouldn't have been a Leading Youth unless he had captured a prisoner by himself. His face paled: he couldn't tolerate such an blow to his pride.

  "Leave him alone," Neutemoc said, stepping between them with both arms extended, as if to fend off an enemy. "We both know I'm the one you want."

  Mahuizoh laughed, bitterly. "Do I?" he asked. I finally realised what he was doing: his anger was all that kept his grief at bay.

  "She loved both of us," Neutemoc said. Given Eleuia's propensity to take lovers, that was a singularly foolish thing to say. Mahuizoh didn't fail to rise to it.

  "No," he said. "You're wrong."

  "Because you had her longer?" Neutemoc asked, his voice shaking in anger.

  Mahuizoh smiled. "No," he said. "Because she only loved one person in her life."

  "You?" Neutemoc asked, stepping closer – just as I said, "Herself."

  Mahuizoh's gaze moved from Neutemoc to me. "You're perceptive, for a priest," he said, surprised.

  The "priest" carried the slight tone of contempt warriors always put on it. I said, slowly, not about to be outdone by a proud Jaguar Knight, "But you, on the other hand, loved her."

  Mahuizoh was silent for a while. He stared at me; and, when he spoke again, his voice shook. "Yes," he said. "She was the only one who made me feel alive."

  "She could be like that." Teomitl still had his hand on his sword. He was still glowering at Mahuizoh.

  "You met her," Mahuizoh said. "Whenever you met
her, you'd remember. Because there was so much anguish in her, so much desire to live."

  I remembered the Quetzal Flower's description of Eleuia: a woman who would do anything rather than know hunger again. I began to believe that Mahuizoh had indeed loved her. He had known her, better than Neutemoc or Teomitl.

  "And you couldn't bear the thought of sharing her," I said.

  Mahuizoh laughed, a sickening sound. "Sharing?" he asked. "Let me tell you something," he said, turning to Neutemoc. "If she flirted with you, it's because you had something she wanted."