Aztlan: The Last Sun (9 page)

“Done,” I said.

We both knew it wasn’t a personal matter that had gotten Mazatl killed. But maybe he and Patli had had something in common. Talking to Mazatl’s neighbors might bring that something to light.

Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out that way. I spent a couple of hours talking with Mazatl’s neighbors, but I couldn’t establish any obvious connection between Patli and Mazatl. I did learn, on the other hand, that the woman who lived next door to Mazatl had a niece who could cook the daylights out of chicken
mixiotes
, and that she would be only too happy to meet a nice young man like me.

Even if I
had
been beaten up recently. Apparently, that wasn’t a deal-breaker.

• • •

The rail carriage I took back to the Interrogation Center was equipped with a two-sided Mirror screen, which hung from the ceiling and ran the long axis of the train. It was new, a test model, intended to provide passengers with critical information in the event of a disaster like the one in Tehuantepec.

Supposedly, any city in Mexica could have been shaken by an earthquake of such magnitude, though none had been so afflicted in all of recorded history. And, under the same life-threatening conditions, any population could have panicked the way the people did in Tehuantepec, or so the experts insisted.

There was no good way to die, but getting trampled under the feet of a terrified mob seemed pretty bad. So if the Emperor wanted to install Mirror screens in public places, I was all for it.

Of course, it was seldom necessary for Aztlan to provide its subjects with disaster information. That was why the screen showed me something else from the moment I set foot in the carriage—another interview program paid for by Lolco Molpilia.

This time, I watched from the beginning.

Molpilia and the interviewer—the same one as before—took a moment to exchange pleasantries. After all, it was Renewal time; people were supposed to speak kindly to one another. Then they got into the heart of the matter.

“There have now been two murders,” said the commentator, “both of them on your properties. A coincidence, you think?”

“Hardly,” said Molpilia.

“You sound pretty certain.”

“It’s a shame,” said the developer, “when someone does his best to erect large, handsome pyramids worthy of the gods’ blessings and someone else sees fit to desecrate them. It’s even more of a shame when that same someone is responsible for both acts of desecration.”

“Desecration,” the commentator repeated. “You think that’s the murderer’s motivation?”

“I leave that in the hands of the police to prove or disprove,” said Molpilia. “But under the circumstances, it’s difficult to come to any other conclusion.”

“And you still think the Ancient Light cultists are the ones responsible?”

“I’ve never said that,” said Molpilia. He turned to the camera. “But I think I speak for your viewers when I say that some conclusions are inevitable.”

Not to all of us, I thought.

Molpilia’s program had finished and started a second time before I reached my stop. As I stood up, I looked around at the other passengers. They seemed enthralled by what the developer had to say.

But then, Molpilia had learned somewhere how to work an audience. Beans could do that.

When I got back to my office, there was a message waiting for me. It was from High Priest Itzcoatl. He wanted me to call him back.

I did so.

One of his attendants answered, then connected me with the High Priest. A moment later, I heard his voice. “Colhua?”

I assumed that he was looking for news regarding the murders—two of them now. Unfortunately, I didn’t have anything to tell him.

“Gods favor you, High Priest,” I said.

“And you.”

“I wish I could say I’ve made progress since you and I spoke, but I can’t. The investigation is going slowly.”

“That is too bad,” said Itzcoatl. “But I have faith in you, Colhua. You will find the murderer. It is only a matter of time.”

I wished I was as confident as he was.

“There is something else,” said the High Priest.

I wondered what that could be.

“I want you to know,” he said, “that I remember your father. It took me a little while to place him, but I remember now. And I remember how he perished, sacrificing his life to save mine. He was a brave man. You must be very proud of him.”

“I am,” I said, feeling a wave of satisfaction and relief.

It had been a little unnerving to think my father had been forgotten by the man he died for. But, apparently, that wasn’t the case.

Unless he was just being kind. A possibility, certainly. But my gut told me otherwise.

“Excellent,” said Itzcoatl. “Well, as I said . . . I just wanted you to know.”

“Thank you, High Priest.”

“Feel the gods’ blessings, Colhua.”

And he ended the connection.

I sat back in my chair and felt better than I had since I left the ball court the night before. Better than I had in a long time, in fact.

I loved my father.

It was from him that I got my love of the ball court. It was because of him and his understanding of the game that I eventually came to prosper in the Arena and make a name for myself there. And when that bastard Acama kicked me in the knee and ended my career between the stone walls, it was my father’s reputation that got me a position with the Emperor’s police force.

I was glad that someone else remembered him as Aunt Xoco and I remembered him—as a hero. And I was even gladder that it was the High Priest of Aztlan.

I would tell my father about it the first chance I got. Tomorrow, I thought. It would be the last of the Unlucky Days, the one on which we were supposed to visit our ancestors.

Tomorrow
.

I had barely concluded the resolution when Necalli came by my desk. He looked happy for a change.

“Something good?” I asked.

“Very good. One of the cultists just turned himself in.”

It was a surprise, to say the least. “Which one?”

Necalli told me. I couldn’t match the name with the face. After all, there were forty-three of them.

“The one with the funny ear,” Necalli said. “Does that help?”

It did. One of the cultists was missing the lower half of his ear. I remembered thinking that a dog must have bitten it off.

“He’s confessed?”


“To both murders. We’re checking out his story now, but I’ve got a feeling we have our man.”

“That would be a relief,” I said.

Certainly, Itzcoatl would be happy to hear it. Molpilia too.

Eren would be on the other side of the fence. In the public eye, one guilty cultist would make all the cultists look guilty.

But that wasn’t
my
problem.

Except for his mangled ear, Eyahue Quimichetl had no distinguishing characteristics. He was of average height, average build, even average intelligence according to his file.

“So you killed those two men,” I began.

It was just the two of us in the lowest floor of the Interrogation Center. After the crowds of cultists over the last few nights, the place seemed empty.


“Yes,” said Quimichetl. His voice was steady and without inflection, his eyes fixed unflinchingly on mine.

“Alone? Or with help?”

“Alone.”

“Do your fellow cultists know you’re here?”

“No,” he said. “But they will, of course.”

“Of course. So why did you do it?”

“The gods demand sacrifices, especially at a holy time like this one. I gave them what they want.”

“I see,” I said. “Was there anything special about these victims? I mean, why these two in particular?”

He shrugged. “They were available.”

“Just that?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t the gods prefer victims who are young and strong?” I knew my history as well as anyone.

“They do,” he conceded. “However, I had to be circumspect or I would have gotten caught.”

He had gotten caught anyway, but I didn’t see any need to point that out. I placed pictures of the victims on the table. He had no reaction. I pointed to the pyramids in the background.

“These buildings were de-sanctified as a result of your sacrifices,” I said. “Do you know who developed them?”

“No.”

“That had nothing to do with it? The de-sanctification part, I mean.”

“Correct.”

“I see. And which gods did you say you were honoring with your sacrifices?”

“I didn’t say. But I can tell you that my first victim was a sacrifice to Itztlacoliuhqui-Ixquimilli.”

“Our god of punishment and misery,” I noted.

“Our god of
justice
,” he said.

“That’s another way of looking at it. And your second sacrifice?”

“Was given to Tezcatlipoca.”

“Our god of change.”

“Change through
conflict
.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” I said. “And how many other sacrifices did you intend to carry out?”

He looked the slightest bit uncomfortable. “There are many gods.”

“How many
specifically
?”

“Different people recognize different pantheons,” said Quimichetl, his voice rising slightly in pitch.


“What pantheon do
you
worship?” I pressed.

“I . . .” He swallowed. “I worship the gods my father worshiped, and his father before him.”

“But you don’t recall exactly which ones. Outside of Itztlacoliuhqui-Ixquimilli and Tezcatlipoca, I mean.”

He didn’t say anything in response.

“I hope,” I added, “that you were going to figure that out before you carried out any more sacrifices. Otherwise, you might not have known in whose name you were committing murder.”

A muscle below his eye began to twitch. “It wasn’t murder. It was a
ritual
.”

I sipped at my cane water. “You know, Eyahue, the Empire’s punishments are rituals too. I learned that in police school. Do you know what the ritual is for lying to an Investigator?”

That shook him up—though not, I suspected, because he was scared of the Empire’s punishments. It was because I had suggested that he was full of crap.

“I killed those men,” he insisted. “I cut their hearts out and burned candles in their open chests.”

“Of course you did. Excuse me, won’t you? I have to pee.”

Necalli was waiting for me outside the interrogation room. “So what do you think?”

“I think he’s lying,” I said. “Or crazy. Or both. Either way, he’s not the murderer.”

And I told Necalli why.

It wasn’t what he wanted to hear. “Lands of Death,” he muttered, and trundled back upstairs.

Q
uimichetl had turned out to be a dud and our surveillance
of the other properties hadn’t turned up anything either. With hours to go before I had to be at my aunt’s place for dinner, I decided to pay Lolco Molpilia a visit.

I called him to let him know I was coming, then rode the rails to his office in the heart of the Merchant City.

His reception area was immense—two stories high—with windows that stretched from floor to ceiling, offering a panoramic view of the colorful, haphazardly built Merchant City and, beyond it, the geometrically perfect, more dignified profile of Aztlan. I could see a number of pyramids from where I stood, each of them dwarfing everything around it. No doubt, some of them were Molpilia’s.

I introduced myself to his receptionist: “I’m the Investigator.”

“Please have a seat,” she told me, trying not to stare at my face.

The furniture was both elegant and comfortable. I hadn’t felt lizard hide that soft in a long time.

Cylindrical kiosks displaying Mirror monitors were strategically positioned around the place. One of them was right in front of my chair. It showed me Eren’s people marching around yet another pyramid.

I wondered if Molpilia was watching them in his office.

As I waited, I saw his employees walk in and out through the reception area, dropping off packets of papers or picking them up. They didn’t so much as glance at the view through the two-story window. Evidently, they had other things on their minds.

Like the fact that two of their pyramids weren’t going to open on time, maybe. But really, I was just guessing.

Finally, Molpilia’s secretary smiled at me and said, “He will see you now.” No mention of the guy’s name. Just “he,” as if there were only one “he” in the world worth talking about.

“Thanks,” I said, freeing myself from the clutches of my lizard-leather chair.

The receptionist pressed a button on her desk and a door slid aside behind her, revealing a corridor beyond. I went in and the door closed behind me with a soft hiss of air.

It was the kind of thing you would expect to see in a rail carriage, but not in an office. I had to hand it to Molpilia—it was an interesting touch.

Unfortunately, of the several conventional doors that opened off either side of the corridor, not one of them had a name, a title, or even a number posted on it. I was wondering which door was Molpilia’s when he saved me the trouble by appearing at the end of the hallway.

The developer looked different in person than he had on the Mirror screen. Older, I thought. Wrinkled. And he had a noticeable paunch.