Obsidian & Blood

SIXTEEN

In Enemy Territory

The cell was small, a square of beaten earth surrounded by four adobe walls, with barely enough space for me to lie down, and a mangy reed mat as its only furniture.

But still, as far as cells went, it was comfortable. A year ago my brother Neutemoc, a respected Jaguar Knight, had awaited his judgement in a wooden cage on the platform before the palace, out in the midday sun. At least I was in the shade, and they had even given me a few maize flatbreads.

The ground under my feet was slightly warm, impregnated with a magic I wasn't quite sure where to place, faint and distant, like the echo of something vast.

The first thing I tried after they'd drawn the entrance-curtain closed was to cast a spell. The remnants of that were still on the ground, my blood a duller shade than the earth, stubbornly refusing to quicken. It was as if something were blocking me – perhaps the other high priests? I hadn't imagined they had that much power.

With nothing much to do, I sat against the wall furthest from the entrance, watching the quincunx I'd drawn on the ground recede further into the shadows as the blood sank into the earth.

Everything seemed to grow fainter as time passed. Emptiness crawled across my limbs – a terrible sensation of dislocation like a maize stalk uprooted from the field. I tried moving my fingers, and it was as if my body no longer knew how to answer.

The flatbreads. Was that the same poison that had killed Ceyaxochitl? But no, I was a paranoid fool. Manatzpa had admitted to that, the only thing he had turned out to be responsible for, in the long string of magical offences that had brought me here.

But still…

Still, I felt as if I was rising in and out of consciousness – sleeping a restless sleep, waking up gasping and no longer quite sure of where I was, as if whatever they had put in here was eating at me, gnawing at my spirit little by little.

With faltering hands, I reached for my obsidian knife, hoping for the comfort of Lord Death's power arcing through me, the aching, stretched emptiness that was my province, but they had taken that away from me, too.

The Duality curse me, I needed to focus. I couldn't let it end like this, not with the star-demons the gods knew where, not with Teomitl still vulnerable against the intrigues of his brother. I needed to–

My hand fell back on the ground, limp, and somehow I couldn't muster the strength to lift it again. Shadows flickered at the edge of my vision, like the smoke of the She-Snake's ritual, slowly spreading to cover the world.

There is a temple, in the Sacred Precinct, the walls of which are painted black…

I needed to get up, I needed to…

The name of that temple is Tlillan. Darkness.

Just one moment. A moment's rest, that was all that I needed, a moment with my eyes closed, thinking of nothing but the bare walls, a moment here on the earth, warmed up by its touch. I needed…

The entrance-curtain was drawn aside with a jarring sound. I knew that sound, I thought, but it seemed too far away to be recovered, too much of a struggle to retrieve; like lifting my hands, like clenching my fingers. Like…

Footsteps echoed on the beaten earth, and a dark silhouette came to stand over me, its features moving in and out of focus in the shadows.

"Well, aren't you a sight. Pathetic, Acatl."

Acamapichtli? I'd expected Quenami with more accusations, or promises of what punishments Tizoc-tzin would push for; but why Acamapichtli? He hadn't even been in the palace recently. He was in disgrace, according to the She-Snake. Why?

Dimly, as if from a great distance, I saw him bend over me. Something glinted in the darkness, coming to rest by my side and gradually, as the fog across my vision lifted, I made out its shape – a polished jaguar fang, carved with images of seashells and frogs, shimmering with the blue-green magic of Tlaloc the Storm Lord. A slim piece of paper wrapped around it, steeped in a dark, pulsing colour I knew all too well – fresh blood.

Acamapichtli had withdrawn, was once more towering above me. "I inscribed this with the blood of a human sacrifice before coming here. It won't last. But at least we'll have a more coherent conversation."

I struggled to bring my mind back from the boundaries of the Fifth World, where it seemed to have fled. "I don't understand–"

"You're a fool," Acamapichtli said. "That's all there is to say." He did not move, watching me pull myself into a more upright position. Saliva had run down my chin, staining my cloak and I tasted blood in my mouth. I must have bitten my tongue as I sank into oblivion.

"Tlaloc," I said. My thoughts seemed to be a hundred scattered shards, the pieces of a broken mirror. "Lord Death. I–" I had been stretched out, as thin as though I was deprived of sustenance – dying, perhaps? If they left me longer in here, I would come out a drooling idiot. "What is this place?"

"Finally." In the dim light, I guessed more than saw his smile, as predatory as that of his god. "No longer the Fifth World, Acatl."

A god's world. A land where both my magic, which came from Lord Death, and that of Acamapichtli, which came from the Storm Lord, were uninvited guests. "The Southern Hummingbird," I said. "This is land consecrated to Him."

"Not quite. It's His land, Acatl, a portal into a small part of His heartland. Whatever you've done, they want to make sure you remain silent, badly enough to spend so much power on your prison."

The heartland. The seven caves. Aztlan, the White Place where we had all come from, the centre of Huitzilpochtli's power. "I have done nothing," I said, still struggling to reorder my thoughts. "Yet." Too late, I remembered the snatches I'd heard in Tizoc-tzin's rooms, about removing the opposition. I should have thought a little more on who they'd consider against them.

Acamapichtli smiled again. "That's why they want you in here."

"And I suppose…" I paused, gathering my thoughts. "I suppose you're with them?" I could see no other reason for him to be back at Court so soon.

"Don't be a fool." He snorted.

"You came back…"

He shrugged, a thoughtless, arrogant gesture. "I needed some time to make myself forgotten, but it seems events are moving faster than I foresaw."

"You're out of the game," I said.

"Xahuia-tzin is out of the game," Acamapichtli said, thoughtfully. "That doesn't mean I am. But I don't have Quenami's powers, alas."

His face had the same haughty cast as when he'd told Teomitl the envoys weren't his. "That's a lie, isn't it?" Gingerly, I pulled myself upwards, careful to remain near the jaguar's fang. My head brushed against the ceiling and, up there, further away from the magic, I could feel it, the skittering at the edge of my mind, the force that wanted to erode my whole being. How could Acamapichtli stand it?

No doubt he had his own protections. No doubt he had planned for it. He was not the prisoner here.

He was still watching me. The shadows sculpted his face, made it seem as distant as that of a carved statue in the darkness of a shrine. "That's a lie, isn't it?" I repeated. "You're more than strong enough to blast us all out of the Fifth World."

"Perhaps." He bent his head sideways, as if considering me in a new light. Without a doubt, I was no longer the High Priest that he had seen in the corridors, perhaps no longer his peer. I had no doubt he'd cast me aside without a moment's doubt if I was no longer useful to him.

But still, he had come to visit me. He had spent the power of a human sacrifice to speak with me. Just to gloat? "What do you want?"

"What I've always wanted," Acamapichtli said. "The Fifth World to survive, and our new Revered Speaker to lead us to glory." He cocked his head again. "One that would remember that the Great Temple is more than the Southern Hummingbird's territory."

Finally, we were there, at the crux of the matter. "You had influence before," I said. "Before the Storm Lord tried to seize power."

"I'm not responsible for His actions." He sounded almost annoyed at that, as if he could pretend to control the will of his god.

"And you think I can help you?"

"No," Acamapichtli said. "Of course you can't, Acatl. Let's be honest here. You blunder into Court day after day, doing your best to follow intrigues you are utterly ignorant of."

"What compliments," I said. My vision had started to fade again, but I wasn't fool enough to touch one of Tlaloc's artefacts without any protection of my own. Much like Huitzilpochtli's spells, that magic was opposite to my own.

"You're admirable, in your own way." He snorted, but with much of the usual aggressiveness gone. "Choosing not to meddle in what you can't grasp. You know your own limits."

If I'd had more strength, I wasn't quite sure of what I'd have done. For all his arrogance and hasty judgments, he had a point. I had never been made for politics, or for the post of High Priest; I weathered as best as I could, did my best to rise up to the occasion. But I would never breathe it in as Quenami did, as Acamapichtli did, as all the birth-noblemen did, the ones who had watched their parents and grandparents swim in the currents of politics like children in the waters of Chalchiuhtlicue's streams and lakes. "He who remains bound by his own limits is the worst kind of prisoner," I said.

"True." Acamapichtli shifted. "But you're still a foolish man, Acatl. One does not dive into the bees' hives without knowing where the queen is."

"If that's all you have to say, I wonder why you bothered to come at all."

His lips curled up, in a smile without sincerity. "As I said, I'm not their ally. With you removed, they'll turn their attention to me. I've come to make sure you last as long as you can."

More than anything, his matter-of-fact tone chilled me. "They've decided, then?"

"They'll find a pretext," Acamapichtli said. He snorted. "They lack imagination, but it won't be hard to concoct something they can blame on you. And then the next Revered Speaker can appoint a High Priest more malleable than you are."

There were two ways to appoint a new High Priest: when the old one was demoted, or when he died. "They won't strip me of my rank," I said. It wasn't a question.

Acamapichtli said nothing. The cold at my nape could have been that of the underworld. Death held no secrets for me anymore, but sometimes, knowing was worse than being in the dark; it left no place for hope, none at all. Like all the souls I guided down into darkness, I would make my way to the throne of Lord Death, and dissolve into oblivion, everything left unfinished forever. There was no recourse. There had never been.

I took a deep breath, refusing to think about the chasm yawning at my feet. "Very well. If that's the way it's going, I'll need information."

Acamapichtli nodded, as one craftsman to another. "You'll have an audience, a closed one, with only Tizoc-tzin and perhaps a few of the faithful in attendance. They planned for you to be insensate long before this, to make it fast and short." He gestured to the fang on the ground. "This won't hold until then, but it should deflect part of the Southern Hummingbird's magic."

"I see." I sat down again, my hand straying towards the fang. The earth was warm underneath, but I wasn't fooled. Like Grandmother Earth in the Fifth World, it was nothing but hunger, and would not rest until all the blood had left my veins. "I'm surprised they let you do this."

He snorted again. "As I said, fools, the lot of them. They think I'm settling accounts with you for my disgrace."

He, too, was a much better actor than he had appeared to be at first. I had underestimated him, perhaps even more so than Quenami. Never again.

"Any defence I have wouldn't be much good, would it?" I asked.

Acamapichtli did not move for a while. "It might. I don't know. You have one chance, Acatl, and one only. The She-Snake will be part of the audience. They won't be able to do anything but include him, since they want to expedite this before the election."

The She-Snake? He was much too canny to be caught doing anything in favour of a convicted traitor. Not much of a chance. The hollow in my stomach wouldn't close.

"What about Teomitl?" I asked.

"He's not in a position to help you. Tizoc-tzin has him confined to his quarters, ostensibly for his own safety."

"And Nezahual-tzin?"

"Too smart to let himself be dragged into something like this," Acamapichtli said.

I hated to admit this, but he was right. Nezahual-tzin had known how fragile his position was all along, although ironically his offer to help find Xahuia and clear his name was the one thing that would allow Tizoc-tzin to accuse him of collusion and treason.

"I see," I said again, though all I could feel was the abyss yawning under my feet. "It's not much."

"There isn't much I can do." Acamapichtli shifted, slightly.

"Do you know anything about the murders of the councilmen?"

"Do you think this is going to help you?"

"If I have to die, then at least let it be for something I can understand."

He snorted, almost gently. "We all die in the end, Acatl. We all drift out of the Fifth World, our destination determined by the manner of our deaths. But…" He was silent, for a while. "All I know is that the council had a frightful quarrel, five days before Axayacatltzin died."

"What kind of quarrel?" And then I remembered what Echichilli and Manatzpa had told me. "Pezotic," I said. The Master on the Edge of the Water, the councilman who had been dismissed for running away. "Pezotic disappeared."

"Yes."

"What was the quarrel about?"

"I don't know." Acamapichtli shook his head in an annoyed manner. "I'm not privy to the secrets of the gods. I never was. But I've heard they were threatened – badly enough to fear for their lives. They'd turned into pitiful wrecks, all of them."

It made me feel as though I had crossed a great lake, only to see mountains ahead of me. "You're right. It's not much help."

"Believe me. If I had any idea what they were up to in truth, I would make sure everyone else knew."

"I have no doubt you would."

Acamapichtli's lips curled up a fraction. "Good. So long as we understand each other. Any other questions, Acatl?" He'd started to move out of the cell, back towards the entrance-curtain.

I couldn't think of any. He went out, leaving me in darkness with not a flicker of light to be seen.

I must have slept again, watching the jaguar fang by my side. I came to with my hand wrapped around it, and a stinging pain in my palm, a trace of the Storm Lord's power engraved into my skin. My mind skittered, refused to hold on to anything.

He had said…

Acamapichtli had said that the audience would be soon, that they wanted this done with before it was too late. That they–

Images drifted across my field of vision, faded into darkness again. The smoky, wavering outline of the entrance-curtain – a faint light I could barely make out – sank further and further out of sight as time passed. I had no way of knowing if it was still day outside or if it was night, and I had missed my devotions.

I made them, regardless, in the encroaching darkness, spilled blood that had no potency, whispered prayers the Fifth Sun or Lord Death might never hear. It was what I had always done.

When they came for me I jerked out of a dreamless sleep to find a Jaguar Knight bending over me, his face framed between the jaws of his animal-shaped helmet. For a brief, timeless moment, he seemed like my brother Neutemoc, but then I saw they had nothing in common.

He hauled me to my feet without ceremony and out into a corridor and a succession of courtyards. Outside, the Fifth Sun's light hurt my eyes and a hundred spots flickered at the edge of my vision like star-demons streaming down. I caught a vague glimpse of noblemen, clustering in a sea of gold and turquoise ornaments, of palace slaves in their wooden collars, of warriors in feather regalia. Banners flashed across my field of vision, a riot of bright colours all merging into one.

I kept my hands clenched, focused on the prayers I had learnt as a novice priest in the calmecac school, and repeated day after day at dawn and at sunset, the prayers that kept the world whole.

"As grass becomes green in spring

Our hearts open and give forth buds

And then they wither

This is the truth

Down into darkness we must go…"

Over and over, a familiar litany washing over my broken thoughts, the words I knew by heart, the words that defined me. I thought of Nezahual-tzin, doing his ritual in the sweatbath, under the gaze of the Smoking Mirror, his god's eternal adversary.

"Enemy territory is where you prove yourself – where you're most sharply defined against what you're not, what you'll never be".

Time to see if he was right.

The light flickered, and my captor flung me to the ground. My knees connected with something hard, and the rest of my body followed. I barely had the time to bring up my hands to stop my fall. Pain shot up my wrists, an agony I silently pledged to Lord Death.

Slowly, like a hurt animal, I pulled my hands back, lifted my head to look at my surroundings.

More riots of colours – frescoes against the wall, the painted gods and goddesses wavering as if in a great heat, feather fans negligently propped against the pillars, carvings, rearing into sudden focus and just as suddenly vanishing into blurriness.

Close my eyes… I had never wanted so much to close my eyes, but I couldn't. I needed to see… I needed to…

"We convene here today for the trial of Acatl, High Priest for the Dead. The charge is treason."

Quenami. He stood somewhere to my left and ahead of me. I blinked, struggling to bring the world into focus. I could feel saliva drip down the side of my mouth again. I must have looked like an imbecile. Good. I needed them to underestimate me, even though I wasn't entirely sure what I would gain by it.

Ahead was a dais I recognised from another lifetime. This time it held two people. The one to my left, decked in emerald-green, had to be Tizoc-tzin, and the patch of black, placed slightly lower than Tizoc-tzin, could only be the She-Snake.

"I've read the charges," the She-Snake said. "I'm not quite sure what to make of them." The volume of his voice wouldn't remain steady, it kept hovering between a whisper and a shout. The Duality take me, why couldn't I focus on anything useful?

"I don't see what there is to add," Quenami said. "First Xahuia, and then Nezahual-tzin. There is a definite pattern."

"I admit to not knowing him as well as you do." I couldn't make out the tone of the She-Snake's voice. "But, nevertheless, I'm surprised. His record is impeccable."

"Biding his time," Tizoc-tzin said, sharply.

"Until Axayacatl died?"

"Until such time as he could damage us most," Tizoc-tzin said. "You have seen him worming his way into the court, weaving his webs like a spider for a few years now. First the appointment, then the taking on of my brother as a student, and finally, his sister…"

Mihmatini. I had to do something, I had to… My mouth wouldn't move. The Southern Hummingbird blind Acamapichtli, couldn't he have carved a stronger talisman?

"Much of that seems irrelevant, if not outright defamatory." The She-Snake's voice was mild, but I felt Quenami recoil. "And I don't see the point of this farce, Tizoc. It's also quite obvious he can't speak. I'll remind you that pain is an offering to the gods, not a means to silence people or interrogate them."

"I… " I managed through parched lips. I clenched my hands, felt my skin ache where Acamapichtli's jaguar fang had seared it. "I… can… speak." Every word was a burning stone, charring my windpipe and my lips as it came out.

"Quenami–" Tizoc-tzin snapped.

"It wasn't meant to happen," Quenami said. "I made sure–"

"Of what?" The She-Snake asked, but did not wait for an answer. "What do you have to answer the charges against you, Acatl?"

I had to focus. There had been a quarrel and the council had split, five days before Axayacatl-tzin's death. On the following day, Manatzpa-tzin had gone to a priest of Quetzalcoatl the Feathered Serpent, to buy the Breath of the Precious Twin. "They're hiding something," I said, slowly, carefully.

"You do not have the right to speak!" Tizoc-tzin all but screamed.

"Perhaps they are," the She-Snake said. His face swam into focus, grave and concerned. I could no longer be sure if it was an act or not. "But that has nothing to do with the accusations against you."

"They… they're trying to silence me," I said. "Because I know… you did something to the council, didn't you, Tizoc-tzin? Did whatever it took to be sure you'd be named Revered Speaker, even if you had to sacrifice them one by one."

"That's a lie," Tizoc-tzin said, but I heard the panic in his voice, and the She-Snake must have as well.

"I was the one who ordered Xahuia arrested," I said. I tried to stand, but my muscles wouldn't support me. "How can you call me a supporter of Texcoco?"

There was a moment of silence, but Quenami was not about to be undone so easily. "And the boy-emperor?" he asked. "Nezahualtzin. Will you also claim to have been investigating him?"

"He offered his help to find his sister."

"And you took it?" Quenami said.

The note of triumph in his voice was all too evident. "Texcoco is a member of the Triple Alliance," I said. "Our ally since the founding of Tenochtitlan."

Quenami snorted. "With one of their princesses involved in a plot against the Mexica Empire? Texcoco is a tribute-paying province, like the rest of them. It has no business meddling in our politics, and you have no business accepting Nezahual-tzin's help."

"For all the help you gave me–"

"I offered," Quenami said. "I offered and you denied me. You preferred the Texcocan boy."

"Acatl?" the She-Snake asked. "Is that true?"

It was true. At least, I couldn't deny it without outright lying, and I refused to sink to Quenami's level.

My moment of silence must have been all he needed. I saw the She-Snake bow down his head. "Then I'm afraid there is nothing I can do. If they are right…"

They were; and they weren't. They were the ones endangering the Mexica Empire, the whole of the Fifth World, but there was nothing I could say. "It's not the point," I said.

"It's the point of this audience." The She-Snake's voice was almost gentle, an apology. I had missed my chance, if I'd ever had much of one. "To determine your fitness as High Priest."

"I stand for the Fifth World," I said. "And for the Revered Speaker, who keeps us safe. What more do you ask for?" I bit my tongue before I could say more.

"Your loyalty." Quenami's voice was gleeful. "And it's clear we don't have that."

"Not until the Revered Speaker is elected," I snapped.

"The charges stand, then," Tizoc-tzin said.

The She-Snake held my gaze for a while. In his pupils, I saw only darkness, the same yawning abyss that his goddess ruled. "I'm sorry, Acatl. But they do."

Tizoc-tzin made a quick, peremptory gesture. "Then it's settled. Treason carries the death penalty."

"You can't–" I started, but this time, one of the guards slammed the butt of his macuahitl sword into my back, sending me sprawling to the ground. Now that the She-Snake had joined them, they felt safe to silence me.

"By the flower garland," Quenami said. I wished I could have smashed the smug smile from his face. "Tomorrow at dawn?"

"Better make it quick." The corners of the She-Snake's mouth had curled up in a disgusted smile. "Put an end to the whole sordid business as soon as possible."

I was hauled up again, all but carried out of the room, to the central platform overlooking the courtyard. The Fifth Sun shone clear and bright on what looked to be my last day in the Fifth World.

The warriors that carried me were halfway across the platform when something leapt up from the stairs, seemingly coming out of nowhere, as black and as sleek as a fish, lifting its wrinkled head towards me, the clawed hand at the end of its tail unclenching, coming straight towards me.

An ahuizotl.