Obsidian & Blood

a sacrifice victim, already removed from the preoccupations and the cares that plagued every other participant from the priests to the worshippers.

  The Duality curse me, what was I missing?

  There was not much to do for it, I would have to see the SheSnake again. He was the only one who might still cooperate. Quenami had become just an extension of Tizoc-tzin's will, and Acamapichtli, the High Priest of Tlaloc, was following his own purposes away from Court, which worried me, but I couldn't do much about it. The She-Snake's guards were all over the palace, and he had to have some inclination of what was going on. The only question was whether he would share it with me.

  I headed to the half of the palace which held the She-Snake's quarters.

  'Acatl-tzin!'

  I turned, half-expecting Quenami again but instead I saw Nezahual-tzin, the boy-Emperor of Texcoco. He had changed into the regalia befitting a Revered Speaker; a turquoise cape, its hem embroidered with hundreds of tiny eyes, though he still carried his small shield with him, emblazoned with a coyote woven of feathers, the emblem of his father, and his macuahitl sword, its embedded shards shimmering with green and red light, the touch of the Feathered Serpent. Two warriors followed him, not the Jaguar Knights he'd had with him before, but I presumed Texcocan elite guards.

  'I need to speak with you,' he said. It was an order as much as a request, coming from a man with whom no one dared argue.

  Of course, I had no choice.

  He walked me back to the courtyard of the imperial chambers and climbed the steps to the terrace, where he chose one of the other two doors, the apartments held aside for the rulers of the Triple Alliance, Texcoco and Tlacopan.

  Inside, frescoes spread across the walls, depicting the descent of Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, into Mictlan and His return, with the broken bones of the Dead made whole by the shedding of the gods' blood. The braziers burnt copal incense, but not a variety I recognised, a more spicy, tangy smell than what I was used to, almost as if some medicinal drugs had been added to it. I could only hope they were not meant to induce visions, for as a High Priest, my mind hovering on the boundaries of the Fifth World already, I would have little defence against those.

  Nezahual-tzin sat cross-legged on a low-back chair without much ceremony, though the setting was imperial – a jaguar pelt under his feet, a turquoise cloak, negligently wrapped around the wicker back, and a golden cup of steaming chocolate set before him on the dais. Something glimmered behind him, the limned maw of a great snake, the collar spread like blossoming daffodils, the pearly fangs closing just above his feather-headdress. Quetzalcoatl in the Fifth World. I had been wrong: Nezahual might actually be the agent of the Feathered Serpent on earth, the repository of all His wisdom.

  'What did you want to ask?' I said. I stood; for he had not invited me to sit down.

  'I have an offer to make you.' Nezahual-tzin considered the chocolate in front of him, as if it held the key to the Fifth World.

  'An offer?' He made it sound like something illegal. 'In exchange for my support?'

  He smiled, looking like a younger version of the She-Snake. The Duality take him, he had learnt politics at the She-Snake's knee; not the current one, but his father before him, the man who had forged an insignificant city into a wide-spanning empire. 'Don't be a fool, Acatl-tzin. I have enough trouble in Texcoco without adding more.'

  But of course he'd be interested in having a sympathetic Revered Speaker, one who would respect his place in the Triple Alliance.

  'Actually, what I wanted to offer was my assistance in tracking down Xahuia.'

  'We've already got men after her,' I said. I had no doubt he would sacrifice her to further his own ends. He would not have survived for so long, or remained Revered Speaker in his own right and not a vassal of Tenochtitlan, if he had been naive. But I didn't know what his own ends might be.

  'Efficiency does not appear to be a quality of your men.' He sounded amused. 'She's disappeared for four days. Knowing my sister, she's already making other plans, and you won't like them.'

  'We're doing what we can,' I said, stung.

  'Of course you are.' Nezahual-tzin lounged on the chair looking thoughtful. The smell of incense grew stronger as if he had fanned it himself, prickling my nostrils. 'But still, you are not blessed by the Feathered Serpent.'

  'So you are His agent?' I asked. No point in dancing around each other like fighting jaguars. Diplomacy had never been my strongest quality.

  'Perhaps.' Nezahual-tzin smiled again. His grey eyes rolled up, revealing eerily white pupils, filled with a single pinpoint of light. I did not back down, having been expecting something like this for a while. Besides, whatever he looked like paled beside star-demons. 'I have quite enough power for this, I assure you.'

  'But I have no idea what you're using it for,' I said.

  'Fine. Let's be blunt with each other, then. It ill suits me to see the Fifth World endangered. I have vested interests in seeing who becomes Revered Speaker, I will confess, but being torn apart by star-demons is not part of my plans, now or in the future.'

  Everything about him sounded or looked older than he was. I couldn't be sure if being Revered Speaker had aged him, or if Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, was indeed speaking through him. Either way, he worried me. I could deal with Teomitl's brash innocence, but with Nezahual-tzin I kept thinking I was speaking to a spoiled adolescent, but he wasn't one. He had probably never been.

  'And you're offering–'

  'You know true sight,' Nezahual-tzin said. 'You've probably used it.'

  'Of course.' It was one of the rituals anyone could use without being a devotee of the Feathered Serpent, not one of the godtouched mysteries.

  'There is another ritual.' Nezahual-tzin's voice dropped a fraction, echoing as if through a great cavern. 'A deeper, more ancient one from the Second Sun, of which the true sight is but a faint remembrance.'

  The Second Sun had been the Age of Quetzalcoatl, presided by the Feathered Serpent in all His glory until the Smoking Mirror, Quetzalcoatl's eternal enemy, had changed mankind into chattering spider-monkeys. 'That's what you want to do? If it was that simple–'

  'Oh, no, it's not that simple.' Evening had come and Nezahualtzin's teeth shone white in the gathering darkness. Slaves moved to light the braziers, the smell of charcoal overwhelming that of copal for a brief moment.