Servant of the Underworld

by Aliette de Bodard

  I tried not to worry about Mazatl. Neutemoc was the one I was worried about.

  Neutemoc…

  After what seemed an eternity, I saw a harsh glint, lost somewhere into the roots of the tree. It flashed on and off as I descended: the familiar, if toned-down, reflection of light on obsidian.

  A macuahitl sword. It had to be a macuahitl sword. Please…

  I found Neutemoc wedged into the ghost tree, one arm wrapped around a massive root, the other dangling, moved to and fro by the current. His face was pale, leached of all colour. His sword at his side was the only part of him that seemed to be alive: glinting coldly, malevolently in the green light.

  With hands that seemed to have turned to tar, I disentangled him from the roots, pulling his body free from the tree with a wet, sucking sound, and passing his arm over my neck. Through all of it he didn't respond. Nor could I feel any heartbeat.

  He wasn't dead. I hadn't died from falling in the water. He had to have survived. But he had fallen much closer to the ghost tree than I had, a treacherous thought whispered in my mind. I quelled it. I refused to listen to it, and focused on my leg-strokes – one, two, three – and on the light around me, pulsing as green as jade, as green as algae…

  Neutemoc didn't stir, but grew heavier and heavier the higher I swam. Beside me, the ghost roots subtly changed, growing more and more solid, sending cold currents to wrap around my arms and legs.

  Something tightened around us, sending chills through my bones. It wasn't anything material: more as if the water around me had suddenly contracted, growing colder and then warmer, like a heartbeat.

  The light changed, became subtly dappled. Ahead of me, darker shapes broke the monotony of the water. Fish. I had reached the boundary of the Fifth World.

  But, as I swam closer, I saw that they weren't fish at all – but bodies, their pale skin gleaming, their long hair streaming in the invisible currents. Their eyes were wide open, watching me impassively.

  There were children: six, seven years old, their faces devoid of all expression, save for the tears running down their cheeks, inexplicably glistening in the water. There were women: young women with swollen skin, old women with a thin line of red circling their throats. And men, young and old, their skin as blue as unshed blood, their eyes bulging in their orbits.

  The Blessed Drowned. The sacrifices to Tlaloc, to Chalchiutlicue, still weeping the tears that called down rain, still clutching their slit throats.

  Neutemoc was heavier and heavier: not helping me, I thought, not without bitterness. If he became any heavier, I wouldn't be able to lift him and rise to the surface.

  I kicked harder, knowing who I would see, at the end of this procession of the dead.

  First was Eleuia, her empty eye-sockets still crying tears of blood; and etched on every feature of her face, the ruins of her beauty. Even pale and unmoving, even mutilated and reduced to this shadow of herself, her presence was still commanding – and she was still obscenely beautiful, she could still make me rigid with an alien desire.

  She was singing, softly singing:

  "In Tlalocan,

  No hunger, but maize always blooming, always putting forth flowers;

  No pain, but the endless joy of the Blessed Drowned…"

  I turned my eyes away from her, unable to bear her empty gaze.

  And after Eleuia–

  Like Neutemoc, he was entangled in the tree's roots, his face pale and colourless in the green light, both arms pulled back and wrapped around separate roots, making him into a living quincunx. Unlike Neutemoc, his eyes were wide open, staring at me, not with anger or with rage, but with a quiet, sorrowful disappointment that made my heart twist.

  "Acatl," he whispered, and his voice was the water surging through the roots of the tree. A few handspans above us, the roots broke the water's surface: the Fifth World, so close and yet so unattainable.

  "Father, I'm sorry," I whispered, as I swam closer. The words came out of my mouth in a trail of bubbles.

  Father's eyes held me, shining in the ghastly pallor of his face. He didn't look blessed, or happy. Just disappointed. Sad. The same look his body had had, even in death.

  "Father…" I couldn't speak. I couldn't make myself heard. Father just shook his head, and didn't answer me.

  Neutemoc was a dead weight in my arms. I dragged him closer, struggling to reach Father's body. If only I could be close enough, so that he could read my lips. If only I could apologise – for the vigil, for Neutemoc…

  For myself.

  "You still do everything as if he were alive, don't you?" a mocking voice asked.

  Slowly, I shifted around, half-turned away from the tree.

  The child-god Mazatl hung in the water, a few measures away from me. Green light flowed around him, outlining his body and the white tunic he wore. And in the light stood a monstrous figure with dark eyes, laying His hands on the child's shoulder, His fanged mouth resting close to Mazatl's ears, whispering words that the child flung back at me.

  "Tlaloc," I whispered. The acrid taste of the lake's water filled my mouth, and only a thin thread of sound came out.

  "Mazatl," the child said, a bare whisper that was almost human. But then he was speaking again with Tlaloc's voice, a thunder that made the water shake around us. "Or rather, not any more. Now I am called Popoxatl."

  The Strength of Rain.

  "Well named," I whispered.

  I kicked, trying to rise to the surface. The end of the green light was so tantalisingly close. I could be out of the Storm Lord's territory, and into a place where the rules of the Fifth World applied. But Neutemoc's body, weighing me down, prevented me from rising any further.

  An expression of animal cunning spread across Popoxatl's face: a sickening thing to see on a face so young. "You don't want to answer my question, do you, Acatl? Tell me."

  "About what?" I asked, trying to keep my voice calm. I didn't know why I was seeking to gain time, but every instinct spoke against angering Tlaloc while I was still underwater.

  "Your father, of course," Popoxatl said.

  In the tree's roots, Father opened his mouth, revealing rows of yellowed teeth, struggling to speak, but unable to do so.

  A game. Popoxatl was playing with me until I ceased to amuse. I tightened my grip on Neutemoc's body.

  "Answer me," Popoxatl said. "Do you not do everything as if your parents had never died?"

  "Mother died four years ago," I said, slowly. "Father, seven. I've made my own way. I don't see what You want." But I knew.

  I wished Chalchiutlicue would do something, anything to rescue me. But despite the waters contracting around me, this wasn't Her dominion. The tree, and everything around it, belonged to the Storm Lord, Tlaloc.

  Popoxatl laughed: a slow, rumbling sound that shook the roots of the tree. "Your own way? Oh, Acatl. You risk your own life to save your beloved brother–"

  "What I think of Neutemoc has nothing to do with any of this," I snapped. "He's family – my own flesh and blood."

  "Your parents' pride," Popoxatl whispered. "Among all the children, the brightest, the most successful."

  "He chose his way," I said, unwilling to admit that the child's words hurt me more than they should have. "It led to glory. I don't begrudge–"

  "Don't you?" Popoxatl asked. "Don't you, Acatl?"

  Tlaloc's shadowy figure bent closer to his child-puppet. Between Popoxatl's outstretched hands, a dark shadow coalesced: a coiled mass of writhing threads.

  In my hands, Neutemoc stirred. His eyes fluttered, but remained closed.

  "Such a worthy man, is your brother. So much the pride of his children. Lusting after a priestess," Popoxatl whispered, and behind him came Eleuia's body, changing as it became closer to us, gaining flesh and colour and life – until she stood next to Popoxatl, her head cocked at a mischievous angle, her regenerated eyes sparkling with dark joy.

  She started to dance: slowly weaving her way, with unbelievable grace, through the steps of
some ritual. But in her eyes shone greed, and an unhealthy hunger.

  The Duality curse her. Why did she have to tempt my brother?

  Why did he have to be foolish enough to yield?

  I backed nearer to the tree's roots, still clutching Neutemoc close to me.

  Popoxatl laughed. "Such a whore, wasn't she?"

  I said nothing. I could make no answer to this. I kept my gaze fixed upwards, towards the tree's trunk, which broke the surface just a few handspans away from me.

  All I had to do was swim. But I couldn't. Neutemoc held me down there, as surely as I held him in my arms.

  Come on, Neutemoc. Wake up.

  "And still you cling to him," Popoxatl whispered, amused. "Still you make amends for him. Is he worth this, Acatl? Worth the wounds you suffered for him?"

  I remembered battling the beast of shadows – the claws, sinking into my flesh. I remembered standing in the Imperial Court, withstanding Tizoc-tzin's amused stare. I remembered the Wind of Knives, lifting me high above Him, throwing me on the ground.

  It was worth it. Neutemoc was my brother. My flesh and blood.

  But I did not love him.

  "He is–" I whispered. Everything I could not be. My parents' hope for the future. The perfect son.

  Popoxatl opened his hands wide, and the dark shadows rushed towards me, wrapped themselves around me until they blotted out the world.

  In my mind's eye I saw Neutemoc: not the bright, valiant warrior I'd always imagined, but a man mortally afraid – yearning for the bright simplicity of his warrior's life, never seeing that the past couldn't be called back.

  I saw the hundred petty hurts Neutemoc delivered Huei – how he ran away from her in the birthing-room, as he had run away from Mother's death – how he sat away from her at banquets, his head turned towards his guests – how he heard but did not listen to what she said. I saw him turn away from his own children – too afraid of losing them to show them the least affection. I saw him walk into the darkness, willing himself to find the courage to end it all – never finding it.

  He couldn't find it. He couldn't find anything.

  Was this the man I had worshipped, the pride of my parents' eyes? This coward?

  I saw him meet Eleuia, and how he made ready to betray his marriage without the slightest hint of regret – never thinking of what it would do to Huei, or to his children – never seeing how much Huei suffered from his pettiness.

  In the end, he was the only one responsible for the failure of his marriage.

  "Such a good man," Popoxatl whispered, his voice mocking. "Worth every wound, every injury, Acatl."

  Worth… nothing.

  It would be so easy, to open my hands. So easy to let him sink into the depths of the lake; and to rise myself, my knife in my hand, doing what had to be done to save the Fifth World.

  What was a life, compared to what was at stake?

  All I had to do was open my hands.

  "The pride of your father's eyes." Popoxatl's voice was the thunder of the storm. "Such a strong man."

  "Eleuia…" Neutemoc's eyes were open. He was staring at the corpse of Eleuia, his eyes mirroring the hunger in her gaze.

  My hands tightened around him, as nausea welled up, harsh, uncontrollable. Could he see nothing but his lust?

  He had grown heavier still, so heavy he was dragging me down. I arched my body, in a foolish attempt to resist his weight. But it was no use. I was sinking, going back to where I had come from, into the depths of Tlalocan.

  "Eleuia is dead, Huitzilpochtli cut you down!" I screamed, shaking him like a rag doll. "Eaten by the ahuizotl. Dead and buried!"

  "Eleuia…"

  Everything shrank, in a mosaic of nightmare images: Popoxatl's smiling face, whispering of Huei's and Neutemoc's cankered marriage – Eleuia's uninterrupted, obscene dancing – Neutemoc's glazed eyes, still filled with that unquenchable, unreasonable hunger – images of him running away into the night, in unending cowardice – of Huei, standing straight and tall and unashamed of what she'd done.

  The Duality curse him.

  Open your hands…

  All I had to do…

  Save yourself…

  He's deserved it…

  The weight of the water was on my shoulders; and my hands burnt with the strain of Neutemoc's semiconscious burden. He was dragging me back into the depths, he and his accursed lust and inability to see that you couldn't call back the past.

  Open your hands…

  Sometimes, you had to make a choice. My fingers opened, almost of their own volition, and Neutemoc started slipping downwards, even as I rose.

  For a moment – a split, endless moment as we hung suspended by the pulsing roots – our eyes met. In his was lust and hunger and an impossible desire for what he couldn't have, a desire that could only be ended by death…

  And in my gaze, reflected in his…

  The same.

  The same hunger for the past, the same wish to turn back the flow of time, to have my parents' admiration; to be a warrior and the pride of my family.

  A true man stands by the consequences of his acts, I had told Teomitl, and he had laughed at me, seeing what I had not been able to admit: that deep, deep down, I and Neutemoc were the same.

  I hated him so much; but it wasn't him. It had never been him.

  In less than a heartbeat, I dived, and our hands met, and clasped.

  He was too heavy; he was still dragging me down. "You have to swim," I said.

  His gaze was a mixture of hunger and confusion. "Eleuia?" he whispered, like a bewildered child.

  "Swim!" I screamed.

  He still wouldn't move.

  So I did the only thing that would save us both: arching my body, I pushed him straight into the tree. He gasped as his body wedged itself in the hollow between two roots: nestling comfortably in the tangle of pulsing bark, sinking until his feet finally came to rest on a thicker root.

  As best I could – not an easy thing given his unresponsiveness – I wrapped his hands around another buttress.

  "Stay here," I whispered.

  "Acatl?"

  "Stay here." And, kicking upwards, I went back to Father and Eleuia – and Popoxatl. They would, I knew, be waiting for me.

  As I rose, I drew the second-to-last of my obsidian knives, and the pulsing emptiness of Mictlan filled me; and the amused echo of the Jade Skirt's voice, booming like underwater drums.

  A gift, priest.

  Father was still crucified among the roots, still watching me with that sad, disappointed gaze. But it wasn't real. Everything was Tlaloc's little game, as was Eleuia's slow dancing. Popoxatl was waiting for me, a smile stretched across his face. The Storm Lord, too, whispering words of poison in his puppet's ears.

  "I see you've shed your burden," he said.

  "What harm has he done you?" I asked, though I knew. Before Popoxatl had come into his power, Neutemoc's knowledge had been as dangerous as Commander Quiyahuayo's: what he knew about Eleuia might have stopped Tlaloc from achieving His aims. Now it was just endless malice.

  "Don't you see, Acatl?" Popoxatl whispered, and his voice was that of a child. "He has no place in the new order. Warriors shouldn't rule the world. It's peasants who keep us going – and priests, shedding their blood to feed the sun."

  I swam closer, knife at the ready, and Popoxatl watched me, dryly amused.

  "Aren't you tired of the thoughtless arrogance of warriors? Of their endless staggering across our streets, conquering lands we have no use for?"

  I thought of Mahuizoh's cavalier treatment of Ceyaxochitl and me – and of my parents' endless worship of war, slighting their own work to sing the praise of the battlefields. But it was not the way to change. It would never be the right way.

  I was close now, almost close enough to strike, and still neither Tlaloc nor Popoxatl did anything. They just watched me. "What do you want?" I asked. "My collaboration? You don't need that."

  Unhealthy hunger dilated Popoxatl
's pupils, making me sick to the core. "Belief," he whispered. "I am the supreme god of the Mexica Empire. Everyone will abase themselves, and make their offerings of blood to keep me strong."

  Belief. Commander Quiyahuayo had been right.

  I swam closer; and when nothing happened, I sank my knife to the hilt into Popoxatl's chest.