Obsidian & Blood

  He walked back, carefully navigating around the accumulated traces of magic in the room. 'Tar?' he said.

  'That's what I think, but–'

  'We didn't use tar,' Palli said. 'It must have been here before. But it's odd.'

  Decidedly odd. Tar was an uncommon ingredient to use in a ritual, save for very specific gods; and why use it in the imperial chambers themselves?

  'Do you want me to look into it?' Palli asked.

  'Yes,' I said. 'Later, though.' Whatever ritual had been accomplished, it was old. I couldn't detect any traces of magic, and the spots of tar didn't look as though they would interfere with the spell I was about to cast. 'Now isn't the time.'

  I waited until Palli had left the room to open the cage. I held the dog by the neck and, with the ease of practise, brought the blade up to slice its throat. It gave a little sigh, like a spent hiss, as it died. Blood ran down my hands, warm and beating with power, staining the blade and the stones of the floor.

  I used the knife to draw the shape of a quincunx around us: the five-point cross, the shape that symbolised the structure of the world from the Heavens down to Mictlan.

  I sang as I did so, the beginning of a litany for the Dead.

'We leave this earth, we leave this world

Into the darkness we must descend

Leaving behind the precious jade, the precious feathers,

The marigolds and the cedar trees…'

  The familiar green light of the underworld seeped into the room, hanging over the stone floor like fog. Shadows moved within, singing a wordless lament that twisted in my guts like a knife-stab.

'Past the river, the waters of life

Past the mountains that crush, the mountains that bind

Past the breath of the wind, the breath of His knives…'

  The frescoes and the limestone receded, to become the walls of a deep cenote, at the bottom of which shimmered the dark waters of a lake that had never seen, and would never see, the light of day. Small figures moved over the water, growing fainter and fainter the further they went – first they had faces and features that looked almost human, and then they were mere silhouettes, and finally they seemed as small and insignificant as insects, vanishing into the darkness at the far end.

  Cold crept up my spine, like the fingers of a corpse or a skeleton. The air became saturated with a dry, musty smell, like old codices left for too long, or the cool ashes of a funeral pyre.

  And, abruptly, I was no longer alone.

  It was a faint feeling at first, that of eyes on the nape of my neck, and then it grew layer by layer, until, turning, I saw the faint silhouette of a man by my side, shimmering in the darkness like a mirage. Though I could barely see his face, I could guess the outline of a quetzal-feather headdress, spread in a circle around his head and hear the swish of fine cotton cloth as he moved.

  'Priest?' he whispered. His voice seemed spent, as if it had crossed whole countries to reach me.

  I bowed, as low as I could. 'Revered Speaker.'

  'I feel so cold,' Axayacatl-tzin whispered. 'Cold…'

  I reached with my hands, spreading a little of the blood on him. He rippled, as if I'd drawn the flat of my palm across a reflection in the water. 'Priest…'

  I started chanting again, the words that he needed to make his way across.

'Past the beasts that live in darkness, that consume hearts,

Into the city of the streets on the left, the city where walk the Dead

We must go, we must find the way into oblivion…'

  The scene shifted as I spoke. We were in the middle of the lake, on a boat that held its steady course, and he was by my side, darkness sweeping over his face. The headdress vanished, as did the cotton clothes.

'The region of mystery, the place of the fleshless

Where the strength of jaguars, the strength of eagles

Is broken and ground into dust…'

  Then we stood on the other shore of the lake, dwarfed by a huge mass of rock. Ahead of us was darkness, and the faint suggestion of a gate. The Dead passed us by, shambling on, unaware of our presence.

  I lowered my hands, and let the blood drip onto the ground. Each drop fell upon the other and stuck, so that little by little a darker mass detached itself from the ground, the faint shape of a dog, shining yellow in the darkness, like a pale memory of sunlight or of corn.

'I give you the precious life, the precious water

The Fifth Sun's nourishment, Grandmother Earth's sustenance,

All of this, I give you as your own