TWENTY-ONE

The Lord of Men

The journey back seemed to take the whole of an age. Teomitl was at the prow, growing paler and paler; Nezahual-tzin by my side, looking thoughtfully into the water, his group of warriors at our back scowling at us, and the shores of Lake Texcoco never seemed to be growing closer. Before us was Nezahualcoyotl’s Dyke. Once there, we would be almost in Tenochtitlan; but it remained a thin grey line against the clear blue skies, never solidifying into anything familiar.

We had left Pezotic under guard in Teotihuacan. As Nezahualtzin had put it, he couldn’t bring much in the way of proof, and he would have been a decidedly unpleasant travel companion.

”You know,” Nezahual-tzin said, thoughtfully, “I probably won’t be any more welcome in Tenochtitlan than you.”

What – oh, the arrest. I stared at my hand again, at the mark there that seemed burnt into it, remembering the wet, unpleasant feel of saliva running down my chin and neck. “I know,” I said. It shouldn’t have mattered. I was High Priest for the Dead; I kept the Fifth World in balance with the heavens and the underworld. I was not supposed to matter this much.

But neither was Quenami, and he acted as though he did, taking charge over us all, steering the Empire in the direction of his personal gain. Acamapichtli was annoying and arrogant, but at least he was honest about his motivations. Quenami would smile and make it seem as though everything would work out in the end for the best.

Which, clearly, it wasn’t going to.

”Acamapichtli could help us,” I said.

”The High Priest of the Storm Lord?” Nezahual-tzin looked sceptical.

I couldn’t help feeling the same way. Granted, Acamapichtli had helped me escape, but he had done so for his personal gain. And, like Quenami, he believed we would pull through with the blessing of the gods, forgetting that it was human sweat and human blood which kept the Fifth Sun in the sky and Grandmother Earth giving forth maize. The gods were no longer the keepers of the universe: They had relinquished that right and duty along with Their ultimate sacrifice, and even my patron god, Mictlantecuhtli, Lord Death, was nothing more than a corpse under a shrine. “I don’t like it,” I said, finally. “But we don’t have much choice.”

”True.” Nezahual-tzin looked up. The sky overhead was blue and clear, but the stars shone, hundreds, thousands of malevolent eyes waiting for an opening. A thin veil of clearer blue marked the boundary of the Duality’s protection. “Whatever you did to slow them down–”

The ritual with Teomitl and Mihmatini. “I thought it would keep She of the Silver Bells out of the Fifth World,” I said.

”Yes,” Nezahual-tzin. “That’s not the question.”

My cheeks burnt with embarrassment, or anger. I wasn’t quite sure how to react to a fifteen-year-old who acted as though he was my mentor. Did he have so much knowledge, or was he just pretending? “The Duality is the source and arbiter of all gods. The Southern Hummingbird falls under Their purview as well.”

”Meaning it will work?”

”Meaning I don’t know how long it will hold. But yes, it should work.”

I hoped so. It was a little more complex than what I’d told Nezahual-tzin. If Pezotic had told the truth – and much as I would have liked to, I couldn’t doubt him – then the deaths of the councilmen were sacrifices. The spell for which they’d given their lives, the journey into Huitzilpochtli’s heartland, had already taken place; now the price for it had to be paid. The balance had to be kept. The intrusion of the star-demons into the Fifth World was no worse than that of the Wind of Knives dispensing justice in the name of the underworld. That was why the star-demons had so easily penetrated the palace wards, for it wasn’t a summoning, merely a counterbalance mechanism.

The irony was that the one thing we had achieved so far – extending the protection of the Duality – was preventing only one thing, the murder of Tizoc-tzin, the one thing I could, perversely, almost look forward to.

Nezahual-tzin sighed. “Not much of a plan.”

”All we have.” I looked at Teomitl, who stood rigid at the prow. The dark shapes of the ahuizotls were under the keel and beside it, a spine-tingling escort I could have done without. Ahead, the dyke seemed to have grown slightly larger, but the sun was past its zenith, and plunging towards the murky waters of the lake.

There was still time. There had to be.

We passed the dyke without trouble, and soon found ourselves navigating the canals on the outskirts of Tenochtitlan. As we left the vicinity of the Floating Gardens and found ourselves in the city itself, it soon became clear that something was wrong. The canals should have been bustling with activity, from merchants to water-peddlers, from noblemen being ferried to their friends’ houses to priests on errands – but there was none of this. Just the gates of houses, closed against the heat, the boats still at their anchor, bobbing on the rhythm of some huge, unseen breath, the sunlight shimmering in and out of focus on the water like a god’s smile.

”We’re too late,” Teomitl said. He’d let go of the ahuizotls, which we’d assumed would attract too much attention, and was sitting against the prow, breathing heavily.

”That’s not possible,” Nezahual-tzin said.

Teomitl’s eyes narrowed in anger, and then he rested his back against the reeds of the boat wearily. “Do you see any other reason why no one would be here? They’re burying Axayacatl, that’s what they’re doing. If we’re lucky. If not, the council has already started debating.”

The debates were a matter of form, the real persuasion and ritual preparation having taken place beforehand. Teomitl was right, we were late.

”I’m calling the ahuizotls back,” Teomitl said.

”No,” I said, at the same time as Nezahual-tzin.

He looked at us, defiantly. “You have a better solution?”

”We’ll be at the Sacred Precinct before you know it,” I said. “And it’s going to be packed with people.” And the canals around it, in all likelihood.

”We’re–” Teomitl started.

”I know. We’re late. That’s not the point.” As if to prove me that someone, somewhere, was listening, we turned one more canal, straight into the largest mass of boats I had ever seen, a sea of vibrant colours, of flower garlands and feather-fans. The air smelled of incense and pine essence; the streets were packed with a tight mass of people, laughing and jostling each other, all wearing the colourful clothes of festivals.

Teomitl cursed under his breath. His gaze roamed from the boats, so close together they seemed an extension of the land, to the crowd on the nearby street. “Let’s get out.”

”On foot?” Nezahual-tzin said, but Teomitl was already leaping from boat to boat, elbowing his way through the crowd with the thoughtless arrogance of the noble-born. He was hard to refuse when he got that way, the gods knew I’d experienced it often enough.

Nezahual-tzin threw me a glance, hoping, I guessed, that I would contradict my hot-blooded student. But, much as I hated to admit it, Teomitl was right. There was no way we would manage to get a long, pointed reed boat through that kind of jam.

Not being as athletic as Teomitl, I disembarked and pushed my way through the crowd on land instead. I didn’t have my High Priest regalia anymore, but my grey cloak, embroidered with owls, still marked me as a Priest for the Dead, and Nezahual-tzin and his warriors acted with enough arrogance to part the crowd. Together, we elbowed our way through the throng, into street after street filled with people. I had never seen so many. The gates of houses were open, and the courtyards full, the streets jammed, the boats on the canals so close we couldn’t see the water any more. I could hear drums and the plaintive sounds of flutes, and shell-conches, blown in the distance like a call for the Fifth Sun to rise.

I could see the stars too, could feel the pressure above us, like a giant hand pushing through thin cotton, the cloth drawn taut, on the edge of tearing itself apart. It would hold, I’d told Nezahual-tzin, but I wasn’t so sure any more.

The crowds got worse as we approached the Sacred Precinct, men and women brandished worship-thorns stained with blood, held up their children, grinning and laughing, priests played drums and flutes, shouting their hymns to be heard over the din.

Nezahual-tzin grabbed my cloak. “Where?” he asked. “You’re the local.”

I almost snapped back that I hadn’t been there for the previous imperial funeral, and that as Revered Speaker of Texcoco he had to know as well, but then memory flooded in, almost at an instinctive level. “They’ll start at the temple for the Dead, where the High Priest of Lord Death will formally relinquish Axayacatl’s body over to…” I paused. The rest depended on which god was watching over Axayacatl, whether he would be buried under the auspices of Tlaloc or Huitzilpochtli. Most emperors chose Huitzilpochtli, since the Southern Hummingbird was the most important god of the Empire. But Axayacatl meant “water face”, and he had been born under Tlaloc’s sign. “I don’t know,” I said at last. “But they’ll be heading to the Great Temple anyway.”

”Hmm.”

I pushed my way closer to the Serpent Wall and used one of the friezes to gain some height over the crowd, whispering an apology to Quetzalcoatl the Feathered Serpent for defacing His effigies. Through the mass of headdresses and coloured garments I could make out the wake of the procession, a slightly emptier space that people were just starting to fill in again. They were almost at the stairs of the Great Temple.

”Let’s go,” I said. The smaller empty space in front of us could only be Teomitl, he would arrive ahead of us, but not by much.

I was almost at the Great Temple, close enough to see the priests gathered on the bloodied steps, and Acamapichtli and Quenami up there with the rest of the council, when the wards caved in.

Darkness descended across the Sacred Precinct as surely as if a cloth had been thrown over the Fifth Sun; for a moment – a bare, agonising moment of stillness – everything hung in silence, and I allowed myself to believe, for a fleeting heartbeat, that Teomitl was right, that Acamapichtli was right and that we would survive this as we had survived everything since the beginning of the Empire.

And then the stars fell.

One by one they streaked towards the Fifth World, leaving a trail of fire in their wake, growing larger and larger, pinpoints of light becoming the eyes of monsters, becoming the joints on skeletal limbs, becoming small specks scattered across the dark-blue skirts of star-demons as they plummeted towards the Great Temple.

I heard screams, but I was already running, elbowing my way through the press of bewildered warriors. I turned briefly to see if Nezahual-tzin was following, but could see nothing but a heaving sea of headdresses and garlands.

Most of the crowd ahead of me was going in the opposite direction, away from the star-demons, and soon it was impossible for me to move at all, pressing against the current. As they flowed around me, I reached out for one of my obsidian knives. I brought it up in a practised gesture, and, rubbing my own warm blood against my forehead, whispered a small invocation to Lord Death. The cold of the underworld spread from the sign, and the press around me grew a little less dense. I pushed and pulled. I had to get there, had to warn Acamapichtli before it was too late, had to…

Faces frozen in grimaces of fear, my elbows connecting with someone’s chest, sending them tumbling to the ground, someone pushing back at me, me, stumbling, catching myself just in time, screams and moans, and the sour, sickly smell of fear mingling with that of blood.

I was on the steps of the Great Temple, looking up into the faces of two Jaguar Knights. “The She-Snake–” I breathed, every syllable like fire in my throat. “Get… the She-Snake…”

When they turned to look at the twin altars above us, I ran. The fire in my lungs spread to my midriff, and then to my legs and feet until everything burned, but I pushed on. They must have been going after me, too, but the aura of the underworld around me would be slowing them down, I hoped, they must be…

And then, abruptly, the Fifth Sun was back, beating on my exposed back like the wrath of the gods. I cleared the last of the stairs, stumbled, out of breath, almost into the arms of another Jaguar Knight, who made no move to support me, or even raise his macuahitl sword against me. What…

The world lurched back into sharp, painful focus, like a blow to the face, the limestone platform and its two altars was slick with blood, overflowing in the grooves. Darker masses punctuated the white stone, slumped in the unmistakable stillness of death. Further away, at the entrance to the leftmost shrine… I walked on, slipping several times in the mass of blood, more spilled power than I had ever seen, and yet curiously dry and empty, offered up to no god, sacrifices that had already taken place, prices that had already been paid, without meaning or magic within.

Several people stood in the doorway – the quetzal-feather headdress of Quenami, the heron-plumes of Acamapichtli, the unrelieved black tunic of the She-Snake, and Teomitl, breathing heavily with his hands on his knees, shock etched on every feature of his face.

Across the threshold was a last, bloody mass, and even from where I was I could see the Turquoise-and-Gold crown, its radiance washed away by the gore, lying forlorn and scattered, the discarded remnants of a man who’d believed himself destined to rule us all.

Tizoc-tzin – invested Revered Speaker of the Mexica Empire, Lord of Men, the Southern Hummingbird’s agent in this world – was dead, and we were as children lost in the wild, teetering on the edge of utter extinction.