Step after step, agonising breath after agonising breath, fire in my lungs, rising up to fill my brain, confused images, of seven caves gouged into the hillside, torn open by some giant beast, of fountains where herons bathed in a blur of white, of an old woman in rags, sweeping the threshold of her house and watching us pass by with bitter satisfaction in her eyes, and then the scene shifted, and her face was that of a skull, her hands were claws, and the broom she held was made of human femurs, bound together with thread as red as blood.
Up, and the seven caves faded away, and small shrines appeared by the hillside, mounds of earth with pyramids on them, shimmering with light, their staircases dripping with blood even though the altars were empty…
Up, and a flock of herons took flight, cawing harshly, shedding white feathers as they went, and then skin, and then blood-red muscles, until only their skeletons remained, and darkness in the hollow of their eyes…
There was a sound on the edge of my hearing like the buzzing of flies on a corpse, the grating of bones. After a while, I realised it was my name, coming from infinitely far away, but it didn’t matter, not anymore…
That sound again, and everything scattering, fading into darkness.
”Acatl!”
I lay on something hard, and my cheek hurt. I moved, my hand coming to rest against my skin, it felt like stretched paper, nothing living anymore. “Quenami?”
He still had his hand up, braced for a further strike against me, and Acamapichtli was lying prone at his feet. His eyes were open, his mouth working around words I couldn’t recognise. Raising my gaze, I saw that we were on a stone platform with a simple altar, encrusted with so much blood the stone seemed to have turned red. “How–”
”I dragged you here.” He sounded exasperated. “That’s not the point.”
”Then what is?”
And then I saw Her. Itzpapalotl stood waiting for us at the entrance of the shrine – casual, relaxed, Her claws flexed, Her obsidian wings in repose. And behind Her…
He was tall, impossibly so, with the body of a youth, tanned skin and raised muscles, and a face streaked with deep cobalt blue, coming up so high it seemed to merge with the sun in the sky. In His left hand was a huge snake, and, every time it writhed, flames flared up, licking its scales; in His right hand was a
macuahitl
sword decorated with paper banners, the same ones carried by warriors during the annual sacrifices, and the feather headdress that stretched behind him was a circle of yellow feathers, pale and blinding.
I flattened myself against the ground in the lowest form of obeisance, ignoring the dizziness that flared up again in me. The floor was blessedly cool, a steadying influence. I didn’t have to move after all, just to focus on speaking out. Beside me, Quenami abased himself as well. Acamapichtli attempted to move, but fell back with a groan.
”Priests,” Itzpapalotl’s hollow voice said. “You have come in the presence of the Lord of Men, the Southern Hummingbird, the Slayer of the Four Hundred, He who makes the sun rise, He who follows the path of war. What do you have to say for yourselves?”
There was silence, for a while. We slowly raised ourselves up, remaining on our knees, our gazes turned away from Huitzilpochtli. One did not meet the eye of a Revered Speaker, much less that of the god who had invested him in the first place.
”My lord,” Quenami’s voice quivered at first, but then he appeared to gain confidence, stretching himself up as if he still had all his finery. “We have come for the body of our Revered Speaker, that we might not find ourselves cast in darkness with the star-demons.”
I recognised the tone and cadence of a ritual, and fell in step with him. “We have come for the body of our Revered Speaker, that it might be restored to its rightful place on the sacred mat.”
Acamapichtli coughed. When he spoke, his voice was so low I had to strain to hear it. “We have come… for the body of our Revered Speaker… that it might…” He stumbled there, closed his eyes and went on, a grimace of pain stretched across his features. “… that it might wear the Turquoise-and-Gold Crown… and lead us all to glory…”
He fell silent. I heard nothing but our own breaths, smelled our fear. By coming into a god’s land, we had placed ourselves at His whim. Nothing prevented Him from killing us with a thought.
The air grew warmer, and tighter. Already in a weakened state, it was all I could do to breathe. “I took your Revered Speaker’s life,” Huitzilpochtli said, “and I had ample justification for it. Why should I restore him to you?”
”My lord,” Quenami said, “are we not your people? Long, long ago, you made us emerge from the caves in this hill, you led us to Tenochtitlan, to await with our bellies, with our heads, with our arrows, with our shields. You led us to found a city of battle, where the eagle flies and the serpent is torn apart.”
”I did.” The god’s voice was pensive, but I could still feel His anger. “And look what you became. Look at you, priest, and all your frivolous finery. Look at the luxuries you take for yourself, and look at what you’d do to keep them.”
Quenami fell back as if he’d been slapped in the face. He might have been, too. The anger of a god in His own territory would be strong. “Will you judge us on my character alone, then?”
Huitzilpochtli made a sound like drums beating a charge. It was only after a while that I realised it was laughter with nothing of joy, but merely cruel amusement. “Of course not. It’s the Revered Speaker we are judging here, are we not? That poor, pathetic wreck of a man with no taste for war, who dares to imagine himself wearing the Turquoise-and-Gold Crown? Who thinks he can buy My favour to get it?”
The air was that before a storm, quiet and breathless, as if the whole Fifth World hung suspended. Quenami swallowed audibly. “My lord, Tizoc-tzin seeks only Your blessing, as is proper. He would not have dared to ascend to the Revered Speaker’s mat without Your approval.”
”Of course he wouldn’t.” Huitzilpochtli’s voice was dark, thoughtful. “I made the Empire, from its earliest days to the bloated monstrosity you have become. You would do well to remember that. And your master, too, that pathetic, gutless man unproved on the battlefield.”
”Tizoc-tzin knows the value of war–”
”Your master sees war as a tool,” Huitzilpochtli snapped. “As something that he can use to rise in power and to increase his prestige. He understands nothing. War is the gift I gave you, priest. War is the struggle of life and death, and the shedding of blood to keep the Fifth Sun in the sky, and Grandmother Earth satiated. War is everything.”
Of course He would say that. Of course He would think that. It was His nature, nothing more, nothing less. That was what Quenami couldn’t understand.
”I assure you,” Quenami said, in a calm and measured tone. How could he speak thus, in the face of this? “Tizoc-tzin knows the value of war, and the debt and service we owe You. We all do.”
”Do you? Will you show me, then?” Huitzilpochtli’s voice was cruel. “You who pretend yourself my High Priest, you who speak for all men, will you show me that you are a warrior?”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Itzpapalotl’s wings open, with a snick-snick sound like dozens of obsidian knives unsheathed at the same time.
Oh no.
Quenami said, flustered, “My lord…”
”Acatl…” Acamapichtli was pulling at my cloak, weakly but insistently. He was lying on the ground, but his face, cut and bruised, was turned towards me, as pale as muddy milk, his eyes sunk into hollows deeper than the way into Mictlan. “The fool’s going to do it.”
”It?” I asked, as stupidly as Quenami.
He shook his head, with a shadow of his old impatience. “The last time Quenami fought in earnest was boys at the
calmecac
school, when he was a student. Look at him. Do you really think he can win anything?”
”But why?” I asked.
Acamapichtli smiled again, that mirthless expression I hated. “Why not? Because he does care, in the end? If it makes you happier, consider he’s found the only way he can turn things to his gain.”
I couldn’t imagine why that should make me happier. “And what do you expect me to do about it?”
His eyes were on me, mocking, as cruelly amused as those of the god. I’d forgotten that he was my enemy, that he had almost seen my brother condemned to death, that he had intrigued for his own benefit, that he despised Teomitl and would be glad to see him gone. “I don’t–”
He grunted, shifted, and slid something towards me on the blood-stained stone of the platform: a single obsidian knife still in its sheath. I felt nothing of magic within it, not the touch of the Storm Lord, not even a minor spell to keep the blade sharp. It was as mundane as they came, the kind of knife used to extract the heart from a sacrifice’s chest, polished to a cutting edge, but as brittle as fired clay. Carefully, I reached out for it. My hand closed around it, and the jolt of power from Mictlan I expected didn’t climb up my arm. It felt wrong.
I looked at Quenami again, who stood with his face unreadable, his hands clenched, and an expression I knew all too well – that of a man on a chasm, about to take the plunge.
I would have loved to see him brought down and defeated; but, if that happened, we’d have failed. “My Lord,” I said, rising, carefully, with the knife in my hand. The world spun for a bare moment, settled back into the bloodied limestone and the grey sky overhead. “I will take his place.”
I wasn’t looking at Him, but I felt the moment His attention shifted from Quenami to me, a vast movement in the air, with the hissing crackle of flames as He hefted the fire-snake in His hand. “You, priest?” Laughter, like thunder overhead. “The least among them, and you fancy yourself a warrior?”
Least among them – I could see where Quenami had got his ideas about me. I swallowed the wave of bitterness that flooded me. Now was not the time.
In answer I lifted the knife. “If the least among us is a warrior, doesn’t it prove our worth?”
There was silence for a while, that before a lightning-strike. The fire-snake hissed, as if climbing along wood, charring bones and flesh on a funeral pyre. At length, Huitzilpochtli spoke. “It might, at that.” He sounded a little calmer, but the cruel amusement was still there, the inhuman pleasure He’d take from seeing us fail. He had resolved to withdraw from us; it wasn’t something that could be changed in an instant. “Very well. Prove your worth, and I’ll give your Revered Speaker back to you.”
Itzpapalotl moved, impossibly swift, to come before me, on the same side of the altar. “Priest,” She said. She raised Her hands, unfolding Her claws one by one. They glinted in the sunlight of the heartland, drinking it in as they’d drink blood.
In answer, I raised my own, pathetic knife, a knife that wasn’t magic, that didn’t have even the meagre powers of Lord Death, that couldn’t protect me from the corrosion of the heartland.
If my brother Neutemoc could see me like this, he’d appreciate the irony – that I, the failed brother, the shameful priest, should be the one to fight Her.
From afar came a blast of conch-shells, and a slow beating of drums, and a din, like a thousand voices shouting the names of a thousand different cities at the same time. The air wavered, and the battle was joined.
She was upon me almost before I could move. One wing brushed against my arm, opening up a flower of pain, and I was on my knees, one hand scrabbling to stem the flow of blood. Then She was gone, watching me from afar.
”Pathetic,” She whispered. “Is that the best among you?”
”You should know,” I said through clenched teeth, fighting the darkness that quivered at the edge of my vision. “You took one, and incapacitated the other.”
She laughed. “All is fair in war, as you should know.”
No, I didn’t. I didn’t know the rules of the battlefield or even of the training-ground. My world had been the
calmecac
school, the penances and the night-runs to watch the stars in the sky, in another lifetime where the stars were pinpoints of light faraway, unable to harm us.
She moved fast, far too fast for me to outrace Her, especially in my current state. My only hope was to be ready for Her when She came. I hefted the knife carefully, watched Her, the way Her wings spread around and behind Her, larger than those of a bird, with obsidian knives hanging from their thin bones like obscene fruit…
The wings merged into Her desiccated shoulders almost seamlessly; but there had to be some junction, some point of weakness I could exploit.
She was upon me again, the breath of Her passage the only warning I got, about an eye blink before Her wings slashed me again. This time, instead of trying to remain standing, I threw myself to the floor, and rolled under the thin shape of Her legs.
There.
A small bump, where the obsidian blades sank back into the bones, a raised area of yellowed flesh, as taut as the paper of a codex.
She was gone again, watching me, toying with me like a jaguar with its prey. “I’ve fought worthier opponents.”
”Teomitl?” I asked. “What have you done with him?”
”Taken my sacrifice, what else?”
A fist of ice closed over my heart. But no, I couldn’t afford it, not any more weakness, not any more ways for Her to reach me. “He’s alive, isn’t he?”
She didn’t deign to answer me. But this time I caught the slight shift of Her skirts which announced Her move, the muffled rattle of seashells that heralded Her, as it did all star-demons.
When She came upon me, I was already down, and rising to meet Her, my knife blade sinking into the flesh of Her back.
She shrieked, raising Her hands to the sky, her cry steadily rising in intensity until I thought my ears were going to burst. When She turned back towards me, Her pupils had become vertical slits, Her eyes windows into chasms.
”So… not so foolish after all, priest.” So… not so foolish after all, priest.” Her smile was wide, cutting – the obsidian blade of her tongue shone in the light.
Her next attack knocked me on the floor. The knife, torn from my hand by Her left wing, skittered on the floor. As if in some distant nightmare I watched it totter over the edge of the platform and fall down with the inevitability of a heartbeat. I tore myself from Her embrace pain blossomed on my arms and chest as Her knives sliced against my flesh.