Obsidian & Blood

TEN

Mictlan's Justice

Despite the late hour, Neutemoc's house was still lit, though the only sounds that pierced the night were the lilting tones of a poet reciting his latest composition. Cradling my bandaged arm in my good hand, I walked to the door.

"Yes?" the slave who was guarding the entrance to the courtyard asked. He was a burly man, with macuahitl scars on his legs: a veteran of some battlefield, though only the Duality knew how he had fallen low enough to sell himself into slavery. "What do you want?" His voice was contemptuous.

Only then did I realise what I must look like. My cloak had been torn to make the bandages that now covered my naked chest, and I stank of pulque alcohol like a base drunkard. In fact, it was a good thing I hadn't met a guard on my way through the city, or I'd have been arrested for drunkenness. And for a priest, that offence carried the death penalty.

"I'm Huei's brother-in-law," I said. "I need to see her."

"She has no time for–" The slave sniffed.

"Beggars?" I asked, infuriated. "I've looked better, but I'm certainly not about to ask for her charity. Will you let me in?"

He didn't look as though he was about to. Luckily for me, someone crossed the courtyard to see what was causing all the noise.

"Acatl?" my sister Mihmatini asked. She wore a pristine dress of white cotton, with a simple embroidery of sea-shells along the hem, and her hair was impeccably combed.

I felt ashamed of what I looked like, compared to her. "Can you convince the guard here to let me in? I need to speak to Huei, quickly."

"Huei?" Her eyes widened. "Is it about Neutemoc?"

I shook my head. I still hadn't felt the familiar cold in my bones. But I was trying not to think of the old, old cenote south of Tenochtitlan, the fissure opening in the rock to reveal the stillness of an underground lake; and how the air above that lake would be growing darker and darker, as the Wind of Knives coalesced into existence at the only gateway He could pass through without being summoned.

"I need to talk to her," I said.

"If you wish, if you wish," Mihmatini said, sniffing. "He's with me," she announced to the slave, who clearly disapproved but didn't dare contradict her. "You're hurt," she added, to me, as I stepped gingerly into the courtyard. "What in the Fifth World have you been doing?"

"Later. Please."

Mihmatini grimaced, but she asked no further questions as she led me into the reception room.

It was almost deserted, though bearing the traces of a long banquet: remnants of food in clay dishes, left on the reed mats; the smell of copal incense thick in the air, barely disguising that of spices and chocolate; and feather-fans, left propped against the dais. Only Huei and a few slaves remained – and the poet: an old man with a cloak of red cotton, and a headdress of yellow feathers, who turned to us with a hostile gaze as we entered.

"And what is the meaning of this?" he asked, drawing himself to his full height.

Too tired to bother with politeness, I merely jerked a finger in the direction of the entrance-curtain. "Get out."

"I am Icnoyotl, the Flower Speaker of Coatlan. I can't be dismissed like a slave boy."

"Actually," I said, marching towards him, "I think you can. Get out. Or I'll throw you out."

A doubtful argument, given my wounds, and he knew it.

Huei's gaze moved from me to the poet, and she said, "Icnoyotl, can you leave us alone? I'll pay you tomorrow."

"It's not about payment," the poet grumbled as he wrapped his cloak around his shoulders. "A man has his pride, you know. Professional pride…"

Huei also gestured for the slaves to step out. They scattered into the night like a frightened flock of birds. I didn't care. Not any more.

"So," Huei said when the poet had left, escorted by Mihmatini. Neutemoc's wife sat, gracefully, on the dais, wearing a skirt embroidered with running deer, and a matching shirt. Around her wrists were bracelets of gold and jade: Neutemoc's wedding gift to her, a token of their love.

A lie. Had there ever been love, in their marriage? Had she ever been truthful with me?

"What do you want, Acatl?" Her voice was frosty. "I hope you have a good reason for offending Icnoyotl."

I was too tired to exchange pleasantries with her. "How could you have been such a fool, Huei?"

Her hand went to her throat. "I don't understand you."

"You understand me very well," I snapped. "You summoned that beast. You asked it to abduct Eleuia, and you thought you'd never be discovered."

"You're insane," she said, her eyes widening slightly.

But I wasn't deceived. She'd already proved that she was a good liar.

"I'm not insane," I said. "One thing nobody told you about beasts of shadows: they remember the first moments after their summoning. And their memories can be accessed."

Huei shook her head. "You're lying, Acatl."

Couldn't she see? The Duality curse her, couldn't she see? "I'm not here to arrest you," I all but screamed, heedless of the slaves, who were now clustering at the entrance. "This is your life we're talking about. Don't you know the penalty for breaching the boundary?"

"Acatl…"

How could people be so ignorant of the boundaries that I maintained, of the price for dealing with the underworld – as if all that mattered was capturing prisoners and offering their hearts to the Sun God?

"Death, Huei. That's the price: an obsidian shard embedded in your heart, and the Wind of Knives carrying away your soul. What were you thinking of? You just can't play around with the boundaries!" A cold feeling was starting to work its way down my spine, but I couldn't tell how much of it I was imagining. He couldn't already be at the underground cavern, could He?

She said nothing. She was watching me, her face expressionless; and she still hadn't moved from her dais.

"How could you have been such a fool?" I asked, the question I'd been holding in my mind finally released. "You had everything. Why endanger it all?"

She inclined her head, a gesture as slow and stately as an imperial wife's. "You're the one who doesn't understand, Acatl." Her eyes were harsh. "Neutemoc was the one who gave us all of this: the house, the jade and feathers–" Her hands moved, encompassed the rich frescoes on the walls, the silver and jade ornaments on the wicker chests. "And he would have thrown it away for a whore's open legs. He was unhappy for a few months, and he'd take some ephemeral comfort, never seeing the consequences? I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't let him go."

"You loved him," I said, shocked. The coldness was halfway down my spine now. "You'd have killed him?"

Her hands clenched in a spasmodic gesture. "He wasn't supposed to be there, the Storm Lord smite him! He was supposed to be coming home." And for the first time I heard the emotion she'd been hiding beneath her haughty mask: not fear or anger, but despair. And it hurt me to the core.

"And finding you reeking of magic?" Some part of me knew that I was wasting time; that the coldness was all the way down my spine, and already a faint lament echoed in my ears. But I couldn't help it. I thought I had understood her, that we had trusted each other, and everything had been a lie.

"He would never have known," Huei said. "And he would have come back to me in time. The children would have been safe."

"No," I said. You couldn't rebuild on a canker. You couldn't go forward with a lie, any more than you could force maize burnt by Mictlan's touch to grow again. But she wouldn't see that. I couldn't make her see.

"Acatl?" Mihmatini's puzzled voice. "Can I have an explanation?"

I turned, briefly. She'd pushed aside the slaves with an authority I hadn't known she possessed. Suddenly, I remembered the stakes; and that I was standing there, wasting time arguing with Huei. "It's not the time," I snapped, more violently than I'd intended to. And, to Huei: "You still don't understand. The Wind of Knives is coming for you. To kill you."

For the first time, Huei looked uncertain. "I don't–" she started.

"You must have known the penalty," I said. "Please tell me you knew it."

And when she turned to look at me, her eyes widening in panic, I knew that she hadn't been the mind behind all of this. Someone had used her, and discarded her like a broken clay toy, knowing that she would die, putting an end to embarrassing questions. "You did not," I said. "Who told you how to summon the beast, Huei?"

I could feel the Wind now: a pressure in the back of my mind. He was moving north along the Itzapalapan causeway, gathering shadows around Him like shrouds. He was coming rapidly, covering in a few minutes what had taken Teomitl and me half an hour of running.

"That's my own concern." Huei was moving away from the dais, trying to get away from me.

I shook my head. "Not any more. Not from the moment you breached the boundaries. Who was it, Huei?"

Her smile was bitter. "And if I tell you… what then, Acatl? Will you protect me from the Wind of Knives?"

"I can't," I whispered, feeling the growing hollow in my stomach. I had been a fool to return here, hoping for answers, hoping I could safeguard my brother's perfect family, the pinnacle of achievement I couldn't reach. "I–"

"No," Huei said. Her voice was sad, but she held herself with the bearing of an Imperial Wife. "You've never understood, Acatl. I gave everything to this marriage, and Neutemoc repaid nothing to me. One grows tired of a hundred slights, of the casual gestures of indifference. One grows tired of wondering when one's husband will finally abandon his own household."

Every one of her words was a knife wound in my gut. Neutemoc couldn't have been so stupid. He…

But I had seen how much he desired Eleuia.

"Huei," I whispered, but she looked at me, straight and tall, and she didn't answer.

Mihmatini had been watching us, growing more and more horrified with each word. "Acatl," she said. "You don't mean…"

When she was younger, on my rare holidays from the calmecac, I'd shared with her the tales of the priests, trying to impress her with all the beasts we'd have to fight, deluding myself I could play the warrior. She knew about the Wind of Knives, and she knew why He was coming.

"It doesn't concern you," I said.

Her eyebrows shot up. "I live in the same house, don't I?"

"Look–" I started, but didn't go further. The Wind of Knives was in our district now, floating over the canals – reaching Neutemoc's house, passing under the gate, shadows trailing after Him.

I didn't stop to think. "Get out!" I screamed at both Huei and Mihmatini, and I ran outside, to face the Wind of Knives.

In the courtyard, the torches' flames had died down, blown out by the Wind's presence. The slaves, too, had scattered, gone back into their quarters, no doubt. And I couldn't blame them. The Wind's approach would have been heralded by darkness and the growing cold; perhaps by a few ghosts, flitting around the courtyard. Enough to make any sane man run away.

I supposed that I didn't count as sane, in any sense of the word.

The Wind of Knives stood under the tallest pine tree of the garden: a tall, humanoid shape made of obsidian shards, glimmering in the moonlight. In my ears was the keening of the wind, bringing to me the lament of dead souls, and the sharp, sickening smell of decaying flesh. Wherever the Wind went, He brought Mictlan with Him.

I didn't go to Him; I stood before the entrance-curtain to the reception room, feeling the cold work its way into the marrow of my bones.

"Acatl," He said. His presence in my mind was strong: it would have driven the uninitiated to insanity. But I was used to it – if one ever got used to the pressure in one's mind, the sense of standing on the brink of a vast chasm. "I have come."

"I know," I said, bowing to Him.

He shifted. Obsidian shards glittered, sharp, cutting, hungering for human blood. "Then let Me pass."

"I cannot."

He made a sound which might have been laughter, although I had never seen Him amused. "You are High Priest for the Dead. You keep the balance."

"I know," I said, but still I didn't move from my place.

He asked, "Would you break that compact? It is a dangerous game you play."

"I'm not playing a game," I said, thinking of Huei, thinking of my brother's radiant face when he'd announced his marriage. "I'm not playing."

"No," the Wind of Knives said. He moved, to stand in front of me. His hand reached out, stopped inches from my chest. Every finger was made of slivers of obsidian, as pointed as the end of a knife. My chest ached at the mere thought of another wound. "It's not a game, Acatl."

"She is my brother's wife," I said, slowly, not knowing what else I could offer Him.

"Should that make a difference?" the Wind of Knives asked.

"I don't know," I said, and it was the truth. Ceyaxochitl had been wrong. I couldn't be in charge of this investigation. I couldn't watch as the underworld tore my brother's family apart; as it tore my own fragile illusions apart.

His hand rested on my chest, inches above the heart, just as the fingers of my good hand closed around the first of my obsidian knives. Power pulsed within me: the familiar emptiness of Mictlan, rising to fill my soul.

The Wind of Knives made that half-amused, half-angry sound again. "You'd fight Me?"

"She had reasons–" I started, knowing how thin was the ground I stood on, knowing that He could not be swayed.

"There are no reasons," the Wind of Knives said. His hand closed. I recoiled, but His fingers only touched my bandages, cutting them away with the precision of an army healer. The bandages fell in a swish of cloth. Cold air ran over the wounds on my chest: a sting that made me hiss.

"This is what comes of dealing with the beasts of Mictlan," the Wind of Knives said. "Think on it, Acatl."

"Yes," I said. "But I still need to understand–" I needed to know who had given Huei the tools for her summoning; and if Priestess Eleuia was still alive.

"There is nothing to understand," the Wind of Knives said. "A transgression was made. Justice must be dealt."

Though He had been human once – a long, long time ago, before He swore himself to Lord Death and became the Wind – He didn't think like us any more. An eternity of watching over the passage of souls and of dealing with transgressors had moulded His mind into something else. Pity, or even reason, was alien to Him.

"There are other lives at stake," I said, raising my good hand in the air, as if to ward Him off. "I need to know who she was working with."

He watched me, unmoving. Moonlight outlined the shape of His head: huge and pointed, more akin to that of a beast of shadows than that of a human. "I do not investigate," He said.

"But I do," I said, and groped for arguments that He could accept. "She wasn't the only transgressor. There are others still at large."

He was silent for a while. At last, He said, "I end all transgressions. She was the only one to open the gate."

"But what of those who gave her the magic?" I asked, sensing an opening I could wedge myself into. "Aren't they as guilty as she?"

"Guilt is irrelevant," the Wind of Knives said.

"So, if I gave people the means to summon a beast, you would never kill me? That doesn't seem just."

He looked at me, lowering His head in a shimmer of blades. "I am justice," He said. "But not, I think, your justice."

"I can't accept–" I started.

"Acatl." His voice stopped me. "Do not lie to Me."

"I'm not lying." I still stood in the entrance; and He still did not strike me down, although it was only a matter of time before He grew bored with me.

"You are protecting her," the Wind of Knives said, "because she is of your blood."

"She isn't of my blood," I said. But as I said it, I realised that all I had given Him, all my reasons for His not killing Huei, were indeed just convenient lies. If I dug deep enough, the real reason didn't have anything to do with the investigation: it was that I couldn't face the thought of Huei's death. It wasn't just. There could be no exceptions. But I could not let Him pass. I could not let Him kill Huei. It went beyond reason.

I stood as tall as I could; and I raised the knife that Mictlantecuhtli had blessed, feeling the power of the underworld seep into my flesh. "I cannot let you pass," I whispered.

He came, again, to stand in front of me. Once more the wind keened into my ears; once more, I heard an endless lament for the dead, echoing in my mind.

"This knife?" He said. He reached out, plucked it from my fingers, and snapped it in two. "You're not Mictlantecuhtli's agent, Acatl. You have scraps of His power, but not enough to stop Me. And it is as it should be."

Before I could break out of my shocked stupor, He'd reached out again and enfolded me into His embrace. The obsidian shards dug into my flesh, each a source of fiery pain that spread outwards. I gritted my teeth not to scream and bit my tongue, so hard that blood flowed into my mouth.

He lifted me upwards effortlessly, gaining speed as He did so. In a brief, panicked moment, as I spun under the pitiless gaze of the stars, I saw what He was going to do: throw me out of His way like a sack of useless refuse.

I tried to grope for a hold, anything I could use to slow Him down. But my good hand closed only on cold, cutting shards, which I couldn't hold. His hands opened, releasing me. I fell, the lament of Mictlan's souls rising in my ears as the ground got closer and closer.

I had time to think on how thoughtless I had been, seconds before the Wind's hands closed again, catching me a hand-span from the ground. Pain blossomed everywhere He touched me, in my left leg, in my left hand, rising to meld with that coming from my chest.

Almost gently, the Wind of Knives laid me on the ground. "You serve well. But do not presume to interfere," He said, even as He walked away into the house.

I lay on the ground, amidst the discarded bandages. The smell of pulque rose to fill my nostrils. I struggled to get up. Blood ran down my chest: the beast's wounds had re-opened. Teomitl would be angry, I thought, with a short, wry laugh. But even that slight contraction of my abdominal muscles hurt. Every movement I made was constrained by pain. After one or two attempts, I gave up, and fell back onto the ground. I lay there, feeling pain rise within me like the steady beat of drums at the sacrifices.

He was in the house now, killing Huei. Things were as they should be, as He had said. I thought of Neutemoc in his cage – and of Huei's proud, bitter face as she told me about her family's future – and a different pain took hold in my chest.

What a fool I had been. The underworld's justice could not be swayed, or even delayed. In my mind, the familiar pressure of the Wind of Knives receded: giving way before the pain, I thought, dizzily.

"Acatl?" A familiar voice: my sister's, I realised. My head turned towards her, instinctively. Pain shot up my neck, but it was almost muted compared to the pain in my chest.

All I could see of Mihmatini were her sandals, and then her deerembroidered skirt, as she knelt on the ground. "You're hurt."

"Tell me something else," I whispered.

She snorted. "Men! Why must you always be heroes?"

"I didn't–" My reasons were too much work to articulate.

"It looks like you did try," she said, then: "Can you bring some maguey sap?" I presumed she was speaking to a slave.

"What happened?" I asked. "The Wind–"

"He's gone, Acatl."

Gone? Then that was the real reason why the pressure in my mind had lessened.

Mihmatini's fingers ran over my chest, slowly, with the efficiency of a healer: gestures she'd probably learnt in school. For all that, I still couldn't help sucking in my breath as she probed the beast's claw-marks.

"Sorry," she said. "I'll go more carefully. Where in the Fifth World did you get those?"

"The beast of shadows," I said, curtly. "Huei."

"She's gone, too," Mihmatini said. "While you were outside temporising with the Wind, she left by the back door. The Wind is chasing her. She's slightly ahead of him; but she cast some kind of spell before leaving. It certainly seemed to slow Him down." She sounded halfway between horror and admiration. Her hands held me, effortlessly, as I struggled to rise. "Don't be a fool. You're leaking blood all over the courtyard. You won't go far."

"I need to–"

"You need some bandages, and rest." She sighed. "Knowing you, I'll settle for the bandages. Don't worry. We'll get you healed." More feet in my field of view: naked this time, with calluses. Slaves.

"Here," Mihmatini said.

That was all the advance warning I got: for the second time this night, maguey sap was poured onto my wounds, and the pain that spread from the contact points was almost worse than before. Tears filled my eyes by the time they were finished applying the lotion.

"Here," Mihmatini said at last, and hands lifted me, propped me upright. "Don't move."

I wasn't planning on that.

She was silent as the slaves dressed my wounds and splinted my arm again: Teomitl's makeshift device had got broken in my aborted fall.

When they were finished, the slaves left. I was feeling more and more like a funeral bundle: bandages tightened around my whole chest, and spread downwards on my left leg. But at least I could move – not much, the bandages constrained me tightly – and I was ready to leave. Mihmatini helped me to my feet.

"Where did Huei go?" I asked. I realised I didn't need to ask the question. I closed my eyes, and felt, beyond the pain that filled my body, the familiar pressure of the Wind's mind. He was once again moving through the streets of the Moyotlan district, though He appeared bewildered for some reason. Huei's spell, surely. What had she cast? How had she known all that magic? "She's still in Moyotlan. He hasn't caught her."

Mihmatini squeezed my hand, briefly, and withdrew. "There's a boat outside in the canal. Oyohuaca will row for you. She's a competent girl," she said. "Go."

"I don't need–" I started, stubbornly.

Mihmatini shook her head, more amused than angry. "Help? Can't you accept, for once in your life, that you can't do it on your own?"

A groundless accusation: I had taken Teomitl's help. And then I thought, uneasily, of the way I'd summarily sent him home, getting rid of him before the climax.

Mihmatini watched me, silent – not judging, she'd never judged me. For her, I'd always be the brother who helped her climb trees, and brought her treats from the festivals. No, not quite; for the priestesses at the calmecac had changed her, moulded her into this coolly competent girl whom I hardly recognised.

"I'll take the boat," I said, finally.

Her face relaxed, a minute sag of her skin that made her less alien. "Go," she said.

"With not even a warning?" I asked.

"You know them all, Acatl. And you'll still ignore them. Go."

But, as I left the garden, she still called after me, "Try to come back standing on your feet, will you?"

Feeling even more broken than before, I limped out, bent on finding the Wind before he found Huei.

Given my present state, it was a hopeless undertaking, but I had to try. For Huei's sake, and also for my own.