Obsidian & Blood

ELEVEN

The Obsidian Butterfly

I must have slept again. The priest's healing spell was more effective than bandages, but still no miracle. I woke to the bright light of early morning. A whole day had elapsed, lost to my healing.

Teomitl was nowhere to be seen; not surprising, given my student's inability to sit still at the best of times.

Mihmatini lay curled up in sleep behind me, looking oddly young and innocent – she who was eighteen, almost too old to be married and have children of her own already. I revised my opinion of Teomitl's disappearance. I wouldn't have been surprised if he had slept elsewhere, rather than cast a slur on my sister's virginity.

Good.

Everything ached, from the ribs in my chest to the stiffness in my legs, and I felt even more empty than before, as if hope and joy had drained out of me into the hole in the Fifth World.

I got up. My head didn't spin, a vast improvement over my previous awakening, and I could stand steadily on my legs. Slowly, carefully, I dressed again into something suitable for the High Priest for the Dead, and went back to the Revered Speaker's room.

The room was subdued, the few priests for the dead left were renewing the blood around the quincunx with their own, making sure that nothing untoward could follow the Revered Speaker into the underworld. Palli himself was sitting cross-legged at the centre of the quincunx, watching a silver plate which depicted the progress of the soul through the nine levels of Mictlan. From time to time, his lips would move around an incantation, and he would nod. Everything appeared under control.

I leaned against a wall, watching them, the familiar chants and litanies washing over me, reassuring and unchanged. For all the chaos and the uncertainty, death remained constant, always by our side, something to be relied on no matter what else might transpire.

A refuge, a goddess had once told me accusingly. I'd flinched at the time, but now I knew that she was right, and that it was nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone had a refuge: some in pomp, some in family. Mine was a temple and chants and bodies, and the god that was everywhere in the Fifth World, underlying even the most boisterous songs, the most vivid flowers.

At last, there came a pause in the rituals. Palli looked up, and his eyes met mine. He gestured to another of the priests, and motioned him to take his place at the centre. Then, carefully, he stepped out of the quincunx and walked towards me. "Acatl-tzin."

"Tell me what's going on," I said.

"Revered Speaker Axayacatl-tzin is on the third level," Palli said. "Nothing unexpected so far."

The third level was the Obsidian Hills, still a relatively friendly place by underworld standards. If something bad happened, it would be on the deeper levels, where the beasts and creatures of the underworld prowled. "And the search?" I asked.

Palli grimaced. "For the place of the star-demon summoning? I put all the priests the order could spare into this. So far, no one has reported anything useful."

I suppressed a curse. A full dozen priests searching the palace, I knew the place was huge, but they had the help of spells, and surely one of them would have found something useful by now. "I see. Send to me the moment they find something."

Palli nodded. He hesitated, then said, "Acatl-tzin, one more thing. You remember the tar you noticed on the floor?"

I had to cast my mind back a day and night, to the ritual in which I'd spoken to Axayacatl-tzin. It seemed a lifetime ago. "Yes," I said. "It seemed odd, but…"

Palli's face was pale. "I did think it was familiar," he said. "Someone died in this room."

"The Revered Speaker," I said, carefully, without irony.

"It's an older death. A… sacrifice."

In the Revered Speaker's private rooms… Not in a temple, not on an altar?

"An older death," I said, slowly. "A powerful one, then, if you can still detect it." I thought, uneasily, of the missing councilman both Manatzpa and Echichilli had been angry about, the one that seemed to have vanished from the records and from the palace. What had been his name again?

Pezotic.

"Yes," Palli said. "A powerful death." His lips twisted. "I'm not sure, Acatl-tzin, but something is wrong about this."

"What?"

"Too much power," Palli said.

I bit my lips. There were ways and means of amplifying the power received from a human sacrifice, but almost all of the ones I could think of required a High Priest's initiation. "Can you look into this?"

Palli grimaced. "I can try," he said.

A full human sacrifice. An old, powerful death. Something was going on in this palace. Something… untoward. Even before the Revered Speaker's death, then. But he'd died of natural causes; we were sure of that, at least.

Then what was happening? Some ritual to undermine the Empire at its core? "Do you know what they used the magic for?"

Palli shook his head. "Something very large."

"But not the summoning of a star-demon." If that had been the case, he'd have told me long beforehand.

"No. The magic's wrong for that," Palli said. "It feels beseeching. Desperate."

"Hmm," I said, thoughtfully. I didn't like this; I couldn't see how it fitted in with anything – with Manatzpa, with Ceyaxochitl's death – but it didn't augur anything good. I added it to my questions for Manatzpa, once I managed to see him.

I finished with Palli, and wrote a message to Ichtaca, asking him to send someone to the Duality House in order to prepare the funeral rites for Ceyaxochitl.

Then, still weak and trembling, I went to see the She-Snake, the only person who might have an idea of what was going on in the palace.

I'd expected to have much further to go, but I found him in the council room, sitting on the reed mat at the centre, eating a meal. As he ate he listened to a report from one of his black-clad guards. His round face was grave.

"Acatl?"

I didn't feel in the mood for apologies or pomp, but I did gingerly bow.

"Glad to see you recovered," the She-Snake said. He dipped his chin, and the guard moved away slightly. I was left with the full weight of his gaze on me. It was peculiar, he was soft, and middleaged, and I would have expected him to be drab. But the gaze, piercing and shrewd, gave him away.

"I, er, understood you visited me," I said.

"Indeed." His voice was grave. "Had I known about Manatzpa, I might have done more than visit. But no matter. It is done now."

I waited, but nothing more seemed to be forthcoming. "I need your help," I said.

"My help?" He sounded mildly amused.

"You keep the order in the palace. Don't tell me this situation makes you happy."

His lips thinned to a muddy line, but his expression didn't change. "I expected trouble when Axayacatl-tzin died. I'm not surprised."

I doubted much would ever surprise him. "But you want the attacks to cease?" I pressed. I remembered, uneasily, what Axayacatl-tzin had told me about the She-Snake's unorthodox manner of worship. But even if it was true, he would want to be seen maintaining order.

"I see. What did you have in mind?"

"I want men."

"They are in short supply."

"Look," I said. "Those star-demons, they're being summoned here, inside the palace wards. Someone, somewhere, has converted a room for the purpose."

He was quick to seize my meaning. "And it's a large palace."

"I've had my priests search it, but we're not enough."

"Surely, you would need magical training to find such a spot."

I shook my head. "It's going to be large, and bloody, and definitely not discreet." Not given the amount of power that had been expanded to call so many star-demons down into the world in such a short time.

"I see." The She-Snake pressed both hands together, thoughtfully. "I see." At length, he looked up, and fixed me again with his gaze. "I'll send the men I can spare. Was there anything else?"

"Do you know where the other high priests are?"

That same mirthless smile quirked up the corner of his mouth. "Quenami is with Tizoc-tzin. Acamapichtli… I fancy we won't see much of Acamapichtli in the days to come."

"I don't understand."

"Oh, come, Acatl." His gaze was pitying. "He threw his weight behind the Texcocan princess. Gambled it all, and lost it all." "He's…" I started, and stopped. Nothing short of death or treason could remove a High Priest from his post.

"He's in disgrace, if that's what you mean. Not that he wasn't before, mind you."

The whole business with the Storm Lord trying to take over the Fifth World. Acamapichtli seemed to have a singular gift for backing the wrong person or god.

I'd have pitied him, if he hadn't been the man who'd tried to condemn my brother to death. "If we were to arrest all the men who backed the wrong person in this struggle, the palace would empty itself fast," the She-Snake said. He still sounded amused, as if he secretly relished the chaos.

I didn't trust him. I couldn't.

"Arresting the waverers might give people a reason to stop playing," I said darkly, and took my leave from him.

• • • •

I made my way back to Teomitl's room, where I found Mihmatini still sleeping. Thank the Duality; if she'd woken up and found me gone, I might not have survived her sarcastic remarks.

I looked up at the sun. It was almost noon, and I'd eaten nothing all day. I managed to find a servant in one of the adjoining courtyards, and sent him to the kitchens for a meal.

While I waited for his return, I mulled on what Palli had told me.

A death – a powerful one – and star-demons. Perhaps a last entreaty against chaos, made by a desperate man? But why tar, and why the Revered Speaker's rooms? There was a place for rituals like this, in the Great Temple, the religious heart of the city. Why there, unless it was something specifically connected to the Imperial family?

The bells on the entrance-curtain tinkled. "Come in," I said, keeping my voice as steady as I could.

It was Yaotl, still garbed in his warrior's costume. He looked worse than before. The blue paint did not mask the dark circles under his eyes, or the paleness of his face. He cast a distant glance in Mihmatini's direction, but made no comment. "I heard you got into more trouble," he said.

I said nothing. There was nothing I could say. In the light, his eyes were huge, a reservoir of grief that spilled over into the Fifth World.

"She died just after dawn." Yaotl did not bother to sit. I thought he didn't want to remember that he was my social inferior; not now, not when his whole world seemed to come undone around him.

"I felt it," I said. I hesitated. I knew all the words, all the empty things one could say when Lord Death has taken his due. They meant nothing save comfort to the living. But Yaotl served the Duality, and he would know that death was part of the eternal balance, that destruction and creation were entwined like lovers, making and annihilating the world in an endless dance. "I can't believe she's gone," I said, settling for the truth.

Yaotl's lips thinned to a line. "Me neither. I keep expecting her to rise from her funeral mat and take charge." His gaze wandered again. "I hear you arrested the poisoner?"

"I think so," I said, cautiously.

"It's all over the palace." Yaotl's voice was grim.

"And Xahuia?" He didn't look as though he had caught her, but one never knew.

"Gone to ground, too well hidden."

I nodded. "Even if she wasn't guilty, I don't think her activities were entirely lawful."

Yaotl barked a short, unamused laugh. "Resisting arrest alone would have been enough. We found the paraphernalia of sorcery in her private rooms: mummified animals, dried women's hands, arms preserved in salt baths…"

"The Smoking Mirror?" I asked, thinking again of Nettoni's touch on my skin.

"Yes," Yaotl said. "But nothing tied to the summoning of stardemons."

"I think that was Manatzpa," I said, feeling less and less convinced the more I thought about it. "You need to find her."

"I'm looking for her." Yaotl could barely hide his exasperation. "It's a big city, as you no doubt know."

I suddenly realised how we looked – two men meant to be allies, tearing at each other, no better or no worse than the rest of the Court. "Forgive me," I said. "It's been a long couple of days."

"For both of us." Yaotl smiled, a pale shadow of the terrible, mocking expressions he'd throw at me. There was no joy in it whatsoever.

Then again, I guessed I didn't look much better.

The heavy silence was broken by the jarring sound of bells struck together. Teomitl had lifted the entrance-curtain with his usual forcefulness, and was striding back into the room. He was followed by the servant I'd sent for a meal, who appeared much less eager.

"Acatl-tzin," Teomitl said.

I rose, gingerly, leaning on the wall for support. "I take it you were able to speak to him."

Behind him, the servant moved, to lay his tray of food on one of the reed mats. He bowed, and was gone.

Teomitl barely noticed any of this. "I spoke to Manatzpa, yes." He looked a fraction less assured, a fraction less angry. The arrogance I'd seen over the past few days had almost faded away, leaving only the impatient adolescent, as if whatever Manatzpa had told him had shattered Tizoc-tzin's influence.

"And?" Yaotl asked, shaking his head impatiently. "Did he confess?"

Teomitl looked at him blankly.

"The murder of Guardian Ceyaxochitl," I prompted him.

"Oh." He did not look more enlightened. "We didn't talk about that."

"Then what about?" Yaotl was fuming by now.

"About the star-demons." Teomitl's face was hard again, on the verge of becoming jade. "He's said that he'll only talk to you, Acatl-tzin."

I briefly woke Mihmatini to let her know where we were going. She made a face of disapproval I knew all too well, a mirror image of Mother's when my brother or I had broken a dish or muddied a loincloth. "You haven't eaten anything."

I pointed to the tray the servant had left. "I had maize soup. And a whole newt with yellow peppers."

Her gaze made it clear she wasn't fooled. "Acatl, you're in no state to walk."

"I feel much better." And it was true; utterly drained, but much better. The pain was gone, leaving only the dull feeling that nothing would ever be right again.

Mihmatini made a face that told me she didn't believe me. "I should come with you," she said.

Teomitl put a hand on her arm gently. "No. Not now."

"But–"

"Out of the question," I said. My judgment might be a little shaky now – a little pale and empty like the veins in my body – but there was no way I would let her walk into Tizoc-tzin's chambers.

"Acatl-tzin is right," Teomitl said. "My brother won't be happy to see you, and this isn't the time for this."

"Teomitl…"

He shook his head again. "No."

And that effectively ended the conversation, though Mihmatini glowered like a jaguar deprived of its prey. "I'll be waiting for you," she said, and the way she spoke made it doubtful she'd hand out hugs or flowers.

I could feel Yaotl's amused gaze on my back all the way to Tizoctzin's chambers; but he said nothing.

I wondered what Manatzpa could have to tell me. How he could not hate me, when I had been the one who had brought him down? Most likely he would taunt me. I doubted that he would bend. In that way, he was very much like his nephews Tizoc-tzin and Teomitl. But there might be something to be gleaned, information that would help us. For if my gut feeling was right and he was not the summoner of star-demons, then we still had someone out there, busily plotting our ruin.

I'd expected some silence in Tizoc-tzin's courtyard; or at any rate, some mark that something was wrong with the palace, but it seemed like nothing had changed. Warriors gathered on the platform, laughing among themselves. Noise floated from Tizoc-tzin's rooms, the singsong intonations of poets reciting compositions, the laughter of warriors, the deep rhythm of beaten drums. But underneath, in the wider courtyard, were other warriors, dressed far more soberly, their long cloaks barely masking the whitish scars on their limbs. They talked amongst themselves, casting dark glances at the finery on the platform; the other part of the army, the true warriors, the ones who would support only a veteran, not a mediocre fighter like Tizoc-tzin.

If nothing else, things were starting to get ugly here, with factions openly declaring themselves.

Teomitl, oblivious, strode into a smaller courtyard, a mirror image of the House of Animals, loaded with exotic trees and bushes. It seemed as though we had stepped into another world altogether, a land to the south where the heat was stifling and quetzal-birds flew in the wild, raucously calling to each other. Cages dotted the landscape at regular intervals, huge, empty, their wooden bars almost merging with the foliage of the trees. The air smelled of churned mud, with the faint, heady fragrance of flowers. What was not expected, however, was the reek of magic, so strong it burnt my lungs.

"Something is wrong," I said, but did not have time to go further.

She stepped out of the caged wilderness as if She belonged within it; tall, Her skin as black as the night sky, and stars scattered at Her elbows and knees, stars that were also the eyes of monsters. Her cloak spread behind Her – no, it was not a cloak, but wings made of a thousand shards of obsidian, glinting in sunlight – and her face was pale skin, stretched over the hint of a skull, with bright, malevolent eyes that held me until I fell to my knees, shaking.

"Priest. Warrior. Slave." Her gaze swept through us all. I clenched my hands to stop my fingers from shaking. "You're too late," She said.

Something shone clung to Her wings, a light that was neither sunlight nor starlight; the memory of something that had once belonged in the Fifth World. A soul, ripped from its body.

Manatzpa.

She threw me a last searing glance, and leapt over me with an agility I wouldn't have expected from something so monstrous.

And then She was gone, with only the reek of magic to remind us of Her presence.

My obsidian knives were warm, quivering under my touch, as if She had affected them too. I looked around. The air smelled of charnel and blood, and the single cage ahead of us had its bars broken.

We'd arrived too late.

Both Yaotl and Teomitl had gone down. Yaotl was still shaking, and Teomitl was pulling himself up, with the wrath of Chalchiuhtlicue filling his face.

"What was that?" he asked.

"I–" She had looked like a star-demon; but different, too: not a mindless thing, but a goddess in Her own right, unmistakably female. "Itzpapalotl," I said, fighting past the constriction in my chest. "The Obsidian Butterfly, Goddess of War and Sacrifice." Leader of the star-demons, She who would take us all into Her embrace, when the time came.

"That's impossible," Yaotl remained sitting in the mud, oblivious to the growing stain on his cloak. "She's–"

"I know." Imprisoned, like Coyolxauhqui of the Silver Bells, like the star-demons.

"Why now, Acatl-tzin?"

"Because someone did not want Manatzpa to talk." A chill had descended into my stomach and would not be banished. Because he had known something, because he would, indeed, have revealed it to me?

Whoever it was they were in the palace, and aware of what was happening in Tizoc-tzin's closest circle. Either Xahuia still had agents inside, or…

Or it was someone else entirely.

"Acatl-tzin!" Teomitl's voice was impatient. "Come on."

I must have looked blank, for he shook his head impatiently, the whites of his eyes shifting from jade to white and back again as he did so, an eerie effect.

"It's still in the city. We have a chance to catch up to it. Come on!"

Still in the city? Why hadn't it–

No time to think. I picked up my cloak from the ground, shook some of the mud loose, and ran after Teomitl.

As we exited the palace, running down the stairs leading up to the Serpent Wall and the Sacred Precinct, the ahuizotls came, slithering out of the canal besides the palace. Their faces wrinkled like those of a child underwater for too long, their tails curling up into a single clawed hand, which opened and closed as they moved.

On ground, they looked wrong, as black and sleek as fish out of the water, crawling on their four clawed legs like salamanders or lizards, and yet still moving with a fluid, inhuman speed that seemed to surprise even Teomitl.

The star-demon was ahead of us, moving through the Sacred Precinct. The crowd fought to avoid Her, the pilgrims elbowing each other, sacrificial victims being pulled aside by their keepers, the priests hastily kneeling on the cleared-out grounds, fighting to trace quincunxes and circles in a vain attempt to slow Her down or banish Her.

Teomitl, who was younger and much fitter than me, was already ahead, the ahuizotls fanning around him in a grisly escort. He moved in the trail left by the star-demon, widening the circle of emptiness she had left around Her.

I cast my mind out, trying to summon the Wind of Knives. Up and up it went, over the crowded plaza, over the houses of noblemen, past the canals and the islands on the outskirts, into the cenote, until His presence went up my spine, straightening it with one cold touch.

Acatl. I am coming.

I ran after the star-demon as fast as I could, my lungs burning, my chest itching, the presence of the Wind of Knives in my mind growing larger and larger…

For all of Teomitl's speed, he never quite managed to catch up to the star-demon. She strode through the plaza of the Sacred Precinct without pause, Her gaze stubbornly fixed ahead.

There was only one place She could be heading. "Teomitl!" I called in the eerie hush that had spread over the Sacred Precinct.

He flicked me a quick backward glance; I pointed towards the bulk of the Great Temple, yelling at the top of my voice. Teomitl nodded, and resumed the chase.

The presence in my mind grew to a spike and suddenly the Wind of Knives was there, standing by my side. "Acatl."

He threw one glance at the situation, and moved, fluid and inhuman, towards the Great Temple, with barely a glance backwards in my direction. Where He passed, the air seemed darker, and even the sunlight, catching the thousand obsidian shards of His body, became dimmer, shadowed by His presence.

Priests had already gathered on the steps of the Great Temple; two cohorts, one on each of the twin stairs, their obsidian knives at the ready. Magic clung to them, shimmering in their blood-matted hair, on their dusty skins, in the very structure of the temple, sunk as deep as blood into limestone. Here was our strength; here was the heart of our Empire.

The wind of Her passage brushed the priests as She headed up the stairs. Everything shattered.

The priests' hair became dull and rank, like that of filthy animals; the stone lost its lustre and became the grey of ash and dust. The veil of magic over the temple tore open like a stretched spider's web, with a sound as stilling and as deafening of that of the earth splitting itself apart.

Itzpapalotl ran, one clawed hand scattering the priests across the stairs, sending them tumbling down, as bloodied as sacrificed victims. Teomitl followed, the ahuizotls sliding upwards like fish through water; the Wind of Knives overtook Teomitl on the stairs, but did not quite manage to catch up with Itzpapalotl.

I reached the bottom of the stairs, and paused for a moment to catch my breath.

One of the priests lay beside me, his blood shimmering in the sunlight, a source of power calling out to me. His eyes were open, already glazing over.

"Forgive me," I whispered, dipping my hand in the warmth of his blood. "She has to be stopped."

He must have nodded: I couldn't be sure, but the blood under my fingers became warmer, beating like a living heart, like that used for a penance or daily offering.

There was little time. Itzpapalotl was almost at the top of the stairs, and Teomitl lagged behind Her. I hastily traced a quincunx around myself, and said the shortest prayer I knew, one to my patron Mictlantecuhtli.

"We all must die

We all must go down into darkness

Leaving behind the marigolds and the cedar trees

Nothing is hidden from Your gaze."

A thin layer of light shimmered into existence, an overlay over reality, nowhere near the level of detail of the true sight, but still more than I would have got from my priest-senses. The stairs of the temple turned a reddish black, like clotted blood, and every step I took sent a little jolt through my body – I could feel the magic bleeding out of the temple with every passing moment, like water draining out of a sieve.

At the top of the stairs, Ceyaxochitl's wards, once a shimmering blue, had also darkened, and the ragged hole in their centre marked the place Itzpapalotl had crossed them. Priests lay on the stairs, some dead, most unconscious.

I couldn't see Teomitl anywhere, but I assumed he'd have gone on without waiting for me. I hoped he was still alive, and in a state to fight.

I'd have had the same thought about the Wind of Knives; but I very much doubted anything could stop or incapacitate Him for long.

The stairs leading down to the temple's heart were silent, magic lazily bleeding out of them, a widening stain that was spreading within the Fifth World. The air was stale, dried-out, as if Itzpapalotl had drained everything out of it while descending.

I found Teomitl in the room near the foundations, the ahuizotls curled up at his feet like pet monkeys. He was watching the central disk with a scowl on his face. The Wind of Knives stood a little to the side, His head turned towards me when I arrived, a glimmer of obsidian that pierced me to the core.

"I arrived too late," the Wind of Knives said.

Storm-Lord blind me, She was fast. "Is there anything–"

He shook His head in a shivering of dark light. "Not until She breaches the boundaries again." He seemed almost disappointed – unusual for Him. "Call me if you have need, Acatl." And then He faded away, the monstrous head slowly shimmering out of existence, the welter of obsidian shards receding into nothingness, until nothing was left but the faint memory of a lament.

Teomitl pursed his lips. "She just crossed to the centre, laughed at me and vanished."

I could tell that it was the laughter that bothered him most. Contempt, even coming from a star-demon, would have hurt him more than claw-swipes. But that wasn't what we needed to focus on now.

"Vanished," I repeated. I knelt by the side of the disk, cautiously extending one hand across it. The stone was warm, angry. Such anger, that of a caged being hurling itself against the walls of its prison, again and again until something yielded… Something had to yield, something had to crack, and She would be free to walk the world again, to watch humans scatter like insects, to drink our blood like stream-water…

I pulled my hand away, coming back to the Fifth World with a start. "Still imprisoned," I said aloud. Itzpapalotl had been sum moned, like the rest of the star-demons. She hadn't spontaneously moved out of the stone disk; she hadn't been under any orders from Her mistress, She of the Silver Bells…

But I did not move. I crouched, watching the stone disk. The blood in the grooves had dimmed and dulled, too, as if its potency had been absorbed. And I couldn't be sure, but I could make out a hand and an arm, and a headdress with crooked edges – more details than before, as if everything were re-knitting itself together.

She of the Silver Bells was still imprisoned, but the Duality knew for how long.

I got up. Teomitl was still watching me with that peculiar intensity. "I should have known," he said, finally. "If I'd guessed Her destination earlier–"

"You can't rewrite the past," I said. "And if you hadn't launched in pursuit, we wouldn't even have known where She was going."

The stone disk lay at our feet, huge and monstrous, a gate to another country, a world waiting only to tear us apart and consume us. And Manatzpa was the only one who could have shed some light on how and when it was going to happen.

"I'm going to need something from you," I said.

He pulled himself straight, like a warrior standing to attention. "Acatl-tzin."

"You were the last person to see Manatzpa alive. I need you to tell me everything that he said when you interviewed him."

"Uh." Teomitl's face fell. "I don't exactly–" He shook himself and frowned. "A lot of things that didn't seem relevant."

I lifted my chin in the direction of the disk. "At this stage, it's safe to assume that anything might be relevant. We've had three deaths in the palace in a matter of days. At this rate, we'll be lucky to still have a council by the end of the week."

Teomitl shifted. One of the ahuizotls did the same, lazily raking its clawed hands on the stone. Nausea welled up in my throat, harsh and uncontrollable. I kept telling myself that, one day, I was going to get used to the creatures moving as though they were part of him; but it had been a year since Teomitl had acquired their services, and it still didn't get any better.

"He liked me." Teomitl appeared halfway between embarrassment and anger. "I thought it was a façade, but he didn't really need to pretend anymore, did he?"

"He might have hoped for your mercy."

"No." Teomitl shook his head, quick and fierce. "I've seen that happen, too, and it wasn't anything like that. More," he spread his hands, frustrated, "more like having someone you admire fighting for the other side. You know you'll never stop trying to capture each other, but still…"

I thought of Manatzpa's face when he had admitted Teomitl was the candidate he favoured above all others. I had assumed it to be a lie after he had revealed himself as a worshipper of She of the Silver Bells, but perhaps it had been more complex than that. "I see. What else?"

Teomitl grimaced. "He was unhappy about Echichilli's death."

I wanted to say it was obvious, but stopped. I couldn't possibly hope to get anything out of Teomitl if I was putting my own words in his mouth. "How so?"

"He…" Teomitl floundered for a while, before collecting himself. "I tried to tell him allying with star-demons was a foolish thing to do, that this needed to stop before the whole Fifth World crumbled. And he said something about duty. About how I was being so impressively dutiful, but that duty had killed Echichilli, and that he was done with duty himself."

Echichilli? I tried to remember who he had favoured. No one, as far as I could recall. He had been the oldest member of the council, aggrieved that no arrangement could be reached. "Duty to whom?"

"He didn't say," Teomitl said. "I'd guess either the She-Snake or… " He paused for a moment, and went on, "My brother. They're the only two to whom Echichilli could possibly have a duty."

Xahuia did seem like a pretty unlikely candidate. But we would gain nothing by being too hasty. And I had yet to understand how duty to anyone could have led to a star-demon killing Echichilli.

Unless he had been doing someone else's dirty work?

But no, he couldn't be the summoner of the star-demons, or, like Manatzpa, he would have been able to banish the one that had killed him. Instead, he had bowed to the inevitable….

"He knew something, too," I said. "Whatever it was. And he was killed for it."

"That doesn't really help, does it?"

"It might," I said. So far, I'd assumed the killings of the council had been random, intended to throw us all into chaos. But if both Manatzpa and Echichilli had been killed to silence them, then something else was going on. It was no longer exclusively a matter of making sure the council wouldn't select a Revered Speaker. There was something else going on; something much larger. "There has to be a reason behind the sequence of the killings. Something we're missing."

Teomitl grimaced again. "And?"

"I don't know." I was feeling increasingly frustrated. "All the dead men have been taken by star-demons. They're out of Mictlantecuhtli's dominion. I can't even hope to summon them and make them talk."

The usual way to get the ghosts of people who did not belong to Lord Death was to go into the lands of the god to whom they belonged, either Tlaloc the Storm Lord, or Tonatiuh the Fifth Sun. However, with star-demons, that was the epitome of foolhardiness. There was no way in the Fifth World I would elect to go into the empty spaces of the Heavens where they roamed, or into the prison the Southern Hummingbird had fashioned for His sister.

"Anything else?" I asked. It looked as though Itzpapalotl had done Her work well, we would not find any evidence left behind by Manatzpa.

"He said he wasn't the one summoning the star-demons, but that one seems obvious," Teomitl said, biting his lips to the blood. "No, not much else." He paused, his face unreadable. "He said other things, too."

He would not look at me; and given how Manatzpa had felt about Tizoc-tzin, I could guess what he had told Teomitl; something about being his own man, about stopping listening to his brother's voice.

To be honest, I doubted it would work. Teomitl might be thrown off for a while, bewildered by what appeared sincere admiration, but the fact remained that Manatzpa had been trying to take apart the Mexica Empire. Teomitl loved his country, and he would never forgive Manatzpa for that.

"I see. And Xahuia?"

Teomitl's face fell. "I didn't have time to broach that subject, Acatl-tzin…"

I raised a hand to cut him off. "No matter. You did great work. Come on. It's time to get some sleep."