Light streamed around Eleuia, limning the alluring curves of her body; but all of that wasn't just beauty, or charms – but the Quetzal Flower's grace, wrapped around her like a mantle. No wonder every man had been drawn to Eleuia: the Goddess of Lust had rewarded her well for her services.
But that wasn't the worst.
Ichtaca's spell, which had dispelled the creatures, had done so by setting Huitzilpochtli's wards on everyone. Everyone human: the priests, Ichtaca himself, Neutemoc, me.
And Popoxatl.
The wards, anathema to Mictlan's magic – to Tlalocan's magic – spread around Popoxatl's body in a shimmering cover, leaving me no place to strike at.
I suppressed a curse; but it was hard, seeing Popoxatl's gloating face. Had I come this far for nothing?
Think.
The creatures had been able to whittle Mihmatini's wards away to nothing, and their magic had been of Tlalocan. And when Teomitl had rescued me in the Jaguar House, the rush of the Southern Hummingbird's magic had turned Mictlan's knives into obsidian dust. It worked both ways. Huitzilpochtli's magic would destroy Mictlan's; and Mictlan's magic would destroy those wards. I just had to summon it in the proper way.
Eleuia's outstretched arms closed around my chest. Without thinking, I slashed, and she fell back, screaming in agony. At least she didn't count as human, but she would be back. I couldn't kill her: she didn't belong to my dominion.
There was no time.
I thought of killing the beast of shadows, of the feeling of emptiness that had seized me as I lay on my back, that sense of
But I couldn't summon that feeling again. Just the emptiness of Mictlan, waiting to blossom into something more, but not doing so.
Popoxatl was drifting towards me, smiling in a decidedly unpleasant way. Beside him, Tlaloc was whispering something, dripping darkness into his ears.
There was no time.
I couldn't…
My hand tightened around the hilt of the knife. I was a priest of Mictlantecuhtli. Death was my lot, Mictlan the dominion of my god. I would never be a warrior, never bring glory to my calpulli – but I could make sure, now and tomorrow, that there would be other warriors to carry on, to fight the battles of the Fifth World and bring the sacrifices that would keep the sun in the sky.
I was a priest. And this, here, was where I stood. This was what I had chosen, what I had become.
Within me, Mictlan was rising: the keening lament of the dead, the grave voice of the Wind of Knives, the smell of rotting bodies and the dry touch of bones on my skin – my consciousness expanding, wrapping itself to encompass every living soul, the children huddled in the courtyards, playing games as the rain fell – their mothers, clutching their bellies and wishing for a quick birth – their fathers, resting with their macuahitl swords and their hoes by their side – the old men and women, chatting about the awful weather – the dead in Mictlan, making their slow journey towards Lord Death's throne and oblivion.
I was… everything I needed to be.
My arm descended; and the knife, scything through Huitzilpochtli's wards as if they were nothing, buried itself up to the hilt into Popoxatl's chest. He shrieked: a thin, pained sound like a dying dog, twisting at my heart. Tlaloc screamed, too, but He was already dissolving into nothingness, His voice receding further and further away as he was thrown away from the Fifth World.
The green light slowly faded, and a huge tremor shook the roots of the ghost tree, like a storm unleashing itself at last. The roots shook and shook, dislodging Father's body, which fell into the depths, still watching me with that unceasing disappointment.
But it didn't matter. Father was dead, and this mockery that the Storm Lord had called back into life didn't have any power to hurt. Not any more.
Around me, the Blessed Drowned were disappearing, one by one: turning into algae, into fish, into foam on the water. Popoxatl's body was sinking down as well, but not very far: ahuizotls were already gathering, tearing at it with their clawed tails.
My lungs were starting to burn. I welcomed the feeling, for it meant that the rules of the Fifth World applied once more. Now all I needed to do was rise back to the surface, and…
Neutemoc. He'd been in the tree's roots. But the tree had almost faded to nothing now, with only a few light reflections remaining. Where was he?
My lungs burnt too much. I kicked upwards, rose to the surface for a moment, under a rainy sky that had nothing of magic any more. Then I took a deep breath, and dived down again.
Far, far below, a dark shape lay horizontally in the water. I made my way straight for him, just a few handspans ahead of an ahuizotl; put both hands under his armpits, and pulled upwards. He was heavy, but not as heavy as he had once been in Tlalocan, and rising with him to the surface wasn't as hard as I had feared.
When I pulled him onto the shores of the small island and laid him down in the mud, though, he wasn't breathing any more.
TWENTY-FOUR
I knelt in the mud, and pushed on Neutemoc's chest, struggling to get the water out of his lungs. Around me, the rain fell in a steady patter. But it was just rain, water falling from the darkened sky without Tlaloc's magic at the core of every drop.
The light was getting dimmer: the sun would soon set. It felt like too much had happened today. But then
