Obsidian & Blood

EIGHTEEN

The Pleasure Gardens

"We shouldn't have come here," Teomitl said. He sat on the reed mat in my room scowling, something he had been doing ever since waking up. Behind him, the columns of the rooms were carved in the shape of huge snakes rising up from the floor, their painted maws closing around the carved flowers jutting down from the ceiling.

"There wasn't much choice," I said. I felt like scowling, too. Tlaloc's magic was anathema to that of Lord Death, just as the Southern Hummingbird's was. So far, it wasn't anything like what I'd undergone in Tizoc-tzin's cell – a little tightness in the chest, as if I stood atop a high mountain, a sense that every gesture was made through tar; but that didn't mean I felt comfortable here. "There were plenty of other choices. I was a fool. We could have hidden in Tlatelolco, or Tlacopan."

I shook my head. "They wouldn't have sheltered us. Tlacopan is a member of the Triple Alliance, but their influence has been on the wane for a while. And Tlatelolco…"

Tlatelolco, our direct neighbour on the island had been conquered seven years ago, its ruler killed. Now there was only a governor who owed everything to the Imperial Court, and would have no wish to set himself against the future Revered Speaker.

Teomitl grimaced. "I know." He pulled himself upwards in a fluid gesture, and went to stand before one of the carved frescoes. It was early morning, and the scent of flowers was all around us, the smell of the gardens casually spread on the mountain's face through hundreds of aqueducts, of the canals and bath-houses, the luxuries of Nezahual-tzin's father. A summer retreat, Nezahual-tzin had called it. Except that he seemed to have disappeared, and that none of the ever-present army of servants would answer our queries. Why had he brought us here? Obviously, it had been deliberate, but what use could he possibly have for us?

I didn't think he wanted to end the Fifth World. He had sounded sincere when he had said that. But he would have the best interests of his city at heart, like any ruler.

Not Tizoc-tzin, a treacherous part of me whispered in my mind. I quelled it before it could fester.

And, if the best interests of Texcoco were to hand us back to Tizoctzin, to smooth over their little "disagreement"… I had no doubt Nezahual-tzin would do it in less than a heartbeat. For all his youth, necessity had made him ruthless.

"Come on," I said. "Let's go for a walk." He needed the distraction, and the gods knew I needed to reassure myself that my legs were still working after my time in prison.

They were none too steady. In spite of my best intentions, we made it through two courtyards before I had to stop, leaning against one of the carved pillars until I stopped shaking.

"That was a foolish idea," Teomitl said. He glared at the manicured flower patches, and finally settled on the ground, crouching on his haunches as he often did. Unlike any palace I'd seen in Tenochtitlan, the ground sloped down, and the palace followed it. Water flowed out of a fountain in the centre, cascading downwards along a flight of stairs towards a room with a richly decorated entrance-curtain adorned with a huge stylised frog, splayed on the cotton cloth as if transfixed by a spear.

"No more foolish than breaking me out of prison," I said. "I haven't thanked you properly."

"You don't need to. Anyone would have done what we did."

"You were the only ones," I pointed out.

His gaze didn't move from the flowers. "Perhaps. But I don't do formalities very well, Acatl-tzin."

You're going to have to learn, I thought, but didn't say. "You've gone against your brother now."

"Yes," Teomitl said. His whole body radiated frustration. "It was always going to come to that, in the end, wasn't it?"

"It might not have," I said. There was so much more I wanted to add, except that my resentment and my hatred would come billowing out of me and wreck my relationship with Teomitl forever. Because he was right, blood should stand by blood, no matter how tainted the blood might be. It was what brothers should do for each other, and I had paid the price of that lesson a year ago, when my own brother had almost died because of my prejudices. "He's a paranoid man."

Tizoc was surely a more complex man than the wreck which had sentenced me to death for being a hindrance. He had to be. As our next Revered Speaker, he had to–

But I couldn't shake the She-Snake out of my mind, and the casual, almost instinctive way he had given my worst fears life and blood: "Are you wondering if he'll be able to channel the Southern Hummingbird's powers into the Fifth World?"

And I had known the answer, even then.

Teomitl looked up at the star-studded sky. "He was a great man, once. At the beginning of Axayacatl's reign, everyone was glad to have him as Master of the House of Darts. He was the darling of the Court, his acts the fabric of legend. They thought he was going to be as great a warrior as Father, leading the Empire to glory that would endure past the end of this age."

He couldn't have been remembering that, for he had been a toddler at the time Axayacatl ascended the throne. I guessed the warriors or the servants would have told him that as he grew up moody and isolated. Like a wildflower, Ceyaxochitl had said of him, and I wasn't altogether sure he'd ever go back to manicured gardens and clear-cut boundaries. Too much wilderness in him, and far too much knowledge. "Not everyone lives up to the expectations we have of them," I said.

"It ate him from the inside," Teomitl said. "They always compared him to someone: to Father, to Axayacatl, it didn't matter. How long can you live your life in shadow?"

A typical warrior's fallacy, that – that burning need to matter, to be showered with gifts and status, to stand out on the battlefield or in the city, no matter the cost. "Some people can," I said. As when I talked to my warrior brother, I had the feeling of slipping into an alien world, where the rules weren't the ones I'd always lived by. "Some, however…"

"I know." Teomitl made an impatient gesture. "Not everyone is a warrior. But, really, what else could he be?"

Growing up in the imperial family, being goaded to take his place in the Southern Hummingbird's dominion? No, not many paths open to a man whose father and brother had both become Revered Speakers. "He made his choices," I said. "You can understand him, but you can't change that."

"I suppose not." Teomitl shook himself, in a gesture eerily reminiscent of an ahuizotl. "Not that it matters, now. I wish…"

That things were different. I knew, and I knew nothing I could say would change anything. But still… "Teomitl–"

I was cut off by the sound of sandals in the courtyard, Nezahualtzin, followed by a cluster of warriors, striding with his characteristic, thoughtless ease. "Taking some air?"

"As you see," I said. "What's going on, Nezahual-tzin? Why are we here?"

Teomitl had pulled himself upwards with preternatural speed. He stood watching Nezahual-tzin as a vulture might watch a dying animal, waiting for a moment of weakness to swoop down and finish it off.

"Good, good," Nezahual-tzin said, eluding my question altogether. "I had some preparations to make."

"What preparations?" I asked. "For a ritual?"

He smiled. "So impatient, Acatl."

I rolled my eyes upwards, towards the stars shining in the blue sky. "There are pressing matters, and not only of politics." Acamapichtli had said two days. They'd still be gathering the councilmen, fighting for influence. They would surely elect Tizoc-tzin, and start the weighty rituals that went into investing a Revered Speaker with the authority of Huitzilpochtli. The Storm Lord's lightning strike me, there had to be a chance, no matter how minuscule, that we would survive this…

"Of course." Nezahual-tzin bowed his head. "Come with me. There is something you must see."

"I don't play games," Teomitl said haughtily.

Nezahual-tzin's smile was starting to become annoying. "This isn't a game," he said, slow, sure of himself. "Merely an invitation, as your host. A proffered hand."

The last person to talk of proffered hands had been Quenami, and I had no wish for a repetition of what had happened afterwards. "And if we refuse?"

"You do as you wish. It would be a shame, but I have no doubt all of us would recover." Nezahual-tzin started to move away. The warriors followed, one of them holding a large fan to keep his master refreshed.

"Who does he think he is?" Teomitl whispered.

Revered Speaker, sadly, and, secure in the familiar setting of his power a radically different man than the one who had chatted with me on the boat. One more disappointment. I was getting used to those. "Let's indulge him," I said in a low voice. "I don't want to sample the Texcocan cages."

Nezahual-tzin must have had keener hearing than I'd assumed, for he turned, and smiled at me, sweet and innocent like a young warrior just released from the House of Youth.

I was not fooled. Whatever he thought we should see would be to his own advantage. If we were lucky, we would glean useful scraps, but nothing more.

If that was political acumen, then I was glad Teomitl was incapable of learning it.

We went down the mountain, following the flow of the water. It shimmered to my priest senses, a reminder of who the palace complex was dedicated to. It made me slightly uneasy. The last time I'd dealt with the Storm Lord, He had been trying to overthrow the Fifth Sun. But still, the mark on my hand, an itch that grew strong the closer we went to the water, was a reminder that things were no longer quite the same.

In the canals floated garlands of flowers and wood carvings of frogs and seashells; and everywhere were small reed islands, scat tered in the shape of quincunxes, reminders of the harmony of the Fifth World. Power hung over the water, shimmering like mist. I breathed it in with every step, a liquid constriction in my lungs, a heaviness in my throat.

We had been going for a while when Nezahual-tzin stepped into a courtyard, which seemed no different from all the others – save that the adobe walls surrounding it formed a circle, and that reeds had been carved all around the circumference. Dark stains marred the ground – living blood, a maze of power that thrummed in my chest, not the sharp, oppressive beat of Tlaloc's magic, but rather that of another god.

Reeds, and a circle. A circle for the unbroken breath of the wind, and reeds for One Reed: Topiltzin, Our Prince, the man who had ruled the legendary city of Tula as the incarnation of Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent.

Teomitl took in a sharp, unpleasant breath, and threw a glance at me. I nodded. It was a spell set in a circle wide enough to contain an entire battalion with the blood of dozens of… I paused, then, unsure of whether Nezahual-tzin would be ready to sacrifice so many of his subjects for one ritual. But no, the Feathered Serpent disliked human sacrifices. It had to be animals.

Still, it was impressive.

Shallow steps descended towards the centre of the courtyard, and so did the water too, flowing over them in a wide cascade. In the middle of the water was an island of stone, the part above the water carved over with a mass of serpents, that shivered and danced in the sunlight, almost as if they were alive… I shifted, and saw a yellow eye open and close. The gods take me, it was stone, and they were somehow alive.

Slaves laid a bridge to carry us across the water. Nezahual-tzin walked onto it with scarcely a break in his stride.

The only building on the island was an awning of cotton, a poor protection against the gaze of the Fifth Sun. Someone sat underneath – shifted slightly when Nezahual-tzin approached, in a way that was gut-wrenchingly familiar. Beside me, Teomitl tensed. "Acatl-tzin."

"I know," I said, having only eyes for her.

"You have visitors," Nezahual-tzin said, in the way of a priest enjoying a secret joke. "See that you behave yourself."

"When have I not behaved myself, brother?" Xahuia-tzin, Axayacatl's missing wife, smiled up at us, as careless and as regal as if she had still been ensconced within the Imperial Palace in Tenochtitlan, but her eyes were dark and hollow, those of a woman already defeated.

A quick, intelligent man would have made a snide remark to let Nezahual-tzin know that his manipulation had not succeeded. A smarter man would have smiled, enjoying the same secret joke.

I was neither fast on my feet, nor smart, nor dishonest. I simply gaped, looking for words that seemed to have fled.

"It has been a long time, Acatl-tzin," Xahuia said.

Nezahual-tzin had retreated slightly, standing near the wooden bridge leading back to the palace, his hand carelessly wrapped around the hilt of his macuahitl sword. But, of course, like the SheSnake, he never did anything carelessly.

Teomitl spoke first, his face as harsh as newly-cut jade. "You said you hadn't found her."

Nezahual-tzin smiled. "I would have hated to waste a good ritual. Wouldn't you?" He inclined his head in a way that implied disagreeing with him would be foolish.

"I think a little honesty would have served us all better," I said, more sharply than I'd intended – cutting Teomitl mid-sentence, before he could say something irreparable. Perhaps it was a good thing, after all, that he was far removed from the imperial succession; or he and Nezahual-tzin would tear what remained of the Triple Alliance apart.

"Perhaps," Nezahual-tzin just smiled that smug, annoying smile of the superior. He looked every bit the warrior parading through the streets. "Won't you talk to her, Acatl?"

"I don't see why I should. You've already learnt everything you need to."

"You're assuming I spoke to him," Xahuia said. She threw a glance at her brother that was– no, not hatred, but something more complex, a mixture of reluctant admiration and determination. "I don't see why I should."

It occurred to me that someone was missing from the family reunion. "Your son–"

"My own business," Nezahual-tzin cut in. "Talk to her, Acatl."

Like his suggestion for the ritual, it was an order from a Revered Speaker in his own right. One day, I'd get used to the fact that the person speaking in such a composed, authoritarian tone was a boy, barely old enough to have left calmecac school.

But then again… I might as well make use of the opportunity before me, before he did whatever he'd intended to do with us all along. "I'm not sure you'll want to talk to me," I said to Xahuia.

She lifted her head and there was still, in spite of everything, a hint of the same attractiveness I'd seen back in the palace, in another life. Her eyes met mine, held my gaze for a while.

"I'll speak to you," she said. "Alone."

Nezahual-tzin's shoulders moved, in what might have been a shrug. "As you wish. Teomitl?"

Teomitl glared back at him, but they stepped back onto the shores of the islands, unconcernedly.

I remained alone with a woman I wasn't quite sure how to deal with. Her only crime, as far as I knew, had been ambition, but it would have led her to worse if we hadn't intervened. Her sorcerer would have stopped at nothing to get her the Turquoise-and-Gold Crown.

"Things have changed, haven't they?" Her gaze took in her surroundings – the coiled power of Quetzalcoatl the Feathered Serpent, the ground under us, the throbbing stone mass that was composed of living snakes – no, better not to think about that. There were visions I wasn't quite ready for, at least not until I was back on dry land.

"They have." I crouched on my haunches, coming to rest at her level. "They could have turned out another way."

She shook her head. "Very differently, perhaps. And then you'd have been the one coming to me as a supplicant."

"Am I not?"

The corners of her mouth twitched, a little. "So it is that even prisoners and slaves have power, in the form of knowledge." Her hands clenched. "That's what Nezahual would say, at any rate."

"He's not always right."

"He's right in too many things." Her gaze drifted again, coming to rest on Teomitl and Nezahual-tzin, standing side by side like two comrades, if one didn't know any better. "Enough small talk, Acatltzin. You have questions. Ask them."

"I'm not sure why you'd answer them," I said, carefully.

"What difference, as long as you have the answers?"

"I'd know how true they were likely to be."

That made her laugh, sharp, bitter, joyless. She had changed indeed, away from power. "Fine. I'm not a fool. I know when to swim into stormy waters, and to stop before ahuizotls drag me down. I can play for Tenochtitlan, Acatl. I won't play for the Fifth World."

I looked at her; she returned my gaze, her eyes steady, not a muscle of her face moving. I had heard the same thing so many times, from so many different people; and they had all been sincere. The problem was the line between reasonable risk and endangering the Fifth World, a line everyone seemed to place much further out in their minds than it really was.

"Fine," I said, finally. "Let's say I believe you. For the moment. What did your sorcerer do?"

"Nettoni?" She looked surprised. "He was my bodyguard."

"Bodyguard?"

"As you no doubt saw, it wasn't a safe place to be after dark." Her voice held the lightest touch of irony.

"Yes," I said. "You employed him before the murders started, though."

"One can never be too careful." Her smile was bright, and just the tiniest bit forced, not quite spreading to her eyes.

"I don't think it's that," I said. I was carefully dancing around the subject. What I truly wanted to know was what had frightened everyone in the council. But if I asked directly, I suspected she'd clamp up like a shell. "The palace was a busy place after Axayacatltzin's death."

Her lips tightened, her eyes moved away from me. I thought of the tar. "Before his death, too, wasn't it?"

"I was a fool. I came in too late. Axayacatl had told me–" She closed her eyes. "He told me that I need not fear the future. And I believed him." Her hands came up, as if to push me away. "Fool."

He had told her… I thought about it for a while. Unbidden, a memory was rising to the surface of my mind, a deep voice on cold shores, and a shadow that became more and more indistinct the further it walked into Mictlan, and its words to me, a mystery that had remained unsolved.

"I'd always known there would be a rift when I died. But only for a time. I've made sure it will close itself."

"He did something," I said, slowly, carefully, building my sentence in the same way a child will pile wooden blocks in the mud. "To make sure his choice was respected. He and Tizoc-tzin–"

Oh gods. Was I truly sitting here, accusing the former Revered Speaker of colluding with Tizoc-tzin, of arranging the summoning of star-demons to sway the council his way? I couldn't possibly…

"You're wrong," Xahuia said, in the dreadful silence that froze my heart. "Axayacatl was many things, but he was a warrior first and foremost, a servant of Huitzilpochtli. He would have wanted to do the right thing, and preserve the Fifth World."

"Then why–" I hesitated, but now I was standing on the brink, and all my careful dancing had done nothing but bring me closer to the bitterness holed up inside, the raw memories of the past few days. "Why is the council so frightened? Why did so many of them disappear, or buy the strongest protections they could afford? Why…?" What had Quenami and Tizoc-tzin tried to kill me for?

My voice trailed into silence; embarrassed, I hovered on the edge of an apology, but Xahuia went on as if nothing had happened. "You forget. I was one wife among many, and I very much doubt he would have confided in women, in any case." She didn't sound sad, or angry, just stating a fact.

"So you don't know anything?" This was starting to sound more and more like a waste of time, whatever Nezahual-tzin might have thought.

She shook her head. "I didn't say that, merely that Axayacatl's plans were beyond me." She shifted slightly, moving away from the glare of the sun and the pinpoints of starlight in the sky. "But I wasn't completely inactive."

I couldn't see what she was hinting at. "You had spies in the palace," I said slowly, as much for effect as to compose myself. "You saw–" I stopped, then. What could she have seen?

When I didn't speak for a while, she went on, with a tight smile, "I can't give you much, Acatl-tzin. Not much at all that you won't already know. A councilman went missing…" She stopped, raised a hand to her throat as if to remove something lodged in her windpipe.

Pezotic. "And you don't know why," I said, carefully. If that wasn't what she wanted to tell me… "But you know what happened to him."

"I know where he went. Pezotic," Xahuia said, with a quick, fierce shake of her head. "For all I know, it isn't where he is now. But still–"

"Go on."

"I had him followed because he was a coward, and a weakling. A man who could be bought." Her lips curled up, halfway between a sneer and a smile. "He bought passage on a boat headed east."

"East?" I asked. "Into Texcoco?" It would have been convenient, but I was reasonably sure luck was not with us. From the start, it had never been.

"No," Xahuia said. "To Teotihuacan."

Of course. Teotihuacan, the Birthplace of the Gods, a sacred place where the gods had made the sacrifice that had led to the birth of the Fifth Sun, a place of pilgrimage and of worship, a place of safety, the bastion of Their strength.

"He might have moved," I said.

"He might," Xahuia agreed. "But it's all I can give you, Acatl-tzin. Take it and use however you wish."

"Thank you," I said. I rose and bowed to her, in the same fashion as if she still had been imperial consort. Her gaze rested, for a moment, on me; that of a weak, broken woman, grounded by her brother's magic and utterly at his mercy. "I'm sorry," I said.

"Don't be." She did that peculiar half-smile, with no hint of joy in it. "It's a game, Acatl-tzin. That's what you never understood. You have to be ready to gamble it all in order to win. And sometimes, you lose."

"I can't play that kind of game," I said.

"I know. But you'll find that all Revered Speakers can."

Xahuia's words still echoed in my mind as I walked back to Nezahual-tzin, who stood waiting next to a scowling Teomitl with a half-amused smile on his face.

"So, did you find out anything?"

"What you expected me to find. It's all a game to you, isn't it?" I asked.

He watched me, as dispassionately as one might watch a mouse or an ant. "Perhaps. Perhaps nothing is real, after all… just the gods, putting us on the board with the other patolli pieces."

"You're the one putting us on the board," I said.

"Why so much anger?"

"Because we've wasted time," I said. "Because we're here in Texcoco, indulging your taste for mysteries while Tizoc-tzin is getting elected."

Nezahual-tzin's shoulders moved in a gesture I couldn't read. "There was nothing you could have done about it, Acatl."

I knew. And the Southern Hummingbird strike me, it hurt, as much as obsidian shards, as much as salt in wounds. He'd disgraced me, sent Teomitl fleeing away from his own city, insulted my sister, who, unlike us all, had no means of defending herself. I hoped she was safe, that Tizoc-tzin hadn't thought to follow her out of the city. "Still," I said, as we walked away from the basin, "still, there was another way."

"Not that I could see." Nezahual-tzin's face was serene.

"And now what?" Teomitl asked.

Nezahual-tzin stopped, looked at us, pondering for a while. His eyes rolled up again, becoming the uncanny white of pearls, of milk and the looming Moon in the Heavens. "It depends."

"On how much we're worth to you?" I asked.

He smiled. "You're learning."

"Not what I wish to learn."

"All knowledge is good." He smiled again.

"You want to sell us?" Teomitl's hand strayed to his macuahitl sword. "You'd dare to–"

"Teomitl," I said, warningly. The palace wasn't ours and it was full of warriors, not to mention whatever sorcerers Nezahual-tzin might have in his service. "He'd sell his own sister." He already had, unless I was grievously mistaken.

"Of course," Nezahual-tzin said. "But she'd understand."

"You lie." Teomitl's face was all harsh angles, his skin slowly whitening to the pallor of jade.

The worst was, I didn't think he was lying. He and Xahuia – and Tizoc-tzin, and Quenami, and even the She-Snake – seemed to operate by a different set of standards, as alien to me as the ways of the southern tribes.

"Of course not," Nezahual-tzin said. "You're a fool, pup. I'm ruler of Texcoco. I do what is best for my city, and that includes not going to war against Tenochtitlan. Making, how would you call them, peace offerings to the new Revered Speaker?" His teeth, when he smiled, were the same uncanny white as his eyes.

"Why help me escape then?" I asked, and then realised that he had been caught in the same accusation as I. "Of course. You weren't welcome in Tenochtitlan either, after my arrest."

"No," Nezahual-tzin said. "But it will change, when I come back."

"As long as Tizoc-tzin doesn't find out you helped me."

Nezahual-tzin smiled, in that smug way I was coming to hate. "I'll explain to him it was the only way to get his brother to reveal his true allegiances. And he'll have both of you back; and that will matter more to him than alienating a valuable ally. The forms will have been respected. I will have made my amends for dealing in magic on his territory."

"We're not bundles to be passed on!" Teomitl snapped.

I noticed, from the corner of my eye, the warriors getting closer, circling us like vultures hoping for an easy kill. Teomitl's skin shone with sweat, and with something else – the otherworldly light of Chalchiuhtlicue, Jade Skirt.

"Everyone is a tool, at one point or another. Better get used to it, pup, or your life will be brief." Nezahual-tzin watched the warriors converging on us with the distracted interest of a man pondering the words of a poem. "Briefer than it could have been, at any rate."

Above us were the stars, an oppressive reminder of the stakes if I ever needed one. "You're intelligent enough to know what is upon us," I said.

"Of course I am. As you said, Tizoc-tzin will claim the Turquoiseand-Gold Crown. The Southern Hummingbird's power will once more flow into the Fifth World, and that will be the end of this incident. Meanwhile, I'll have worked my way back into favour at the Mexica Court."

"With our deaths." Teomitl's face was frozen, halfway to divine light. Sweat dripped on his cheeks.

Nezahual-tzin laughed. "Don't bother. The ground you're on is blessed by the Storm Lord, and your goddess won't have any hold here."

He might have been right – and it was my duty to see the Fifth World preserved, beyond any selfish grievances I might have. No, the Storm Lord's lightning strike me, I couldn't do this. "You do know how I escaped."

"With our help." Nezahual-tzin shook his head, contemptuously.

I snorted. "You do have tremendous faith in your abilities."

"I serve a god."

"So does the She-Snake," I said.

"The She-Snake? I don't see what he has to do with anything."

"The She-Snake said…" I swallowed, remembering darkness all around us, the rustle of something large and malevolent which hated all life, all movement, all sound, and wouldn't rest until everything was silent and dark. "He said that Tizoc-tzin wouldn't be able to channel the Southern Hummingbird's favour into the Fifth World." He'd said, too, that Quenami might have a trick, a way of bending the rules to his advantage. But Quenami had miscalculated before.

"You're lying."

I met his gaze head on, staring into the numinous white of his eyes. "I'll swear it by my face and by my heart, or by any god you name."

Nezahual-tzin didn't move for a while, his eyes still on me. There was a chasm, deep inside them, colours, swirling amidst the white like oil on water, a spiral that opened and drew me in…

I came to with a start, the air burning in my lungs. Nezahualtzin was standing next to me, one hand on his macuahitl sword, another holding up my chin. His touch was as cool as shadowed stone; and I could barely hear his breath. Teomitl had shifted, caught by surprise; but he'd been too late, his sword barely drawn.

"All right. I believe you." Nezahual-tzin released my face, and took a step away from me. I fought the urge to reach for the knives at my belt. It would only show weakness.

The warriors remained where they were, while Nezahual looked up into the sky, his eyes on the largest star, the Evening Star, which belonged to the Feathered Serpent, the only one which would not fall upon us, when the time came.

"From here to Teotihuacan, it's a two-day trip." The Birthplace of the Gods was on the same side of the lake as Texcoco, but much further to the north, on the banks of a large river that descended from the nearby mountains.

"By land." Teomitl's voice was defiant.

"You almost collapsed on the way here."

"You're accusing me of weakness?"

It might have been comical in another context. "Look," I said, fighting to control the mad beating of my heart. "This isn't the best time to quarrel."

"I'd like matters to be clear," Teomitl said. He looked straight at Nezahual-tzin, who equably returned his gaze.

"You're right, let things be clear. I think you're a naive, impulsive fool who keeps overstretching himself. You no doubt think me arrogant, manipulative, and heartless."

That, if nothing else, shocked Teomitl into momentary silence. "It changes nothing to the original offer."

"The ahuizotls? I'll apologise for not wanting to be in the middle of the lake when you falter."

I finally managed to intervene. "Then we'll make regular stops. Nezahual-tzin, this isn't time for tarrying."

"A day," Teomitl said, defiantly. "A day and a half, at most."

At length, Nezahual-tzin nodded. "You're right. The lake it is, then. I'll have boats prepared. Come."

Teomitl and I exchanged a glance as we walked between the warriors. His gaze was still the murky colour of the lake's waters, in which flickered the distant radiance of the goddess. "Acatl-tzin…"

"I know," I said, curtly. Nezahual-tzin might be on our side for the moment, lending us his resources. But all of that wouldn't prevent him from selling us, once he was sure the Fifth World was safe.

We needed an escape plan, and we needed it fast.