“Well, that was fun,” the Smoking Mirror said. The armour’s mask was a perfect, gleaming replica of the face beneath it. “I was dying to take my walking tank out for a test drive. I’m just amazed I got this far with it. Do you hear me, Quetzalcoatl? Almost at your doorstep before you managed to take me down. Sloppy. I expected more from you.”
Tzitzimitl gave one of her shrill whistles. Her pack of Tzitzimime, as one, broke off from attacking Serpent Warriors and loped towards Tezcatlipoca.
The Smoking Mirror allowed them to get close, then raised an imperious hand and engulfed almost the entire pack in a sizzling, coruscating blast of energy that came straight from his palm. Most of the demon dogs were cremated on the spot, to Tzitzimitl’s howling dismay, but a few dodged the attack and raced on. They jumped up onto the sprawled machine and pounced on Tezcatlipoca. He swiped several aside, then grabbed one by the hindleg and swung the creature like a club, using it to bludgeon the others. Savage snarls turned to yelps of pain and terror. Tzitzimitl sobbed and tore at her hair as her beloved monsters were methodically beaten to a pulp. Soon none was left alive, and a blood-spattered Tezcatlipoca stood with a mangled Tzitzimime in his hand and a dozen more shattered corpses at his feet.
Now it was Azcatl’s turn, but his scorpion-wasps didn’t fare any better. They couldn’t penetrate Tezcatlipoca’s armour, or even gain purchase on its smooth contours. Azcatl guided them to attack again and again, moving his hands like an orchestra conductor, manipulating the swarm remotely, shaping their actions. Tezcatlipoca just stood there and laughed.
“Is that the best you can do, Red Ant?” he sneered. “Your trouble is, you think too small-scale. I, on the other hand – I imagine bigger. Always have. And that is why I rule a planet, while you rule
insects
.”
A sphere of brilliance exploded outward around him. It came and went in a dazzling instant, and when it was gone, none of the scorpion-wasps remained. They had all been obliterated, literally in a flash.
“No!” Azcatl cried.
At that moment, Quetzalcoatl took radical action. A score of Serpent Warriors surrounded him on all sides, subjecting his forcefield to a 360º point-blank assault with their l-guns. Quetzalcoatl switched off the forcefield, and shot upwards at the same time.
The Serpents blasted one another, while Quetzalcoatl soared free...
...and plummeted straight down onto Tezcatlipoca like a living missile, hitting him feet-first.
The two brothers slammed together into the giant armour beneath them. They rose as one, grappling hand to hand. Quetzalcoatl’s features showed nothing but implacable determination. “This ends now, Tez,” he said through clenched teeth.
Tezcatlipoca’s mask reflected Quetzalcoatl’s face back at him, dark and distorted. “Long past time,” he replied.
“How did you even find us?”
“It was easier than you think. Coyolxauhqui. She gave me the co-ordinates of your little hidey-hole.”
“Not willingly, I’ll bet.”
“Not at all. She took some persuading. It was the promise of an end to her pain that finally broke her. And an end did come.”
“Bastard!” Quetzalcoatl roared.
They took off, still locked in a mutual death grip. Smoke swirled in vortices as they ascended. Xolotl ran in circles, howling in distress as his master rose out of sight.
Stuart didn’t know if his armour was still fully functioning. He raised his head and lifted off unsteadily. The armour felt sluggish, but it was working.
“Stuart!”
“I have to follow them, Mal. This is the endgame. I have to see how it plays out.”
“But all these Serpents still left...”
“The gods can handle them.”
It was true. Tzitzimitl and Azcatl had no more mutant creatures on hand to deploy, and Nanahuatzin’s disease-giving abilities were of limited use, but Mictlantecuhtli and Itzpapalotl were both back on their feet. The two of them could mop up the Serpents, no trouble.
Mal went after Stuart. She couldn’t deny it: she too had to find out how this was all going to end. She told herself she and Stuart might be of help to the Plumed Serpent, but knew it was unlikely. She was motivated by sheer curiosity, nothing more.
Above the canopy, they spotted Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca racing westward. The Smoking Mirror had broken free from his brother’s clutches and was streaking away at astounding speed. The Plumed Serpent was in hot pursuit. It wasn’t hard to guess where Tezcatlipoca was headed. Only one thing lay in that direction: Tenochtitlan.
E
VEN IN PRIME
condition, Serpent armour was no match for the gods’. Stuart and Mal lost sight of Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca before reaching Lake Texcoco, and arrived at the island city several minutes after did. They searched all over, scanning the ruined towers and fire-gutted ziggurats. Eventually Mal spied a group of people – engineers in overalls – fleeing across a plaza in a panic. It wasn’t hard to guess what they running from, and where.
The city’s fusion plant sported a fresh, gaping hole in its roof. The building resounded to tumultuous bangs and crashes, as though boulders were being tossed about within. Stuart and Mal made a careful descent into its interior.
The plant’s main chamber was strewn with rubble. Walls, floors and support columns all bore man-size craters. Steam hissed from fissures in the massive ducts leading from the turbines.
Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca rampaged to and fro. Every now and then they strayed close to the confinement unit, a huge, electromagnet-studded steel torus which contained the fusion plasma and kept it at the density necessary for a chain reaction to be effective. The two gods had eyes for nothing but each other. They battled with the passionate hatred that only close kin could feel. Every blow that landed was struck from the heart. Weapons had been set aside for the time being: this needed to be physical, the direct, personal infliction of pain. Centuries of estrangement and pent-up resentment were spewing out in a flood of rage. Neither of them would stop – or be content – until the other was dead by his hand.
Who was winning? It was hard to tell. They seemed evenly matched. Tezcatlipoca was the stronger, to judge by how he threw his brother around, hoisting him off the floor as though he was a foam-stuffed dummy and hurling him with ease. Quetzalcoatl, however, had speed on his side. Repeatedly he got inside Tezcatlipoca’s defences to deliver a punishing series of jabs and hooks, until Tezcatlipoca was able to push him off with a powerful counterattack.
Mal, as she hovered beside Stuart, looking down on the conflict, was conscious of being a witness to something unique and epochal. The air around the two gods seemed alive with energy, as though their rivalry was charging the atmosphere like a thunderstorm. They were superhumans trying to tear each other apart, in a world where, to them, everything was made of tinfoil and paper. Effortlessly, Tezcatlipoca sent Quetzalcoatl sailing through a plate glass partition. Equally effortlessly, Quetzalcoatl wrenched a control console off the floor and brought it crashing down on Tezcatlipoca’s head.
“We’re helpless,” she said.
“Even if we weren’t, we can’t get involved,” Stuart said. “This is their fight. They have to settle it their way.”
“I hate feeling so useless.”
“I’d suggest prayer... only it’s them we’re supposed to pray to.”
Tezcatlipoca locked his fingers around Quetzalcoatl’s neck. The Plumed Serpent broke the grip, slamming Tezcatlipoca’s arms outwards, and sent his brother reeling with a headbutt so hard that it partially shattered the silvery mask. He pressed home the advantage by shoving him hard against the confinement unit.
A ragged sliver of Tezcatlipoca’s face was now exposed. He glared up at Quetzalcoatl, hatred blazing in his visible eye. Quetzalcoatl punched him repeatedly, relentlessly. Blood spurted from Tezcatlipoca’s nose. The mask crumbled away in fragments until there was none of it left, just a jagged hole in the front of Tezcatlipoca’s helmet. The Smoking Mirror flailed at his brother, trying to ward him off, but Quetzalcoatl kept up the attack, seeming to sense that this was it, the decisive moment.
“Please...” Tezcatlipoca mumbled.
Quetzalcoatl halted.
“P-please, brother. Enough.”
“You submit?”
Tezcatlipoca nodded weakly.
Quetzalcoatl backed off.
Tezcatlipoca grinned. “Gullible as ever, Kay.”
Light burst out of him. Quetzalcoatl staggered backwards, stunned.
“You had me on the ropes,” Tezcatlipoca said, straightening. “Yet you couldn’t bring yourself to do what had to be done – finish me off. A conscience like yours hamstrings you.”
With a roar, Quetzalcoatl threw himself at him. Again, Tezcatlipoca collided with the confinement unit, this time with such force that its outer shell ruptured.
An alarm sounded. A recorded voice announced, “Torus breached. Torus breached. Plant will go into automatic shutdown.”
Mal turned to Stuart. “I don’t know about you, but I’m getting the hell out of here.”
“What for?” he replied. “There’s no danger to us. The fusion reaction dies down as soon as the power to the magnets is turned off. There may be a plasma escape, but while we’re hovering up here, we’re not near enough for that to matter. The only people liable to get burned are those two.”
Quetzalcoatl bore down on Tezcatlipoca, one forearm to his windpipe. “I
can
kill you,” he growled, “and I will. You’re nothing but scum. Our mother should have strangled you at birth.”
“You keep blaming me for your own failings, Kay,” Tezcatlipoca said, choking the words out. “Accept some responsibility for once in your life.”
“I blame you for everything. I’m innocent.”
“Kill me then, if it’ll make you feel better about yourself. But know this. If I die, so does this world and everyone on it.”
“What?”
“Yes. All these humans you’re so fond of. All gone.”
“You’re lying.”
“Am I? Don’t you think I didn’t anticipate that a moment like this might come? I’ve installed a failsafe system in this armour. If it stops detecting any life signs, it initiates a countdown. A signal is sent out worldwide to every fusion plant on every active volcano.”
“This is nonsense.”
“The fusion plants go into overdrive, forcing massive eruptions. Earth’s volcanoes, all fifteen hundred of them, explode simultaneously. Fault lines shatter. Tectonic plates are split asunder. An entire planet rips itself to pieces.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“The infrastructure is in place. If I can’t have this world, then neither can you.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Quetzalcoatl. “When has anything that’s come out of your mouth ever been true?”
“I’m telling the truth now. I know how precious this world is to you, the high hopes you have for its inhabitants. You wouldn’t risk their lives just to take mine, would you?”
“Try me.”
“Then go ahead. Do it.”
The confinement unit juddered beneath Tezcatlipoca’s back. Tongues of translucent orange flame licked out from the fissure near his head.
“You can’t win, Kay,” said the Smoking Mirror hoarsely. “Kill me, you lose. Don’t kill me, you also lose. I’ve outwitted you again, brother. You may be the noble one, but I’m the smart one. Brains beat good intentions every time.”
Quetzalcoatl bent further over his brother, pinning him down harder.
Stuart swooped down to his side. “Don’t,” he said. “Can’t you see it’s what he wants? He’s goading you. Don’t play into his hands.”
The Plumed Serpent didn’t look round. “Stay out of this, Reston.”
“I can’t. I believe him, even if you don’t. As the Great Speaker, he had control over volcanoes. He must have known all along that he might need a backup plan, something that would be sure to deter you. This is it.”
“Heed your human mascot, Kay,” said Tezcatlipoca. “He’s wise.”
“Leave him be, Quetzalcoatl,” Stuart urged. “There must be some other way of resolving this.”
“This is not your concern!” Quetzalcoatl bellowed, and with an almost casual flick of his arm, he swatted Stuart aside. Stuart struck a wall, and his chest filled with fire. It felt as though more than one rib was broken now. It hurt simply to breathe.
Mal came down and squatted beside him.
“We have to stop him,” Stuart told her.
“Great idea. How?”
There wasn’t a
how
. The fate of the world now hung on a god’s whim. It was all down to Quetzalcoatl.
“These are my terms,” said Tezcatlipoca. “Let me go free. Return to Tamoanchan, you and the others. Never return here again. Accede this world fully to me. It’s no longer your project. It hasn’t been for half a millennium. It’s mine.”
“No.”
“I understand humans far better than you do. They’re not worth your time. They don’t deserve to be exalted, only ruled and managed. Look at those two over there. A killer and a slave. And they’re about the best of the lot.”
“Humans are admirable. As a race. As a whole.”
“Stop deluding yourself.”
“Stop trying to delude me.”
“I’m being honest. Perhaps it’s time you started being honest with yourself.”
“I’m not listening to you. I listened to you before, and...”
“Yes, that turned out well, didn’t it?”
“Be quiet!” Quetzalcoatl snapped.
“You and Quetzalpetatl...”
“I said be quiet!”
“Sisterfucker,” Tezcatlipoca spat.
Quetzalcoatl hauled Tezcatlipoca sideways, so that his head was over the breach in the confinement unit.
Fire lashed out in flickering lambent arcs, touching Tezcatlipoca’s face.
Tezcatlipoca screamed.
So did Mal, in protest. So did Stuart.
Quetzalcoatl held his brother’s face to the scorching curls of plasma. He closed his eyes tight. Tezcatlipoca shook and shuddered, bucked and squirmed. Skin blackened and peeled. Flesh melted. Smoke coiled upwards. Soon bone showed through.
Quetzalcoatl let go only when his brother’s body fell still. He dropped Tezcatlipoca to the floor and heaved a deep, trembling sigh. He stood staring at the faceless corpse for several moments.