Obsidian & Blood

SIX

The Seekers

I came back to the temple with a full stomach, intending to stay only briefly before I resumed my talk with Neutemoc. But I found Teomitl waiting for me at the entrance to the storehouse, chatting with Ezamahual: a lean, nervous novice priest, a son of peasants who couldn't believe he'd had the good fortune of entering calmecac. Given how captivated Ezamahual was by Teomitl's talk, I could have emptied the storehouse in front of him without raising the alarm.

Ah well. Youth would wear off at some point. I belatedly realised I wasn't so old myself: only thirty. But I felt old; out of place.

Teomitl didn't see me immediately, but Ezamahual did. He straightened up and Teomitl turned.

"Acatl-tzin. I've come back from the registers. I have what you asked from me."

He was still filled with that coiled energy; it lay beneath every word, every short, stabbing gesture he made with his hands. "Out of all the names you gave me, only Priestess Zollin was born on a Jaguar day."

He gave me a quick account of the names: neither the dancers, Huei nor the other senior priestesses of the calmecac could have summoned that nahual.

There was one name missing from that recitation, though. "Mahuizoh?" I asked. "The Jaguar Knight? You couldn't find him?"

"I searched," Teomitl said, in what was almost an angry retort. I was starting to understand such a reaction was usual with him, and wondering if I had the patience to deal with that. "There are two Mahuizohs who are members of the Jaguar Knights."

"And?" I asked.

"Their birthdates?" I expected him to protest, but he surprised me by closing his eyes. "One Rain and Three Jaguar."

"I'm impressed," I admitted. "What about their age?"

"They're both around thirty-six," Teomitl said.

Tlaloc's lightning strike me. It didn't remove Mahuizoh from my list. Though it was significantly shorter now, with just the priestess Zollin, the Jaguar Knight Mahuizoh, and my brother Neutemoc left. I wished the search parties would find Eleuia, or, failing that, some evidence that would help me decide.

Teomitl was still standing, waiting. "You did well," I said.

"No." He sounded disgusted. "I was one hour at the records for six birthdates. That's hardly the pinnacle of efficiency."

"You're too hard on yourself," I said. An uncanny trait, when coupled with his staggering arrogance.

He shook his head. "Realist. Give me something else to do."

"I don't have–"

"You're in the middle of an investigation, and you're doing it alone." He must have seen my face, for he said, "The Guardian told me."

I wish I could tell Ceyaxochitl some words of my own. "You're not giving the orders," I snapped. "That's the first rule you'll have to learn."

Teomitl smiled, and I knew why. I'd already given halfway in. "Tell me the others," he said.

I'd sworn I wouldn't take any apprentices, that I wouldn't hold out my heart to be torn apart. "You have no idea where this will lead you."

"The underworld?" he asked.

"You should have enough good sense to be afraid of Mictlan."

"Yes," Teomitl said. "I'm afraid. But don't the courageous go on, even in the face of fear?"

Again, an unexpected answer. There was obviously more to him than his arrogance, and that had to be the reason Ceyaxochitl had sent him to me.

But I still didn't know what to do with him.

"I can help," Teomitl said. "I can do better than this."

I was going to regret it. But still… "Very well," I said. "Go back into the girls' calmecac. See if you can find some trail, or someone who's seen something. That nahual didn't enter here through the main gate, and we still don't know how it left the building." What in the Fifth World had happened to that beast? At least, it would keep Teomitl busy for a while.

Teomitl nodded. If he was excited, he let nothing of that show on his face, just went rigid, like a warrior taking orders from his commander.

"I'll be back," he said.

As he walked past, a tendril of something brushed me. I narrowed my gaze, opening up my priest-senses. A slight, almost transparent veil of magic hung around Teomitl: not nahual, not underworld magic, but something tantalisingly familiar. Something…

The more I tried to bring it into focus, the more it slipped away from my mind.

"Teomitl!" I called.

He turned, halfway through the courtyard. "Yes?"

It was as if something had reached out, and brushed against his whole body, leaving an intricate network of marks over his skin. It didn't look harmful. Quite the reverse, in fact: it was an elaborate protection spell, one I had never seen.

"No, nothing. Be careful," I said, finally.

"He's an interesting man," Ezamahual said to me after Teomitl had left. "A bit abrasive, but interesting."

I nodded. "He must have stories to tell."

Ezamahual's lean, dour face lit up. "He's heard tales of the jungles to the south, and he's even met a merchant who went north, into Tarascan land. But he's not boasting. Just sharing." His unquestioning, almost boyish enthusiasm was endearing. In many ways, Ezamahual reminded me of myself at a younger age, when everything in the priesthood was still a wonder, opening pathways that radiated through the whole of the universe.

"I imagine Teomitl hasn't seen many things himself, though," I pointed out.

Ezamahual shrugged. "Second-hand accounts are better than nothing. And he's too young, in any case."

With a jolt, I realised that Teomitl had to be at least four years younger than Ezamahual: an adolescent, barely out of childhood. "Yes," I said, finally. "He's very young."

Ezamahual shifted position slightly. "He'll have time to see the world," he said, always pragmatic. "Warriors travel quite a bit."

They did. Most battlefields those days were further and further away from Tenochtitlan. Perhaps, one day, the fabled jungles, where the quetzal birds roamed free, would be part of the Mexica Empire. And Teomitl would have taken his place in their conquest.

None of my concern now. I had other things to do, like try to see Neutemoc and coerce him into admitting the truth about his relationship with Eleuia.

I walked back to the Imperial Palace on my own, under the light of late afternoon. Outside the Jaguar House, some sort of ceremony was going on. Three warriors and three sacred courtesans were going through the steps of a dance, to the piercing, slow tune of flutes: the jaguar pelts the warriors wore mingled with the courtesans' garish cotton skirts, weaving a pattern like a spell cast over the world.

Among the crowd that watched the dance, several faces stood out: a young girl of noble birth, her face flushed with lust, and a scruffy, ageless man, his face covered in grime, the wooden collar of a slave around his neck. His expression was hard to decipher, but I thought it was hatred. Odd.

I did not dwell on it for long: I elbowed my way out of the crowd, and made my way to the display platform in front of the Imperial Palace.

But when I arrived, Neutemoc was not there any more.

Stifling a curse, I paced up and down among the cages, drawing glances and a few jeers from the prisoners awaiting trial. My brother wasn't anywhere to be found.

"Excuse me," I asked one of Neutemoc's former neighbours in captivity. "The Jaguar Knight who was here…?"

The prisoner, a middle-aged freeman with a tattered loincloth, spat at my feet. I didn't step back. I had nothing to do with his case, and so could do little to him. And he knew it. Intimidation was the only strategy possible.

After a while, he shrugged. "They took him for questioning."

"They?" I asked, with the first stirrings of fear in my belly.

"The magistrate and some good-for-nothing, fancy priest."

Nezahual. The servant of the High Priest of Tlaloc, the one who wanted my brother convicted at all costs.

"Thank you," I said, and I climbed the rest of the steps into the palace.

Like the Great Temple, it was a huge complex: a maze of gardens, private apartments and sumptuous rooms. On the ground floor were the courts of justice and the state rooms; on the upper floor, the apartments of Emperor Axayacatl-tzin, and of the Rulers of Texcoco and Tlacopan, the other partners in the Triple Alliance that kept the Mexica Empire strong.

I headed straight for the military courts. The vast, raftered room was deserted: I made my way towards the back, and the patio opening on the gardens. Only one magistrate remained: an old man sitting on a reed mat and dictating notes to a clerk.

"And you would be?" he asked peevishly.

I didn't know him, but then my cases seldom came to a military court. "I'm Acatl. I'm looking for a Jaguar Knight."

The magistrate sneezed, turned to his clerk with his eyebrows raised. The clerk said, "He's being heard in the Imperial Audience."

What? It wasn't possible. The Imperial Courts were reserved for grave crimes that touched on the security of the Empire.

"It's not that serious," I said, when words came back to me.

The clerk shrugged. "It is, when the High Priest of the Storm Lord becomes involved."

I cursed under my breath, consigning politics and politicians to the depths of Mictlan. "Where is the audience?" I asked.

"Closed audience," the clerk said. He laid his writing reed on top of his maguey-fibre paper, and looked at me. "No one comes in."

"But I'm in charge of the investigation," I protested.

"Not any more, it would seem," the clerk said. He might have been sorry, though it was hard to tell. I wanted to scream, to tear something, anything to lessen the growing feeling of frustration in my chest.

"An important case?" the old magistrate asked. Beneath the rheumy veil, his gaze was still sharp.

I didn't want to discuss the details of the inquiry with a stranger. "Very important," I said.

He tapped his cane against the stone floor, in a gesture eerily reminiscent of Ceyaxochitl. "Supernatural case, eh? That's why you'd be involved. Though the High Priest…" He looked at me again. "I'm not without influence myself," he said.

Hardly daring to hope, I asked, "Can you get me into the Imperial Audience?"

He coughed. "No," he said. "I won't waste my influence on a guilty man."

"I don't know whether he's guilty. There's barely enough evidence," I said, a hollow growing in my heart. I didn't know what to think any more. I had few leads, and every time I seized hold of one, things seemed to become worse.

"That's not what I heard," the magistrate said. "It seems to be damaging, the situation they've found him in."

"Yes, but I don't…" I started, then caught myself. Whatever I admitted to couldn't make things worse. "He's my brother. I can't let him fall because of politics."

The old magistrate watched me, as unmoving as the statues of the gods in the temple. "The Emperor's Justice is swift," the old magistrate said. "But not that swift. It will take at least another three days of audiences for the Revered Speaker's representatives to reach a decision. If you have any evidence, you may bring it to me. Ask for Pinahui-tzin."

"What kind of evidence?" I asked.

"Proof of his innocence, or of someone else's guilt," Pinahui-tzin said.

"In a bare handful of days?" It was hope, of a kind, but barely within my reach, unless Chicomecoatl, Seven Serpent, saw fit to bless me with Her luck.

Pinahui-tzin rapped his cane on the floor: a parent scolding a disobedient child. "I'm no maker of miracles, young man. I offer you a chance. Whether you take it is your own problem."

I nodded. I had no real choice. But I prayed that Pinahui-tzin was right, and that Neutemoc would survive a few more days.

Otherwise I couldn't see myself telling the news to Huei, or to Mihmatini.

I did try to locate the Imperial Audience, but Pinahui-tzin had been right: the guards wouldn't let anyone in, not even me.

The Duality curse politics and politicians. If Neutemoc was innocent–

You don't know that, my inner voice pointed out to me.

No, I didn't. But let oblivion take me if I allowed Neutemoc to die because of priestly politics.

I left the Imperial Palace in a sour mood, and headed back to my temple. In front of the Jaguar House, the dance had ended and the dancers had left. The scruffy slave was still there, though the two guards at the entrance pretended not to see him.

After my first aborted attempt at the House, I hadn't come back – if I thought about it, more out of fear than out of genuine reasons. But time was growing short for Neutemoc. Already the sun was low in the sky, and night would soon fall.

I walked straight to one of the guards and bowed to him.

He was dressed in full Jaguar regalia, in a uniform even more sumptuous than Neutemoc's. The jaguar skin covering him had no visible seams: it wrapped around him tightly, the jaguar's skin fitting tightly around his own head. A plume of red, emerald-green and blue feathers protruded from between the jaguar's ears; and his face between the jaguar's jaws was painted in an intricate red pattern. In one of his hands, the knight held a spear; in the other a shield covered with red feathers. He looked at me, puzzled, as if an insect had suddenly elected to speak to him.

Sometimes, I remembered why I hated warriors, and Jaguar and Eagle Knights worst of all. "I want to speak to a Jaguar Knight," I said.

The guard shook his head, and subtly moved to bar my way. Nothing unexpected, sadly. "Your kind isn't allowed in here."

"I know," I said, exasperated by the thoughtless slight. Only Jaguar Knights could enter the House. "But you can at least tell me whether he's here."

The guard looked thoughtful, probably deciding whether I would leave faster if he answered me than if he didn't.

"His name is Mahuizoh," I snapped. "I don't know his calpulli." From the corner of my eye, I saw the ill-kempt slave was leaning forward, suddenly interested.

The guard shrugged. "We have several of those."

"I know." Two, according to Teomitl's research. "Unfortunately…" I started, and realised that admitting to lack of knowledge would allow him to dismiss me. "He has a sister in the girls' calmecac."

"Mahuizoh of the Coatlan calpulli?" the slave said, his mouth yawning wide open. Half his teeth were missing – knocked out, by the jagged looks of the remains – and the others were stained as black as dried blood. He breathed into my face the rankness of someone who hadn't washed body or teeth for several days. I recoiled.

The guard slammed his spear on the ground. "Huacqui. Be silent."

The slave smiled. "I don't see why I should. The mighty Mahuizoh got me thrown out of the Brotherhood, didn't he?"

"Be silent," the guard said, raising his spear, but Huacqui leapt back, with more agility than I would have credited him with.

"Let me tell you about Mahuizoh and his high standards of behaviour. He gets me expelled from the Knights on a trifle–"

The guard growled, but he was clearly unwilling to abandon his post. "You stole from your comrades, Huacqui. That's an offence."

Huacqui cackled. "Yes, yes," he said. "But Mahuizoh… he enjoys his women, doesn't he?"

My heart gave a lurch in my chest. "What do you mean, he enjoys his women?"

"The talk of our clan," Huacqui said. "He has his own little prostitute in the girls' calmecac–"

"He has a sister," I said.

"A convenient excuse. He'd have found another if she hadn't been there. He's been sleeping with that priestess for ever." Huacqui stamped on the ground with both feet. "And he gets the honour and the glory, while I have to sell myself as a slave to earn a living."

"You were always too lazy for your own good," the guard snapped. "And there is no truth – none at all, do you hear? – in those rumours." That last was obviously addressed to me, but in the tense features of the guard's face I read the exact opposite of what he wanted me to believe.

"A priestess," I said to Huacqui. "Which one?"

He shrugged. "Priestess of Xochiquetzal. I don't remember her name. But he was jealous of all the men she kept flirting with, all the young warriors she'd eye like potential lovers." His face was sly.

Neutemoc had said that Eleuia had flirted with him, quite ostentatiously. If Mahuizoh had been her lover, and if he was indeed a jealous man, then he had motive both to kill her and to make sure my brother was indicted for her murder. "Priestess Eleuia?" I asked.

The guard winced; Huacqui burst out laughing, with a malevolent expression. "So it's come out, hasn't it? Yes, our dear little Jaguar Knight and his whore–"

The butt of the guard's spear caught Huacqui in the face, throwing him to the ground. "You – will – be – silent," the guard said, accentuating every word of the sentence. "You will stop spreading such filth, or I might just be tempted to do more than strike you."

Huacqui, lying on the ground with blood pouring into his eyes, just laughed and laughed. He knew the damage had already been done.

I knelt by him; I hesitated to grab him, as he was so filthy, but he pulled himself upward without my help. "Will you swear to that in court?" I asked.

He smiled, a truly unpleasant expression. "If it brings him down, I'll swear to anything."

"You've seen them together?" I asked.

He shook his head. "But I'll find you people who have."

I was afraid he'd bribe them, but I didn't think he was wrong about Mahuizoh's relationship with Eleuia. Mahuizoh had reacted far too strongly to her disappearance.

I drew Huacqui away from the Jaguar House, gave him a few cacao beans, and got his address. He also gave me a description of Mahuizoh, distinctive enough to recognise him if I saw him. It wasn't much, but it was more than I'd previously had.

Now I needed to see Xochiquetzal, and find out who the father of Eleuia's baby was. Hopefully, it wouldn't be Neutemoc. Please, Duality, let it not be my brother, I didn't need any more damaging evidence. I shook myself. I was making progress. There was hope for Neutemoc.

I just wished I could be sure that he was innocent of Eleuia's abduction.

I walked back into my temple in the gathering darkness, and headed straight for the storehouse. Ezamahual had gone, presumably to join one of the vigils, the death-hymns of which echoed through the courtyard; Palli had taken his place.

I needed suitable offerings for the Quetzal Flower, and I didn't remember what those would be. I could have asked the ever-useful Ichtaca, but I didn't want to lower myself in his esteem yet another time.

"Good evening, Palli," I said. "Watching the storehouse again?"

Palli shrugged. "I like it. It's quiet out here."

We had offerings, but not enough to tempt a thief; not when there were larger, richer temples within a spear's throw.

"I need to look in there."

Palli nodded. He wasn't going to question me, in any case. "Help yourself."

Inside, the storehouse was as dark and crowded as ever: owls screeched in protest as the light of my lamp fell on them; scuffling sounds came from the rabbit cages. The combined smells of copal, cedar oil and alum made my head spin. We'd have to sweep the place clean one of these days, before someone fainted in here.

Xochiquetzal… It had been a long time since I'd gone to calmecac, a long time since I'd learnt the hymns and proper offerings for all the gods. I remembered those for the gods I dealt with in everyday life: Mictlantecuhtli, Lord Death, and Mixcoatl, Lord of the Hunt. Xochiquetzal I'd never had many dealings with, for obvious reasons: She was hardly associated with death.

The light of my torch fell on an array of quetzal feathers, stacked near a pile of copal incense cones. Feathers? They were symbols of beauty, but they were not distinctive: I could think of a dozen gods who would accept that particular offering.

For Xochiquetzal, what I needed was some kind of flowers…

Palli's shadow fell across the doorway, casting me in darkness. "Do you know what you're looking for, Acatl-tzin?"

I shrugged, unwilling to admit to weakness. What a poor High Priest I made. "I'm fine," I started, and then thought of Neutemoc. Hmm. I changed my mind. "I need suitable offerings for Xochiquetzal," I said. "Would you remember what those are, by any chance?"

Limned by sunlight, Palli's face was unreadable. "For the Goddess of Beauty? Any flowers, but poinsettias are Her favourites."

A flower as red as the blood of sacrifices. I bit back on a snort. How unsubtle some gods could be.

"Anything else?"

"Butterflies," Palli said. "But we don't have those here. You can find the flowers in the temple gardens, but living butterflies… I could send to the marketplace."

The animal marketplace would be closed, and wouldn't reopen until late tomorrow morning. "I'm not sure we have time," I said. "Anything else?"

"Jade earrings. And" – I heard Palli tap the mace at his side – "quetzals would do. Live ones, not feathers."

"Do you have any of those?"

"The jade earrings, yes. Quetzals… I think we have a pair somewhere at the back." He stepped into the storehouse with a torch in his hand. "Let me see. We got a rattle and drum from the vigil of that woman, four days ago. They're for Her Consort, but She's also patron of music, when the mood takes Her…"

He was going through the rows of aligned offerings with the ease of experience, picking up small items and discarding them after no more than a casual glance. I felt… not entirely useless, but close. I strolled back to the door of the storehouse and waited in the darkness.

Which was why I saw Ixtli, the head of the search parties, walk into the temple courtyard with a grim expression on his face.

My stomach sank. Whatever news there could be, it would not be good. I detached myself from the wall. "Ixtli!" I called out.

He bowed to me. "Acatl-tzin." In the gathering darkness, he looked even worse: his face drained of colour, his gnarled hands crooked like the claws of an animal.

"Any news?"

"Only bad." Ixtli shook his head, apparently annoyed. Suddenly he reminded me of an older Teomitl, still unwilling to forgive his own failures. "We searched all four districts of Tenochtitlan. Then we went further, into the Floating Gardens. But there was no track of that beast. It's as if it has vanished from the surface of the earth."

As it had vanished from within an enclosed calmecac. Something wasn't right about that nahual. What had I missed?

"I see," I said. "You found tracks near the calmecac?"

"No," Ixtli said. "No tracks. We were searching houses at random, on no more than instinct." He fingered the jade amulet around his neck, and said, "There was no chance we would find her."

"I see," I said. "Are you going to stop the search?"

Ixtli shrugged. "No, not yet. But I don't think you should depend on us."

No. I didn't think I should.

"The priestess," Ixtli said. "Do you think she's still alive?"

I shook my head. "I think it's too late."

His gaze held me, unblinkingly. "So do I. Will you be needing any more help?"

I searched my mind for something he could give me, but there didn't seem to be anything. "No, I don't think so. You can take off the jade amulets," I said. "Not much use against a nahual, anyway."

Ixtli smiled. "Better be safe. I'll go reassure my wife, and then I'll go back to the Duality House. Come there if you need us," he said, and then he turned on his heel and left.

Palli had gathered the offerings near the storehouse door. "You mean to go out again?" he asked.

I looked up at the sky. The night had well and truly fallen this time: there would be vigils to take, and offerings to make at the proper times. The Quetzal Flower would certainly not want to receive me at this late hour; and I had seen already what would happen if I tried to enter uninvited. I did want to help Neutemoc; but angering a goddess was not going to arrange matters.

"No," I said, with a sigh. "I'll go tomorrow morning."

I was not, by any means, looking forward to the morrow. One interview with Xochiquetzal had been affecting enough; this one looked set to be even worse.