Obsidian & Blood (120 page)

  "Not in complimentary terms, no…" Her voice trailed off, and she looked at me. "Acatl."

  Much as I wished to, I couldn't lie to her. "You know what he wanted, more than anything else; you heard him as well as me. He wants things now, not five or ten years into the future." 

  "But…"

  I couldn't think of any comforting lies. "We need to find him." 

  "Be my guest," Mihmatini said with a touch of anger. "He's hidden himself well."

  Leaving all of us exposed – and the Duality House to become the rallying point for the discontent. Oh, gods – when I caught the fool I was going to pinch his ribs, hard. "I hadn't come here for Teomitl, originally."

  "He does have a way of taking over conversations even when absent," Mihmatini said, her voice expressionless and flat – like glass, a moment before it shattered. "What did you want?" 

  "Two things. The plague–"

  Mihmatini snorted. "Quenami is in charge, and making a mess out of it. Then again, he doesn't listen to half the things I'm saying." 

  So – panicked, but still not smart enough to see my sister as talented. "He's a fool."

  "I don't care." Mihmatini's voice was grim. "Whatever he is, he's failed at containing this. That's his biggest fault to me."

  "It's bad, isn't it?" I asked, cautiously – though I already knew the answer.

  "As bad as it can get. Yaotl probably told you it's starting to spread within Tenochtitlan."

  The last thing we needed. "Yes." I said, carefully, "Some of my priests might come by, later. We have an idea for a cure." 

  Mihmatini's gaze snapped up sharply.

  "I don't want to give you false hope," I said. "It's quite possible it won't work at all."

  "It's still going to be better than whatever Quenami's come up with," Mihmatini snorted. "And what was the second thing you came for?"

  It took me a moment to remember what she was talking about. "Oh. Xiloxoch."

  "The courtesan?" Mihmatini gave it some thought.

  "Teomitl said he was going to arrest her, remember?"

  "I do." Mihmatini puffed her cheeks, thinking. "I haven't heard any news – wait." She rose, and pulled the entrance-curtain to her chambers open. "Yaotl!"

  "Mistress?" Yaotl came in wearing his palace vestment – an elegant, richly embroidered cloak – and streaks of blue and black across his cheeks.

  "Acatl wants to know what we have on Xiloxoch."

  Yaotl looked startled. "Nothing that I know of." He thought, for a while. "She did make an accusation against Eptli."

  "When?" I asked. I hadn't thought she'd had time to see the judges before Tizoc-tzin worked himself into a rage over the clergy of Tlaloc.

  "Before the clergy of Tlaloc was hauled in. For all the good it did her… It was dismissed summarily, like all the cases that didn't concern Acamapichtli's clergy."

  Mihmatini shook her head. "She's a wily one. Nezahual-tzin probably neglected to tell you she's been serving her goddess well."

  Not surprising, though it was heartening to have a confirmation my suspicions were headed somewhere. "I presume she's been keeping an eye the interests of Xochiquetzal while the Quetzal Flower is in exile from Tenochtitlan."

  "That's what my priests have confirmed, yes," Mihmatini said. The Duality House was also the centre of a network of spies and magicians, whose only goal was to safeguard the balance. Her predecessor, Ceyaxochitl, had used this to terrific effect. Clearly, Mihmatini was learning fast. 

  "And this means?"

  "Now? Nothing much," Mihmatini said. "It looks as though she's just watching and waiting."

  "But you don't think she's involved in the plague."

  "I haven't said that."

  "I see." I thought of the snapped quill again. I couldn't see why Xochiquetzal would ally Herself with Chalchiutlicue, but the evidence spoke against Xiloxoch. "I need to find her."

  Yaotl shrugged. "Try the palace. She'll be there – too canny not to be."
  "Where is she?"

  "I don't know. I'd try the palace, if I were you. If she wants to keep an eye on the Flower Quetzal's interests, she'll have to be at the heart of things."

  Not the first place I wanted to come back to, especially with the plague raging within its walls. But still… I didn't have much choice.

  

  Ezamahual didn't leave my side as we walked out of the Duality House. I leant on the cane, grateful for its support – but the Southern Hummingbird strike me if I was going to accept help from one of my priests.

  "I'm going inside the palace," I said to Ezamahual. "You might want to leave."

  He looked at me as if I were mad. "It's not a safe place," I explained, feeling increasingly flustered.

  His look was the patient one of a mother towards a wayward child. "You're High Priest, Acatl-tzin. I wouldn't dream of leaving you alone."
  Great, so much for that.

  I half-expected the guards to challenge us as we climbed the stairs towards the entrance, but they seemed more bored than busy, leaning on their obsidian-tipped spears while gazing at the sky, looking through us, half-expecting us to provide some distraction. But we both looked like ordinary priests for the Dead, on errands that could only be menial – nothing worth salvaging from that, no fun or currency to be had.

  Inside, the palace seemed empty and forlorn, the usual crowds subdued and silent, hurrying from courtyard to courtyard without looking up. A few artisans crept by looking as if they were trying to make themselves forgotten about altogether, and the judges and clerks walking with codices under their arms didn't look much more reassured, either.

  I directed us towards the part of the palace where the young warriors usually congregated, thinking to catch if not Xiloxoch, someone who would tell me where she was – or perhaps our wayward Teomitl, who would laugh and toss his head back, and assure me that Mihmatini and I were being foolish with our suspicions. He would make it all go away, like an image in a darkened obsidian mirror…

  We reached a smaller courtyard, which doubled as an aviary: wooden cages with quetzal birds surrounded a fountain. The gurgle of the water mingled with the harsh cries of the birds, the glimmer of sunlight playing off against the iridescent sheen on their emerald tail-feathers.

  A warrior stood in front of the fountain, gazing into the water. He had his back to us, but even so, I would have recognised him anywhere: that arrogant, casual tilt of the head, that falsely contemplative pose… except that it was all subtly wrong, distorted as through layers of water. 

  "My Lord?" I asked. 

  Nezahual-tzin didn't move.

  "My Lord?" A little higher-pitched – and a little more desperate. I could have dealt with his usual sarcastic, careless remarks, but at this moment I might as well have been talking to a stone effigy. I moved to the other side of the fountain and met his gaze, which was slightly vacant, as if he weren't quite
there
. I extended my priest-senses – wincing at the effort. There was a slight trace of magic; a touch of something. Not sickly and spread out like underworld magic, but instead firm and strong, as unmoving as a rock or as the Heavens above us.

  "It's all in the water," Nezahual-tzin said. The vacuous smile on his face was so uncharacteristic I wanted to shake it out of him. "Can't you see?"
  "No."

  He smiled – dazzling, mindless. "He's coming, Acatl. He's coming. Neither walls nor lines on the ground – neither rivers nor marshes were enough to hold him – not even a fisherman's net." 

  I didn't waste time asking who "he" was. Instead, I rubbed at the scabs on my earlobes until they came loose, and said a short prayer to Lord Death, asking Him to grant me true sight.

  As I'd thought, Nezahual-tzin was saturated with the dark brown of Toci's touch – a veil that hung around him like the vapour of the sweatbath, billowing in the warm breeze, lazily unfurling deeper hues of brown; the smell of churned mud and dry, cracking earth, and in the distance, the faint cry of warriors fighting each other, for Grandmother Earth was also the Woman of Discord, She who brought on the wars we needed to survive. 

  What had happened to him?

  He was still staring into the water, his grey eyes – a feature I'd always found uncanny – even more distant than usual, as if the fountain held the answers he'd always wanted. He was at rest, in a relaxed, non-threatening way that made my skin crawl. And where were his warriors – where was the escort, suitable for a Revered Speaker of the Triple Alliance…?

  My gaze, roaming, found his hands – and the familiar, trembling haze of freshly-shed lifeblood. "They're dead," I said aloud. "Your warriors. Aren't they? Killed to cast the spell."

  For a long, agonising moment, I thought he wasn't going to answer, but then, he looked up at me, his face cast into an expressionless mask once again – almost like the Nezahual-tzin of old. "Opened up like poinsettia flowers. Such speed and efficiency. One wouldn't think she'd be so fast…" His voice trailed off, and his gaze went down, towards the water.

  She? Was it the same old woman who had visited Teomitl so often? What part did she play in this, other than seemingly ensorcelling two of the most important men in the Triple Alliance? 

  "Acatl-tzin," Ezamahual said. "What shall we do?"

  I cast a glance around the courtyard. It was deserted, well away from the usual rush of people within the palace. But still… 

  His own people would probably know what to do with him, but they'd all be in the official residence of the Revered Speaker of Texcoco – literally next door to our own Revered Speaker's apartments, high on the list of places to avoid in the palace. Still… He'd been helpful, if only in his usual, cryptic fashion, and my conscience balked at the idea of just leaving him here.

  "Let's bring you home," I said to Nezahual-tzin. "Someone there will probably have a better idea of what to do."

  We all but had to drag him away from the fountain, but once we were away from the water he relaxed in our grasp and seemed to follow us – more, I suspected, because he had nowhere else to go than out of any desire on his part. 

  "What's wrong with him?" Ezamahual asked.

  "It's obviously a spell," I said, curtly. "But I have no idea how to dispel it." And, more importantly of where and how he had managed to get it cast on himself. What was its purpose? Simply to prevent Nezahual-tzin from tracking the mysterious summoner of Toci's magic? Did his pronouncements make sense, or were they just part of the delirium of the spell?

  I didn't like any of this – then again, it wasn't as if the previous days had been particularly relaxing or likeable.

  The Revered Speaker's chambers were in a large courtyard, on the first floor of a building which also hosted the war council, the council of officials that had elected him and that oversaw most of the daily life of Tenochtitlan, from religious worship to problems of architecture and city layout. On the first floor, three entrancecurtains marked the rooms of the Revered Speakers of Tlacopan, Texcoco and Tenochtitlan. The platform was overcrowded by warriors, and the general atmosphere was tense – none of the She-Snake's black-clad guards could be seen anywhere, and the warriors appeared to be arguing among themselves. In the courtyard, the crowd seemed to be dispatched in small groups, talking among themselves in hushed voices, throwing us harsh glances as we passed them by. The atmosphere was tense, as taut as a rope about to fray.

  We made our way upstairs without being challenged. Nezahualtzin drew a few passing glances, but no one seemed to know his face well enough, or at least they considered him not important enough. His gaze kept roaming – caught by the jade-coloured cloak of a veteran warrior, by the darkening blue of the sky above us, the smoke of copal incense hanging in the air, almost intense enough to be frightening.

  There were two warriors on guard at the entrance-curtain of Nezahual-tzin's rooms; they only took a look at us and waved us through.

  Inside, the chambers were as I remembered them: colourful frescoes of Quetzalcoatl the Feathered Serpent, depicting His descent into the underworld, the founding of His city of Tollan, and His departure onto the Eastern Sea on a raft of snakes – everything obscured by the potent haze of copal incense mixed with herbs and spices, a mixture that always made my head spin. I suspected Nezahual-tzin used it for entering divine trances, and wouldn't have been surprised to learn it had
teonanacatl
and
peyotl
mixed in – two hallucinogenic widely used by most priesthoods, but frowned upon by my own. One did not need trances or dreams to be reminded of the reality of death.

  The low-backed chair – Nezahual-tzin's throne – was empty, the jaguar pelts on the dais meticulously cleaned by the slaves, who scattered away from us as we went deeper into the room. 

  Nezahual-tzin's breath had quickened; around him, something glimmered – the shadow of a great snake, slowly unfolding through my and Ezamahual's body, maw wide open, the feathers of its collar slowly gaining substance as we got nearer to the throne. The air was as thick as tar – tense, not with human intrigue, but with the growing presence of a god in the Fifth World.

  Nezahual-tzin had gone completely limp, his eyes closed, lolling in our grip, much heavier than I'd thought possible. The snake came streaming out of his mouth, rearing its head through Nezahual-tzin's boyish face – the scales mingling with the skin, the feathers becoming the feather headdress at his nape, yet somehow larger and more defined. The only sound we could hear was Nezahual-tzin's quickening breath – far too fast for anything mortal. 

  The god Quetzalcoatl was trying to help his agent somehow; the one thing I did know was that we couldn't afford to be there when it happened. The Feathered Serpent might be the most compassionate of all the gods, but he was still a god – disinclined to take mortal frailty into account, especially when in a rush to dispel another god's interference.