Harbinger of the Storm (19 page)

Teomitl looked from me to Manatzpa, but he had never been a man to hesitate for long. “Arrest him.” He half-turned towards me. “And there had better be some explanations.”

Explanations. Yes. I looked up, at Tonatiuh the Fifth Sun, Whose light was once more bright and welcoming. But I was not fooled. The hole in the Fifth World had widened again; and it could only mean one thing.

The Guardian of the Sacred Precinct – Ceyaxochitl, agent of the Duality in the Fifth World, my friend and mentor – was dead.

There were explanations; or, at any rate, all those I could offer Teomitl, given my current knowledge. He all but carried me to his room, where he insisted I lie down.

”You need rest,” Teomitl said, fiercely. “You shouldn’t overexert yourself.”

”As if he’d do it,” Mihmatini said, from where she was sitting, in the furthest corner of Teomitl’s room. “My brother is one of those men who can kill themselves quite effectively by sheer exertion.”

Teomitl raised a hand. “Not now.” He turned back to me, his face hardened into stone. “I want to know what happened.”

He listened to my increasingly confused explanations, his face growing darker as I spoke. “The Guardian is dead?”

”I’m not sure. You could send to the Duality House.” But I
was
sure, and the emptiness in my chest, the tightness in my eyes, weren’t only because of the hole in the Fifth World. Ceyaxochitl had loomed large over my life, and, much as I wanted not to believe that she had gone, I had seen enough people deny Lord Death’s grip on their lives, and pay the price for their blindness. Death should be accepted, and the living should move on.

I knew this. But still, I couldn’t keep my voice from shaking, couldn’t stop the prickling in my eyes.

”And Manatzpa is the summoner?”

”Yes,” I said. “And the man who killed Ceyaxochitl.” But it made no sense. Manatzpa’s life had been as much in danger as ours and he had seemed genuinely angry at Echichilli’s death. And, to cap it all, he had not been able to cast out the star-demon. “I’m not sure, actually. Some things just don’t fit.”

”I see.” Teomitl’s gaze was dark and thoughtful. “I’ll ask Tizoc if I can interrogate him, then.”

”He’s in Tizoc-tzin’s hands?” I asked. If he’d been in any hands but Teomitl’s, I’d have expected the She-Snake’s.

”Those were his guards.” Teomitl sounded genuinely surprised. “Do you think I have my own?”

”You’re Master of the House of Darts.”

”Not yet.” His voice was low and fierce. “I have to be worthy of it first.”

”I should think you’ve proved yourself amply.”

 He sighed. “You’re not the one who makes the decisions, Acatl-tzin.”

A fact I knew all too well. “Still…”

”Still, I’m a troublemaker.” His lips twisted into a smile. “Not ready for politics. But with Tizoc’s help, this should sort itself out.”

”You went to see him yesterday,” I said. “When you said you were going to dismiss the
ahuizotls
.”

”What of it?”

”Nothing,” I said. “Except that you could have told me the truth.”

”I know how you feel about my brother.” Teomitl’s face had grown cold again.

Silence stretched, tense and uncomfortable. It was Mihmatini who broke it. “Teomitl,” my sister said. “He needs rest. Honestly.”

Teomitl looked me up and down. His gaze darkened, as if he didn’t like what he saw. “Yes, you’re right.” He rose, stopped by her side to run a hand on her cheek. “Take care of him.”

She smiled. “Of course.”

A tinkle of bells, and then he was gone, leaving me alone with my sister. Somehow, I wasn’t sure this was an improvement. “Acatl–”

I raised a shaking hand. “I know what you’re going to say. I need sleep, I need my wounds to close; and I need to stop traipsing around the palace on too little food.”

”See? I don’t even need to say it.” Her face went grave again. “Seriously, Acatl.”

”Seriously,” I said, pulling myself up against the wall. “You shouldn’t be here.”

She puffed her cheeks, thoughtfully. “Why?”

I wasn’t deceived. I might not have been a big part of her childhood, since more than ten years separated us, but I knew all her ways of deflecting my attention. “You must know that you’re not welcome here.” That you weaken Teomitl’s position – that you open him wide to Tizoc-tzin’s accusations, however unfounded they might be…

But I couldn’t tell her that. I couldn’t repeat the horrors Tizoc-tzin had said about her.

”Acatl.” Her gaze narrowed. “My brother is gravely wounded. I don’t care what it looks like. Knowing you,” she said, darkly, “you might have killed yourself before I got there.”

Manatzpa had almost taken care of that. “Look–”

”No, you look. I’m not a fool. I know who doesn’t want me here; and I know that he’s not Revered Speaker yet.”

”He’s still powerful enough to cause you a lot of trouble.”

”What’s he going to do?” Her gaze was bright and terrible, and for the first time she looked more like a warrior-priestess than my smiling, harmless sister. “I don’t have a position at Court, or anything he can touch. He can order me not to see Teomitl again–” she stopped, her eyes focusing on me. “Oh.”

I shook my head. “No. He wouldn’t dare displace me. Not now.” I wasn’t so sure, but it was reassuring that more than a day had elapsed since my interview with Tizoc-tzin, and that I was still High Priest for the Dead.

Or perhaps Tizoc-tzin was just biding his time. I didn’t know. I’d never pretended to understand how his mind worked.

I steered the conversation to another, albeit related, subject. “Teomitl has been different lately.”

Mihmatini sat by my side with a sigh. She wore her black hair long in the fashion of unmarried women, it fell back from the smooth, perfect oval of her face. that is, until she spoiled the effect by grimacing. “He has a lot to face. He might be Master of the House of Darts in a few days, one of the inner circle, moving in the wake of power.”

”I didn’t think that would frighten him,” I said, finally.

”No. But you know how he is.” She smiled, a little self-consciously. “Always trying to be the best at everything, always judging himself to have fallen short.”

Was that the only explanation? “And that’s why he talks to Tizoc-tzin.”

”You might not like him,” Mihmatini said, and the tone of her voice implied she didn’t much care for him either. “But he’s still Teomitl’s brother. They still share something.”

”I guess,” I said, finally. Out of all my brothers, the only one I saw semi-regularly was the eldest, Neutemoc, a Jaguar Knight and successful warrior elevated into the nobility. But our understanding was recent and fragile, and I couldn’t say he’d ever been much of a confidante.

If anyone had filled that role, it had been Ceyaxochitl.

”Acatl?” Mihmatini asked.

”It’s nothing.” I watched the light glimmer across the entrancecurtain, and wondered if things would ever feel right again.

I couldn’t believe they would.

ELEVEN

The Obsidian Butterfly

I must have slept again. The priest’s healing spell was more effective than bandages, but still no miracle. I woke to the bright light of early morning. A whole day had elapsed, lost to my healing.

Teomitl was nowhere to be seen; not surprising, given my student’s inability to sit still at the best of times.

Mihmatini lay curled up in sleep behind me, looking oddly young and innocent – she who was eighteen, almost too old to be married and have children of her own already. I revised my opinion of Teomitl’s disappearance. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had slept elsewhere, rather than cast a slur on my sister’s virginity.

Good.

Everything ached, from the ribs in my chest to the stiffness in my legs, and I felt even more empty than before, as if hope and joy had drained out of me into the hole in the Fifth World.

I got up. My head didn’t spin, a vast improvement over my previous awakening, and I could stand steadily on my legs. Slowly, carefully, I dressed again into something suitable for the High Priest for the Dead, and went back to the Revered Speaker’s room.

The room was subdued, the few priests for the dead left were renewing the blood around the quincunx with their own, making sure that nothing untoward could follow the Revered Speaker into the underworld. Palli himself was sitting cross-legged at the centre of the quincunx, watching a silver plate which depicted the progress of the soul through the nine levels of Mictlan. From time to time, his lips would move around an incantation, and he would nod. Everything appeared under control.

I leaned against a wall, watching them, the familiar chants and litanies washing over me, reassuring and unchanged. For all the chaos and the uncertainty, death remained constant, always by our side, something to be relied on no matter what else might transpire.

A refuge, a goddess had once told me accusingly. I’d flinched at the time, but now I knew that she was right, and that it was nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone had a refuge: some in pomp, some in family. Mine was a temple and chants and bodies, and the god that was everywhere in the Fifth World, underlying even the most boisterous songs, the most vivid flowers.

At last, there came a pause in the rituals. Palli looked up, and his eyes met mine. He gestured to another of the priests, and motioned him to take his place at the centre. Then, carefully, he stepped out of the quincunx and walked towards me. “Acatl-tzin.”

”Tell me what’s going on,” I said.

”Revered Speaker Axayacatl-tzin is on the third level,” Palli said. “Nothing unexpected so far.”

The third level was the Obsidian Hills, still a relatively friendly place by underworld standards. If something bad happened, it would be on the deeper levels, where the beasts and creatures of the underworld prowled. “And the search?” I asked.

Palli grimaced. “For the place of the star-demon summoning? I put all the priests the order could spare into this. So far, no one has reported anything useful.”

I suppressed a curse. A full dozen priests searching the palace, I knew the place was huge, but they had the help of spells, and surely one of them would have found something useful by now. “I see. Send to me the moment they find something.”

Palli nodded. He hesitated, then said, “Acatl-tzin, one more thing. You remember the tar you noticed on the floor?”

I had to cast my mind back a day and night, to the ritual in which I’d spoken to Axayacatl-tzin. It seemed a lifetime ago. “Yes,” I said. “It seemed odd, but…”

Palli’s face was pale. “I did think it was familiar,” he said. “Someone died in this room.”

”The Revered Speaker,” I said, carefully, without irony.

”It’s an older death. A… sacrifice.”

In the Revered Speaker’s private rooms… Not in a temple, not on an altar?

”An older death,” I said, slowly. “A powerful one, then, if you can still detect it.” I thought, uneasily, of the missing councilman both Manatzpa and Echichilli had been angry about, the one that seemed to have vanished from the records and from the palace. What had been his name again?

Pezotic.

”Yes,” Palli said. “A powerful death.” His lips twisted. “I’m not sure, Acatl-tzin, but something is wrong about this.”

”What?”

”Too much power,” Palli said.

I bit my lips. There were ways and means of amplifying the power received from a human sacrifice, but almost all of the ones I could think of required a High Priest’s initiation. “Can you look into this?”

Palli grimaced. “I can try,” he said.

A full human sacrifice. An old, powerful death. Something was going on in this palace. Something… untoward. Even before the Revered Speaker’s death, then. But he’d died of natural causes; we were sure of that, at least.

Then what was happening? Some ritual to undermine the Empire at its core? “Do you know what they used the magic for?”

Palli shook his head. “Something very large.”

”But not the summoning of a star-demon.” If that had been the case, he’d have told me long beforehand.

”No. The magic’s wrong for that,” Palli said. “It feels beseeching. Desperate.”

”Hmm,” I said, thoughtfully. I didn’t like this; I couldn’t see how it fitted in with anything – with Manatzpa, with Ceyaxochitl’s death – but it didn’t augur anything good. I added it to my questions for Manatzpa, once I managed to see him.

I finished with Palli, and wrote a message to Ichtaca, asking him to send someone to the Duality House in order to prepare the funeral rites for Ceyaxochitl.

Then, still weak and trembling, I went to see the She-Snake, the only person who might have an idea of what was going on in the palace.

I’d expected to have much further to go, but I found him in the council room, sitting on the reed mat at the centre, eating a meal. As he ate he listened to a report from one of his blackclad guards. His round face was grave.

”Acatl?”

I didn’t feel in the mood for apologies or pomp, but I did gingerly bow.

”Glad to see you recovered,” the She-Snake said. He dipped his chin, and the guard moved away slightly. I was left with the full weight of his gaze on me. It was peculiar, he was soft, and middle-aged, and I would have expected him to be drab. But the gaze, piercing and shrewd, gave him away.

”I, er, understood you visited me,” I said.

”Indeed.” His voice was grave. “Had I known about Manatzpa, I might have done more than visit. But no matter. It is done now.”

I waited, but nothing more seemed to be forthcoming. “I need your help,” I said.

”My help?” He sounded mildly amused.

”You keep the order in the palace. Don’t tell me this situation makes you happy.”

His lips thinned to a muddy line, but his expression didn’t change. “I expected trouble when Axayacatl-tzin died. I’m not surprised.”

I doubted much would ever surprise him. “But you want the attacks to cease?” I pressed. I remembered, uneasily, what Axayacatl-tzin had told me about the She-Snake’s unorthodox manner of worship. But even if it was true, he would want to be seen maintaining order.