Master of the House of Darts (3 page)

"We're–"

"– certainly not going to wait for Tizoc-tzin to find us," Acamapichtli said. "He died of magic, didn't he? That's something serious."

"It might be," I said, carefully. I searched for a diplomatic way to say the words on my mind, and gave up. "What in the Fifth World are you doing here, Acamapichtli?"

"Why," his smile was sarcastic. "The same thing as you. Investigating a suspicious death."

Which, in and of itself was suspicious. Was this another court intrigue? I'd have thought that with the disaster of the previous one, Acamapichtli would have known better than to try causing another. "I don't think curiosity is enough to justify your presence here. Quenami made it quite clear we were angering Tizoc-tzin."

"You forget." He smiled, revealing rows of blackened teeth. "We're in disgrace. It can't really get worse."

I rubbed the mark on the back of my hand: the whitish trace of a fang, a reminder of a prison where it had been a struggle to think, a struggle to even breathe – a cage of beaten earth and adobe where Tizoc-tzin's enemies were reduced to drooling idiots. I'd spent only a few hours within, four months previously, accused of treason by Quenami – a handy excuse to keep me out of the way. I didn't want to go back there. "With all respect… I think it can."

Teomitl snorted. "You sound like an old couple." He didn't sound amused. "You have our permission." His voice made it clear it was the imperial "we", the one that put him on an almost equal footing with his brother Tizoc-tzin. As Master of the House of Darts, he was not only responsible for the armouries and for his quarter of the army, but also heir-designate – the one with the best chance of ascending to the Gold-and-Turquoise Crown, should Tizoc-tzin die.

Which, Smoking Mirror willing, wouldn't be happening for quite some time yet. There had been enough fire and blood in the streets with the death of the previous Revered Speaker.

Acamapichtli bowed. "As you wish, my Lord." Of course, he knew the lay of the land.

Teomitl was looking at the dead warrior, with an expression I couldn't place. Regret? The dead man hadn't perished in battle or on the sacrifice stone; his fate would be the same as anyone else's, the same as any priest or peasant: the long, winding road into the underworld, until he reached the throne of Lord Death and found oblivion.

Coatl, more pragmatic than any of us, was already kneeling by the dead man's side, examining him with the expertise of a man who had seen the aftermath of too many battles. "No wounds," he muttered, and set to removing the elaborate costume the man had worn.

In the meantime, I took the cage with the owl to a corner of the room, next to one of the huge braziers. Acamapichtli, I couldn't help but notice, hadn't brought back anything of his own – but he was watching the corpse as if considering his next best move.

I took one of my obsidian knives from my belt – even in full regalia, I never neglected to arm myself – and glanced at the owl, which looked even more ill-tempered than before. Why in the Fifth World hadn't Acamapichtli brought back spiders or rabbits?

Bracing myself, I opened the cage, grasped the owl by the head – and, ignoring the flurry of wings and claws, slit its neck just above the line of my hands.

Blood pooled out, red and warm, staining the tip of the knife, spreading to my fingers. I set the knife against the ground, and drew a quincunx: the five-armed cross, symbol of the Fifth World, of its centre and four points leading outwards – of the Fifth Age, and the four ages that had come before it. Then I chanted a hymn to my patron god Mictlantecuhtli, Lord Death:

"All paths lead to You

To the land of the Flensed, to the land of the Fleshless
No quetzal feathers, no scattered flowers

Just songs dwindling, just trees withering

Noble or peasant, merchant or goldsmith,

Death takes us all through four hundred paths

To the mystery of Your presence."

A veil shimmered and danced into existence; a faint green light that seemed to make the room larger. I felt as if I were standing on the verge of a chasm – at the
cenote
north of the city, where glistening waters turned into the river that separated the living from the dead. A wind rose in the room, but the tinkle of the bells on the entrance-curtain seemed muffled and distant. The skin on my neck and wrists felt loose, and my bones ached within the depths of my body as if I were already a doddering old man. Gently, carefully, I turned back towards the room – moving as through layers of cotton.

In the gloom, Teomitl shone with a bright green light the colour of jade – not surprising, as his patron goddess was Chalchiuhtlicue, Jade Skirt, Goddess of Rivers and Streams. Acamapichtli was surrounded by the blue-andwhite aura of his own patron god. Around Coatl and the dead warrior though, the room pulsed with the same shadows I'd caught a glimpse of earlier. I saw faces, distorted in pain… and flailing arms and legs, all clinging to each other in an obscene tangle of limbs… and hands, their fingers engorged out of shape, and everything was merging into a final, deep darkness which flowed over the face of the dead warrior and into his body, like blood through veins.

It was like no curse or illness I had ever seen.

I closed my eyes, and broke the quincunx by rubbing a foot against its boundary. "I'd step away from the body, if I were you," I said.

Coatl leapt as if bitten by a snake. "You think it's contagious?"

"It's a possibility," I said, carefully.

Acamapichtli was leaning against the wall, his hand wrapped around something I couldn't see. Another of his little amulets, no doubt: he was in the habit of carving ivory and filling its grooves with the blood of sacrifices to make powerful charms. My hand still bore a whitish mark where one of them had touched me, the year before.

"So?" Teomitl asked.

Coatl shook his head. He'd stepped away from Eptli's body, letting us see quite clearly that although the warrior was covered with scars, there was indeed no wound whatsoever. Eptli had shaved his head, an odd affectation for a warrior, but it did mean we could see there was no wound there either.

Not that it surprised me. "It's some kind of illness," I said. I thought of the shadows again, and shivered. "Brought on by magic."

"Can you recognise the source?" Acamapichtli asked.

I shook my head. Every magical spell was the power of a god, called down into the Fifth World by a devotee, and it should have had a signature as recognisable as the light of Jade Skirt on Teomitl's face. "It's decaying." I would have knelt by the corpse, but what I'd seen of the light made me wary. "Breaking down into pieces, as if the Fifth World itself were anathema to it."

"That's not magic," Acamapichtli said, sharply.

"Star-demons?" Coatl asked. The star-demons were the enemies of the gods, destined to end the Fifth World by consuming us all in a great earthquake.

"I've seen star-demons," I said, slowly – my hands seized up at the thought, even though the event had been more than four months before. "This doesn't look anything like their handiwork."

Acamapichtli's grip on his amulet didn't waver. His eyes were cruel; amused. "I've seen it before."

"And?" Teomitl asked, when it was obvious Acamapichtli wasn't going to add anything further.

Acamapichtli had a gesture halfway between exasperation and pity. "If I remembered, don't you think I'd be telling you?"

"No," I said.

Acamapichtli shook his head, as if to clear out a persistent annoyance. "Let old grudges lie, Acatl. We're allies in this."

By necessity – and I still wasn't sure why. "Why the interest?" I asked.

The ghost of a smile. "Because I don't think you understand Tizoc-tzin. When his banquet is over and he wakes up and realises someone deliberately spoiled his wonderful ceremony, he is going to want explanations. And right now, neither of us can afford to fail at giving them."

Footsteps echoed from the courtyard: the slow, steady march of guards. It looked as though our time alone with the corpse was drawing to a close. I hoped it wasn't Tizoctzin, but I didn't think we'd be so lucky.

Before leaving, I took a last glance at the body, lying forlorn and abandoned in the middle of the room, its rich clothes discarded at its side. One moment honoured by the Revered Speaker himself, on the verge of becoming a member of the elite – and the next moment this: cooling flesh in a deserted room, probed openly by strangers. From glory to nothingness in just a few moments… a cause for regret, if there ever was one.

But then again, I was a priest for the Dead and I knew we would all come to this… in the end.

TWO

The Affairs of Warriors

"You mock me," Tizoc-tzin said. His sallow face was puckered in anger, making him seem even gaunter than usual. "Leaving in the middle of the banquet, before the feast was over? One would think" his voice was low, malicious "that you didn't care at all about the fate of the Mexica Empire."

"My Lord," I said, stiffly, "I maintain the balance of the Fifth World. The fate of the Mexica Empire is of paramount importance."

Tizoc-tzin looked dubious. He had come with his sycophant Quenami and, rather to my surprise, with a priest of Patecatl, an elderly man who had slipped into the room unobtrusively to take a look at the body. I had warned him about the possible contagion, but he had only snorted and continued – as if the word of a youngster like me had no value.

"As to you…" He looked at Teomitl, his face caught in an odd expression. They were brothers, yet they couldn't have been more different: there was bad blood between them – had been for four months. "You ought to have known better."

"It's important," Teomitl said. "For Acatl-tzin, and perhaps for me. He was a warrior." Now that Teomitl was Master of the House of Darts, he was most definitely no longer my inferior, and didn't have to add the "tzin" honorific after my name. But he'd kept the habit, all the same.

"And you're Master of the House of Darts," Tizoc-tzin said, curtly. "Head of the army, and heir-presumptive to the Mexica Empire. Do you know what it looks like when you walk out in the midst of the celebrations for our safe return?"

I had to admit he had a point – for all his exalted status, Teomitl had a tendency to behave as though he were still a mere warrior in a regiment – just as I, when I made no effort, had a tendency to behave as a mere priest for the Dead.

Teomitl's face darkened. "The coronation war was a failure."

Quenami winced, and next to me, Coatl looked as though he would rather be anywhere else. It was Acamapichtli who spoke up, his aristocratic face creased in amusement. "You forget. We must appear strong, especially in the present circumstances."

Four months before, in the scrabble for the succession, Tizoc-tzin's court intrigues had led to the death of the entire council, and the intrusion of star-demons into the Sacred Precinct – and the Great Temple's altars had been slick with the blood of our own noblemen. All in front of the foreign dignitaries gathered for the designation of Tizoc-tzin – dozens of neighbouring city-states who had paid exorbitant tribute to Tenochtitlan, and dreamt of a day they could cast us down into the mud.

Whatever angry words Teomitl might have had were cut short by the re-emergence of the priest of Patecatl, who looked preoccupied. "This is no natural death, my Lord."

Tizoc-tzin looked from Acamapichtli to me – but it must have been clear we couldn't have bribed the priest. "What is it, then?"

"I don't know," the priest said, which wasn't surprising. Patecatl was god of herbs and potions: He was powerless against spells. "It looks like a curse."

Tizoc-tzin looked back at me, his lips tightening. "Someone did this, then. Someone cast a spell to kill a man in the midst of the celebration."

"It would seem so," Acamapichtli said, with a meaningful look at me.

Tizoc-tzin threw him a suspicious glance, but more as a matter of principle, it seemed. "There is a sorcerer out there, seeking to destabilise the Mexica Empire."

I winced – and, under Quenami's disapproving gaze, did my very best to turn it into a cough. "My Lord, surely the people love you."

"The Empire goes from coast to mountains, from marshes to valleys. We have our enemies, only waiting for a moment of weakness to pounce."

Tizoc-tzin had always had a slight tendency to paranoia; unfortunately, this had turned out to be justified four months before, when his rashness had got him killed at the same time as the council. I and the other two High Priests had pooled our powers to bring him back from the threshold of the world beyond, but he'd never been the same since. If anything, the paranoia had got worse. He saw assassins in every shadow, every canal bend, every courtyard and in everyone bold enough, or foolhardy enough, to approach him too closely.

The murder looked more like a case of personal vengeance than political intrigue – not that it was made more legitimate by that, of course. "I don't think–"

"Acatl never thinks." Acamapichtli's voice was dismissive. "That's always been his trouble. We'll of course investigate this as thoroughly as we can, my Lord."

As usual, I wasn't sure whether to thank Acamapichtli or to strangle him. And, by the smug look on his face, he knew my feelings all too well.

Tizoc-tzin frowned. At the point where his eyebrows met, I could see a thin white line: the arch of a broken bone in the skull. His eyes were deeper than they should have been, shadowed like empty sockets.

Southern Hummingbird blind me, we should never have brought him back. No wonder the hole in the Fifth World wouldn't close: the dead weren't meant to rule the living, or to walk in sunlight.

"Very well," Tizoc-tzin said. "I trust this will be solved quickly."

And he swept away, without sparing us a further glance. Quenami lingered behind, looking at us both as if he might add something in his capacity as High Priest of the Southern Hummingbird and our superior, but then shook his head and followed his master. Teomitl, after talking briefly to Coatl, also left – presumably going back to the banquet. From the tense set of his shoulders, he didn't look altogether happy about the situation.