Obsidian & Blood (35 page)

  "No," Commander Quiyahuayo said. "I knew there was a child, made jointly by Xochiquetzal and Tlaloc, and borne in Eleuia's womb. I know that it was given to a family of peasants, to raise as their own."

  By Xochiquetzal and Tlaloc. Of course. Xochiquetzal had brought the expertise about childbirth; and the Storm Lord the raw power. That was why the Quetzal Flower had lied to me about Mahuizoh and Eleuia. What a fool I'd been.

  Commander Quiyahuayo went on, "And I also knew this: that this year is the year the child comes of age. The year Tlaloc can transfer His powers into him. What I wanted to know from Eleuia was where she'd hidden him."

  A god-child. A child invested with immeasurable powers, loose in Tenochtitlan, with no constraints placed on his magic. The living extension of the will of a capricious, angry, cruel god… 

  I shivered.

  "I fail to see what the Storm Lord could want," Neutemoc said. He was clearly uncomfortable with the thought of the gods directly interfering in the Fifth World.

  I was more used to the idea. And there was only one thing that Tlaloc could want. Xochiquetzal Herself had told me.

  
He moves up into the world, becomes the protective deity of your Empire.
And We – the old ones, the gods of the Earth and of the Corn, We who were
here first, who watched over your first steps – We fade.

  Xochiquetzal and Tlaloc had both been displaced by Huitzilpochtli's rise to power.
  "They want revenge," I said.

  "Not revenge," Commander Quiyahuayo said. "Faith."

  Another draught lifted the curtains, and spilled rain onto the floor – and the world seemed to grow still.
  "Acatl," Neutemoc said, sharply.

  Commander Quiyahuayo was still sitting on the reed mat, but now he was staring at two bloody gashes opening on his chest. Even as I turned towards him, more wounds opened, blossoming like obscene flowers.

  Even without the true sight, I could guess at the mass of shapeless, frenzied things that would be fighting to reach his veins. The creatures were back.

 

 

As Commander Quiyahuayo stared back at us, his blood dripping on the reed mat, pooling in meaningless patterns, Neutemoc pulled at my cloak.

  "Come on," he said, dragging me towards the door. "Let's get out of here."

  I threw a glance at Commander Quiyahuayo. His eyes were glazed. The terrible numbness of the creatures' wounds would already be coursing through his whole body. He'd stay there, helpless, until they'd fed to satiety. And then the Duality knew what they'd do. Turn on us? 

  "I–"

  "There's nothing you can do for him," Neutemoc snapped. "Remember? We can't kill those things. Besides, he's a murderer." 

  I wasn't so sure about that. Commander Quiyahuayo had admitted to torturing Eleuia easily – indeed, as if it didn't matter at all – and I didn't think he'd lied when he said he hadn't killed her. It did leave open the question of who had killed Eleuia, and why. 

  With a terrible knot of guilt in my stomach, I sprang to my feet. Neutemoc was standing near the entrance curtain. "Come on!" he said.

  The air seemed to have turned to tar. I ran towards Neutemoc, but it seemed to take an eternity for me to reach him.

  "Let's leave." Neutemoc opened the curtain: outside, a thin drizzle veiled the courtyard. A blast of wind splattered rain into my face. 

  There had been guards, I thought, struggling to think. There had been…

  The guards lay in the muddy earth, their faces drained of colour, their jaguar uniform rent open to reveal chests criss-crossed with claw-marks. I remembered the noises of men running, and of fighting, moving away from us. Not, it seemed, moving away from us: merely ending with the death of all the fighting men.

  The Jaguar House was all but silent. Only the soft patter of the rain on the terraces broke the terrible stillness. Rain. The Storm Lord's rain.
  "He's come into his powers," I said.

  "Because you believed that bastard's lies?" Neutemoc screamed. He was running towards the courtyard's exit. His face through the drizzle was that of a man who realises the ground has shifted under him, bringing the yawning chasm that much closer.

  Commander Quiyahuayo's story had sounded too complicated to be invented on the spur of the moment; and it fitted, chillingly, with the evidence we already had. "Why else would someone kill Commander Quiyahuayo?" I asked.

  Not someone. Something. The creatures, the same which had tried to kill Neutemoc. The servants of Tlaloc.

  Neutemoc didn't answer. He was ahead of me now, making his way through the maze of courtyards and rooms as if they were his own home. Of course, this was the House of his Brotherhood. Everywhere, the same stillness: the patolli boards abandoned on the ground, pelted by rain; and the bodies beside them, pale and unmoving.

  Through the open door of a dormitory, I caught a glimpse of a warrior lying in a courtesan's arms: both bloodless bodies curled together in a grotesque parody of life. The same sense of wrongness as in the cave was rising in me, slowly, steadily, like a vessel filling up. I looked up at the rain, and felt the magic coiled at the heart of the clouds, coming down with each drop. The rain wasn't normal, either. As if we needed this.

  "They're catching up," I said. I couldn't keep up with Neutemoc. I'd lost track of how many courtyards we'd run through.

  "I know!" Neutemoc shouted, without turning around.

  Would Mihmatini's spell protect him – or would it would yield under the creatures' repeated assaults?

  A child. Nausea was rising in me, sharp, demanding. A living child, somewhere in the teeming mass of Tenochtitlan, sending the creatures like puppets to destroy Commander Quiyahuayo and his men, who might still have thwarted the Storm Lord's plans. 

  At the entrance, the two warriors no longer stood guard. But the gates were wide open; and beyond them, sharply outlined through the curtain of rain, lay the pyramids of the Sacred Precinct, and the safety of the Duality House.

  Neutemoc was already running through. Not being as agile or as lithe as my brother, I did my best to follow him. As I passed under the gates, something clawed at my cloak: the cloth tore with a ripping sound, and flapped loose in the wind.

  I didn't turn. I wouldn't see anything. I just ran on. But the next claw-swipe went for my back. A fiery trail opened on the left side of my spine. Numbness spread from the wound, slowing down my rush of panic until I felt nothing at all. Just the wounds, opening one by one, and the strange, pleasant feeling of drifting away… 

  At the edge of my vision, Neutemoc had stopped, wondering why I wasn't following.

  I had to… Grimacing, I forced myself forward. It was like moving through thick honey. I lifted my leg, laid my foot on the ground – once, twice – but neither the gates nor Neutemoc grew closer. 

  More wounds, in my back. Blood, trickling down, a warm, steady flow washed away by the rain. But everything was as it should be: I would be at peace for ever in Tlalocan, and I would have no need to prove myself any more…

  Light blazed across the gates: a radiance so strong it hurt my eyes. For a moment, I hung suspended in time, the numbness burning away like paper crinkling in the fire, before slamming back into my own body.

  Every wound in my back hurt. But it was pain; it was keeping me alive…

  I tottered forward. My feet slid into the mud, and somehow I found myself on one knee, fighting dizziness.

  "Acatl-tzin!"

  Hands steadied me, dragged me upwards. Blinking, I managed to bring Teomitl's face into sharp focus.
  "You…"

  "Later," Teomitl said. He was blazing: Huitzilpochtli's power streamed into the night, a warmth in my bones and on my soaked skin. I'd been wrong: he wasn't Payaxin. He was much tougher than my dead apprentice, much more adapted to survival. "We have to find some shelter."

 

The shelter turned out to be a room in the Duality House, where Mihmatini tended to my wounds with an exasperated sigh. My cloak was ruined; my belt had frayed in the battle, and my knives were gone: the obsidian blessed by Mictlantecuhtli had disintegrated in the rush of the Hummingbird's magic. 

  "Acatl," Mihmatini said, shaking her head.

  Teomitl was leaning against one of the walls, watching me. "Ceyaxochitl thought you might need help getting out of the Jaguar House," he said.

  Imperial help. The words were on my lips, but wouldn't get out. 

  "There," Mihmatini said, tying the last of the bandages into place. "I've put a minor spell of healing on it, but it won't hold if you overexert yourself." She stared curiously at Teomitl. "And thank you for getting him out of trouble."

  Teomitl's smile was radiant. "My pleasure. I am Teomitl." He bowed slightly.

  "Mihmatini. I'm his sister." She rolled her eyes upwards. "And designated healer, obviously. Sometimes, I wonder why I bother. You're a priest, too?"

  "Not exactly," Teomitl said. "I'm training to be a warrior. I hope to be a worthy one."

  Mihmatini smiled at him again. "I'm sure you will." There was an uncomfortable silence.

  No, not quite uncomfortable. I realised, with a shock, that she and Teomitl were both staring at each other with an interest that was obvious, and my presence here was superfluous, except as a chaperone.

  I cleared my throat, startling both of them out of their trance. "We should join Neutemoc."

  He was waiting for us in the next room, seated on a reed mat. Mihmatini hesitated on the doorstep, staring at both of us. Finally she shrugged. "I'll see you afterwards," she said to Teomitl, smiling again.

  Teomitl bowed to her. "I hope so." I shook my head, amused in spite of myself.

  Slaves brought us hot chocolate. I cradled the clay glass in my hand, feeling the warmth dissipate the last of the creatures' numbness.

  Teomitl sat cross-legged between Neutemoc and me, taking on the role of shield without realising it. Neutemoc's hands rested in his lap; clenched into fists. "What is happening, Acatl?" he asked in a tone that clearly implied I should be able to explain everything. 

  "I don't know," I said. Rain was pelting the roof above our heads. But it was more than rain. Each drop that fell down was mingled with magic: a bittersweet tang that I could smell, even from inside. "Tlaloc is coming," I said.

  For revenge. For faith, Commander Quiyahuayo had said.

  A brief tinkle of bells, soon muffled, heralded Yaotl's arrival. He leant against one of the walls, his back digging into the stylised frescoes of fused lovers.

  Beside me, Teomitl was silent for a while, pondering, an uncharacteristically mature expression on his face. "My brother is weak," he said. "And as his health wanes, so does Huitzilpochtli's ability to protect us."

  Neutemoc stared at his glass of chocolate as if it held deep secrets. He said, finally, "I'd much rather believe that you're both mad." 

  Teomitl said nothing.

  "But something is going on. Something unnatural," Neutemoc went on. He looked at me. Despite his grievance towards me, still believing that I could set right anything magical.

  "Tlaloc," I said. "His child – the one he and the Quetzal Flower fashioned, the one Eleuia bore within her womb – the tool for His coup. But we're not strong enough to find him. Ceyaxochitl…" 

  She was the agent of the Duality in the Fifth World. She would have some powers, constrained by her human nature, but hopefully still enough to do some damage.

  Yaotl spoke up. "She's at the palace. I don't know about what you're saying. But Mistress Ceyaxochitl agrees with you: this isn't normal rain."

  She was the Guardian for the Sacred Precinct. How could she be away when such a thing happened? "She has to know–" I started. 

  Yaotl shook his head. "She felt it, Acatl. But she has to remain where she is."

  "Why?" I asked, at the same moment as Neutemoc said, "The Emperor."

  Of course. The ailing Emperor: the last remnants of the Southern Hummingbird's power, our last defence against Tlaloc. If he died, nothing would protect us.

  From what? Would one god replacing another really be that disastrous? After all, Huitzilpochtli had done nothing in particular for me or mine. I thought of the creatures, mindlessly gorging on power, and of Jaguar Knights lying dead in their own Houses. The Storm Lord's rule would not be gentle.

  Teomitl was watching me, his gaze disturbingly shrewd. "The Southern Hummingbird protects us. Tlaloc is one of the Old Ones. He brings drought and floods on a whim."

  "He brings famine," I said, remembering how Eleuia had suffered during the Great Famine.

  Teomitl said, "Do you want to gamble everything on the Storm Lord's gentleness?"

  On a god's… humanity? "No," I said. "I would rather keep the old order." To gods and goddesses such as Xochiquetzal, we'd always be toys: easily subjugated, easily broken. "But we're still nothing compared to His powers. And you forget: we don't know where the child is."

  Obviously not at the palace, or the panic would be stronger than that. Commander Quiyahuayo and the Jaguar Knights had known. But they were dead now, all of them.

  "How long do you think we have?" Neutemoc asked.

  I stifled a bitter laugh. Who could tell what went on in the mind of a god?

  Yaotl detached himself from the wall. His scarred face was thoughtful. "Still some time, I'd say. If everything had been ready–" 

  "Yes," I said. If everything had been ready, and the attack launched on the Imperial Palace, there would have been no need to kill the Jaguar Knights. If the creatures had done so, it was because Commander Quiyahuayo still posed a danger to them. Because the child was still vulnerable.