Servant of the Underworld

by Aliette de Bodard

  When I managed to raise my gaze again, the goddess stood in the middle of the water.

  No. She was the water: it flowed upwards, turning into Her translucent body – and then, higher up, solidifying into brown skin with opalescent reflections. I could see algae and reeds in Her skirt; and, far into the depths of Her lake, small shapes that might have been fish, or very young children, still swimming in the waters of their mother's womb.

  "Visitors," Chalchiutlicue said. Her voice was the storm-tossed sea, the gurgling of mountain streams, the wind over the empty marshes. "It is not often that you brave My World." In one hand She had a spindle and whorl; in the other, a small flint cutting axe.

  I went down on one knee, keeping a cautious eye on Her face. "My Lady," I said. "We have need of Your help."

  The Jade Skirt laughed, and it was the sound of water cascading into pools. "And how may I help you, priest?"

  "I…" I started, but Her eyes, as green and as opaque as jade, held me, silenced me. They were wide, those eyes, with small, black pupils inset like obsidian – wide open, and I was falling into Her gaze, a fall that had neither beginning nor end.

  She was inside me, rifling through my mind with the ease of an old woman sorting out maize kernels. Memories welled up, irrepressible: Mother's angry face on her death-bed… Neutemoc's smile as he urged me to run after him in the maize fields… Mihmatini, as a baby, snuggling against my chest with a contented sigh, her heartbeat mingling with mine – a feeling I'd never experience with a child of my own… The clan elders, bringing my father's body back for the vigil – and I, standing at the shrine's gate, not daring to enter and make my peace…

  Chalchiutlicue slid out of my mind, leaving a great, gaping wound. I stood once more on the shores of Her lake, struggling to collect myself.

  "So small," She said with a satisfied smile. "So filled with regrets and bitterness, priest. Shall I summon the past for you? Shall I summon forth the spirits of the dead?"

  I knew who She wanted to summon – who had drowned in the marshes: Father. "You have no such power," I said, shaking inwardly. "The dead don't belong to you."

  "Is that so?" Her smile was mocking. "The drowned are my province, and my husband's. And some others, too. Tell me now, shall I call up your father's soul from the bliss of Tlalocan?"

  Father here, seeing me, seeing Neutemoc and knowing what I had done… She couldn't do that. She was powerful, but not capable of doing that. She just wanted to see me squirm. It was an empty threat. "No," I whispered. "No."

  Her smile was even wider. "So small, priest." She reached out. Her huge hands folded around the knives at my belt, lifting them to the level of Her eyes and flinging them downwards into the mud. I could have wept. "Carrying your feeble magic as if it could shield you."

  "We came for help," I whispered, struggling to turn the conversation elsewhere. "There is a child–"

  Her face didn't move. "How convenient. And tell me: why should I help any of you? You," and She pointed to me, "with your allegiance given to another. And you and you, serving the upstart, Huitzilpochtli?"

  Neutemoc hadn't intervened. So usual of him. He'd done the same when Mother had died. But now, with the goddess's finger still pointed on him, he came forward. "Your husband puts the Fifth World in danger."

  The Jade Skirt laughed again. "Why should it matter to Me? I have seen five ages; and I ended the Third World. We'll start anew. We always do."

  "Not so soon," I said, softly, knowing it wasn't an argument which would convince Her. "This isn't the proper time, or the proper way."

  If She had been human, She would have shrugged. Instead, She made a wide, expansive gesture that made all the water of the lake spout upwards – and then fall back again, like an exhaled breath. "The proper way? Doesn't Tlaloc do what We've all wished for? Tumble the Hummingbird from His place in your Empire, and give Us back the worshippers He took from Us?"

  She was, like Tlaloc, like Xochiquetzal, one of the Old Ones: the gods who had been there before Huitzilpochtli, before the Sun God. But She was also Tlaloc's wife – and the Storm Lord had cheated on Her to make His agent child. As Neutemoc had cheated on Huei. I needed to find the words…

  Huei. What would have I told Huei? I closed my eyes, for a brief moment, and then said, as softly as I could, "Is this truly the way You would have wished this to go?"

  Chalchiutlicue's jade-coloured eyes blinked, once, twice. "You don't always choose your way, priest."

  "No," I said, thinking of Huei, who was at this moment waiting for her sacrifice. If only things could have gone another way. "Nevertheless…" She smiled again, but said nothing. "That child should have been yours," I said, softly. "But it's not."

  She shook Her head, slowly, but didn't make any gesture to stop me. I took that as an encouragement. "He slept with a mortal," I said. "Instead of asking you."

  When Chalchiutlicue spoke again, Her voice was lower: the soft sound of water, welling up from the earth. "It couldn't have been Mine," she said. "Any child of gods would be a god, and subject to the same limitations. But you are right in one thing, priest. He didn't ask me."

  "Then–" Neutemoc started, but the Jade Skirt cut him off.

  "In truth, I care little for your petty struggles. If you choose to make the Southern Hummingbird supreme, then you'll reap what you've sown. I have already had a world in which every mortal worshipped Me, where everyone gave their life's blood to sustain My course in the sky." She smiled, and this time the nostalgia was unmistakable. "Tlaloc had His world, too. But the Storm Lord has always been greedy for more."

  "Don't you want revenge?" I asked, softly.

  Chalchiutlicue's eyes were unfathomable. "I told you. I care little either way. Huitzilpochtli will tumble, without any need for Our intervention."

  "Is there nothing that will persuade you?" I asked. "So much is at stake…" The Imperial Family. The safety of Tenochtitlan. The balance maintained by the Duality.

  Laughter, like storm-waves. "You would sacrifice something to Me, priest? Your endless regrets? Your pitiful virginity, so carefully preserved? Your first-born child?" Her voice turned malicious. "But of course, that's something you've given up on."

  Every word of Hers dug claws into my heart, and slowly squeezed, until the world blurred around me. "I–"

  "Your allegiance?" She said. "You're sworn to another, and Mictlantecuhtli doesn't let go of what's His. You have nothing to give Me."

  Neutemoc's face was white, but he didn't move. He stood as if paralysed. It was another who broke the silence.

  "No," Teomitl said. "He has nothing to give. But I have." His face was transfigured by a harsh joy. Here was what he had been waiting for, all along: a chance to be useful, to prove his valour.

  Chalchiutlicue turned towards him; the invisible claws around my chest opened one by one, freeing my heart. "One of the Southern Hummingbird's devotees? That's an amusing thought." Her eyes narrowed. "You're–"

  "Yes," Teomitl said. He'd thrown back his warrior's cloak, revealing a simple glyph of turquoise on his chest: the colour of the Imperial Family. "Will you accept my allegiance?"

  The goddess's face was a mask, and I could almost hear Her calculations. Was this a trap? An opportunity She couldn't ignore? "Your god is also jealous," She said, finally.

  "But not careful," Teomitl said. "He has hundreds of devotees over the land."

  Chalchiutlicue's eyes narrowed again. "But there would be no gain, would there?"

  Teomitl shrugged. "I've always thought the Great Temple was disharmonious. There should be rooms for more gods, shouldn't there? For the peasants as well as the warriors; for the waters as well as the battles."

  "Don't lie to Me. You're a warrior," the Jade Skirt said. "All that matters to you is glory on the battlefield."

  Teomitl shook his head. "No," he said. "The only glory comes from winning battles. But there are many battlefields."

  "In My realm?"

  "Fighting currents," Teomitl said, simply. "
Struggling not to capsize in a storm. Swimming ashore with the ahuizotls surrounding you, eager for your eyes and fingernails…"

  She regarded him for a while. By Teomitl's shocked, blank gaze, She was probing into his mind, as she had into mine. "You are sincere," She said, finally. "When you become Revered Speaker – will you re-establish My worship?" She didn't, I noticed, say "if", but simply assumed it was certain that Teomitl would succeed Tizoc-tzin – who in turn would succeed Axayacatltzin.

  If Teomitl noticed that, he gave no sign. "Should I ever become Revered Speaker, I'll make You and Your husband a worthy temple: a building so great that everyone will prostrate themselves on seeing it, so magnificent that it will be the talk of the land…"

  Chalchiutlicue laughed, but it was amused laughter: waves lapping at a child's feet, a stream gently gurgling over stones. "Will it?" She asked. "That would be something to see indeed, child of the Obsidian Snake. I should wait for it."

  "Will you accept my allegiance, then?" Teomitl asked, impatient as ever. Someone was really going to have to teach him forbearance, or he'd never survive at the Imperial Court.

  The Jade Skirt watched him for a while, perhaps weighing Her choices. "That would be interesting," She said. "Amusing, if nothing else. Yes, child. I'll take your offer."

  Power blazed from the heart of the lake, welling up from the earth in an irresistible geyser. It wrapped itself around Teomitl like a second mantle, sank into his skin until his bones echoed with its ponderous beat. He fell to his knees in the mud, gasping for breath.

  Neutemoc, finally finding some energy, took a step towards him. I laid a hand on his shoulder. "Wait," I said. Intervening would just make things worse, both for Teomitl and for us.

  Teomitl's head came up, in a fluid, blurred gesture that had nothing human about it. His eyes were the colour of jade: a mirror of Chalchiutlicue's triumphant gaze. His mouth opened; but all that came out was a moan, a shapeless lament.

  "Feel it," Chalchiutlicue whispered. Her voice made the ground tremble under our feet. "Feel it, child of the Obsidian Snake…"

  Teomitl closed his eyes. His head fell down again; his back slumped, as if under a burden too heavy to bear.

  In the silence, all we could hear was his breath, slow and laboured. Something cold and slimy bumped against my legs: one of the ahuizotls, creeping closer to Teomitl. I bent down, instinctively, to recover my obsidian knives from the mud into which Chalchiutlicue had flung them.

  "No!" Her voice was the thunderclap of the storm. "He made his choice, priest. Let him bear the consequences."

  In the eerie silence of Chalchiutlicue's Meadows, the ahuizotls converged towards Teomitl. They formed a wide, malevolent ring, circling him like a flock of vultures, and their hypnotic song rose, slowly, faintly, ringing in my chest like a second heartbeat:

  "In Tlalocan, the verdant house, The Blessed Land of the Drowned

  The dead men play at balls, they cast the reeds…"

  The clawed hands over their heads clenched, unclenched, a sickening counterpart to the rhythm of the song. I couldn't hear Teomitl's breathing any more.

  Slowly, ever so slowly, Teomitl rose from his kneeling position. He raised his head, and every one of the ahuizotls around him did the same.

  Nausea welled up in me, sharp, uncontrollable.

  Teomitl's eyes weren't jade any more; but yellow, the same colour as the beasts surrounding him.

  "Acatl," Neutemoc whispered. I said nothing. I waited for Teomitl to say something, anything that would prove he was still human.

  Teomitl sucked in a breath, and then another – slow, deliberate. "It… hurts," he whispered. "It…" And, for the first time, he wasn't a warrior or an Imperial Prince, but just a boy, thrust into responsibilities he'd never been meant to have.

  Chalchiutlicue smiled. "They'll come to your call," She said.

  "And the child?" Neutemoc asked.

  Teomitl shook his head, as if to clear his thoughts – which must have been moving in another place, far from the Fifth World. The ahuizotls' heads moved slightly; but they seemed more to be following him than mimicking his gestures. I didn't know whether that was an improvement. Everything about the ahuizotls made my hackles rise. But the Jade Skirt was right: Teomitl had made his choice, and couldn't go back on it.

  "The child–" Teomitl whispered. "I can feel him," he said. "Everywhere…" His face twisted. "In the rain, in the waters of the lake… Like a wound in the Fifth World."

  "My husband placed a spell of concealment on the child," Chalchiutlicue said. "He was given to a family in the Floating Gardens in the district of Cuepopan, to raise as their own." She opened Her hands wide. Within them lay a small, translucent jade figurine of a baby, shining with an inner light. She blew on it: the baby scattered, became dust blown into Teomitl's face. "That is where you'll find him."

  Before going back, I retrieved my knives from the water, and put them back in my belt. They still pulsed, but the emptiness of Mictlan was somehow different, tainted with Chalchiutlicue's touch.

  The ahuizotls followed us on the way back: an escort I could gladly have done without. Teomitl was silent, his eyes lost in thought. The veil of protection I'd always seen on him was still there. But it had subtly changed, shimmering with green reflections. Like my knives, Chalchiutlicue's magic had altered it.

  Neutemoc, too, was silent. Brooding again, probably. I could only hope I wasn't at the forefront of his thoughts.

  When we reached the remnants of the glyph through which we'd entered the Meadows, the world spun and spun, and coalesced into the small room where we'd started our journey.

  Eliztac stood watching the brazier, in which the last remnants of the copal and resin figurine were consuming themselves. He looked up when we stepped out of the glyph. "You've returned, I see." His gaze froze on Teomitl. "She's made you Her agent?"

  Teomitl said nothing. His eyes were still unfocused.

  "There's no time," I said. "We have to go to the district of Cuepopan. Can you lend us a boat?"

  Eliztac's eyebrows rose. "Always in a hurry, I see."

  "It's the rain," Teomitl whispered, and his voice echoed, as if Chalchiutlicue were speaking through him. "It's all wrong, can't you see?"

  Eliztac said nothing. He had to have seen. "This temple has many boats," he said. "But few boatmen who will be ready to brave the goddess's anger."

  "I'll row," I said at the exact same time as Neutemoc, who glared at me, defiant. Of us both, he'd always been the faster rower; but it had been many years since he hadn't had a slave rowing for him.

  Eliztac smiled. "I'll take you to the docks, while you decide."

  When we did reach the docks, there wasn't any discussion: Neutemoc settled himself into the boat, taking the oars and glaring at me. Quarrelling would have been futile, so I let him be. In any case, I was more worried about Teomitl, who looked at the boat blankly, as if he had forgotten what it was.

  "This way," I said.

  Teomitl sucked in a breath and exhaled slowly, as if it had hurt him. "We have to hurry," he said. Around him, the rain fell in a steady curtain: magic shimmering around us, chipping away at our wards.

  When our wards were gone… I didn't want to think on what would happen, but it was a fair bet the creatures would be close.

  "I know," I said. "Get in."

  Teomitl laid an unsteady hand against the boat's edge. "I–" he said. He breathed in, again. "I'm not used to it."

  I'd never been a god's agent, but the Wind of Knives' powers had been invested in me, for a very short while. "It will get easier as time passes."

  Teomitl snorted. "A good guess," he said. He climbed into the boat; Neutemoc stilled its rocking effortlessly.

  "I'll guide," Teomitl said.

  There was still a chance we would find the child before the full measure of His powers manifested; before he became much harder to kill. But Teomitl was right. We had to make haste.

  The streets and canals Neutemoc rowed through were des
erted: the unexpected, unrelenting rain seemed to have sent everybody indoors. At one intersection, a woman stood watching the water level under a bridge, her face creased into a frown. I could understand her worry: all of Tenochtitlan was an island, and the lake was our foundation. A flood would be a disaster.

  But there were other, deeper worries: the Fifth World would not last if Tlaloc tumbled Tonatiuh, the Sun God, from the sky. Everything would once more be plunged into the primal darkness.

  "This way," Teomitl said, as we reached the first of Cuepopan's Floating Gardens. He steered Neutemoc from island to island with small gestures; my brother said nothing, only rowed like a man who had nothing to lose any more.