Obsidian & Blood

TWENTY-TWO

Beyond Death

At the palace, we dropped Yayauhqui off into a room for "guests", and I managed to find one black-clad guard willing to keep an eye on him. Though Yayauhqui himself didn't look as though he had any intention of moving: he'd picked up ledgers from his merchant peers before leaving, and he was now sitting cross-legged with the papers spread in his lap, thoughtfully annotating them with a writing reed.

It could have been an elaborate deception, but the most likely explanation was that it was all the truth, and that we'd been mistaken by picking him as the instigator of the plague.

But, if not him, who else? As he had said, we did not lack Tlatelolcans. Another of the former imperial family, with more military training, and a stronger will for revenge?

Pochtic would know.

We walked back to Pochtic's rooms, where Ichtaca had readied everything for the spell: my priests had brought back Pochtic's body from the temple, and laid it again in the position in which he had died: readying the teyolia – the spirit that travelled the world beyond – for being summoned. Around him they had traced the glyph for ollin – movement, the symbol of this Fifth Age – and around the glyph a circle which encompassed the whole room, a symbol for the rules and rituals which bound us all. Now nine of them – one for each level of the underworld – were chanting hymns to Lord Death, beseeching Him to help us summon the dead man's soul.

"In the region of the fleshless, in the region of mystery

The place where jade crumbles, where gold is crushed

The place where we go down into darkness…"

"I think we'll wait for you outside," Neutemoc said. He shifted uncomfortably – unused, I guessed, to the matter-of-fact way with which we treated death.

Mihmatini shook her head. "You wait outside. I want to see this." Her gaze was hungry, feverish, and I thought I could name the reason for her impatience – she'd leap on anything we could use to make Teomitl see reason.

"Don't overdo it," I said.

Her gaze was hard. "I know what I'm doing."

I sighed, but said nothing. I couldn't push her any further. We walked into the room together – to find Ichtaca on the edge of the circle, watching the ceremony. He bowed to Mihmatini, with the look of uneasy reverence he always had for his magical and political superiors – excepting me, of course.

"You don't look convinced by the ritual," I said.

Ichtaca shrugged. "You know why."

After death, the souls that went into Mictlan lay in scattered shards – not like the sacrifices or the dead in battle, who opened up wings of light to ascend into the Fifth Sun's Heaven, nor the drowned men, who entered Tlalocan whole. Rather, those souls destined for Mictlan needed to strip themselves of every remnant of the Fifth World, pulling their essence from the corpse that had hosted them. It took a few days for that transformation to be complete, but this assumed proper rituals – the washing and laying-out of the body, and the vigil: all the small things that kept reminding the soul of the next step in its journey. Here, there had been time for nothing of this; the body had been moved, cutting its link to the place of death.

"Two days," I said, aloud.

"It will have to suffice," Ichtaca said.

We waited side by side, until the chanting subsided; it was time for me to take my place at the centre of the quincunx.

Pochtic's body lay on the ground – not the pale, contorted thing I remembered, but something else. Palli and the others had dressed him in a semblance of a funeral bundle – given the little time they'd had, I suspected there were rather fewer layers of cotton than Pochtic's status warranted; fewer amulets and pieces of jewellery as well.

I inhaled – feeling the cold of the underworld gather itself from the circle under my feet. Green light had seeped from the dried blood on the ground, until it seemed as though I stood in mist. Everything smelled faintly humid – like leaves on the edge of rotting. Then, with one of my obsidian knives, I drew a line across the scarred back of my hand, letting the blood fall onto the floor, drop after drop. There was a small jolt every time a drop connected, and the mist opened itself up to welcome it, with a hunger that was almost palpable.

"From beyond the river

From beyond the plains of shards

I call you, I guide you out…"

The light flared up, coming to my waist; I could see faint smudges within, and hear the distant lament of the dead; shapes moved within the mist – there were hints of yellow eyes and claws and fangs, and the distant glimmer of a lost soul, like dewdrops on flower leaves.

"Past the mountains that bind and crush

Past the wind who cuts and wounds

Past the river that drowns

I call you, I guide you out…"

Nothing happened.

Or rather: the mist remained, and the feeling of emptiness arcing through me, telling me passage into the underworld was open. But no soul came; no vaguely human shape drew itself out of the murky darkness.

The Storm Lord strike me, Ichtaca was right: we were too early, and the soul was still in four hundred scattered pieces.

But no; there was something… some resistance, as if I'd hooked a fish at the end of a line, or rather, more than one fish: I could feel the pulling, the scrabbling of several smaller things trying to get out of the way, with the same intelligence as a shoal of fish or a flock of sparrows.

I grasped my obsidian knife, letting the blade draw a bloody line within my palm – waiting until the obsidian was tinged with my blood. Then I wove the knife up, heedless of the small pinprick of pain that spread from my open wounds – up, and around, as if cutting into a veil.

The air parted with a palpable resistance, and the pull I felt grew stronger – and then, in a moment like a heartbeat, something coalesced in the midst of the circle.

The souls I had seen had been human, but this clearly wasn't. It moved and shimmered, barely within the Fifth World – I caught glimpses of wings and feathers within its ever-changing shape, as if the soul wasn't yet sure how it had died.

"Priest?" It whispered. The voice was to Pochtic as a codex picture was to a god – small and diminished, its timbre extinguished. "Where–?"

"The Fifth World – but only for a little while," I said. "Everything must tarnish and fade into dust, and you are no exception." My voice took on the cadences of the ritual – for this had to be done properly, lest Pochtic never achieve oblivion in Mictlan. "The blood has fled your body; the voice of your heart is silent. The underworld awaits you."

The soul shifted and twisted. If he had been a man, he would have hugged himself. "I'm dead?"

Quite unmistakably so. "Yes," I said.

It moved again, extending tendrils of light to wrap around the funeral bundle – and withdrawing as soon as it touched it, as if it had been burned. "Dead…" it whispered.

What a contrast to the vibrant, arrogant man Pochtic had been, but then, few spirits maintained their cohesion into death. I had only met one, and he had been Revered Speaker of Tenochtitlan, schooled in propriety and ritual since his birth.

"Dead," I said. And, because strong emotions could survive even into Mictlan, "You committed suicide."

A brief flare from the soul; a shifting of lights to become darker. "I did." There was a pause. "I… I was afraid."

I said nothing, not wanting to break the fragile process of gathering its memories.

"He was going to find me – arrest me, kill me. The Revered Speaker…" It paused, shifted again. "I – did something. I–"

It was silent, then – hovering over its own corpse, not daring to touch it. At length, it whispered, and it was the voice of a broken man, "It can't be forgiven. It can't ever be forgiven."

If it still had eyes, it would have wept.

And, if I didn't vividly remember the carnage in the courtyard, perhaps I would have bent or relented – but Tapalcayotl's face was in my mind, black and twisted out of shape by sores, and the memories of a dozen bodies scattered like a grisly harvest, and the vulnerability in Acamapichtli's eyes. "What did you do?"

"I– I– " Its voice was low, halting – ashamed? "He was talking in my sleep, always – whispering, suggesting, threatening – always talking, until I couldn't take any more of it. I just couldn't! He – he wanted me to help him, to get revenge, and I couldn't say no."

Talking. Dreams. "You had herbs, in your room," I said. "Jimsonweed, and teonanacatl. You were speaking with the spirits." But even as I said that, I thought of the decayed wards – they had been familiar, but they weren't for better communication with the departed. They were the reverse: walls to keep the spirits out, attacked until they'd ruptured. We'd had backwards: it wasn't the living seeking to spread the plague with the help of the dead. It was the dead seeking revenge, and influencing the living to get it.

"He found you," I said, slowly. "A tool for his plans. And you helped him," I said. From the start – giving the feather quills to Eptli, to Zoqutil, engraving the spells within the palace – corruption in our midst, like the rotten core of a cactus.

"I–"

"Tizoc-tzin won't forgive; the Southern Hummingbird doesn't forgive." It was a lie, for his soul would go down into Mictlan, where there was no judging, no weighing of deeds – where everyone, prince or nobleman or peasant, was equal. "Who was he, Pochtic? What did he want?"

"I–" Something rippled across the soul, as if it were caught in some inner struggle. Vaguely, I heard Ichtaca cry out from beyond the circle. "Revenge, but I can't say anything – I can't, he would kill me…"

"You are already dead," I said. "Wrapped in the bundle of your funeral pyre, awaiting entry into the land of the dead, the land of the fleshless, the land where jade crumbles and feathers become dust." Every word fell into place with the inevitability of a heartbeat – further ritual, hemming the soul in, reminding it that there was no escape. "And he can't harm you anymore, whoever he is."

"You're wrong – wrong, wrong," the soul whispered. Around it, the circle was crinkling inwards – the green mist receding into the stone floor, to reveal once more the frescoes of the gods on the walls. "Wrong…"

"No," I said. "You're dead – you belong to Lord Death now, and to Mictlan. No one can take away from you, and no one can reach down into the underworld. What does he want? Tell me."

The soul shifted, twisted – writhed, trying to escape – the wings were falling away, and the outline of arms and legs were forming, flailing wildly as if in great pain. "He – revenge," he whispered again. "On all of Tenochtitlan, if need be. May the cities you hold fall one after the other; let the temples be awash in fire and blood…"

I was losing him. The time for the ritual was past, and he was going away from me, gathering himself for the plunge into Mictlan. I needed to get something, and fast. "What does he want, Pochtic?"

The soul was unravelling like a skein of maguey fibre, faster and faster – drawing away from the corpse, coalescing into the shape of a man, but growing fainter and fainter the whole while. "Pochtic!"

But he was gone, and I remained alone with his corpse, within a circle that was stone again. The room was cold; and the wind on my exposed arms chilled me to the bone.

Something was left behind, a mere whisper on the wind: a name, quivering out of existence with each spoken syllable. "Moquihuix-tzin."

• • • •

"Moquihuix-tzin?" Mihmatini asked. She sat on the terraced edge of Pochtic's quarters, looking down into the courtyard. Neutemoc was by her side – as if standing guard. "That's the last Revered Speaker of Tlatelolco. He's–" she stopped. "It doesn't matter whether he's dead, does it?"

I grimaced. "Partly. The dead can't cast spells, or summon creatures. But they can influence." And Moquihuix-tzin had been a strong character – both Nezahual-tzin and Yayauhqui had described him as a man used to getting his way. No wonder Pochtic had been such a pliant tool.

"Which isn't helping us, is it?" Mihmatini said. "With Pochtic gone, he could be influencing pretty much anyone."

Below, a few noblemen were crossing the courtyard, and a couple was coming towards us, the woman ahead of the man – her face utterly unfamiliar, as sharp and rough as broken obsidian, her clothes slightly askew, as if she'd dressed in a panic.

They were almost upon us when I realised that the man behind her – tall and unbending, with a headdress of heron feathers – was Acamapichtli. He stood once more with his old arrogance, as if his scarred face and sightless eyes meant nothing. He wore a carved fang around his neck, a beacon of power I could feel even without my true sight, and he moved confidently, as if being blind were no trouble at all.

"Further evidence of your charms?" I asked.

He shook his head, impatiently. "Behave, Acatl. This isn't a time for levity. I've brought my Consort, as you asked."

The woman bowed to me. Up close, the lines on her face were clearly visible – she would never be called beautiful, but she was striking as only priestesses could be, secure in her identity and power, which gave her a place in society above the common folk. Two black lines ran on her cheeks, calling to mind the face of the goddess Herself – whom I had seen once, more than a year before, when Teomitl had been granted his powers. "Greetings, Acatl-tzin. I am Cozolli, priestess of Chalciuhtlicue, and Consort of Tlaloc."

"No need to be formal," I said. Acamapichtli shot me a quick look; I didn't know what he thought of the position of women in the clergy – who, save for the Guardian, could only ever be the inferior of their male homologues.

"Fine, fine," Acamapichtli said. "We can dispense with the idle chit-chat, Acatl. We've come here because we have news."

"And from the look on your face, not good," Mihmatini interjected.

Acamapichtli turned in the direction of her voice. He was silent for a moment. "Oh, I see. The Guardian. What a pleasure." I expected him to be mocking, but Mihmatini's strength must now be evident, and he had always been a man to respect that.

Mihmatini looked less happy – much as if she'd swallowed live eels. "Acamapichtli." She made no pretence of respect to him, though, and to my surprise he nodded, as one equal to another. "What do you want?"

"The boundaries are breached, Acatl. That's why the gods are so scared."

Even blind, he must have felt by our silence he wasn't achieving quite the effect he'd intended. "We know this," I said, wearily. "We're working on how to fix this. If you're here, you can confirm something for me."

Acamapichtli turned his face towards his consort; who said nothing. "Go ahead."

The entrance-curtain tinkled, letting Ichtaca through. He had changed out of the formal regalia, and his hands were now clean of the sacrifice's blood. He nodded, curtly, towards Acamapichtli and Cozolli, and sat cross-legged, patiently waiting for us to finish.

"I need to know if your god had Moquihuix-tzin's soul in His keeping."

"The Revered Speaker of Tlatelolco?" Acamapichtli looked surprised. He shrugged. "How would I know this?" But his consort nodded.

"He died by the noose," she said, curtly. "Every priest knows that."

The jab completely bypassed Acamapichtli. "And how does this help us, exactly?"

"It doesn't, per se," I said, slowly. Why was I bothering with this? There was only one thing which should have mattered to me. "We need to close the boundary." I turned to Ichtaca, who had remained silent until then. "You had started working on that."

Ichtaca grimaced. "Yes. It's far from being a simple problem. The gates need to be drawn close without being shut – leaving just enough magic for Tizoc-tzin to exist, but not enough for widespread ghosts."

And even that would still leave a risk – summoners would find it slightly easier to work, and there would be more creatures slipping through the cracks. But it was still better than star-demons.

Pretty much anything was.

"And?" Mihmatini asked.

"I think–" Ichtaca said, slowly, "that it would take the three High Priests, again – as it took them to open it in the first place."

Three High Priests. I had a mental vision of trying to convince Quenami he needed to work with us. "It won't work," I said. "Even if Quenami is still here. We need mastery, and subtlety." And, while he might be a fine diplomat, the events of the previous days had proved, quite unequivocally, that he didn't have much magical expertise.

But Ichtaca was right – what had taken three to do couldn't be undone by two. We needed… someone to stand in for Quenami. Someone linked to life, virility and good fortune.

"If you want to keep it open, you can't close it from the Fifth World," Acamapichtli said, acidly. "You have to be on both sides, to keep control over what you're doing."

"On three sides," I corrected, distractedly. "To rebuild the tumbled one, you do need three people. One in the Fifth World, one in the underworld. And one astride the wall."

Mihmatini's gaze was harsh. "Why do I get the feeling you're going to be the one astride the wall?"

"Look, that's not what matters."

"What about the Heavens?" the Consort Cozolli asked. "They're also open."

"Symbolically, it's a single boundary," I said gently. "Between the Fifth World and the world above, the world below. All you need is one person outside that boundary."

"Hmm." She didn't appear wholly convinced, but I was.

"We need a third person. Mihmatini–"

She shook her head. "I stand for all gods, and none. I can't complete your triad."

Then – I looked at Cozolli – she was only a Consort, and was symbolically tied to Tlaloc through her worship of Chalchiutlicue. No, she wouldn't do either. "Then it'll have to be Quenami. " I stopped, then, thinking of someone else who stood for a god – who might as well be High Priest, given his close relation to his patron. "The breath of sickness in the Fifth World," I said. "Death astride the wall. And the breath of life in the underworld."

The breath of life. The wind, Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent. "Nezahual-tzin." Mihmatini's voice was grim. "Fine – if he hasn't run away as well. And what about our troublesome ghost?"

"If we find him, we'll work out how to deal with him," I said. The truth was, I had no idea how you killed a ghost. I could banish them – but that just sent them back into the Heavens, ready to come back again.

Unless…

Every ghost disappeared before the throne of Lord Death – if it came to that, we might be able to do something.

Save that it was a favour, and I had no wish to incur more debts with my god.

"It might not work, Acatl-tzin."

"I…" Ichtaca looked at me, halfway between admiration and horror – not an expression I felt altogether comfortable with.

As usual, he'd managed to make his doubt evident while outwardly agreeing with me. I shrugged, and spread out my hands. "The boundaries have to be closed. That's our role. Do you have a better idea?"

Ichtaca looked dubious. "No," he said at last. "You're going to require the help of the order."

I smiled. "I wouldn't have had it any other way."

Mihmatini looked wistfully at her feet – where the pale trace of the thread tying her to Teomitl coiled on the ground. Then she sighed. "I have to come with you. I can help to make the spell stronger."

"Are you sure?"

"No," she said, curtly. "Don't ask, or I might just change my mind. I hope it's going to work, but it's really uncertain." Mihmatini pursed her lips. Clearly, she didn't much care for asking Nezahual-tzin's help once again. She looked back and forth, from Acamapichtli and Cozolli to me. "How come your order doesn't have a Consort anyway?" Mihmatini asked. "You seem to be the only exclusively male priesthood in the Empire."

Ichtaca jerked as if stung; I merely nodded, looking slightly away from her. Acamapichtli just looked smug. It was public knowledge, but still, never brought out in such an open fashion – like pointing out to an aged relative that they were senile. "There was… a problem with the Consort, a dozen years ago. She did – let's just say she got involved in activities she shouldn't have."

Meaning that she'd dabbled in the wrong kind of magics, made the wrong kind of alliances, and set herself to fold the entire Fifth World into Mictlan.

Mihmatini grimaced. "And she was killed? And the female priests?"

Ichtaca spoke, slowly, measuredly. "Not killed – exiled. And the corruption went deep into the clergy. It was, ah, cleaner to remove the branch than try to prune sprig by sprig."

Mihmatini grimaced. "I've heard it say you're sick people, but this is the first proof I had." She shook her head, as if removing water from her hair. "Never mind, that's all pretty unimportant right now. Acatl?"

I shrugged. "I don't have a better idea."

"If you need someone in the underworld and someone on the boundary, you'll need a gate into Mictlan. Opening one isn't cheap or easy," Ichtaca said.

"No, but we can manage." Provided nothing went wrong.

Ha ha. I knew the answer to that one, too.

Finding Nezahual-tzin turned out to be more difficult than we'd foreseen. He wasn't in his quarters, which lay empty and deserted, like those of the Revered Speaker. He wasn't in the steambath, or in the various Houses of Joy, and neither was he in the tribunal, listening to the various magistrates argue in search of truth.

I could tell Neutemoc was starting to get frustrated – no wonder, he was a warrior, and such footwork was merely the prelude to the fight – and even Mihmatini's temper was close to fraying. Acamapichtli, to my surprise, was more equable, in fact, he and his Consort were worryingly silent, following us with alert faces, their gazes moving, as if they could track dead spirits.

And perhaps they could, too. Knowing Acamapichtli, he wouldn't have chosen a weak or ineffective Consort.

The priests behind me, Palli and Matlaelel – who carried the supplies we'd need for the spell – didn't look enthusiastic, either.

"He didn't exit the palace," I said at last, as we looped through the same deserted courtyard for the fifth time. "The guards didn't see him."

Neutemoc grimaced. "I'm not convinced they'd have seen him."

"The Revered Speaker of Texcoco?" Mihmatini shook her head. "No, they'd have seen him. If only to warn Tizoc-tzin." She grimaced. "And with the number of people left…"

I said nothing. The atmosphere in the palace was somehow different – there were still people wandering the corridors, from magistrates to noblemen, from feather-workers to officials. But still…

Still, it was like a man with a removed heart – he might flop and writhe for a bare moment on the sacrificial altar, but there was no doubt that he was already dead.

Had Nezahual-tzin left the palace? He'd proved before that he came and went as he chose – sometimes in disguise, if there was need. He might have gone past the guards…

Something stopped me – a thought that slipped into the tangle of my mind like a sharpened knife. We were all acting as if the palace was impervious, and the guarded entrance was the only one – but the truth was, it wasn't anymore. Not if you could brave the power of Chalchiuhtlicue and enter the tunnel Teomitl had created – in the women's quarters.

And the gods knew Nezahual-tzin liked his women.

I bit back a curse. "Let's go."

"Where?"

"Women's quarters. I'll explain later."

• • • •

The women's quarters did not give off the same atmosphere as the rest of the palace: in the courtyards, life seemed to go on as it had always done, with the regular clacking of weaving looms as the girls learned to spin cotton and maguey fibre, and the subdued laughter of conversations drifting to us, about servants and men, and impending births. A woman I'd already seen, her belly heavy with child, was coming out of the steambath – walking slowly with her attendants, glaring at us for daring to impugn on her dominion.

As we entered one of the more secluded courtyards, Mihmatini's head came up, as if scenting the air. "You're right. He's here."

"You can feel his powers?" Neutemoc asked.

Mihmatini laughed, briefly. "No. I know what the place looks like when there is a man around. I always thought he had guts, but to use Tizoc-tzin's absence…"

"He's probably visiting relatives," I said, though I didn't really believe any of it.

Mihmatini walked to one of the closed entrance-curtains, and wrenched it open without ceremony. A jarring, discordant sound of bells accompanied her inwards – we could hear a woman's voice, arguing but growing fainter, and then another sound of bells, followed by Mihmatini's voice again.

Then silence.

Neutemoc and I looked at each other uncomfortably. "Maybe we shouldn't be here," Neutemoc said.

"I don't have a better plan," I said with a sigh. "But you can go home, you know."

He grinned – his face transfigured into that of a boy. "It's more interesting here."

The entrance-curtain tinkled again, letting through Mihmatini and Nezahual-tzin – who looked as though a jaguar cub had just pounced on him and settled down to maul him. "What is the meaning of this?"

"The meaning of this is that we get you out," Mihmatini said, with an expansive gesture of her hands. "And then, once you're safely out of here, we can worry about explaining to Tizoc-tzin what you were doing in the women's quarters."

"Nothing reprehensible," Nezahual-tzin protested – as smooth and arrogant as always.

"You can be sure Tizoc-tzin isn't going to swallow this," Mihmatini said, grimly amused. "Now–"

Something crossed the air, like the shimmering of a veil – everything seemed to ripple around us, as if we were underwater – and then it was gone, but the air was wrong.

Mihmatini stopped; Nezahual-tzin's eyes rolled up, showing the uncanny white of pearls. "Acatl…"

They came into the courtyard three at a time, fluid and inhuman – their bodies the black of a starless night, their faces both ageless and wrinkled, like those of drowned children; the hand at the end of their upraised tail twitching, moving and opening as if eager to rip out eyes – moving like lizards or salamanders. They fanned out, blocking both exits to the courtyard – I could see Neutemoc's lips moving, keeping track of them all, but there must have been more than a dozen of them already, watching us with white, filmy eyes – hunger and hatred in their gazes.

Ahuizotls.

Teomitl…

But the one who strode into the courtyard after them wasn't my student. Rather, it was Coatl, but he moved with a grace I'd never seen from the warrior.

"Coatl?"

His gaze moved from one end of the courtyard to another, watching us. "A warrior. A Guardian. And priests. Is that all the Mexica will field, to defend the Triple Alliance? Where are your She-Snake, your Revered Speaker – your Master of the House of Darts?"

Mihmatini's hand tightened around my wrist. "Acatl–"

He had died, and been brought back to life. That was what Palli had thought; what we had all thought. But what had come back – what had walked and talked, and smiled and wept – it hadn't been Coatl at all. It had been another soul. A dead soul trapped within Tlalocan.

"I know," I said. "Moquihuix-tzin!" I called.

He jerked, slightly, but his attention was still fixed on Nezahual-tzin.

Nezahual-tzin's opal-white eyes moved towards Coatl, steadily held his gaze. "I don't believe we've been introduced."

Coatl's broad, open face turned to look at him – the eyes were more deep-set than I remembered, and dark, as if he stood within a great shadow. "You wouldn't know me, pup."

Teomitl would have lashed out; Nezahual-tzin merely raised an eyebrow. "Pup? That's not setting up a felicitous acquaintance." His hand moved, to encompass the ahuizotls gathered in the courtyard. "Though those are hardly friendly."

"He's here to kill us, you fool," Mihmatini said. Power was flowing to her – ward upon ward to defend herself, an impregnable against the ahuizotls.

"Me as well?" Nezahual-tzin looked shocked – his eyes reverting, briefly, to their clear green-grey shades. "I haven't done anything to you that I would know of."

While they were arguing, I gestured to Palli and Matlaelel. We spread out in the courtyard, drawing obsidian knives from our belts, cutting deep into the palm of our hands – where the veins flowed all the way to the heart – and let the blood drip onto the ground, forming the first hints of a circle. I eyed the ahuizotls, which still hadn't moved. I didn't think it was going to last long.

"Whoever gets to Nezahual-tzin first–"

Mihmatini shook her head. "Drags him into Mictlan, yes. For that, we need your gate, Acatl."

"And you need to stay here," I said to Acamapichtli.

He snorted, like a Revered Speaker amused by a peasant's joke. "I had the general idea, don't worry. Now concentrate on your work, High Priest for the Dead."

"You know what they say about the taint of your ancestors," Coatl hissed. "It was your father who undid us – who sided with the Tenochcas instead of following the path of justice."

Nezahual-tzin laid a hand on his macuahitl sword – slowly, casually. Beside him, Neutemoc did the same. Acamapichtli and his Consort nodded at each other, and both simultaneously drew obsidian daggers.

"I believe," Nezahual-tzin said, slowly, carefully, "that this taint is washed away at birth. I certainly would hope the midwife acted suitably when I was born."

Coatl's face distorted in anger. "You – you mince words as if they meant anything. Will words bring back my people, pup? Will they invoke the dead back from the Fifth Sun's heaven; heal the raped women and all those taken slaves?"

"Your people? You're not Coatl, are you?" Nezahual-tzin's eyes narrowed; the sword's wooden blade came up, its obsidian shards glinting in the sunlight; and he took a step in Coatl's direction.

"You waste my time." Coatl brought his hands together, and before we knew it the ahuizotls were flowing towards us, the hands on their tails going for our faces.