Obsidian & Blood

  When he came back, he had two old priests in tow, a man and a woman who moved in precise, economical gestures. They wore the regalia of high-ranking clerics, a headdress of heron and duck feathers, and black cloaks with a blue hem depicting the fusedlovers symbol of the Duality. The priests looked at Teomitl speculatively for a moment, and then gave Yaotl a curt nod.

  Teomitl, for whom patience was an alien word, wasn't about to be cowed, old priests or not. 'Well?'

  'There is a way,' Yaotl said, slowly. 'You're not going to like it.'

  That he said it in such a fashion, with no attempt whatsoever at sarcasm, was possibly the most worrying thing.

  'Tell us,' Teomitl snapped.

  'You mentioned a new Guardian.'

  'To which you said it wouldn't help.'

  'They wouldn't have the Duality's powers, no,' Yaotl said. 'That takes time. The Duality doesn't choose Their agent on a whim. But, symbolically…' He pursed his lips. 'Guardians are still the representative of the Duality in this world. The right choice, accompanied by the right rituals, could be the equivalent of a magical statement.'

  'The right choice,' I said, slowly. 'I don't understand what you're trying to say.'

  'Imperial Blood,' Yaotl said. 'To signify the tie between the Duality and the Fifth World. And a young woman, to remember that the Duality is the source of all life. The creator principle, male and female…'

  'I don't understand,' Teomitl said.

  I did, and I didn't like where this was going. I remembered Ceyaxochitl's late-night confidences, that she had been married once, which had made her into the living symbol of the Duality. 'You're jesting. Surely–'

  'Of course I'm not jesting.' Yaotl's lips curled up in a savage smile, and for a moment he was once more the insolent slave I'd known all my life.

  'There is a chain of succession,' I said. 'Proper forms. You just can't choose a Guardian like this! You–' I stopped, then, for I'd been able to accuse him of being a mere slave. That would have been a mistake. Here in this room he was not my social inferior, but Ceyaxochitl's assistant, the man who held the order together.

  The old priestess spoke up. 'Ceyaxochitl-tzin had been watching the young woman for a while. She's impulsive, and untrained, and inexperienced, but all these can be remedied.'

  'Look,' I said, feeling I was fighting against the lake's current in the rainy season. 'Ceyaxochitl wasn't young. She made plans for her succession. There is a second-in-command, or someone like this, who's been waiting for years to claim the place. You can't…' You can't just go and give it to my sister, who's never asked for it in the first place.

  'Our order will take decisions as it sees fit,' the old priestess said, with the same authoritarian tone as Ceyaxochitl in her worst moods. 'Our charge is the boundaries of the Fifth World, not politics.'

  And they were naive if they thought politics didn't apply.

  'You don't even know if she's willing.'

  'Her wishes,' the old priest said, firmly, 'are the least of our concerns.'

  Clearly they didn't know Mihmatini at all, to say that. 'There has to be someone else–'

  'No.' Yaotl's voice was firm. 'It has to be a virgin of childbearing years, with magical knowledge, and associated with another virgin of Imperial blood. Can you think of anyone else, Acatl?'

  I would have liked to, but no matter how much I racked my brains, I couldn't think of another name. For the sake of the Fifth World…

  I made a last attempt to stem the tide. 'You do know Teomitl is linked to another god.'

  The priest sniffed. 'To two gods, as a matter of fact. But we're not asking him to be Guardian.'

  'You're still asking him to be a Guardian's husband,' I said.

  The priestess looked Teomitl up and down, clearly more for show than for anything else. Her mind seemed to have been made up before she entered the room. 'We've discussed it. It's somewhat problematic, but the other benefits outweigh the risks.'

  The words weren't said, but I could hear them all the same; they would be naming a Guardian with a husband who would become Revered Speaker, master of the Empire's policy. Influence could flow both ways.

  Gods, Mihmatini was going to flay us all. 'What rituals did you have in mind?' I asked. 'Another symbol? A wedding, a coupling?'

  Yaotl grinned. 'Close enough.'

  Exactly why I didn't want to go ahead with this. 'Yaotl,' I said, firmly. 'There has to be someone else. I know Teomitl is convenient right now–'

  'It's not a matter of convenience,' Yaotl said. 'It's a matter of need.' His voice was low and fierce, and utterly serious. 'If the stardemons are walking among us, then the end has already started. We have to buy time, and we have to buy it now. We're not going to go through all the imperial princes looking for virgins.'

  How could Yaotl even be sure Teomitl was a virgin?

  But my student was sitting very straight, and he hadn't protested; I knew that, if he hadn't, it meant that it was true. 'Acatl-tzin,' Teomitl said. 'We can at least ask her. Yaotl is right, there is too much at stake.' He didn't sound wholly happy about that, and no wonder. Quite aside from my personal objections on the matter, Mihmatini was going to tear his head off.

  'Look,' I said. 'It's all good theory, but…' But, the Storm Lord smite me, it was my sister we were talking about, not me or Teomitl. She was no priestess or imperial princess, just a normal girl readying herself for marriage and children. No one had pledged her to the defence of the Fifth World.

  Yaotl, Teomitl and the priests were watching me, their faces as expressionless as those of carved statues.

  'Acatl-tzin,' Teomitl said. 'I swear to the gods I'll marry her within the year. No matter what my brother thinks.' His face was set in a fierce scowl, moments away from invoking Jade Skirt's presence. 'It's the only right thing I could do, anyway.'