"Dead," I said. And, because strong emotions could survive even into Mictlan, "You committed suicide."
A brief flare from the soul; a shifting of lights to become darker. "I did." There was a pause. "I… I was afraid."
I said nothing, not wanting to break the fragile process of gathering its memories.
"He was going to find me – arrest me, kill me. The Revered Speaker…" It paused, shifted again. "I – did something. I–"
It was silent, then – hovering over its own corpse, not daring to touch it. At length, it whispered, and it was the voice of a broken man, "It can't be forgiven. It can't ever be forgiven."
If it still had eyes, it would have wept.
And, if I didn't vividly remember the carnage in the courtyard, perhaps I would have bent or relented – but Tapalcayotl's face was in my mind, black and twisted out of shape by sores, and the memories of a dozen bodies scattered like a grisly harvest, and the vulnerability in Acamapichtli's eyes. "What did you do?"
"I– I– " Its voice was low, halting – ashamed? "He was talking in my sleep, always – whispering, suggesting, threatening – always talking, until I couldn't take any more of it. I just couldn't! He – he wanted me to help him, to get revenge, and I couldn't say no."
Talking. Dreams. "You had herbs, in your room," I said. "Jimsonweed, and
teonanacatl
. You were speaking with the spirits." But even as I said that, I thought of the decayed wards – they
had
been familiar, but they weren't for better communication with the departed. They were the reverse: walls to keep the spirits out, attacked until they'd ruptured. We'd had backwards: it wasn't the living seeking to spread the plague with the help of the dead. It was the dead seeking revenge, and influencing the living to get it.
"He found you," I said, slowly. "A tool for his plans. And you helped him," I said. From the start – giving the feather quills to Eptli, to Zoqutil, engraving the spells within the palace – corruption in our midst, like the rotten core of a cactus.
"I–"
"Tizoc-tzin won't forgive; the Southern Hummingbird doesn't forgive." It was a lie, for his soul would go down into Mictlan, where there was no judging, no weighing of deeds – where everyone, prince or nobleman or peasant, was equal. "Who was he, Pochtic? What did he want?"
"I–" Something rippled across the soul, as if it were caught in some inner struggle. Vaguely, I heard Ichtaca cry out from beyond the circle. "Revenge, but I can't say anything – I can't, he would kill me…"
"You are already dead," I said. "Wrapped in the bundle of your funeral pyre, awaiting entry into the land of the dead, the land of the fleshless, the land where jade crumbles and feathers become dust." Every word fell into place with the inevitability of a heartbeat – further ritual, hemming the soul in, reminding it that there was no escape. "And he can't harm you anymore, whoever he is."
"You're wrong – wrong, wrong," the soul whispered. Around it, the circle was crinkling inwards – the green mist receding into the stone floor, to reveal once more the frescoes of the gods on the walls. "Wrong…"
"No," I said. "You're dead – you belong to Lord Death now, and to Mictlan. No one can take away from you, and no one can reach down into the underworld. What does he want? Tell me."
The soul shifted, twisted – writhed, trying to escape – the wings were falling away, and the outline of arms and legs were forming, flailing wildly as if in great pain. "He – revenge," he whispered again. "On all of Tenochtitlan, if need be. May the cities you hold fall one after the other; let the temples be awash in fire and blood…"
I was losing him. The time for the ritual was past, and he was going away from me, gathering himself for the plunge into Mictlan. I needed to get something, and fast. "What does he want, Pochtic?"
The soul was unravelling like a skein of maguey fibre, faster and faster – drawing away from the corpse, coalescing into the shape of a man, but growing fainter and fainter the whole while. "Pochtic!"
But he was gone, and I remained alone with his corpse, within a circle that was stone again. The room was cold; and the wind on my exposed arms chilled me to the bone.
Something was left behind, a mere whisper on the wind: a name, quivering out of existence with each spoken syllable. "Moquihuix-tzin."
• • • •
"Moquihuix-tzin?" Mihmatini asked. She sat on the terraced edge of Pochtic's quarters, looking down into the courtyard. Neutemoc was by her side – as if standing guard. "That's the last Revered Speaker of Tlatelolco. He's–" she stopped. "It doesn't matter whether he's dead, does it?"
I grimaced. "Partly. The dead can't cast spells, or summon creatures. But they can influence." And Moquihuix-tzin had been a strong character – both Nezahual-tzin and Yayauhqui had described him as a man used to getting his way. No wonder Pochtic had been such a pliant tool.
"Which isn't helping us, is it?" Mihmatini said. "With Pochtic gone, he could be influencing pretty much anyone."
Below, a few noblemen were crossing the courtyard, and a couple was coming towards us, the woman ahead of the man – her face utterly unfamiliar, as sharp and rough as broken obsidian, her clothes slightly askew, as if she'd dressed in a panic.
They were almost upon us when I realised that the man behind her – tall and unbending, with a headdress of heron feathers – was Acamapichtli. He stood once more with his old arrogance, as if his scarred face and sightless eyes meant nothing. He wore a carved fang around his neck, a beacon of power I could feel even without my true sight, and he moved confidently, as if being blind were no trouble at all.
"Further evidence of your charms?" I asked.
He shook his head, impatiently. "Behave, Acatl. This isn't a time for levity. I've brought my Consort, as you asked."
The woman bowed to me. Up close, the lines on her face were clearly visible – she would never be called beautiful, but she was striking as only priestesses could be, secure in her identity and power, which gave her a place in society above the common folk. Two black lines ran on her cheeks, calling to mind the face of the goddess Herself – whom I had seen once, more than a year before, when Teomitl had been granted his powers. "Greetings, Acatl-tzin. I am Cozolli, priestess of Chalciuhtlicue, and Consort of Tlaloc."
"No need to be formal," I said. Acamapichtli shot me a quick look; I didn't know what he thought of the position of women in the clergy – who, save for the Guardian, could only ever be the inferior of their male homologues.
"Fine, fine," Acamapichtli said. "We can dispense with the idle chit-chat, Acatl. We've come here because we have news."
"And from the look on your face, not good," Mihmatini interjected.
Acamapichtli turned in the direction of her voice. He was silent for a moment. "Oh, I see. The Guardian. What a pleasure." I expected him to be mocking, but Mihmatini's strength must now be evident, and he had always been a man to respect that.
Mihmatini looked less happy – much as if she'd swallowed live eels. "Acamapichtli." She made no pretence of respect to him, though, and to my surprise he nodded, as one equal to another. "What do you want?"
"The boundaries are breached, Acatl. That's why the gods are so scared."
Even blind, he must have felt by our silence he wasn't achieving quite the effect he'd intended. "We know this," I said, wearily. "We're working on how to fix this. If you're here, you can confirm something for me."
Acamapichtli turned his face towards his consort; who said nothing. "Go ahead."
The entrance-curtain tinkled, letting Ichtaca through. He had changed out of the formal regalia, and his hands were now clean of the sacrifice's blood. He nodded, curtly, towards Acamapichtli and Cozolli, and sat cross-legged, patiently waiting for us to finish.
"I need to know if your god had Moquihuix-tzin's soul in His keeping."
"The Revered Speaker of Tlatelolco?" Acamapichtli looked surprised. He shrugged. "How would I know this?" But his consort nodded.
"He died by the noose," she said, curtly. "Every priest knows that."
The jab completely bypassed Acamapichtli. "And how does this help us, exactly?"
"It doesn't, per se," I said, slowly. Why was I bothering with this? There was only one thing which should have mattered to me. "We need to close the boundary." I turned to Ichtaca, who had remained silent until then. "You had started working on that."
Ichtaca grimaced. "Yes. It's far from being a simple problem. The gates need to be drawn close without being shut – leaving just enough magic for Tizoc-tzin to exist, but not enough for widespread ghosts."
And even that would still leave a risk – summoners would find it slightly easier to work, and there would be more creatures slipping through the cracks. But it was still better than star-demons.
Pretty much anything was.
"And?" Mihmatini asked.
"I think–" Ichtaca said, slowly, "that it would take the three High Priests, again – as it took them to open it in the first place."
Three High Priests. I had a mental vision of trying to convince Quenami he needed to work with us. "It won't work," I said. "Even if Quenami is still here. We need mastery, and subtlety." And, while he might be a fine diplomat, the events of the previous days had proved, quite unequivocally, that he didn't have much magical expertise.
But Ichtaca was right – what had taken three to do couldn't be undone by two. We needed… someone to stand in for Quenami. Someone linked to life, virility and good fortune.
"If you want to keep it open, you can't close it from the Fifth World," Acamapichtli said, acidly. "You have to be on both sides, to keep control over what you're doing."
"On three sides," I corrected, distractedly. "To rebuild the tumbled one, you do need three people. One in the Fifth World, one in the underworld. And one astride the wall."
Mihmatini's gaze was harsh. "Why do I get the feeling you're going to be the one astride the wall?"
"Look, that's not what matters."
"What about the Heavens?" the Consort Cozolli asked. "They're also open."
"Symbolically, it's a single boundary," I said gently. "Between the Fifth World and the world above, the world below. All you need is one person outside that boundary."
"Hmm." She didn't appear wholly convinced, but I was.
"We need a third person. Mihmatini–"
She shook her head. "I stand for all gods, and none. I can't complete your triad."
Then – I looked at Cozolli – she was only a Consort, and was symbolically tied to Tlaloc through her worship of Chalchiutlicue. No, she wouldn't do either. "Then it'll have to be Quenami. " I stopped, then, thinking of someone else who stood for a god – who might as well be High Priest, given his close relation to his patron. "The breath of sickness in the Fifth World," I said. "Death astride the wall. And the breath of life in the underworld."
The breath of life. The wind, Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent. "Nezahual-tzin." Mihmatini's voice was grim. "Fine – if he hasn't run away as well. And what about our troublesome ghost?"
"If we find him, we'll work out how to deal with him," I said. The truth was, I had no idea how you killed a ghost. I could banish them – but that just sent them back into the Heavens, ready to come back again.
Unless…
Every ghost disappeared before the throne of Lord Death – if it came to that, we might be able to do something.
Save that it was a favour, and I had no wish to incur more debts with my god.
"It might not work, Acatl-tzin."
"I…" Ichtaca looked at me, halfway between admiration and horror – not an expression I felt altogether comfortable with.
As usual, he'd managed to make his doubt evident while outwardly agreeing with me. I shrugged, and spread out my hands. "The boundaries have to be closed. That's our role. Do you have a better idea?"
Ichtaca looked dubious. "No," he said at last. "You're going to require the help of the order."
I smiled. "I wouldn't have had it any other way."
Mihmatini looked wistfully at her feet – where the pale trace of the thread tying her to Teomitl coiled on the ground. Then she sighed. "I have to come with you. I can help to make the spell stronger."
"Are you sure?"
"No," she said, curtly. "Don't ask, or I might just change my mind. I hope it's going to work, but it's really uncertain." Mihmatini pursed her lips. Clearly, she didn't much care for asking Nezahual-tzin's help once again. She looked back and forth, from Acamapichtli and Cozolli to me. "How come your order doesn't have a Consort anyway?" Mihmatini asked. "You seem to be the only exclusively male priesthood in the Empire."
Ichtaca jerked as if stung; I merely nodded, looking slightly away from her. Acamapichtli just looked smug. It was public knowledge, but still, never brought out in such an open fashion – like pointing out to an aged relative that they were senile. "There was… a problem with the Consort, a dozen years ago. She did – let's just say she got involved in activities she shouldn't have."
Meaning that she'd dabbled in the wrong kind of magics, made the wrong kind of alliances, and set herself to fold the entire Fifth World into Mictlan.
Mihmatini grimaced. "And she was killed? And the female priests?"
Ichtaca spoke, slowly, measuredly. "Not killed – exiled. And the corruption went deep into the clergy. It was, ah, cleaner to remove the branch than try to prune sprig by sprig."
Mihmatini grimaced. "I've heard it say you're sick people, but this is the first proof I had." She shook her head, as if removing water from her hair. "Never mind, that's all pretty unimportant right now. Acatl?"
I shrugged. "I don't have a better idea."