visions slowly faded away, I came to myself, in time to see the creature withdraw from my blade as if scalded; and with each passing moment it grew fainter and fainter, still screaming in that pathetic way that tore at my guts.
And then the creature was gone. Stillness spread from the place of its death like a shroud thrown over the Fifth World. Everything in its wake paused or slowed down: Ichtaca's harsh chanting, Neutemoc's macuahitl-swipes, the ahuizotls' clenching tail-hands, the priests' dart-throwing, the Duality warriors' strokes. But the worst affected were the other creatures. They came to a standstill, as if sharing in the death of their comrade.
Time slowly returned to normal, it seemed, and my heartbeat finally slowed back to a more leisurely rhythm.
'How in the Duality's name did you do this?' Teomitl asked, beside me. His face was still taut, contorted on the edge of pain.
'I didn't,' I said, curtly. The creatures were markedly slower, and more reluctant to approach me. 'Thank your protector.'
Teomitl said nothing. I kept my hand near my knife, but not actually touching it; and saw Neutemoc evade the last of the creatures, and run towards the child at the altar.
For a brief moment, they faced each other: Neutemoc's face, contorted in the battle-frenzy, and Mazatl's, his green eyes expressionless. Then Neutemoc's sword swept towards the child, biting into the exposed flesh of his neck.
I'd expected some struggle, or some vast display of magic. But Mazatl simply crumpled, like a felled gladiator at the combat-stone: the knees first, then the chest, and the small head with its childhood lock, sinking into the mud by the altar, small and forlorn in death.
Beside me, Ichtaca's chanting paused, and Tlaloc's creatures turned towards the altar, watching their master's death.
Over. It was over.
Then why didn't it feel like it?
I glanced at the ghost tree: it still stood, rooted in the water of the lake, filled with creatures growing fat on magic. The rain falling over us was still gorged with Tlaloc's magic, and none of the other creatures had gone.
Laughter, bright and terrible, echoed over the lake. It was the sound of a lightning strike, earthing itself in a peasant's skin; the wild roar of heavy rains; the sound of wind, tearing away cacti and trees from the land.
'Did you think it would be that easy?' a voice asked.
It came from the roots of the ghost tree, I realised with a shock: from a small silhouette, radiating power as the sun radiated heat.
I looked again at Neutemoc, who was kneeling by the body of the boy he'd just killed, his face frozen in shock.
I remembered the old woman's words:
It was the wrong child: one of Mazatl's foster brothers, casually sacrificed as a decoy. The wrong child.
In the terrible, heavy silence, magic flowed from the branches of the ghost tree: threads of raw power, plunging into the creatures' bodies, filling their featureless shapes with magic the way one pumped water into the earth. The creatures made a soft, hissing sound; and turned back towards us, filling the air with their mindless glee.
Over the water, three priests of Tlaloc had died, but over half of Ixtli's men would never see the Fifth World again. And atop the altar, Neutemoc was surrounded by creatures, mindlessly crowding each other to drink his blood.
• • • •
One of the creatures leapt at Teomitl, passing through Chalchiutlicue's circle of protection as if through flimsy cotton. Teomitl raised his macuahitl sword. But it was too late. The claws had already bitten into his flesh. He sank to one knee, gasping.
I ran towards him, but two more creatures blocked my path, their featureless bodies undulating, as if they tasted my scent from the air. My hand tightened over my knife's hilt. The emptiness of Mictlan filled me once more, the whole Fifth World turning into a hymn to death and decay. The smell of decomposition rose from the earth, saturating my nostrils, insinuating itself under the pores of my skin. Ichtaca's chanting faded into nothingness, replaced by the endless lament of the dead.
Shaking, I raised the blade, and struck. The thread linking the creature to the ghost tree snapped. It made that same cry of a baby dying, tearing at my heart for the children I would never have.
But the second creature was already reaching towards me, its claws not going for my arm or my hand, but towards my throat.
As if in a dream, I threw myself to the right and the claws raked my arm and side. Numbness filled me, collided with Mictlan's lament, becoming Father's empty gaze; becoming Mother's hands, still clenched in anger long after her death. I rolled over, gasping for breath. One creature had latched to Teomitl, feeding upon him with relish. The one that had struck my shoulder hovered over me, hesitant to approach.
I didn't give it a chance to reach a decision. I fell upon it with my knife, and sank the blade all the way in, until it plunged into muddy earth, the fragile obsidian snapping in two. The thread broke in two, and the creature screamed and started to fade.
Cursing, I withdrew my second knife from my belt, and ran towards Teomitl. Under my feet was not mud, but bones, breaking with every step I took – and the dead, whispering to me of my failures.
I had no honour; no glory; no children to come after me. But it didn't matter. It had never mattered. The dead could not touch me.
It was a lie: every whispered word hurt like a small wound; but still I managed to raise a shaking hand, and sink the knife into the creature latched into Teomitl.
As it started to fade away, Teomitl toppled into the mud, his eyes glazing over, his face locked into a desperate expression.
