Nevertheless… Nevertheless, accidents could happen, and he was canny enough; and he had his own goals. Axayacatl-tzin's warning still echoed in my head. What need was there to take risks? I was already doing enough accepting Nezahual-tzin's help, why did I need to further abase myself?
But I couldn't shake the memory of the star-demon's taint on Tizoc-tzin, and the way his fear seemed to have eaten him, not only fear for his life, but the annoyance of someone denied a treasure in his grasp.
'I'll send that messenger,' I said.
The She-Snake sent for two spiders – not the small harmless ones in our houses, but the ones found in the southern jungles – hairy and twice as big as my open hand. He took them as if they were pets, stroking them gently in a way that made me distinctly uncomfortable. For all that they were Lord Death's animals, connected to darkness and the end of all things, it was no reason to favour them so much.
'I'm not sure I understand,' I said, watching him cut into his earlobes to draw a circle on the ground.
He smiled. 'We're not invited where I'm taking you, Acatl. Better make sure we're not seen.'
'You know a spell of invisibility?' I asked. I had never heard of one. I'd been told by Lord Death that it would cost Him too much power, but I had always wondered whether there wasn't a deeper, more selfish reason for this. Such a spell would have removed the wearer from the sight of all creatures, including the gods and Their agents. And I would imagine the gods wouldn't want to have mortals blundering around where They couldn't see them.
'In a manner of speaking,' the She-Snake said. 'Come in the centre, will you?' The blood on the ground was already shimmering, as if reflecting the light of the stars above.
Axayacatl-tzin's warning echoed once more in my head, but I silenced it.
He sacrificed both spiders in a swift, professional way. Of course, he was the She-Snake, and would have taken the lead in the major sacrifices while the Revered Speaker was away on the battlefield. Their blood was not red, but rather an amber ichor that coated his hands like glue, dull and dark, as if it were eating the starlight.
However, when he started his hymn, it was to a goddess I had never heard of.
Smoke spread inside the circle, rising from the She-Snake's hands – warm and smelling of herbs, a pungent odour that reminded me of something infinitely familiar, and yet that I could not place. What goddess was this? It almost sounded like Itzpapalotl, the large star-demon who had consumed Manatzpa's soul before disappearing under the Great Temple. But it couldn't be. It couldn't possibly be.
The smoke thinned, flowing out, but it remained on the edges of my vision. I tried shaking my head, but it was as if it had become stuck to my cornea. Its tendrils shifted on the edges of my vision, and never left no matter what I looked at. Magic crept along the nape of my neck, cold and unforgiving, almost like underworld magic, but without its comforting familiarity. It wasn't the resigned acceptance of a god who took whatever dead souls were left to Him, but the endless hunger of something that lived between the stars, something that had been there since the start, and would be there in the end, that would see the night swallow us all, our hymns and our poems, our flowers and our songs, our fires and our blood-offerings, and make us all as nothing.
What goddess had the She-Snake called upon?
'Come,' the She-Snake said, bending his head with a smile. His grey eyes had become bottomless pits in the darkness, a window into the deepest cold, the one that had settled across the world before the Fifth Sun had risen.
I followed because I no longer had any choice; but my fingers clenched around the obsidian knife at my belt, feeling the arc of Lord Death's power, a reassurance that I wasn't alone, come what may.
We walked through the palace, and it was as if we had become ghosts. No one, not a single slave, not a single servant or nobleman turned to look at us. It seemed to me, too, that we were moving faster than we should have been. We passed the House of Animals in what seemed barely a heartbeat, and were in the other half of the palace, the one belonging to the Revered Speaker, before I could even accustom myself to this strange magic.
The She-Snake was already walking ahead, into a courtyard I would have recognised anywhere – Tizoc- tzin's.
Like the previous time, it was deserted and silent; but this time the palpable smell of neglect became something else, a thin veneer over decay and rot and fear. As I climbed the stairs in the SheSnake's wake, I saw traces of blood clinging like black splotches to the limestone, and the smoke spread to wreathe the whole building, making it seem pallid and distant.
Inside, the same silence, the same smell. The She-Snake crossed between the pillars, hardly looking up to avoid them. He stopped at the back of the room, by a window overlooking the tropical garden. To the left was an entrance-curtain, the bells tinkling out a muted lament.
'Here.'
'I don't see–' I started.
'Go inside,' the She-Snake said, bowing his head. 'And ask me any questions you might have, afterwards.'
I threw him a suspicious glance. But if he wanted to kill me this was a singularly complicated way to go about it. Suppressing a sigh, I lifted the entrance-curtain. It slid between my fingers like raindrops; I hissed in surprise, but then took the smarter approach, and merely pushed through it. It was like walking through a waterfall, a little resistance, like the crossing of a veil, and then nothing more.
Inside, the room should have been a riot of colours. Vivid frescoes, and luxuries such as feather-fans and bronze braziers lay piled on reed mats; but they were muted by the smoke, highlighting the impermanence of such a gluttonous display of wealth.
