The rattle of shells filled the room and a shadow stood before us, its hundreds of eyes shining malevolently in the dim light. No, not eyes but stars, scattered at the knees, elbows and wrists of a vaguely humanoid creature – stars that, if you looked into them for long enough, were also demons, smaller monsters with talons and fangs and necklaces of human hearts…
It brought with it the emptiness of the night sky, a cold so intense that my teeth seized up, chattering unstoppably. My limbs shook, started to twist out of shape, and all I could feel was the frantic beating of my heart.
Its eyes, the deathly blue of stars, rested upon me for a while, and I felt as if fingers were closing around my throat, as if hundreds of cold stones pressed against my skin. My veil of protection buckled and shattered, leaving only a cold feeling. My vision started to blur, my corneas burning as if someone had thrown chilli powder into my face.
Where was the Wind of Knives?
The star-demon's gaze moved away; I was not its target. My limbs, now utterly out of control, twisted each in a different direction, leaving me on my knees, struggling not to fall further.
Manatzpa had risen, arms crossed against his chest. 'This isn't your place.' His voice rang with confidence. How he could still be standing, facing
The star-demon made a sound which might have been laughter. I heard only the rattle of shells, of yellowed bones shaken together in a grave, my own bones, grinding in the agonising mess of my chest.
'Manatzpa.' Echichilli's voice was quiet. 'Some things cannot be fought against.'
Manatzpa's face twisted in uncharacteristic anger. 'You say this like you approve.'
I didn't hear Echichilli's answer. My legs were quivering, threatening to slip away from me, and it took all my concentration to remain upright.
The star-demon was moving, flowing towards the two councilmen with the inevitability of a flood. Manatzpa's hand strayed towards his knife, but the clawed hands batted him aside as casually as a child might hurl a toy. He flew towards the wall, hit it, and slumped at the feet of the frescoes, bleeding from a dozen cuts. Near him, Teimitl was on the floor, struggling to rise.
That left only Echichilli. The old councillor stood, watching the star-demon come with an odd, melancholy smile on his face. 'For everything a price,' he whispered. He bowed his head, and did not move.
The Duality curse us, why wouldn't he fight? Why wouldn't he use magic, anything to save himself from the gruesome death facing him?
I slid my hand towards one of my obsidian knives. It was like moving through thick honey. My fingers kept jerking out of the way, and my progress was agonisingly slow, finger-length by finger-length, knuckle by knuckle, every movement a supreme effort.
The star-demon's body blocked my sight of Echichilli. Its back was a dark cloak rippling in the wind, shimmering to reveal row upon row of skulls. Shells as white as bone, sewn into the hem, rattled as it moved.
My fingers hovered over the handle of the knife, closed over empty air. The Duality curse me, I needed…
Echichilli screamed once, a sound abruptly cut off by the wet sound of flesh being torn apart. Hundreds of droplets splayed into the room; organs and blood, spattering my face and hands.
No…
I managed to close my fingers over the knife. The familiar emptiness of Mictlan arced up my body, stretching into my lungs and throat. The sensation of twisting diminished. I pulled myself upwards on shaking legs, the knife handle digging into the palm of my hand, a persistent, known pain that anchored me back to the Fifth World.
'Acatl-tzin.' Teomitl had got up with me, his hand still affixed to my shoulder. Chalchiuhtlicue's magic wrapped around him gave a green, rippling cast to his cloak and headdress. 'They're coming.'
The
The Wind of Knives, however, wasn't.
His weight in my mind grew excruciating, like a white-hot spear driven into my head. Darkness flowed into the room, bringing with it the deep, teeth-chattering cold of the underworld, and He was standing by my side as if He had always been there. Light glittered on a thousand obsidian planes, caught on the black points like beads on a necklace's thread.
His hand rested lightly on my shoulder, balanced on a dozen obsidian shards as sharp as the points of knives and a tight, cool feeling spread from the points of contact, enough for me to focus again. 'Acatl. I am here.'
I managed to utter words, through chattering teeth. 'You can… see.'
'Yes,' the Wind of Knives said. His voice was like the water of the cenote, dark, without warmth or sunlight. 'I see.'
Before I could say anything more, He flowed, fluid, inhuman, towards the star-demon.
The creature had turned, its pale head shifting between the Wind of Knives and Manatzpa, who had pulled himself on an elbow and was daubing Echichilli's blood into the beginning of a huge arc around himself, chanting all the while in harsh words I couldn't make out. The dim light glinted against the tears in his eyes.
The Wind of Knives met the star-demon with a screeching sound, obsidian blades sliding on shell rattles. They fought each other, flowing across the room in an embrace. Obsidian shards glinted. Here and there pale fragments of skin flashed blue in the darkness as they moved past, again and again, spraying drops of Echichilli's blood all over the room like warm rain. It was almost hypnotic, that play of colours, of darkness on light, if the consequences hadn't been so absurdly terrifying…
'Acatl-tzin!' Teomitl screamed.
With growing horror, I realised that the star-demon was coming straight at me. Behind it, the Wind of Knives lay pinned to the floor by something jagged and white – a huge fragment of shell under which the Wind struggled to free Himself.
Of course. It thought to kill me, and thus cut the Wind of Knives' link to the Fifth World.
It was almost close enough to touch, Its eyes held me, and my hands started to shiver and contract. I held onto the knife, to the stretched emptiness of Mictlan, the only part of my body that seemed not to writhe in pain.
