Aztec

desolated me to hear that my earliest patron and protector was dead.

I could have gone to Texcoco with the rest of the Eagle Knights, in the company of all the other Mexica nobles and courtiers who crossed the lake to attend the funeral of Nezahualpili, and who would either stay there or cross the lake again, some while later, to attend the coronation of the Crown Prince Ixtlil-Xochitl as new Revered Speaker of the Acolhua nation. But I chose to go without pomp and ceremony, in plain mourning dress, as a private citizen. I went as a friend of the family, and I was received by my old schoolmate, the Prince Huexotl, who greeted me as cordially as he had first done thirty and three years before, and greeted me with the name I had worn then: 'Welcome, Head Nodder!' I could not help noticing that my old schoolmate Willow was old; I tried not to let my expression show what I felt when I saw his graying hair and lined visage; I had remembered his as a lithe young prince strolling with his pet deer in a verdant garden. But then I thought, uncomfortably: he is no older than I am.

The Uey-Tlatoani Nezahualpili was buried in the grounds of his city palace, not at the more expansive country estate near Texcotzinco Hill. So the smaller palace's lawns fairly overflowed with those come to say farewell to that much loved and respected man. There were rulers and lords and ladies from the nations of The Triple Alliance, and from other lands both friendly and not so. Those emissaries of farther countries who could not arrive in time for Nezahualpili's funeral were nevertheless on their way to Texcoco at that moment, hurrying to be in time to salute his son as the new ruler. Of all who should have been at the graveside, the most conspicuously absent was Motecuzoma, who had sent in his place his Snake Woman Tlacotzin and his brother Cuitlahuac, chief commander of the Mexica armies.

Prince Willow and I stood side by side at the grave, and we stood not far from his half brother, Ixtlil-Xochitl, heir to the Acolhua throne. He still somewhat resembled his name of Black Flower, since he still had the merged black eyebrows that made him appear always to be scowling. But he had lost most of what other hair he had had, and I thought: he must be ten years older than his father was when I first came to school in Texcoco. After the interment, the crown repaired to the palace ballrooms, to feast and chant and grieve aloud and loudly recount the deeds and merits of the late Nezahualpili. But Willow and I secured several jars of prime octli, and we went to the privacy of his chambers, and we gradually got very drunk as we relived the old days and contemplated the days to come.

I remember saying at one point, 'I heard much muttering about Motecuzoma's rude absence today. He has never forgiven your father's aloofness in these past years, particularly his refusal to help in fighting petty wars.'

The prince shrugged. 'Motecuzoma's bad manners will win him no concessions from my half brother. Black Flower is our father's son, and believes as he did—that The One World will someday soon be invaded by outlanders, and that our only security is in unity. He will continue our father's policy; that we Acolhua must conserve our energies for a war that will be anything but petty.'

'The right course, perhaps,' I said, 'But Motecuzoma will love your brother no better than he loved your father.'

The next thing I remember was looking at the window and exclaiming, 'Where has the time gone? It is late at night—and I am woefully inebriated.'

'Take the guest chamber yonder,' said the prince. 'We must be up tomorrow to hear all the palace poets read their eulogies.'

'If I sleep now I shall have a horrendous head in the morning,' I said. 'With your leave, I will first go for a walk in the city and let Night Wind blow some of the vapors from my brain.'

My mode of walking was probably a sight to see, but there was nobody to see it. The night streets were even emptier than usual, for every resident of Texcoco was in mourning and indoors. And the priests had evidently sprinkled copper filings in the pine-splint torches on the street corner poles, for their flames burned blue, and the light they cast was dim and somber. In my muddled state, I somehow got the impression that I was repeating a walk I had walked once before, long ago. The impression was heightened when I saw ahead of me a stone bench under a red-flowering tapachini tree. I sank down on it gratefully, and sat for a while, enjoying being showered by the tree's scarlet petals blown loose by the wind. Then I became aware that on either side of me was seated another man.

I turned left and squinted through my topaz, and saw the same shriveled, ragged, cacao-colored man I had seen so often in my life. I turned to my right, and saw the better-dressed but dusty and weary man I had seen not quite so often before. I suppose I should have started up with a loud cry, but I only chuckled drunkenly, aware that they were illusions induced by all the octli I had imbibed. Still chuckling, I addressed them both:

'Venerable lords, should you not have gone underground with your impersonator?'

The cacao man grinned, showing the few teeth he had. 'There was a time when you believed us to be gods. You supposed that I was Huehueteotl, Oldest of Old Gods, he who was venerated in these lands long before all others.'

'And that I was the god Yoali Ehecatl,' said the dusty man. 'The Night Wind, who can abduct unwary walkers by night, or reward them, according to his whim.'

I nodded, deciding to humor them even if they were only hallucinations. 'It is true, my lords, I was once young and credulous. But then I learned of Nezahualpili's pastime of wandering the world in disguise.'

'And that made you disbelieve in the gods?' asked the cacao man.

I hiccuped and said, 'Let me put it this way. I have never met any others except you two.'

The dusty man murmured obscurely, 'It may be that the real gods appear only when they are about to disappear.'

I said, 'You had better disappear, then, to where you belong. Nezahualpili cannot be very happy, walking the dismal road to Mictlan while two embodiments of himself are still above-ground.'

The cacao man laughed. 'Perhaps we cannot bear to leave you, old friend. We have so long followed your fortunes in your various embodiments: as Mixtli, as Mole, as Head Nodder, as Fetch!, as Zaa Nayazu, as Ek Muyal, as Su-kuru—

I interrupted, 'You remember my names better than I do.'

'Then remember ours!' he said, rather sharply. 'I am Huehueteotl and this is Yoali Ehecatl.'

'For mere apparitions,' I grumbled, 'you are cursedly persistent and insistent. I have not been this drunk for a long time. It must have been seven or eight years ago. And I remember... I said then that someday, somewhere I would meet a god, and I would ask him. I would ask him this. Why have the gods let me live so long, while they have struck down every other person who ever stood close to me? My dear sister, my beloved wife, my infant son and treasured daughter, so many close friends, even transient loves...'

'That is easily answered,' said the ragged apparition who called himself The Oldest of Old Gods. 'Those persons were, so to speak, the hammers and chisels used for the sculpturing of you, and they got broken or discarded. You did not. You have weathered all the blows and the chipping and the abrasion.'

I nodded with the solemnity of inebriation and said, 'That is a drunken answer, if ever I heard one.'

The dusty apparition who called himself Night Wind said, 'You of all people, Mixtli, know that a statue or monument does not come already shaped from the limestone quarry. It must be hewn with adzes and ground with obsidian grit and hardened by exposure to the elements. Not until it is carved and toughened and polished is it fit for use.'

'Use?' I said harshly. 'At this dwindling end of my roads and my days, of what use could I possibly be?'

Night Wind said, 'I mentioned a monument. All it does is stand upright, but that is not always an easy thing to do.'

'And it will not get easier,' said The Oldest of Old Gods. 'This very night, your Revered Speaker Motecuzoma has made one irreparable mistake, and he will make others. There is coming a storm of fire and blood, Mixtli. You were shaped and hardened for only one purpose. To survive it.'

I hiccuped again and asked, 'Why me?'

The Oldest said, 'A long time ago, you stood one day on a hillside not far from here, undecided whether to climb. I told you then that no man has ever yet lived out any life except his one chosen own. You chose to climb. The gods chose to help you.'

I laughed a horrible laugh.

'Oh, you could not have appreciated their attentions,' he admitted, 'any more than the stone recognizes the benefits conferred by hammer and chisel. But help you they did. And you will now requite their favors.'