Obsidian & Blood (124 page)

  Gently, I tipped the head towards me – the rigidity of Xolotl's passage hadn't yet settled in, and I managed to open the mouth. The light of braziers glimmered on the congealed saliva within the palate, but the bulk of the cavity was occupied by the tongue, which had swollen to more than twice its normal size. My fingers caught on the raised trace of a wound: it had been a single hole at one point, but repeated passages of some foreign object had enlarged the wound to a gaping hole–

  Penance. And a rather extreme form. If he had been a priest, it would have been normal, but he had been a warrior and an official. Which left the other explanation.

  I got up, brushing dust from my cloak, and turned around, taking in the scene. The brazier was piled with resinous wood, and the air still smelled faintly – not only of the acridity of copal incense, but also of a more unfamiliar mixture.

  "He saw a calendar priest, to speak to Tlazolteotl," I said, aloud.

  "To confess his cowardice." Tizoc-tzin's voice was scornful.

  Nezahual-tzin – who hadn't said anything so far – looked sceptical. I felt much the same. Confession to Tlazolteotl, the Eater of Filth, served but one purpose: to void the justice of the Fifth World, by cleansing away the impurities of sin.

  "There are more pressing matters. Such as conspiracies within the palace."

  And the plague within the palace didn't matter, perhaps?

  "My Lord…" The Sne-Snake said cautiously, like a man crossing a bridge of frayed ropes. "Nothing so far has suggested that there is a conspiracy."

  "I can feel it," Tizoc-tzin hissed. "And so can he." He stabbed a finger in my direction.

  Every single pair of eyes – from the She-Snake to the councilmen – turned in my direction, making me wish I could open a portal and disappear into Mictlan. "I'm not sure what you mean," I said, cautiously.

  "You've been investigating. Tracking down the enemies of the Mexica Empire."

  Well, lost for lost… I found my voice from the faraway place where it had fled. "Pochtic took a bribe, my Lord. So did Coatl." 

  There was a pause. "Ridiculous. You're mistaken, priest."

  "Those are serious accusations," the She-Snake said, gravely. "But it's not the first time they have been made, which I suppose lends them some credence. Nevertheless – I fail to see what this has got to do with anything."

  I had to admit he had a point – the Duality curse me if I could see what the bribe had to do with anything, either.

  A tinkle of bells: the entrance-curtain was lifted by a pale hand, and, to my utter surprise, Coatl entered, leaning on a cane and looking none too steady. He was followed by two of my priests, Palli, and a younger offering priest, Matlaelel.

  Ichtaca, who had been looking at the frescoes and muttering to himself – a sure sign that he had found something wrong – nodded to me when Coatl entered.

  "My Lord," Coatl said, bowing to Tizoc-tzin – and then to everyone else in turn. "I was informed of what happened." 

  "You were sick," the She-Snake said.

  Coatl nodded. "Until I was cured." He was thinner than I remembered, his rich cotton cloak hanging loose on his shoulders, his hands shaking on the cane, showing the translucent shape of bones. In fact…

  I looked from Tizoc-tzin to him – pale faces, with the cast of the skull barely hidden under the stretched skin; the eyes shadowed, almost subsumed; the fingers almost too thin and sharp to be normal; leeched of colour like bleached bones. 

  In fact…

  He looked as though he'd risen from the dead – which ought to be impossible. "What do you remember?" I asked. 

  "Nothing."

  I continued to stare at him, until he finally gave in. "There was a dog, howling in the wilderness – if he caught me, I would be gone forever…" Every word seemed to come with difficulty, dragged from weak lungs, or a crushed throat. "And canals in sunlight, but I couldn't reach them, there was no time…" He stopped, then. "Why are you asking me this?"

  I shook my head. "I need to know–"

  "What we need to know is the truth." The She-Snake's voice was as cutting as broken obsidian. "Did you take a bribe, Coatl?" 

  "A bribe?" he sounded sincerely surprised. Either he was a better actor than I suspected, or he was telling the truth. "No. I've never taken a bribe in my life." Again, the ring of truth – an answer coming neither too quickly nor too slowly, without perceptible hesitation, or the lifeless tone of things learned by rote. 

  His gaze was on Pochtic – not on Tizoc-tzin or any of the other officials. "He's dead." He sounded utterly surprised. Had the healing – whatever it was – affected his memory?

  "It might have something to do with Eptli's death."

  "Eptli." His face darkened – in anger, in hatred? Whatever it was, it seemed to be directed at something beyond the dead warrior. "I remember Eptli. What a waste. And Pochtic–" His eyes narrowed and glimmered – one shaking hand went up to his face, wiped them clean. "This shouldn't have happened."

  "We're wasting our time," the She-Snake said. He looked from Pochtic to Coatl, and then back to Tizoc-tzin. "My Lord… if there is a conspiracy against you, I very much doubt it's here." 

  For a moment, I thought Tizoc-tzin was going to argue, but then he shook his head. "You're right. Whatever he did, it wasn't against me. Let us go. We need to focus on more pressing matters." 

  He swept out of the room, followed by Quenami and the other officials.

  I caught the She-Snake before he left. "Acatl," he said, His voice was courteous, suggesting, nevertheless, that I'd better have a good reason for disturbing him.

  "You'll want to keep a watch on the prisoners' quarters."

  "Will I?"

  For a moment, I thought of warning him about Teomitl – about what might be brewing in the palace at this very moment. But my stomach heaved at the thought of betraying my student on so little evidence. There had to be a reasonable explanation for his disappearance and odd behaviour. "There is a spell in the courtyard," I said. "Written in blood over the adobe – by someone with no love for the current Mexica Empire."

  "I see." He didn't argue with me, thank the Duality. "Who is casting the spell?"
  "I don't know. I'm working on it."

  The She-Snake grimaced. "I have far too few men as it is, with this whole business. But I'll put those I can spare on this." 

  I bowed. "Thank you."

  He shrugged. "We both serve the same cause, Acatl. Now, was there anything else?"

  I hesitated, but still the words were out of my mouth before I could call them back. "What about – Acamapichtli and the clergy of Tlaloc?"

  This time, he wouldn't meet my gaze. "I don't know. Tizoc still thinks they might be guilty of something."

  Of many things, probably, knowing Acamapichtli, but that was missing the point. "We need them here – serving the same cause. You know that – a priest for the war-god, a priest for the weather and the peasants…"

  "And one for those who have moved on. Yes," the She-Snake said. "I know that."

  The implications of the sentence were clear. "Do what you can."

  "I will." He left with a nod of his head, not looking back.

  The room felt much less crowded once they'd gone, leaving me free to talk to Palli. "I'm impressed you managed to heal him," I said, with a jerk of my chin towards Coatl, who still stood, looking at Pochtic's body as if he couldn't quite believe what was happening. "But what did you do, exactly?" 

  Palli looked nervous. "Is anything wrong?"

  I was about to say he hadn't taken a good look at Coatl – until I realised that only the higher orders of the clergy knew that Tizoctzin wasn't quite a man anymore, but something else, a soul held in the body only through the favour of the gods. "Never mind," I said. "I need to know what you did."

  Palli shifted uncomfortably. "Nothing wild, Acatl-tzin. Just calling on Toci's favour."
  "How?"
  He grimaced again. "Human sacrifice. We tried animals, but it was obvious there wasn't enough power."
  "You sacrificed a life to save a life?"

  "An important life." I hadn't seen Ichtaca creep up behind me – but suddenly he loomed behind me, as forbidding as a god. "I needn't remind you of who Coatl is."

  Deputy for the Master of Raining Blood, member of the warcouncil – moving among the turquoise and jade, the brightest lights and most shining mirrors of the Mexica Empire. "I know. I don't care. A life for a life is wrong."

  "Then what? Do you want us to kill him again? It won't regain the sacrifice's life. Besides…" Ichtaca said, "he knew what he was doing."

  How could he be so high in the hierarchy of Lord Death, and fail to see the problem? "That's not the point. All lives are equal and weighed the same – separated only by the manner of their deaths." I felt like a teacher in the calmecac, repeating obvious truths to boys not old enough to have lost their childhood locks. To give one's life to the gods was the greatest sacrifice, but to do so in favour of another human being, to rank human lives by importance, like
things…

  Ichtaca's lips pursed. His rigid sense of hierarchy – what had caused him to put Coatl ahead in the first place – wouldn't let him contradict me, his superior. "As you wish," he said.

  The Duality curse me if I let him have the last word. "It was good work," I said to Palli. "But I don't think it would make a viable cure."

  He looked disconsolate, and I couldn't think of anything that would change matters. "Look into it again," I suggested. "There might be a way around the human sacrifice." 

  "I suppose."

  I wished I could offer more – but black was black and red was red, and he shouldn't have done that. I guessed my point had come across clearly enough. "Ichtaca?"

  "Yes, Acatl-tzin?" His face was smooth, expressionless.

  "There is a man you need to track down – someone who came here earlier. A calendar priest."

  "He will be under the seal of secrecy." He didn't say "you should know that", but it was abundantly clear.

  I shook my head. Yes, the priest wouldn't be inclined to reveal the contents of the interview. But still… a drowning man couldn't afford to be choosy about which bit of driftwood to cling to. "He might still give us something to understand Pochtic. It looks as though Pochtic did the prescribed penance, and then still committed suicide." Which, to be honest, made me wonder if the offence hadn't been too grave to be forgiven – which suggested either something large, or something that went against the will of a powerful god.

  "Hmm," Ichtaca was still looking at the walls – which reminded me that he'd been muttering earlier.
  "Something the matter? Here, I mean."

  His gaze suggested he thought more was the matter than a deserted room containing the body. "I don't think – something is odd in this room, Acatl-tzin. I can't quite pinpoint what, but…" 

  I sighed – assessing my meagre resources. "Palli, can you see about tracking down the calendar priest?"

  Palli pulled himself straight, almost to attention. "Yes, Acatl-tzin!"

  I could feel Ichtaca's discontent as I moved into the room, leaning on my cane – Storm Lord's lightning strike me, I was looking the same as Coatl, though perhaps not quite so battered.

  Coatl still stood where we'd left him, looking down at Pochtic's body. His eyes, dark and shadowed, were all but unmoving, his gaze expressionless. But tears had run down his cheeks, staining the black face-paint. "That's not how it happens." His voice, too, was expressionless – too carefully controlled. 

  "How it happens?" I asked.

  "We die in wars," he snapped. "Caught by spears and cut by obsidian, our souls taking wing on the courage of eagles, the ferocity of jaguars. We don't–" His hand rose towards Pochtic, faltered. "We don't just end it like this."

  "No," I said, at last. "I know it's not much, but I'm sorry you had to see this."

  He shrugged. "Doesn't matter now. You can't erase the memory of it, anyway. Was there anything else, Acatl-tzin?"

  I bowed my head, as gravely as I could. "Yes. I apologise for bringing this up" we both knew I wasn't sorry, not by a large margin "but I need to know what you can remember about the sickness."

  The tremor in his hands was barely visible. "Not much. I – I couldn't breathe – as if I were in water or mud. And there were… bodies." He inhaled, sharply. "Dozens and dozens of bodies, all burning with fever. I've walked battlefields, but this was–" 

  "Different."

  "Yes." Gently, he knelt by Pochtic's body, his fingers probing the wound that had slashed the arteries. "That's all there is." 

  "I see." It was consistent with my own symptoms – with Teomitl's. And all consistent with Jade Skirt's involvement – water or mud, and the sensation of choking. But it was nothing
new
, though. 

  "And Pochtic?" I asked.

  "I thought I knew Pochtic." His gaze was distant. "Obviously, I didn't."

  "So you don't know why he might have committed suicide." I was only stating the obvious there, in the hopes that it might help. 

  "No," Coatl said. He rose, picked up his caneagain – his breath fast, laboured. "He was a man who enjoyed life. Too much, perhaps. I don't think he understood what lay beneath as well as some." 

  "You mean?"

  "He knew it was for the glory of the gods, for the Fifth Sun and Grandmother Earth. But I think, all too often, he saw his own glory first." He sighed, again, as if he were a calendar priest, closing the divination books on Pochtic's life. "Ah well. It doesn't matter, now. Never will again."

  Suicides, like the rest of the unglorious dead, went to Mictlan. Given enough time, we could summon the dead man's soul, find out what he had known.