Obsidian & Blood

as Texcoco, but much further to the north, on the banks of a large river that descended from the nearby mountains.

  'By land.' Teomitl's voice was defiant.

  'You almost collapsed on the way here.'

  'You're accusing me of weakness?'

  It might have been comical in another context. 'Look,' I said, fighting to control the mad beating of my heart. 'This isn't the best time to quarrel.'

  'I'd like matters to be clear,' Teomitl said. He looked straight at Nezahual-tzin, who equably returned his gaze.

  'You're right, let things be clear. I think you're a naive, impulsive fool who keeps overstretching himself. You no doubt think me arrogant, manipulative, and heartless.'

  That, if nothing else, shocked Teomitl into momentary silence. 'It changes nothing to the original offer.'

  'The ahuizotls? I'll apologise for not wanting to be in the middle of the lake when you falter.'

  I finally managed to intervene. 'Then we'll make regular stops. Nezahual-tzin, this isn't time for tarrying.'

  'A day,' Teomitl said, defiantly. 'A day and a half, at most.'

  At length, Nezahual-tzin nodded. 'You're right. The lake it is, then. I'll have boats prepared. Come.'

  Teomitl and I exchanged a glance as we walked between the warriors. His gaze was still the murky colour of the lake's waters, in which flickered the distant radiance of the goddess. 'Acatl-tzin…'

  'I know,' I said, curtly. Nezahual-tzin might be on our side for the moment, lending us his resources. But all of that wouldn't prevent him from selling us, once he was sure the Fifth World was safe.

  We needed an escape plan, and we needed it fast.

NINETEEN

The Fifth Sun's Birthplace

The journey to Teotihuacan was tense, but mostly eventless. When we stopped for our first and only night, Teomitl, pale-faced, glared at Nezahual-tzin, who glanced aside elegantly as if whatever Teomitl thought of him didn't matter. Of course, it only made Teomitl glare all the more fiercely.

  Meanwhile, I kept my hands on my obsidian knives, wondering how to escape Nezahual-tzin's vigilance. A distraction would serve us well, but the only distraction I could think of was summoning a creature from the underworld, and with the balance of the universe already skewed, there was no telling what that would do. Most of the other spells I knew were either for tracking or for examining a dead body, neither of which would be any use in the current situation.

  I managed to catch Teomitl while Nezahual-tzin was preparing for his evening meditations. 'How are you?'

  He shrugged, in what was meant to be an expansive way but soon turned pained.

  'You overreached again,' I said.

  'I've been better,' Teomitl admitted reluctantly. He crouched on his haunches in the dry earth by the riverside, watching the water flow across his outstretched hands. 'Not that I'm going to give him the satisfaction of seeing that.'

  'He probably already knows.'

  'I'll take my chances. What are we going to do next, Acatltzin?' He looked up at me, a student waiting for his master's instructions.

  'We might need the ahuizotls,' I said, slowly. The beasts frightened and repulsed me, and I'd have taken any other solution, but it looked like we had little choice left.

  Teomitl grimaced. 'So far from the lake… I don't know, Acatltzin. They're not river creatures.'

  'I know.' They feasted on the drowned within the lake, lived within murky waters, not the clear clean ones of the mountain streams. 'But I can't summon anything from the underworld, not at this juncture in time.'

  'Hmm.' Teomitl looked at the river water for a while, as if he could discern starlight within its depths. 'We'll have to see, then. Hold ourselves ready.'

  I glanced at Nezahual-tzin, who sat cross-legged near our campsite, his eyes closed, his face relaxed and inert, like a mask of flayed skin. There was a good chance he knew exactly what we were going to do, and a small but not insignificant one that he was somehow listening to every word we said.

  'Yes,' I said finally. 'We should be ready.'

We arrived in Teotihuacan, the Birthplace of the Gods, the following morning as the Fifth Sun crested the nearby mountain. The first thing we saw looming out of the morning haze were the pyramids, the towering monuments left by the gods in the beginning of this age. They were massive, as large – or even larger – than the Great Temple, mounds of ochre stone dwarfing their boundary wall, their white steps like a beacon of light.

  The city itself was away from the religious complex, in a curve in the banks of a river. It was a much smaller affair than Tenochtitlan or even Texcoco, a profusion of temples and houses of adobe, with barely any ostentation. The streets were narrow but straight, set in the same grid pattern as all the cities of the valley. I kept expecting to see canals, but we were on dry land, and the only water was in the mud squelching under our sandals.

  It was, and had always been, a place of pilgrimage, and as a result many residential complexes had been turned into temporary accommodation. Nezahual-tzin settled us into a mid-sized one – two courtyards, seven rooms