Obsidian & Blood

Leaving behind the marigolds and the cedar trees

Nothing is hidden from Your gaze.'

  A thin layer of light shimmered into existence, an overlay over reality, nowhere near the level of detail of the true sight, but still more than I would have got from my priest-senses. The stairs of the temple turned a reddish black, like clotted blood, and every step I took sent a little jolt through my body – I could feel the magic bleeding out of the temple with every passing moment, like water draining out of a sieve.

  At the top of the stairs, Ceyaxochitl's wards, once a shimmering blue, had also darkened, and the ragged hole in their centre marked the place Itzpapalotl had crossed them. Priests lay on the stairs, some dead, most unconscious.

  I couldn't see Teomitl anywhere, but I assumed he'd have gone on without waiting for me. I hoped he was still alive, and in a state to fight.

  I'd have had the same thought about the Wind of Knives; but I very much doubted anything could stop or incapacitate Him for long.

  The stairs leading down to the temple's heart were silent, magic lazily bleeding out of them, a widening stain that was spreading within the Fifth World. The air was stale, dried-out, as if Itzpapalotl had drained everything out of it while descending.

  I found Teomitl in the room near the foundations, the ahuizotls curled up at his feet like pet monkeys. He was watching the central disk with a scowl on his face. The Wind of Knives stood a little to the side, His head turned towards me when I arrived, a glimmer of obsidian that pierced me to the core.

  'I arrived too late,' the Wind of Knives said.

  Storm-Lord blind me, She was fast. 'Is there anything–'

  He shook His head in a shivering of dark light. 'Not until She breaches the boundaries again.' He seemed almost disappointed – unusual for Him. 'Call me if you have need, Acatl.' And then He faded away, the monstrous head slowly shimmering out of existence, the welter of obsidian shards receding into nothingness, until nothing was left but the faint memory of a lament.

  Teomitl pursed his lips. 'She just crossed to the centre, laughed at me and vanished.'

  I could tell that it was the laughter that bothered him most. Contempt, even coming from a star-demon, would have hurt him more than claw-swipes. But that wasn't what we needed to focus on now.

  'Vanished,' I repeated. I knelt by the side of the disk, cautiously extending one hand across it. The stone was warm, angry. Such anger, that of a caged being hurling itself against the walls of its prison, again and again until something yielded… Something had to yield, something had to crack, and She would be free to walk the world again, to watch humans scatter like insects, to drink our blood like stream-water…

  I pulled my hand away, coming back to the Fifth World with a start. 'Still imprisoned,' I said aloud. Itzpapalotl had been sum moned, like the rest of the star-demons. She hadn't spontaneously moved out of the stone disk; she hadn't been under any orders from Her mistress, She of the Silver Bells…

  But I did not move. I crouched, watching the stone disk. The blood in the grooves had dimmed and dulled, too, as if its potency had been absorbed. And I couldn't be sure, but I could make out a hand and an arm, and a headdress with crooked edges – more details than before, as if everything were re-knitting itself together.

  She of the Silver Bells was still imprisoned, but the Duality knew for how long.

  I got up. Teomitl was still watching me with that peculiar intensity. 'I should have known,' he said, finally. 'If I'd guessed Her destination earlier–'

  'You can't rewrite the past,' I said. 'And if you hadn't launched in pursuit, we wouldn't even have known where She was going.'

  The stone disk lay at our feet, huge and monstrous, a gate to another country, a world waiting only to tear us apart and consume us. And Manatzpa was the only one who could have shed some light on how and when it was going to happen.

  'I'm going to need something from you,' I said.

  He pulled himself straight, like a warrior standing to attention. 'Acatl-tzin.'

  'You were the last person to see Manatzpa alive. I need you to tell me everything that he said when you interviewed him.'

  'Uh.' Teomitl's face fell. 'I don't exactly–' He shook himself and frowned. 'A lot of things that didn't seem relevant.'

  I lifted my chin in the direction of the disk. 'At this stage, it's safe to assume that anything might be relevant. We've had three deaths in the palace in a matter of days. At this rate, we'll be lucky to still have a council by the end of the week.'

  Teomitl shifted. One of the ahuizotls did the same, lazily raking its clawed hands on the stone. Nausea welled up in my throat, harsh and uncontrollable. I kept telling myself that, one day, I was going to get used to the creatures moving as though they were part of him; but it had been a year since Teomitl had acquired their services, and it still didn't get any better.

  'He liked me.' Teomitl appeared halfway between embarrassment and anger. 'I thought it was a facade, but he didn't really need to pretend anymore, did he?'

  'He might have hoped for your mercy.'

  'No.' Teomitl shook his head, quick and fierce. 'I've seen that happen, too, and it wasn't anything like that. More,' he spread his hands, frustrated, 'more like having someone you admire fighting for the other side. You know you'll never stop trying to capture each other, but still…'

  I thought of Manatzpa's face when he had admitted Teomitl was the candidate he favoured above all others. I had assumed it to be a lie after he had revealed himself as a worshipper of She of the Silver Bells, but perhaps it had been more complex than that. 'I see. What else?'

  Teomitl grimaced. 'He was unhappy about Echichilli's death.'

  I wanted to say it was obvious, but stopped. I couldn't possibly hope to get anything out of Teomitl if I was putting my own words in his mouth. 'How so?'

  'He…' Teomitl floundered for a while, before collecting himself. 'I tried to tell him allying with star-demons was a foolish thing to do, that this needed to stop before the whole Fifth World crumbled. And he said something