Obsidian & Blood

FIFTEEN

Corpses and Curses

Contrary to what Nezahual-tzin had told me, Mihmatini wasn't waiting for me at the Duality House.

Instead, I found people grouped in the courtyard: mothers with children on their backs, entire families from the grandmother to the young toddlers, and quite a few warriors, who presented their emotions as an odd mixture of terror and annoyance – as if they were aware they should not have been so afraid of the supernatural. There appeared to be no sick people, but I strongly suspected those were being herded away by the priests of the Duality.

After many enquiries, I finally managed to get hold of Yaotl, my sister's personal slave, who looked at me with his customary sneer and informed me that she'd left for the city, in order to take a look at some of the sick.

"And Teomitl?" I asked

"He left yesterday," Yaotl said, curtly. "A couple warriors came to pick him up."

Like the warriors who had removed their sandals? I didn't like this; I didn't like this at all.

I walked back to my temple in a thoughtful mood, but found it flooded as well, my priests barely able to deal with the flow of supplicants, and Ichtaca himself having taken refuge in the shrine atop the pyramid, looking pale and harried.

"Acatl-tzin! We thought–"

I raised a hand. "It's quite all right," I said, thinking I was making a speciality of running out on them. "I ran into someone, rather unexpectedly, and spent the night stuck in the palace grounds."

Ichtaca looked bewildered. "We looked for you after the riot, but we couldn't find you."

"I was in Tlalocan," I said, briefly – ignoring the awe which spread across his face. "Not my idea. Acamapichtli's."

"But Acamapichtli-tzin–"

I mentally ran through the necessary explanations, and gave up. "Look," I said. "I promise I'll explain everything, but right now there is something slightly more urgent. I think there is a problem with the boundaries."

Ichtaca looked as if he might protest, and then he took a look down into the overcrowded courtyard. "It could be," he said, slowly. "It would explain why so many people have turned up here. They speak of ghosts, and of odd portents…"

"The boundaries are weakened," I said.

"But the Revered Speaker–"

The Revered Speaker should have been protecting us against that, yes. "I don't know," I said. "But it's the only explanation that fits." I thought of Tizoc-tzin; of the stretched bones beneath the sallow skin; of the shadowed eye-sockets that might as well have been empty. A dead man walking in the Fifth World.

"Oh, gods," I said, aloud. "We did it."

We'd brought him back, crossing the boundary between life and death, and it had never closed properly. "It's something we did, with the spell to bring Tizoc-tzin back."

Ichtaca grimaced. He hadn't liked the story when I'd told it to him, but he'd had to bow down to my decision. To our decision. We had taken that as a group – as High Priests and equals, for once. "We don't have star-demons in the streets," he said.

"Because we have a Revered Speaker," I said. "The Fifth World is protected. But that doesn't mean things can't be wrong. Ghosts are hardly a menace."

I stopped, then – and thought of all the sorcerers we'd defeated – all the people who had died in our wars of the conquest, thirsting for revenge over the Mexica. I thought of how easy it was to call up a ghost and listen to their advice. No need to be a sorcerer frighteningly good at magic: our culprit merely needed to call on the right ghost.

Oh, gods. "I take it back. Ghosts can be a menace. A sorcerer advising someone…"

"Ghosts can't cast spells," Ichtaca pointed out.

"I know. But they can give the instructions, if you ask them the right questions." Oh gods. The living were quite enough to deal with; I didn't want to have to contend with the dead as well.

"Can you look into this?" I asked Ichtaca. "I need to know what exactly is wrong with the boundaries."

"You've stated it." He looked genuinely startled.

"I could be wrong." And I dared not, not on something this large. "I want to be sure."

He grimaced. "I know it's important, but–"

"There are other things, I know. You have to spread out the priests. I know you can do that."

"As you wish." He rose. "I was planning to direct the examinations of the bodies."

Ah, yes. The bodies. Finally, we had some time to examine them quietly, and to get a better idea of the nature of the sickness. "They're on an island in the Floating Gardens, if I remember correctly? I'll come with you," I said.

Ichtaca nodded, as if he hadn't expected anything less of me. It was a balm to my heart, in a time when my confidence was severely shaken.

Before we left, I took a moment to seek out the storehouse, and to help myself to a simple grey cloak, the one customarily worn by priests for the Dead as they walked through the streets of the city. I didn't look like a High Priest anymore, but at least I had lost the resemblance to a beggar mauled by a jaguar.

Ichtaca, of course, insisted I take the huge barge of the High Priest, with its highly-recognisable spider-and-owl design of Mitclantecuhtli, while he and the other priests sat in smaller reed crafts.

The priest with me was Ezamahual, the dour-faced peasants' son who always walked as if unbelievably blessed. He didn't speak as I carefully wedged myself into position within the barge – much harder than I'd thought possible, with my legs shaking.

He rowed in great, smooth gestures – a familiar rhythm for someone who had grown up at the river's edge – lulling me into a sleep that was almost restful… until I saw the first hints of ghosts trailing over the water.

The drowned, too, were rising up. This was more serious than a mere summoning from the underworld. Something was deeply wrong, and the gods knew it, from Mictlantecuhtli to Tlaloc.

And all, I suspected, because of us. It had to be – what else would cause such a massive disruption?

At the time, we'd thought it the lesser of two evils. The death of Tizoc-tzin, our newly designated Revered Speaker, had opened the gates wide to star-demons and their depredations. To name another Revered Speaker would have taken weeks – time we didn't have. Far better to seek the Southern Hummingbird's favour, and bring back Tizoc-tzin's body and soul from the heartland.

Except, it seemed, that it had solved nothing – merely sowed the seeds for further blood and fire in the Fifth World.

At this early hour, it made more sense to take one of the largest western canals, swinging under the Tlacopan causeway and continuing due south around Tenochtitlan. The houses of adobe became mud and wattle – with coloured roofs at first. Then even those went away, and the crowds heading to the marketplace thinned out, until we reached the Floating Gardens: a network of artificial islands used as fields for the planting of anything from maize to squashes. The farmers were up already, consolidating the ditches for irrigation and making sure the earth was well-watered in preparation for the planting of maize.

The island that hosted the bodies was visible from afar, if only for the whiffs of Mictlan's magic emanating from it, as dry and as stretched as desiccated corpses.

The boat touched the ground between two willow trees: we all disembarked, and waited for Ichtaca to lead the way.

He looked at me enquiringly – unwilling to break the rules. I suppressed a sigh and went towards the centre of the island, towards the greater concentration of Mictlan's magic. The bodies lay side by side in the hollow of a maize field, naked and bloated. The smell that wafted up to me nestled in the hollow of my stomach, strong enough to make me feel nauseous again. I might be used to handling corpses, but I'd never examined so many at the same time – and not in such a state. Thank the Duality it was the dry season now, and nowhere near as hot or as humid as it could get.

"If you'd do the honours…" Ichtaca said.

I didn't much feel like it, quite aside from my current weakness, but it would mean something to all of them, and especially to Ichtaca. With a sigh, I walked towards the bodies – cane in one hand, knife in the other.

The bodies lay on their backs in the mud of the Floating Garden, the willows at the edge of the island casting long, twisted shadows across their skins – and death, too, casting its own twisted shadows, in the form of blotches and bloated skins, all the signs of rot that we knew all too well.

Eptli's body was the worst: bloated and blue, barely recognisable as human. The others – the prisoner Zoquitl, Chipahua and his household – were not as bad. Chipahua and his companions in particular had the characteristic rigidity of the newly-dead, but their skins were dark rather than livid blue.

Before starting, I cast a quick spell of protection, calling on the power of the underworld to shield me. The noises of oars in the water receded, the peasants' tilling and digging became far away, and the sky itself became as grey as dust.

"Only here on earth, in the Fifth World

Shall the flowers last, shall the songs be bliss

Though it be feathers, though it be jade

It too must go to the region of the fleshless."

I crouched by Eptli's body – the most important for us – and considered. I had already examined it; I could cut into the flesh, releasing the noxious air contained within, but it was likely I wouldn't get anything more out of it, not without magic. It had decayed too much.

So, instead, I moved to Chipahua's body – setting the cane aside in the mud of the Floating Garden. He lay against the radiant blue of the sky, his eyes wide open, seeing nothing of the Fifth World, his scar crowded by the raised blisters on his entire face. They formed a faint pattern that would have been vaguely reminiscent of a mosaic, save that most of them had burst through the skin, bleeding into the body. His entire skin had turned dark and the whites of his eyes were now the red of blood. Blood had also pooled below the other orifices – nose and mouth and ears, eager to leave the body by whatever holes there might be.

The same pattern of burst blisters had also spread to his limbs, though they were more dense on the hands and feet than closer to the torso. Using the knife, I slashed at his tunic to reveal the body underneath: more burst blisters, and faint red spots covering the entire skin. I moved to the groin area, lifting the penis to have a better look – and its skin came away in clumps, as neatly as that of a flayed man, disintegrating like worn paper.

Breathe. He was dead; it wasn't as if anything worse could happen to him.

Breathe. I needed to–

With some difficulty, I focused on the corpse again, and looked at the penis and anus; both were flecked with dried blood.

I fought a surge of fresh nausea. I had seen many things, but not a corpse that looked as though every blood vessel had burst or decayed.

"Ichtaca?"

"Acatl-tzin?" He'd been waiting on the edge of the Floating Garden for me to finish my examination.

"There are a dozen bodies here," I said. "If you and the other priests don't start examining them, we'll still be here tonight."

Ichtaca nodded, and started pointing to priests, assigning them bodies. He crouched by Eptli's body – trust him to take the hardest one – and drew his own blade, thoughtfully.

I didn't stare for longer – whatever mystery there was, he would solve it, and I needed to focus my energies on the body I was currently examining.

The mundane examination didn't seem overly conclusive; time for other methods.

I rubbed at my earlobes, dislodging the scabs from the previous offerings. With the blood, I drew glyphs on the backs of my hands – "one" and "knife", the week that was ruled by Lord Death. As the blood dripped down towards the hungry earth under my feet, I started chanting.

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

Where jade crumbles, where gold is crushed

Where all our songs, all our flowers come to an end."

The glyphs on the back of my hand grew uncomfortably warm, until I could have traced them with my eyes closed. The rest of the world, though, seemed to cool – until the tips of my fingers felt burnt and pinched, and even the light of the Fifth Sun seemed dimmer.

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

In the house without windows, on the dais of bones

The house of dust, the house of the fleshless…"

A green, mouldy light spread outwards from the glyphs, playing on my skin and on that of the body, until we both seemed equally leeched of life, and the smell in the air was dry and faint, like old codices buried in the desert.

Bracing myself against the pain that would come, I lowered my hands over the corpse and felt the jolt as the symptoms crossed into my own body – the salty taste of an unfamiliar magic, and the sense of vastness as the blood vessels enlarged and disintegrated – and then, as the shadows around me grew larger and larger, everything else caught on, the throat, the stomach, the entrails, every single membrane in the body…

I came to with a start, almost tempted to feel my torso to check that I still had my major organs – but that was foolish, since the spell only granted me an impression of what the death had felt like, and I had known in advance it would be unpleasant. So, I had a better idea of how Chipahua had died, but not of how he had caught the disease.

Still… something was staring me in the face, and I was far too weary to make it out.

I looked around: most priests seemed engrossed in the preliminary examination of the bodies, but a few – including Ichtaca – had moved to similar spells.

Ichtaca. I looked again at Eptli's corpse, which was bloated and blue, but the skin wasn't dark, and there was no blood on the face. And he had died almost instantly.

I dragged myself to the corpse, and put my hands over the face.

This time, the rush of magic was far stronger; it came from my outstretched hands, coursing through my entire body until my saliva tasted like brackish, muddy water, and my whole body started itching and burning up, and I felt the blisters on my mouth and tongue, and the rush of the shadows, the images of the flailing limbs, of the dying bodies – and everything was disintegrating again, but it was my heart that gave out first, collapsing on itself with the dissolution of the major arteries and veins…

Oh gods. There were two versions of the sickness.

I dragged myself to my cane, trembling with the memories of dying twice, in close succession, and limped to the other corpses, watching them.

The corpse of the prisoner Zoquitl was also devoid of bleeding and I got the same impression when I lowered my hands over it, the feeling of unfamiliar magic spreading from outstretched hands…

And the others… Chipahua's household, his companions, his wife, his slaves – I stood over them all, and over them all I felt the same thing, felt myself destroyed piece by piece, bleeding into my own body, exhaling nothing but my own debris and blood…

"Acatl-tzin!" Firm hands yanked me, jolting me out of the trance of the spell, and I lay gasping, the mud squelching against my skin, so cold as to make me shiver. The Fifth Sun overhead blurred, quivering, the willows spinning and bending as if in a great storm….

"Are you mad?" Ichtaca's voice asked – coming from very far away.

"Not… mad," I whispered, but he didn't seem to hear me.

"You were the one who said we'd examine them as a group, and then you go taking on their symptoms as if there were no tomorrow."

He sounded angry, but I couldn't bring myself to care anymore. I lay gasping and choking, trying to banish the memories of the shadows from my vision – feeling everything twisting and bursting within my body, as if I were the one on the edge of death.

That settled it: whoever had cast that kind of spell was thoroughly mad.

Some time later, Ezamahual helped me get up, wrapping my shaking hands around the cane and lending me his shoulder so that I stood more or less upright. The weakness was passing; the memories of so many deaths so close together were passing away, becoming a distant nightmare. Thank the gods for fallible memory – what would I have ever done, if I had remembered perfectly every single one of the examinations I'd practised?

"They're different," I said to Ichtaca.

He still looked angry, but he wasn't shouting at me anymore, which I guessed was an improvement. "Different how?"

"Eptli said he felt cold after touching something, and I think Zoquitl caught it the same way: from an object, not a person. Everyone else on this island caught it from someone already sick, just like Teomitl and I."

"So we're looking for an object impregnated with Chalchiuhtlicue's magic?" Ichtaca frowned. "That doesn't help much."

I shook my head. "Several objects. It's not something unique. And yet it was peculiar enough that Eptli remembered it, so most probably not an everyday object." And something else, too: this meant that Eptli and Chipahua had likely had direct contact with the sorcerer. "Did you learn anything else?" I refrained from adding "while I was unconscious", for both our sakes.

Ichtaca shrugged. "A better understanding of the disease, I guess. It's based on the liquids within the human body – spreading through the blood and coaxing everything into destroying itself in a rush." His round face was creased in distaste. "It's a horrible, useless way to die."

"But it brings power to Chalchiuhtlicue or to the sorcerer, if he knows how exploit it," I said, slowly. "Symbolically, they've all died of the water." I thought of whoever had attacked the Master of the House of Darkness, of the mask spreading across his face, blocking off his nostrils and mouth. A sacrifice to the goddess who ruled water; likewise, it would have brought power to Her – or to whoever stood between Her and the Fifth World.

Tlaloc had said the epidemic wasn't Chalchiuhtlicue's will, and in truth, I couldn't have seen why He'd have lied to us. So the most likely explanation was a sorcerer – one ruthless enough to steal from the goddess.

Which wasn't exactly heartening, as far as explanations went.

Ichtaca's grimace would have been comical in other circumstances. "Yes. How many victims have there been?"

"Too many," I said, thinking of the palace. "You know that as well as I do."

"It has to be contained." Ichtaca's face was set in a grimace. "Unless the Southern Hummingbird…"

I shook my head. "He won't intervene."

Ichtaca looked almost disappointed, but then, like Teomitl, he'd always been persuaded that our destiny was to conquer the Fifth World. I'd never been quite as enthusiastic. Like Coatl or Itamatl, I tended to think that wars were His province, and that He granted His favours as He saw fit.

Which didn't excuse murder, or the casting of dangerous spells.

Ichtaca, after the initial moment of uncertainty, appeared to have rallied. "Then it has to be contained."

"Easy to say. We're all working on it."

"I know," Ichtaca said. He flipped his knife upwards, staring at the blade. "You think it's Chalchiuhtlicue?"

"I don't think so." But still… one way or another, She was in the game, and Her magic was loose in the Fifth World, used against the Mexica Empire. And Her magic was tied to Teomitl, and She could drag him into Her little games – a train of thought I would gladly have done without.

"About healing the sickness…?" I asked.

"That's what your sister's priests are working on."

He'd always been much better at crafting new rituals than me. "I know. But Nezahual-tzin told me that there might be a way, with Toci's magic."

"Grandmother Earth?" Ichtaca shrugged. "Appealing to Her stability and solidity. Yes, it might work. At any rate, it can't make things worse."

"We need to try," I said. "There are two people in the palace–"

"I know. I'll see your sister's priests and see if we can work something together. What about you, Acatl-tzin?"

I looked at the bodies again, spread out pathetically in the sunlight, every one of them holding pain beyond my imagination, every one of them a sacrifice building power for someone who wished us no good. A few priests were still examining them – among them familiar faces, like Palli, a burly nobleman's son who had taken to the priesthood like an ahuizotl to water. His face was creased in a familiar frown, trying to work something out.

"I'm going to find some answers." I grasped the cane so hard my knuckles whitened.

Ichtaca frowned. "You should get a bit of rest. I'll call for a priest of Patecatl."

Why was everyone so suddenly concerned about my wellbeing? "There's more at stake than my health."

"Which doesn't mean it's unimportant." Ichtaca's face was disturbingly shrewd.

Ahead, Palli raised his head, and gestured towards us. "Acatl-tzin!"

"What is it?"

"You have to see this!"

"If it can be moved, bring it here," Ichtaca said, "Acatl-tzin is in no state to walk." He threw me a meaningful glance, almost a threat to get some rest.

Palli scrambled to his feet, and all but ran the distance that separated us, his sandals squelching in the mud. "Acatl-tzin." His hand was wrapped in cloth; and on the cloth was something – a small, shrivelled thing that stank of Chalchiuhtlicue's magic.

"I found it on Eptli," he said, almost apologetically. "Didn't dare touch it."

"What is it?" Ichtaca asked.

"The object," I said. "The vector of the sickness."

Palli angled it so that it caught the light: it was a small, translucent tube, with the remnants of a fine powder inside. And something else was carved on its flaring end – it looked like a hand, holding a stick?

No, not a stick. It was…

"This?" Ichtaca shook his head. "I can't possibly see–"

"I can," I said, darkly. "Before it was crunched up like this, it was a hollowed-out feather stem."

"Money?" Ichtaca asked. "But there is no gold inside."

No, and I couldn't identify the powder inside, which was an uncanny shade of yellow – a colour too light to be cacao, too dark to be maize flour. "It's symbolic money. The powder is probably the vector; the feather is the package. It gives it significance."

"You mean it represents money. I still don't see–"

"There is something carved on it," I said. "What do you think it is?"

Everyone squinted at it. At length, Palli said, doubtfully, "I think it's a hand holding a curved blade."

"I suppose so." Ichtaca didn't sound convinced. "Acatl-tzin, I don't understand…"

But I did. The hand holding a curved blade: the symbol of Itztlacoliuhqui, the Curved Point of Obsidian, god of frost and of justice – as cold and as unyielding as retribution. And the money: a single feather, an offering with the promise of more to come.

A bribe. Justice for a bribe.

Eptli had been greedy and arrogant, thinking money could buy anything and everything – even status. Even the war-council for his trial.

It looked like Xiloxoch's accusations of bribery hadn't been a lie meant to sow chaos amongst us, after all.

Ezamahual rowed me back to the Sacred Precinct in silence, but steadfastly refused to leave me alone after that. "You're in no state to walk, Acatl-tzin," he pointed out, his eyes averted from mine, but with an utterly stubborn expression on his face.

I gave in – we could have argued for hours, and I was feeling none too steady at the moment, as if I were still standing in the boat on the water. "Fine. Let's go to the Duality House."

I found the Duality House in an unusual state of feverish activity: in addition to the crowd of supplicants gathered at the gates, the clergy seemed to be busy. Sober-faced priests and priestesses carried armloads of fruit and flower garlands from the storehouse to the shrine in the centre, and every entrance-curtain seemed to be drawn open, revealing small but fervent gatherings – two or three priests crouching on the ground, listening to the orator in the centre with focused intensity. What sent my hackles up, though, weren't the priests, but the dozen Jaguar warriors among them – leaning against frescoes, casually hefting worship-thorns in callused, bloodied hands, and generally doing their best to appear innocuous, their visit merely a coincidence in the grand scheme of things.

I wasn't fooled, and I very much doubted Tizoc-tzin would be, either.

Mihmatini was in her rooms, and received me almost immediately. Under the feather headdress, her face was pale and drawn, the lines at the corners of her eyes making her seem much older than her twenty years.

"Acatl. Yaotl told me you were alive, thank the Duality." I'd expected a verbal flaying, but she merely sounded relieved.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"They're looking for Teomitl," Mihmatini said.

"Who isn't here." Yaotl had already told me he'd left.

"No," Mihmatini said. She exhaled, slowly and deliberately – an easy expression to read.

"I'm not the first one to ask."

Her gaze was bright, desperate. "No. The She-Snake was here."

Trust the She-Snake to always be near the heart of intrigues, but never quite embroiled in them. Careful and measured, like his father before him: the power in the shadows, never challenged or besmirched. "What else did he say?"

"You already know it."

"No," I said. "I'm not a calendar priest, and I've always been abysmal at divination. Tell me."

"He said… to be careful. That Teomitl was playing a dangerous game, and that we could lose everything." Her hand wandered to her cheek, scratched it. "And I said I didn't know what game, and he left." Her eyes wouldn't meet mine.

"But you know." And hadn't told me – I suspected perhaps not even admitted it to herself. Then again, had I been any better? I'd received enough warnings – both in signs and speeches – and hadn't heeded any of them.

"There have been…" Mihmatini shook her head, angrily. "The Duality curse me, I'm not about to behave like some gutless and bloodless fool. There have been signs, Acatl. Visitors at Neutemoc's house – Jaguar warriors and veterans, and too many noblemen to be relatives concerned with our old welfare. And an old woman, several times."

"An old woman?"

"Yes. Why are you interested in that? I would have thought the warriors were more significant."

"Significant, but not unexpected." My hands had clenched into fists; I forced them to open again – relaxed, carefree. "The old woman – you might know that when he almost died of the sickness, it was Toci's magic which saved his life."

Toci. Grandmother Earth. The aged, ageless woman; the bountiful and damaged earth that we broke anew with every stroke of our digging sticks. Most of Her devotees were women past their prime – the younger ones tended to call on the more youthful Xochiquetzal, like the courtesan Xiloxoch; the men chose other deities altogether.

"But I don't see what this has to do with anything," Mihmatini said, slowly and carefully, as if she stood on the edge of a great chasm, listening to the whistle of the wind in her ears.

"I don't know," I said. Gods help me, I didn't know. I just didn't like any of it. First, Jade Skirt's magic; now Teomitl's odd behaviour.

"Well, you might be content with that, but I intend to find out what's going on." Her hands shook, and for a moment there was a glimmer of tears in her eyes. "He always gets into scrapes bigger than he is. I – I need him back, Acatl."

"We'll find him," I said. "He's still my responsibility, remember?"

"You don't act like he is."

"He's my student, not my child," I said – and immediately regretted it: by becoming his wife and tying her garment to his, Mihmatini had taken on the responsibilities of both sexual partner and mother to him – nourishing him just as his mother had once done.

My sister grimaced, but said nothing, even though it cost her. I mentally vowed to have pointed words with Teomitl – plotting the gods knew what against his brother was one thing, but giving his wife sleepless nights quite another.

But I did need to check one thing, before it cost me my own night's sleep. "I need to ask," I said, spreading my hands in a gesture of apology. "Has he been talking about his brother to you – about our choice of Revered Speaker?"

"Not in complimentary terms, no…" Her voice trailed off, and she looked at me. "Acatl."

Much as I wished to, I couldn't lie to her. "You know what he wanted, more than anything else; you heard him as well as me. He wants things now, not five or ten years into the future."

"But…"

I couldn't think of any comforting lies. "We need to find him."

"Be my guest," Mihmatini said with a touch of anger. "He's hidden himself well."

Leaving all of us exposed – and the Duality House to become the rallying point for the discontent. Oh, gods – when I caught the fool I was going to pinch his ribs, hard. "I hadn't come here for Teomitl, originally."

"He does have a way of taking over conversations even when absent," Mihmatini said, her voice expressionless and flat – like glass, a moment before it shattered. "What did you want?"

"Two things. The plague–"

Mihmatini snorted. "Quenami is in charge, and making a mess out of it. Then again, he doesn't listen to half the things I'm saying."

So – panicked, but still not smart enough to see my sister as talented. "He's a fool."

"I don't care." Mihmatini's voice was grim. "Whatever he is, he's failed at containing this. That's his biggest fault to me."

"It's bad, isn't it?" I asked, cautiously – though I already knew the answer.

"As bad as it can get. Yaotl probably told you it's starting to spread within Tenochtitlan."

The last thing we needed. "Yes." I said, carefully, "Some of my priests might come by, later. We have an idea for a cure."

Mihmatini's gaze snapped up sharply.

"I don't want to give you false hope," I said. "It's quite possible it won't work at all."

"It's still going to be better than whatever Quenami's come up with," Mihmatini snorted. "And what was the second thing you came for?"

It took me a moment to remember what she was talking about. "Oh. Xiloxoch."

"The courtesan?" Mihmatini gave it some thought.

"Teomitl said he was going to arrest her, remember?"

"I do." Mihmatini puffed her cheeks, thinking. "I haven't heard any news – wait." She rose, and pulled the entrance-curtain to her chambers open. "Yaotl!"

"Mistress?" Yaotl came in wearing his palace vestment – an elegant, richly embroidered cloak – and streaks of blue and black across his cheeks.

"Acatl wants to know what we have on Xiloxoch."

Yaotl looked startled. "Nothing that I know of." He thought, for a while. "She did make an accusation against Eptli."

"When?" I asked. I hadn't thought she'd had time to see the judges before Tizoc-tzin worked himself into a rage over the clergy of Tlaloc.

"Before the clergy of Tlaloc was hauled in. For all the good it did her… It was dismissed summarily, like all the cases that didn't concern Acamapichtli's clergy."

Mihmatini shook her head. "She's a wily one. Nezahual-tzin probably neglected to tell you she's been serving her goddess well."

Not surprising, though it was heartening to have a confirmation my suspicions were headed somewhere. "I presume she's been keeping an eye the interests of Xochiquetzal while the Quetzal Flower is in exile from Tenochtitlan."

"That's what my priests have confirmed, yes," Mihmatini said. The Duality House was also the centre of a network of spies and magicians, whose only goal was to safeguard the balance. Her predecessor, Ceyaxochitl, had used this to terrific effect. Clearly, Mihmatini was learning fast.

"And this means?"

"Now? Nothing much," Mihmatini said. "It looks as though she's just watching and waiting."

"But you don't think she's involved in the plague."

"I haven't said that."

"I see." I thought of the snapped quill again. I couldn't see why Xochiquetzal would ally Herself with Chalchiutlicue, but the evidence spoke against Xiloxoch. "I need to find her."

Yaotl shrugged. "Try the palace. She'll be there – too canny not to be."

"Where is she?"

"I don't know. I'd try the palace, if I were you. If she wants to keep an eye on the Flower Quetzal's interests, she'll have to be at the heart of things."

Not the first place I wanted to come back to, especially with the plague raging within its walls. But still… I didn't have much choice.

Ezamahual didn't leave my side as we walked out of the Duality House. I leant on the cane, grateful for its support – but the Southern Hummingbird strike me if I was going to accept help from one of my priests.

"I'm going inside the palace," I said to Ezamahual. "You might want to leave."

He looked at me as if I were mad. "It's not a safe place," I explained, feeling increasingly flustered.

His look was the patient one of a mother towards a wayward child. "You're High Priest, Acatl-tzin. I wouldn't dream of leaving you alone."

Great, so much for that.

I half-expected the guards to challenge us as we climbed the stairs towards the entrance, but they seemed more bored than busy, leaning on their obsidian-tipped spears while gazing at the sky, looking through us, half-expecting us to provide some distraction. But we both looked like ordinary priests for the Dead, on errands that could only be menial – nothing worth salvaging from that, no fun or currency to be had.

Inside, the palace seemed empty and forlorn, the usual crowds subdued and silent, hurrying from courtyard to courtyard without looking up. A few artisans crept by looking as if they were trying to make themselves forgotten about altogether, and the judges and clerks walking with codices under their arms didn't look much more reassured, either.

I directed us towards the part of the palace where the young warriors usually congregated, thinking to catch if not Xiloxoch, someone who would tell me where she was – or perhaps our wayward Teomitl, who would laugh and toss his head back, and assure me that Mihmatini and I were being foolish with our suspicions. He would make it all go away, like an image in a darkened obsidian mirror…

We reached a smaller courtyard, which doubled as an aviary: wooden cages with quetzal birds surrounded a fountain. The gurgle of the water mingled with the harsh cries of the birds, the glimmer of sunlight playing off against the iridescent sheen on their emerald tail-feathers.

A warrior stood in front of the fountain, gazing into the water. He had his back to us, but even so, I would have recognised him anywhere: that arrogant, casual tilt of the head, that falsely contemplative pose… except that it was all subtly wrong, distorted as through layers of water.

"My Lord?" I asked.

Nezahual-tzin didn't move.

"My Lord?" A little higher-pitched – and a little more desperate. I could have dealt with his usual sarcastic, careless remarks, but at this moment I might as well have been talking to a stone effigy. I moved to the other side of the fountain and met his gaze, which was slightly vacant, as if he weren't quite there. I extended my priest-senses – wincing at the effort. There was a slight trace of magic; a touch of something. Not sickly and spread out like underworld magic, but instead firm and strong, as unmoving as a rock or as the Heavens above us.

"It's all in the water," Nezahual-tzin said. The vacuous smile on his face was so uncharacteristic I wanted to shake it out of him. "Can't you see?"

"No."

He smiled – dazzling, mindless. "He's coming, Acatl. He's coming. Neither walls nor lines on the ground – neither rivers nor marshes were enough to hold him – not even a fisherman's net."

I didn't waste time asking who "he" was. Instead, I rubbed at the scabs on my earlobes until they came loose, and said a short prayer to Lord Death, asking Him to grant me true sight.

As I'd thought, Nezahual-tzin was saturated with the dark brown of Toci's touch – a veil that hung around him like the vapour of the sweatbath, billowing in the warm breeze, lazily unfurling deeper hues of brown; the smell of churned mud and dry, cracking earth, and in the distance, the faint cry of warriors fighting each other, for Grandmother Earth was also the Woman of Discord, She who brought on the wars we needed to survive.

What had happened to him?

He was still staring into the water, his grey eyes – a feature I'd always found uncanny – even more distant than usual, as if the fountain held the answers he'd always wanted. He was at rest, in a relaxed, non-threatening way that made my skin crawl. And where were his warriors – where was the escort, suitable for a Revered Speaker of the Triple Alliance…?

My gaze, roaming, found his hands – and the familiar, trembling haze of freshly-shed lifeblood. "They're dead," I said aloud. "Your warriors. Aren't they? Killed to cast the spell."

For a long, agonising moment, I thought he wasn't going to answer, but then, he looked up at me, his face cast into an expressionless mask once again – almost like the Nezahual-tzin of old. "Opened up like poinsettia flowers. Such speed and efficiency. One wouldn't think she'd be so fast…" His voice trailed off, and his gaze went down, towards the water.

She? Was it the same old woman who had visited Teomitl so often? What part did she play in this, other than seemingly ensorcelling two of the most important men in the Triple Alliance?

"Acatl-tzin," Ezamahual said. "What shall we do?"

I cast a glance around the courtyard. It was deserted, well away from the usual rush of people within the palace. But still…

His own people would probably know what to do with him, but they'd all be in the official residence of the Revered Speaker of Texcoco – literally next door to our own Revered Speaker's apartments, high on the list of places to avoid in the palace. Still… He'd been helpful, if only in his usual, cryptic fashion, and my conscience balked at the idea of just leaving him here.

"Let's bring you home," I said to Nezahual-tzin. "Someone there will probably have a better idea of what to do."

We all but had to drag him away from the fountain, but once we were away from the water he relaxed in our grasp and seemed to follow us – more, I suspected, because he had nowhere else to go than out of any desire on his part.

"What's wrong with him?" Ezamahual asked.

"It's obviously a spell," I said, curtly. "But I have no idea how to dispel it." And, more importantly of where and how he had managed to get it cast on himself. What was its purpose? Simply to prevent Nezahual-tzin from tracking the mysterious summoner of Toci's magic? Did his pronouncements make sense, or were they just part of the delirium of the spell?

I didn't like any of this – then again, it wasn't as if the previous days had been particularly relaxing or likeable.

The Revered Speaker's chambers were in a large courtyard, on the first floor of a building which also hosted the war council, the council of officials that had elected him and that oversaw most of the daily life of Tenochtitlan, from religious worship to problems of architecture and city layout. On the first floor, three entrancecurtains marked the rooms of the Revered Speakers of Tlacopan, Texcoco and Tenochtitlan. The platform was overcrowded by warriors, and the general atmosphere was tense – none of the She-Snake's black-clad guards could be seen anywhere, and the warriors appeared to be arguing among themselves. In the courtyard, the crowd seemed to be dispatched in small groups, talking among themselves in hushed voices, throwing us harsh glances as we passed them by. The atmosphere was tense, as taut as a rope about to fray.

We made our way upstairs without being challenged. Nezahualtzin drew a few passing glances, but no one seemed to know his face well enough, or at least they considered him not important enough. His gaze kept roaming – caught by the jade-coloured cloak of a veteran warrior, by the darkening blue of the sky above us, the smoke of copal incense hanging in the air, almost intense enough to be frightening.

There were two warriors on guard at the entrance-curtain of Nezahual-tzin's rooms; they only took a look at us and waved us through.

Inside, the chambers were as I remembered them: colourful frescoes of Quetzalcoatl the Feathered Serpent, depicting His descent into the underworld, the founding of His city of Tollan, and His departure onto the Eastern Sea on a raft of snakes – everything obscured by the potent haze of copal incense mixed with herbs and spices, a mixture that always made my head spin. I suspected Nezahual-tzin used it for entering divine trances, and wouldn't have been surprised to learn it had teonanacatl and peyotl mixed in – two hallucinogenic widely used by most priesthoods, but frowned upon by my own. One did not need trances or dreams to be reminded of the reality of death.

The low-backed chair – Nezahual-tzin's throne – was empty, the jaguar pelts on the dais meticulously cleaned by the slaves, who scattered away from us as we went deeper into the room.

Nezahual-tzin's breath had quickened; around him, something glimmered – the shadow of a great snake, slowly unfolding through my and Ezamahual's body, maw wide open, the feathers of its collar slowly gaining substance as we got nearer to the throne. The air was as thick as tar – tense, not with human intrigue, but with the growing presence of a god in the Fifth World.

Nezahual-tzin had gone completely limp, his eyes closed, lolling in our grip, much heavier than I'd thought possible. The snake came streaming out of his mouth, rearing its head through Nezahual-tzin's boyish face – the scales mingling with the skin, the feathers becoming the feather headdress at his nape, yet somehow larger and more defined. The only sound we could hear was Nezahual-tzin's quickening breath – far too fast for anything mortal.

The god Quetzalcoatl was trying to help his agent somehow; the one thing I did know was that we couldn't afford to be there when it happened. The Feathered Serpent might be the most compassionate of all the gods, but he was still a god – disinclined to take mortal frailty into account, especially when in a rush to dispel another god's interference.

I gestured for Ezamahual to hurry – we crossed the last few steps to the dais in what seemed an eternity, and dropped more than deposited Nezahual-tzin in his chair. Then we withdrew as fast as possible.

For a few moments, it seemed as though nothing would happen. The snake continued to solidify, somewhat haphazardly – lidless eyes taking the place of Nezahual-tzin's grey ones; fangs appearing within the maw, as white as pearls fished from the depths. And then it reared up – not leaving the confines of Nezahual-tzin's body as I'd thought it would, but instead jerking the body upwards like a children's doll – there was a distinct crunch made by bones cracking, and Nezahual-tzin's head bent backwards at an angle that should have been impossible to maintain for a live human being. His eyes opened – and they were white, opalescent as a distant star, and his mouth was peppered with fangs, glistening with venom, the feathers of his headdress flaring outwards like a flower blossoming. He screamed, arms flailing and then falling down abruptly, released from the pressure that had held them – and then he crumpled like a rag on the dais, the snake fading away to nothingness.

I let out a breath I hadn't even been aware of holding. "My Lord?"

His breath again, loud, ragged. Gently, slowly, he pulled himself upright, his face paler than usual, but regaining colour with every passing moment until it was once more the dark of cacao beans. His eyes narrowed, the vulnerability gone in a moment, dispelled by a supreme effort of will. "Acatl. I see."

I didn't think he did. Ezamahual and I had both witnessed his weakness, and no amount of pretence would remove that fact. "Can you tell us what happened?"

Nezahual-tzin grimaced. "Not in so many words, no."

"You were in trance in front of a fountain," I pointed out. I glanced at Ezamahual; he had thrown himself facedown on the ground. Oh, gods, I should have remembered – Ezamahual was peasant through and through, and he'd walked with enough reticence through the palace. "Ezamahual, get up," I said.

"He's Revered Speaker…"

"And you're a priest of the Mexica. You don't answer to him."

"Not quite, but as a ruler of the Triple Alliance, I do appreciate the respect," Nezahual-tzin said. I threw him a warning glance strong enough to sear the feathers of his headdress, and he smiled back at me. "But Acatl is right. We can't possibly have any kind of conversation with you lying flat on the floor. Also, you did carry me from the fountain." He paused on "fountain", looking at me again, expecting further explanation.

I shrugged. "I don't have much to add. I met you earlier in the palace and you wanted to track down the user of Toci's magic."

"I remember that." Nezahual-tzin's voice was considered. "Not senile yet, you know. Quite the reverse, in fact."

As befitted a devotee of the Feathered Serpent, god of Wisdom and Knowledge. I doubted he'd ever have many memory problems. But, if another goddess had interfered…

"You lost two warriors," I said. "I suspect they were sacrificed to put the spell on you."

"I see." He raised his hands, looked at them in the light. His face had gone hard. "And what are you doing in the palace?"

"Looking for Xiloxoch," I said, as bluntly as he'd asked. "And for Teomitl."

"You'll have gathered there are better places to be, in the current context."

I would have pointed out that he'd stayed within – but of course he was Quetzalcoatl's agent, and probably immune to the plague altogether. "My sister told me Xiloxoch would be in the palace, but I couldn't find her."

"I'm not surprised." Nezahual-tzin's voice was curt. "I can enquire after her."

I shook my head. I'd already stumbled up the stairs of Tizoc-tzin's private chambers with the Revered Speaker of Texcoco – a man I'd been accused of collusion with a few months before. The last thing I needed in this time of paranoia was more fuel for that particular accusation to surface again.

Though it might be too late for that. "Don't bother," I said. "We'll find her ourselves, if she's in the palace."

Nezahual-tzin frowned. "I dislike unpaid debts."

Which might or might not be true; I didn't know him well enough to say. He probably had an interest in investigating all of this, though I couldn't why – and we wouldn't find out until it suited him to reveal his intentions. "Well," I said – half-suspecting I would end up regretting this, "you can look for Teomitl."

Nezahual-tzin's grimace was almost comical – but then what he was saying sank in. "I can't involve myself with this."

"Why not?"

His gaze was level. "You know why, Acatl. I gave fair hints, but I can't do more. Tizoc-tzin is Revered Speaker of the Mexica, my peer in the Triple Alliance. What I think of him – doesn't play a part."

"You're not saying–"

"I'm saying what we all know. Teomitl has always been frustrated by his brother's behaviour. I wouldn't blame him for attempting to displace him, but I can't condone the attempt."

"I can't either," I said. "I want him stopped before this foolishness takes its course." I wasn't even sure if that was the reason he had disappeared; if my worst fears were true and he had finally set himself irrevocably on this – at odds with the safety of the Fifth World – and with me. I–

"As I said–" Nezahual-tzin shook his head. "I can't take part in this."

Because – because, when and if the dust settled, and we had a new Revered Speaker, he needed to have remained neutral in order to ingratiate himself to whoever it turned out to be. "You have neither face nor heart." The words – the insult – were out of my mouth before I could think.

Nezahual-tzin watched me, and said nothing. "Will that be all?"

Why had I ever thought he could help in anything? I bowed, sarcastically, before my temper could fray any further. "That will be all, my Lord."

I was so annoyed by the conversation with Nezahual-tzin that we went through several courtyards before I became aware the world was swimming again around me.

Oh no, not again. What was wrong with me? This time, Lord Death hadn't touched me, and there were no shadows nearby.

And yet… I had the same hollow in my stomach, the same slight sense of nausea, as if the Fifth World would tear itself apart at any moment – as if we danced on the brink of the abyss, unaware that the slightest step out of place would send us all tumbling down into darkness.

Ezamahual seemed unconcerned – in all likelihood, he wasn't sensitive enough; he hadn't been there last year atop the Great Temple, when the hole in the Fifth World had gaped open, and I'd almost collapsed.

But why here, of all places?

Xiloxoch was not among the young warriors laughing and lounging near the steambaths. For that matter, neither was Teomitl, though the startled looks I got when asking about them looked slightly too guilty for my own peace of mind.

One warrior, though, remembered Xiloxoch had come by, and had walked off in the direction of the prisoners' quarters – which was a better lead than no lead at all.

As we walked back to the prisoners' quarters, leaving behind the bustle of the various courts, the sense of oppression didn't diminish. If anything, it became worse, pressing against my chest, making the air in my lungs sear. I felt as if my skin were sloughing off, coming away in flakes and whole pieces, and there was a vague sense of something, just beyond the borders of my perception – something huge and unspeakable that would swoop in at any moment, taking me with it.

"Ezamahual?" I asked through gritted teeth.

His face swam out of the darkness, eyes wide open in concern. "Is something wrong, Acatl-tzin?"

Yes. No. Why was I the only one to feel this? "Yes. I need – to – stop for a while."

I staggered into the nearest courtyard – which was next to the book-house and, at this late hour of the day, filled only with a few astronomers, staring thoughtfully at papers laid on the ground.

"Forgive my imprudence," I said to the one who seemed the eldest – a wizened old man who was tracing glyphs within the grid of a calendar. "I need to cast a spell." Even the cane felt heavy in my hand. "It's – somewhat pressing."

He looked up at me. "To Lord Death?" I nodded. "Just do it away from the book-house, will you?"

We walked away from the book-house, to a relatively quiet part of the courtyard. One of the astronomers got up, throwing me a sympathetic glance, and went to sit closer to his companion.

I laid the cane aside for the spell; to my surprise, I could stand well enough without it, with barely a tremor in my legs. Then I slashed my earlobes with my obsidian knife, and carefully drew a circle on the ground in my own blood, calling on Lord Death to bless this place – where my blood met the ground, the stone hissed like a scalded jaguar – the magic of Mictlantecuhtli Lord Death meeting that of the Southern Hummingbird.

"Only here on earth, in the Fifth World

Shall the flowers last, shall the songs be bliss

Though it be feathers, though it be jade

It too must go to the region of the fleshless…"

Silence seemed to spread from within the circle, along with a green, sickly light which oozed from beneath the ground, like sulphur from the cracks of a volcano. And when it touched me – when it wrapped itself around me, cocooning me in a magic as familiar as my own blood, my own skin – I breathed in a sigh of relief.

We set out from the courtyard. I was still leaning on the cane for support, but I found it much easier to breathe. The familiar magic of the underworld wrapped around me, as intoxicating as peyotl or teonanacatl – stretched, dry emptiness I'd known all my life, the hollow taste of grief, the sharp tang of our own mortality, a gulf in my stomach.

Even so, the pressure remained: a thickening of the air, a slight buzzing in my ears that got worse as we approached the prisoners' quarters.

Within, the atmosphere – reverent, distant – remained the same; the prisoners watched us warily, as if our mere presence was enough to shatter the peace. One of them was playing the flute, a simple, haunting sound which climbed higher and higher like a cry of devotion.

All of this lasted for no more than a handful of breaths – and then the piece was shattered by loud voices. A man and a woman – the woman was Xiloxoch, but I couldn't place the second voice, though I knew I'd heard it before. They both came from within a building – in fact, the very building that had hosted the unfortunate Zoquitl; the conversation sounded… animated, to say the least.

"I know my rights." Xiloxoch's voice was low and almost toneless. "You should go away."

"And why would I do that?" The man's voice whipped through the air like a sword's blade.

If there was an answer, I didn't wait to hear it. I flung open the entrance-curtain with as much force as I could muster – gods, I hated melodramatic entrances, but I had to concede they weren't without effect.

They both turned, then, to look at me. One, as I had known, was Xiloxoch, wearing a drab tunic and skirt like a demure housewife; the other was Pochtic – Master of the House of Darkness, his face still swathed in bandages, his skin sallow against the vibrant colours of his feather headdress.

"Well, well." His voice was deeply mocking. "Our High Priest for the Dead. You're too late; they've taken the corpse away."

"I was aware of that," I said, but didn't elaborate. "What are you doing here?"

Xiloxoch shook her head. "I know my rights," she said, again. In her hands was a golden trinket, shaped in the likeliness of the Fifth Sun.

The things of the dead man: taken by the courtesan who had ministered to him and thus customary for sacrifices. "Only if you slept with him," I said. "Did you?"

"I brought him comfort," Xiloxoch said. Her hands tightened around the trinket. What was so important about it?

And, more pressingly, what was Pochtic doing here? "The work of the Master of the House of Darkness," I said, very slowly, "doesn't include the care of prisoners."

Pochtic threw me a pitying glance. "A prisoner died, and both I and Coatl were attacked."

"Coatl is ill," I said, slowly. "It's not quite the same."

"He's right." Xiloxoch's voice was malicious – the trickster, closing people's eyes with burning coals, stirring up filth and ashes. "You shouldn't be here. Neither you nor Coatl." She spat the word. "Not after what you did."

"I can't speak for Coatl, but you're mistaken–"

"Am I?" Xiloxoch opened her hands, angling them so that the light coming in through the entrance curtain glimmered on the gold, so that, for a moment, everything shone as yellow as the Fifth Sun. "Gold and jade; precious stones, precious stones. Was that all it took, my Lord?"

Pochtic's bandages shifted; his lips tightened in pain. "You will not speak to me like this."

"Why not?" Her voice was mocking. "Will you call me a whore and despise me, like they all do? I am a priestess, too." She threw her head back, her long hair shifting like a cascade of crows' feathers; for a moment, she was bathed in a warm, pulsing radiance that wasn't hers – something that smelled of the jungle, humid and primal, the odour of churned earth, of rutting beasts, and of jaguars slithering in the shadows, just out of sight.

Even through the bandages, I saw Pochtic's eyes narrow. "Your – goddess–" he spoke the term as if it were an insult "doesn't frighten me."

Xiloxoch smiled, licking her lips, her teeth wide, and as black as obsidian. "Pity. Try another god, then. Itztlacoliuhqui."

The Curved Point of Obsidian, god of frost and ice, and of blind justice – of victims lashing out in pain, back at their tormentors. "You have nothing," Pochtic said. He brushed off some invisible dust from his clothes, and walked out without a word for either of us.

Xiloxoch spat on the ground. "As wily as a beast."

I watched Pochtic back – remembered the tense set of his hands, the false assurance in his voice. He might have been no better than an animal, as uncultivated as fallow fields, following the roads of the deer and the rabbit, but he was something else, too: scared.

Because of the plague? But he had not been among its victims. And why come here, to see the prisoners? Was he hoping to find an explanation into deaths that shouldn't have been concerning him?

Huitzilpochtli strike me down, why was everyone running scared?

"I need to talk to you," I said to Xiloxoch.

She sighed, raising her eyebrows as if it were a performance within her temple. "If you must."

I opened my hand – the one that wasn't clenched around the cane – to reveal the twisted feather stem, still wrapped in a cotton cloth.

Xiloxoch looked at the feather for a while. Her face was expressionless – remote, as distant as if she were the goddess herself. "What of it?"

"You know what this is."

She shrugged. "Not in so many words."

"Then you're a liar," I said. "Because I knew what this was as soon as I saw it, and I'm not that knowledgeable."

Xiloxoch's lips turned downwards, a small, dainty grimace. "Fine. It's a broken feather stem, like the ones that hold gold dust. It was used as the vector for a spell."

"And you had nothing to do with this?" I asked.

"Why should I have anything to do with it?"

"Money. Bribes. What Eptli gave to the judges. It would have been poetic, wouldn't it, if he had died by touching tainted money? Worthy of flowers and songs, all the way to the underworld."

Xiloxoch's face shifted – reducing itself to a single, powerful emotion that was gone in an instant. Anger, or fear? "I can tell you what I see, not how to interpret it."

Still evading me? "I need interpretations," I said, dryly. "That's what we thrive on. For instance, tell me what kind of illness would kill Eptli and Zoquitl – and then spread to all our warriors?"

"You're mistaken."

"I see," I said. "You protect your goddess's interests, but I don't know what She wants."

Xiloxoch's lips were curled in anger. "I can swear this to you: I have nothing to do with this."

"As Pochtic had nothing to do with the bribe."

That, if nothing else did, went straight to her guts. "Pochtic is an arrogant fool, and one day he'll get what he deserves."

Not while Tizoc-tzin was Revered Speaker. Something of what I thought must have shown on my face, for Xiloxoch said, "Tizoctzin isn't eternal."

I surely hoped so – no one was, even those returned from the world of the gods – but… I watched her face, the carefully blank expression. Something wasn't quite right. "Are you saying he's vulnerable to the plague, like everyone else?"

Her eyes narrowed – a fraction too long – before she shook her head. "Just that he's mortal, like the rest of us. You, of all people, should know."

I did know – all too well. But that wasn't the point. She'd said that he wasn't eternal with a definite tone – as if Tizoc-tzin's death were weeks or days away, not years ahead of us.

As if… "Where is Teomitl?" I asked. The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.

Xiloxoch shook her head. "Teomitl? I don't know, Acatl-tzin. I haven't seen him since the tribunal." And her voice sounded utterly sincere – curious, even, I could see her mind working, wondering how she could take the best advantage of this.

"You haven't," I said, flatly. Then who had Teomitl teamed up with? What in the gods' name did he think he was doing?

Xiloxoch smiled. "No. Did you have any other questions, Acatl-tzin?"

I didn't. I toyed with seizing her, there and then, but whatever was going on was obviously bigger than a single courtesan; if I'd started to arrest everyone who seemed to have a connection with the plague, I'd never have stopped.

"Till we meet again." Her voice was low, mocking, as she walked away.

I stood for a while, breathing in the atmosphere of the courtyard, which was as thick as tar, and filled my lungs with hot, dusty wind. The feeling of being observed and weighed had diminished, but only because I was protected. Something – something was wrong here. And either Xiloxoch or Pochtic – or both – had known it.

I walked among the prisoners until I found Cuixtli, the Mextitlan man who had given us Xiloxoch's name. He was sitting cross-legged on the ground, in an attitude of meditation, hands outstretched, eyes open but looking at nothing in the Fifth World.

Cuixtli didn't look up as I approached, but when my skin brushed a little too close to him, the magic of my protections hissed like a snake about to strike, and Cuixtli shook his head, annoyed. His eyes slowly focused on me. "Priest."

"I have this privilege, yes."

"Why are you here?" Cuixtli unfolded his lanky body, and stood, looking up at the sky. The Fifth Sun had set, and only a glimmer of His light remained in the world; in the courtyard, servants moved to light up the braziers, filling the air with the scent of smoke. "Why are any of you here?"

I shrugged. "We're trying to help you. Find out what's going on."

His smile was pitying. "You help yourself, priest. I – or the others for that matter – have no interest in solving mysteries."

Of course not – to one who would be with the Fifth Sun soon, honoured as a god, why should any of the Fifth World matter? "I'm not sure," I said, slowly. "Something is wrong in this courtyard, You might not be safe here."

"Do Mexica not respect those who offer their lives?"

"I don't know." As Teomitl had said, they were the worthiest men – the ones selfless and brave enough to give their lives for the continuation of the Fifth World. And yet – yet they were captured foreigners, not from Tenochtitlan, not even from Tlatelolco. Many would see them as nothing more than tools, faceless sacrifices, living witnesses to the greatness and glory of the Mexica Empire. "The Duality curse me, I don't know. Why were they here, Cuixtli?"

His face was contemplative. "The official and the courtesan?" He pursed his lips. "Much for the same reason, I should imagine."

"What, to gather Zoquitl's things?"

"The official obsessively searched every corner of this courtyard for something he wouldn't name. But I think he was checking spells."

Spells. Spells to do what? "What do you mean?" I asked, as a fist of ice tightened around my heart.

"You are High Priest, are you not? One of the three who determine the destiny of your Empire, of your Alliance."

If only. "Perhaps."

"Then you should see it." He rose, fluid and silent, almost inhuman, like a bird gliding through the air – and before I could stop him he had laid his hand on mine, at the level of the scars from my blood offerings. When he touched me, they pulsed, and my skin crinkled and reddened like copper in the fire. But there was no pain. Only a distant hiss in my ears, and then the sense of the world falling away from me, as I stood high above the earth, held by some impossibly distant star, except I hadn't moved, I was still standing in the courtyard, still looking at the adobe walls with their rich frescoes, the gods shifting and turning until even I could no longer recognise them – their coloured faces merging with one another's, the rich backgrounds running like raindrops until the walls were once more blank, leaving nothing but a couple of glyphs, stark red against the paleness of the adobe.

A pyramid temple, with flames coming out of its shrine; a slave's wooden collar and paper clothes; a heart struck in four bleeding pieces…

May your reign not last: may the cities you hold fall one after the other. May everything you start turn against you, wither into dust, into filth. May you be left without faces or hearts, thrown in the mud with the god's shackles weighing you down…

And it all shone green, the green of algae, of jade – the same light that filled Teomitl's eyes from corner to corner when he got angry.

Jade Skirt's magic.

My hand hadn't left the cane; but I held it so tight my fingers hurt. "How long has that been in the courtyard?"

Cuixtli shrugged. "I don't know."

"But you could see it."

"No." He smiled. "I can see you, priest. I can see the way the magic pushes against you, looking for another way in. It's touched you before, hasn't it?"

The plague. The night of fever, the squirming bodies pressed against mine – the pain like nails scraping corn from my belly. "I'm not entirely sure I see what you mean." What was I doing, taking advice from a foreign warrior – one of our sworn enemies?

No. I was being ridiculous. That he was a warrior or a foreigner had ceased to matter: days before his sacrifice, he stood above us, below us – closer to the world of the gods than any priest or sorcerer.

I walked, slowly, painfully to the walls, ran my hands on them – felt the magic deep within, quivering with anger and rage, like waves in a stormy lake – felt it shiver at my touch as though it recognised me – like a jaguar scenting a wounded prey. "And you think they were here for the spells."

Cuixtli didn't answer for a while. "The official was clearly looking for them, though they didn't affect him as badly as they did you."

Spells of rage and anger, to unseat the Mexica Empire – to unseat Tizoc-tzin. Who hated us enough for this?

Xiloxoch, or Yayauhqui. I didn't think Itamatl had had enough rage in him for this.

"And the courtesan?" Cuixtli had disapproved of Xiloxoch.

"I don't know. She might just be what she seems, picking up Zoquitl's things."

"But–?" I asked, hearing the scepticism in his voice.

Cuixtli shrugged. "She brims with magic, too – and she's far too curious."

I nodded. "Do you think she has something to do with the spell?"

Cuixtli's hands pointed, briefly, towards the wall. "I don't know. Whoever drew this is angry. They want justice."

Justice for what? For the Empire? For Eptli's transgression? The Duality take me, I had even fewer answers than before.