Servant of the Underworld

by Aliette de Bodard

  Mihmatini shrugged. "A couple of hours. I'd tell you to be careful, but I know when I'm just wasting my time. Do try to come back without leaking any blood."

  I made a mock punching gesture; she sidestepped, gracefully, smiling. "You're getting better at this whole humour thing," she said.

  I didn't trouble myself to answer that.

  As I passed the gates with a lit torch in my hand, three of the creatures turned towards me: a quick, lithe movement that put me in mind of snakes or pikes. I held my breath, knowing with a cold spike in my belly that I was lost if they decided to attack me.

  But the spell worked: they didn't pay attention to me. They merely turned to the wall, and started feeding again, huffing. It might have been, I realised with a chill, my brother's name they were breathing out, over and over.

  I turned away from Neutemoc's house, and followed the rope of magic that issued from the creatures. It snaked, leisurely, through the wide streets and canals of Moyotlan: past the houses with the sweet smells of banquet food wafting out into the night, past the groups of warriors going into the Houses of Joy, laughing among themselves.

  Here, alone in the darkness, I was in my element – not High Priest, not brother or son to anyone – but tracking a wrong in the fabric of the universe. For the first time in days, I felt at peace. A strange kind of peace, tinged with the awareness that it couldn't last, but it still soothed my heart.

  The trail snaked south, towards the Itzapalapan causeway, the same direction we'd taken when hunting for the beast of shadows. I walked through the deserted streets, thinking on the case. Moonlight shimmered on the canals to my right and to my left; and the reed boats at anchor bobbed up and down, as if on the rhythm of some unseen breath.

  Someone had tortured Eleuia; and someone was now trying to kill Neutemoc. It might be for the same reason, in which case they both had knowledge of a secret. But Neutemoc had sounded sincerely ignorant of anything useful. Or, it might be two different groups, trying to achieve different aims.

  But still, what vital information could Eleuia have possessed? Despite everything Neutemoc had said to me, my instincts told me that it had to do with Eleuia's child. But why, if the child was indeed dead? Unless Neutemoc had been deceived. Unless, blinded by love, he had seen exactly what Eleuia wanted him to see.

  I walked past the fort at the gates of Tenochtitlan. The warriors on duty, standing outside with their feather-shields and throwing spears, gave me a cursory glance, and dismissed me as harmless. The trail was still following its leisurely path along the Itzapalapan causeway. My heartbeat quickened. Could it be so easy to find who was behind the summoning of the creatures?

  Alas, it was not to be. For, as the trail went over the third of the wooden bridges in the causeway, it plunged downwards; and faded into nothingness. Huitzilpochtli curse the summoner and all his ilk. Once again, they'd planned ahead, and their trail was well hidden. I'd endangered myself for nothing.

  I fumed all the way back to Neutemoc's house, indiscriminately consigning to the depths of Mictlan the summoners, Huei, Neutemoc, and the goddess Chalchiutlicue – though I still couldn't see Her part in this. She'd had nothing to gain from Eleuia's death. But still… I couldn't quite shake the impression that I was missing something, and that the key was Neutemoc.

  At the gates of the house, the creatures were still crowding and the wards were much weaker than they had been an hour before. Mihmatini was on her knees in the courtyard, going through the last stages of renewing them again. She nodded grimly at me.

  It was a blessing the creatures still couldn't reach Neutemoc. But Mihmatini was right. We couldn't protect him and his household for ever.

  I woke up early: a few moments before dawn, at a time when the first of the kitchen slaves were pounding maize into flour. The rhythmic thump of the pestle against the mortar filled the courtyard as the sky lightened – bringing, as always, memories of a childhood I couldn't come back to.

  In silence, I made my offerings of blood to Lord Death. The courtyard was still deserted. The slave who guarded the gates had obviously not been replaced since Quechomitl's death. I checked Mihmatini's wards, cursorily. The creatures were still scratching at the wall; but the wards had held. I kept seeing Teomitl's face, that moment before he turned and walked away from Neutemoc and me.

  Who are you? Tizoc-tzin's cousin?

  I'm his brother.

  This wasn't going to be a good day.

  I managed to get some spiced maize gruel from the kitchen, and ate it sitting under the pine tree, as the light flooding the courtyard turned from pink to white.

  "I thought I might find you here," Ceyaxochitl said.

  Startled, I looked up. She was standing over me, leaning on her cane.

  My first reaction wasn't exactly joy. "What in the Fifth World–?" I asked, pulling myself to my feet.

  "You haven't been at your temple lately."

  "No," I said, curtly. The Southern Hummingbird blind me if I had to explain myself to her. "I've been busy."

  "I've heard," Ceyaxochitl said. She leaned on her cane, looking for all the world like an old woman enjoying the morning sun. I wasn't fooled. "You have some interesting things outside, as well."

  "You saw them?" What a foolish question. She was Guardian of the Sacred Precinct, agent of the Duality in the Fifth World. Of course she'd see them.

  "Yes," Ceyaxochitl said. "Persistent little things. A marvel of creation."

  "Creation?" I asked.

  "Someone made them," she said, as if it was obvious.

  "A sorcerer?" I asked.

  She shook her head. "I think not. Though they might well have summoned them."

  "A god, then?" I asked. Chalchiutlicue had created the ahuizotls, after all, to keep watch over Her waters.

  "Maybe," Ceyaxochitl said.

  The last thing I needed was gods thinking They could play games with our lives. Xochiquetzal and Her kind weren't much interested in the Fifth World, as a rule. But I guessed pliant toys were always irresistible.

  "I take it that means you have no idea how to kill them?" I asked, unable to restrain my sarcasm.

  Ceyaxochitl shrugged. "Nothing is invulnerable. I can look into it, if you wish. Though I didn't come here for that."

  "No," I said. "What for, then?"

  "My warriors trawled through Lake Texcoco. We've found some of Priestess Eleuia's things."

  "What things? Clothes?" Clothes would be carried by the current, and hard to find again. Heavy things, on the other hand, would sink to the bottom.

  "A purse," Ceyaxochitl said. "And an obsidian knife in its sheath. Teomitl confirms that it belonged to her."

  "Teomitl," I said, not without bitterness. "What were you thinking, sending him to me?"

  She looked at me – for once, genuinely surprised. "It seemed obvious, Acatl. The boy needs guidance, badly. Ever since the death of his mother he's grown up like a wildflower."

  "And I was to train him?" I asked.

  "I don't see what there is to be angry about." Her voice was infuriatingly reasonable.

  "You don't?" I asked. "I almost got him killed by a beast of shadows, and you ask what the problem is?"

  "He's a grown man," Ceyaxochitl said. "He can take his own risks."

  "No," I said. "A grown man can, but the brother of the Emperor?" If he had died under my responsibility, the Imperial Guards would have arrested me immediately.

  "The Emperor has many brothers," Ceyaxochitl said. "Not all of whom reached adolescence."

  I was shaking, badly. "Then tell me this: how far away is he from being Revered Speaker?"

  "Tizoc-tzin will be Revered Speaker when Axayacatl-tzin dies in the next few weeks." Ceyaxochitl said "when", not "if".

  "And when Tizoc-tzin is crowned?" I asked. "What will Teomitl be?"

  She had the grace to look away. "Master of the House of Darts, if he has proved himself."

  Master of the House of Darts. Commander of the greatest arsenal in Tenochtit
lan, all the paraphernalia of war. Heir-apparent to the Mexica Empire.

  If he had proved himself. My task was all too obvious. "I won't be his training ground," I spat between clenched teeth.

  "Why?" Ceyaxochitl's voice was genuinely curious. "Think of the influence you'd have over him – a man who will one day be Emperor, the Duality willing."

  "I'm a priest. I don't meddle in politics."

  "Acatl." There was pity in her voice – all the more worrying because she seldom showed compassion for anyone. "Priests thrive on politics. If you wanted a life free of them, you should have been–"

  "A warrior." I knew. I also knew that I could never have been like Neutemoc, that I didn't have the courage to enter the battlefield, or the relentless will for combat that kept warriors going. And I also knew how much it hurt.

  "If you won't take part in politics," Ceyaxochitl was saying, "politics will be the death of you."

  "I'll keep my head down."

  "Your head down?" she laughed. "You're High Priest for the Dead. There's no hiding place any more."

  "I never asked to be High Priest," I said. "You got me into this." It was all too easy to fling the accusation into her face.

  She didn't move. She didn't rise to the bait as Neutemoc or Teomitl would have done. After a while, she said, tapping her cane against the ground, "You can't remain small all your life, Acatl."

  "What if it's the only thing I want?" I asked, knowing that it was true. My place had been in Coyoacan, with my small parish – not in the grand temple of the Sacred Precinct, where I was as ill at ease as a fish on dry land.

  She still wouldn't look at me. "Everyone has to grow up and take responsibilities," she said, in an unusually quiet voice. "Even small, humble priests."

  "Not everyone," I said. She was wrong. I wasn't made for any of the things she wanted me to do – neither for managing the politics linked to Teomitl, nor with my temple. Ichtaca would take care of that, much better than I could ever hope to do.

  Ceyaxochitl made a small, annoyed gesture. "Very well. Let's focus on the investigation, then. Do you want to see Eleuia's things?"

  "How far is it?" I asked.

  "Not far. They're at the Duality House."

  I didn't think anything would come of it, but I didn't want to leave an avenue unexplored. "Let me warn my sister," I said.

  Ceyaxochitl was looking at the walls, cocking her head left and right. "Your sister. The family's youngest, if I remember correctly. I assume she set the wards?"

  "Yes."

  She nodded. "She's good, Acatl."

  I smiled. "But not, I think, bound for priesthood or guardianhood."

  Ceyaxochitl shrugged. "Life has many paths," she said. "Anyway, with all those… things eating away at them, they're not going to last long, no matter how strong. Let me give you a hand to set up something more durable."

  Mihmatini did not take to Ceyaxochitl; but even she had to admit that the Guardian's work was impressive. By the time Ceyaxochitl was finished, the house shone as brightly as the sun, moon and stars combined. The walls were covered by an intricate network of shimmering lines, anchored between the underworld and the Heavens, and taking its strength from both.

  At a guess, this would last for days.

  "There," Ceyaxochitl said. "Let's go now."

  In a small room of the Duality House, Yaotl had spread out Eleuia's possessions on a reed mat: an obsidian knife with a hilt in the shape of a warrior and an ornate sheath; the closed purse, soaked with water. I fingered the knife – a sharp, deadly thing, but without a hint of magic – and its sheath of cured leather, with its straps cut open.

  "You haven't opened it?" I asked, touching the purse.

  "No," Ceyaxochitl said. "I kept it aside for you."

  Gently, I loosened the strings and tipped the contents of the purse onto the reed mat. Soggy cacao beans tumbled out; and dark-green discs, half-eaten by rot.

  No. Not discs. Plants.

  I picked up one, ignoring the mouldy smell that wafted into my nostrils. It had been sliced off with three expert knife-cuts. In the centre was a lighter circular area, no larger than the tip of my finger.

  "Peyotl?" I said, aloud. "I didn't know the priestesses of Xochiquetzal partook of it." Peyotl, collected from the top of a cactus, was a powerful drug that allowed some priests to enter a divinatory trance. One of its first effects was nausea, and a sense of dislocation from the world.

  Ceyaxochitl shook her head. "They shouldn't, but it's not forbidden."

  Something about peyotl was troubling me. Something about Neutemoc. It wouldn't come back, though. I sighed. "Not much of interest."

  Ceyaxochitl did not bother to comment.

  "And the mark on Eleuia's body?" I asked.

  "Yaotl has been making enquiries. I'll let you know when we have something."

  As I walked out of the Duality House, she added, "I'll look into the creatures and help your sister with the wards, if they don't hold. But if I were you, I'd get your brother out of Tenochtitlan for a while."

  "Why?" I asked.

  "Someone is summoning them," Ceyaxochitl said. "They can't be far from their creatures, or they'd lose their hold. Remove yourself from the scene, and there is a strong chance they won't follow."

  "I see. Thank you," I said. How in the Fifth World was I supposed to convince Neutemoc that he had to flee the city?

  I went back to Neutemoc's house, to see about the wards – and because if I didn't go to him, he'd never know where I was. On my way there, I stopped by a street vendor to buy a chocolate, and sipped it while I walked. The pleasant, pungent taste of vanilla and spice soothed my nerves. In fact, all I could taste was the vanilla and spice, the chocolate being drowned underneath.

  I kept seeing the sheath on Eleuia, its straps cut by the rocks and the branches the body had bounced against. It had been of small use to her, in the end.

  I closed my eyes for a brief moment. I hadn't been paying enough attention to the sheath. Three straps, distributed evenly along the length of the blade. This wasn't a belt sheath: it was made to hide the knife against one's ankles or calves.

  Instants before she disappeared, Eleuia had been carrying that knife. But she had also been safe within her rooms, in the process of seducing Neutemoc. It didn't fit. If you intend to take a man into your bed, why would you need to keep your knife? Unless…

  The peyotl. I remembered Neutemoc's words on our first interview: She poured me a glass of frothy chocolate, with milk and maize gruel – good chocolate, too, very tasty. That's the last thing I remember clearly. Then the room was spinning, and…

  The room was spinning – not because of the beast of shadows, but because of the peyotl Eleuia had put into his chocolate. No wonder Neutemoc had been overturning the furniture by the time the guards had arrived: he must have been hallucinating, hardly aware of what he was doing.

  If she flirted with you, it's because you had something she wanted, Mahuizoh had said. She had wanted something out of him: his silence. And, if she could not get it by flirting – because Neutemoc was still a fundamentally honest man – then she'd make sure he didn't speak.

  It was a monstrous hypothesis. But it fit the facts, and the character of Eleuia, all too well.

  But why had she thought Neutemoc was a danger to her? What had made it so important to her, to the point of driving Mahuizoh, her steadfast lover and support, furious with jealousy?

  Neutemoc's words came back into my mind, with agonising clarity: She was cold when she first saw me. I had to remind her of the Chalca Wars before she'd pay attention to me.

  Neutemoc had to know something he hadn't told me yet. And it all dated back to the Chalca Wars.

  Suddenly all became clear. I was tired of running away; of reacting to events forced upon me by others. It was time to take my own initiatives. I had to get Neutemoc away from Tenochtitlan? Then we'd go together to see the battlefields of the wars, and the place where Eleuia had supposedly buried her dead child.


  SIXTEEN

  Setting Forth

  "You're mad," Neutemoc said, flatly. He was sitting in his room, on a reed mat, looking up at me as if I'd just offered him a chance to witness the birth of the Sun God.

  It wasn't wholly unexpected; but it still grated that he'd dismiss everything I said, as if I had no intrinsic value.

  "Look–" I started.

  "There's no 'look'. Do you seriously expect me to believe those lies about Eleuia?"

  "The peyotl was real."