There was silence. Then Ezamahual spoke. 'We're not cowards,' he said, with a pointed look at Chimalli. 'We may not be warriors, but we won't stay safe while the world breaks apart.'
Chimalli snorted. But when he didn't move, the other priests did. One at first, slowly; and then they came by groups of twos and threes, gathering around Palli and Ezamahual.
On the other side of that invisible line were Chimalli, his clique – and the two calmecac students, looking frightened out of their wits.
'We're not cowards,' Ezamahual repeated. 'Tell us what we have to do.'
Beside me, Ichtaca's face was grim, but I could guess that he hadn't expected me to have this much success.
But then, neither had I.
'We haven't much time left,' I started.
Because the true sight hampered one's ability to see the Fifth World, I decided to lay it only on half of the priests, trusting that they would see enough to warn the others. I included myself in this half. I also sent word for Ixtli and his men to join us at the temple docks.
I had just finished laying on the true sight on myself when Palli came back.
'We have rabbits, and owls, and a handful of hummingbirds,' he said. In the gloom of the Feathered Serpent's sight, Palli shone like the moon: cold, harsh, the veins of his arms and legs contracting and expanding to the rhythm of his heart. He carried two magical knives in his leather belt, one for each hand.
I finished my spell, and carefully brushed my hands clean, praying that Neutemoc and Teomitl would have had the good sense to wait before launching an attack.
I said to Palli, 'Whatever you've found will have to do. I'm not sure we'll have time for real blood-magic.' Sacrificing an animal and doing a full ritual required preparation. In the midst of a battle, I didn't think we'd have time for this.
Palli said, 'Ichtaca is sending messengers to the palace, to request the Guardian's help at the Heart of the Lake.'
'He sent Chimalli?'
Palli shook his head. 'No,' he said, grimly amused. 'The two calmecac students, the ones that were frightened by the whole prospect.'
'You're not frightened?' I asked, remembering how he'd preferred storehouse duty because of how quiet it was.
'When I stop to think about it. But then, it doesn't change anything, does it?'
He looked and sounded disturbingly like Teomitl: like a warrior, uncaring of his own life. I finished erasing my quincunx, and rose in turn. 'No,' I said. 'It doesn't change anything. Come on. Let's get to the boats.'
The boats were the flotilla of the temple, moored on the boundary between the southwest district of Moyotlan and the northwest one of Cuepopan, beyond the Serpent Walls. We had a dozen sturdy reed boats, which the priests took on their errands throughout Tenochtitlan.
Ichtaca was already in the second largest of those, with a novice priest holding the oars, and two clustering at the back. He pointed, wordlessly, to the largest craft, the one reserved for the High Priest. It bore the spider- and-owl design of Mictlantecuhtli, and shone with the wards accumulated on it.
Ixtli and his Duality warriors had their own boats: long, thin vessels holding nine warriors in a single line, with two rowers, one at the back and one at the prow. Ixtli raised his hand to me in a salute; I nodded to him, and climbed aboard my own boat. Palli took the oars; and Ezamahual positioned himself at the prow.
Every temple boat, including ours, was full of covered cages. It wasn't so much the cages I saw with the true sight though, but the light cast by the animals they contained: the rabbits huddled against each other, and the hummingbirds flitting against the covers in a whirr of wings.
Palli pushed the boat away from the shore in a splash of oars, and gently directed us south.
The docks were on the western edge of Tenochtitlan; the tree of the Great Vigil on the eastern side of the city. Even though the town was crisscrossed by canals, the fastest way to go east wasn't through Tenochtitlan, but around it, passing south under the Itzapalapan causeway and swinging back in a north-easterly direction.
The rain fell steadily around us, but there was something different about it. Something distinctly hostile. In the semi-darkness of the true sight, I could see nothing, but the sense of disquiet increased. The oars splashed in the water, on the left side, then on the right – and back on the left, like a slower heartbeat.
I turned around, briefly, and saw the city, a mass of huddled houses enclosed by the rain. Light spilled from the Sacred Precinct, beacons in the growing darkness: the temples of Mictlantecuhtli; of Mixcoatl, God of the Hunt; of Tezcatlipoca, God of War and Fate. And towering over it all, the blazing radiance of the Great Temple.
Something about the last light was wrong. I watched it for a while, as Palli's rowing got us clear of the causeway. Something about the light, which kept flickering.
The light wasn't strong any more, but tinged with the green of algae. With every passing moment, the green grew stronger. And, crowding around the twin shrines atop the pyramid, were the halfdistinct shapes of Tlaloc's creatures, swimming through the air like some sick imitation of fishes, sinking into the stone of the stairs like transparent blood.
'It's fallen,' I said, aloud.
'What's fallen?' Palli asked.
Ichtaca, whose forehead also bore the mark of the true sight, was watching the same direction. 'Not yet,' he said. 'Huitzilpochtli is stronger than you give Him credit for.'
'He's weak,' I said, watching as the light flickered.
'So is Tlaloc's child, for now,' Ichtaca replied. And, to his oarsman: 'Faster.'
Palli's gestures quickened, as if he'd been the one given the order.
Faster, faster, I thought, listening to the splashes of water on either side of me. In the darkness, all I could see were the beacons of the temples – and the creatures, slithering in and out of the Great Temple. Faster…
