spread around them – before dragging us out again to the nearest temples to ask if anyone had come looking for a powerful protection spell.
When we came back empty-handed, he snorted, and retired into the adjoining sweat-bath.
'The same ritual?' Teomitl asked.
'Why waste energy trying something else?' I couldn't quite keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
'Acatl-tzin?'
'He's not thinking properly,' I said. 'There is a much easier way of finding our missing councilman.'
Teomitl looked at me blankly. I sighed. 'Think on it. Whatever happened at the palace, it had them all frightened for their lives. Pezotic came here looking for safety–'
'Oh,' Teomitl said. He walked to the gates of the compound, and stared at the pyramids in the distance. 'The safest place is the religious complex, isn't it?'
The complex was mostly pyramids, but not only that. Under the massive limestone structures the gods had buried Their physical bodies, the ones they had sacrificed to give the Fifth Sun His nourishment in blood. If any place in the Fifth World was brimming in magic, if any place was safe, under the gaze of every god in the universe, it was that complex.
'It's huge,' Teomitl said. 'We can't possibly–'
'Magic could help.' Not the huge, strenuous magic that came straight from the gods, and that either Teomitl or Nezahual-tzin practised almost as a second nature, but the small spells, the ones anyone could learn, the faithful tools that had served me so well over the years. One in particular…
I could have waited until Nezahual-tzin was more advanced in his meditation. But, with such heavy stakes, I couldn't afford to play games. I was no Tizoc-tzin, and no Quenami. I had sworn to uphold the balance of the universe, and so I would.
'Come on. Let's go see him,' I said.
• • • •
To say that Nezahual-tzin was less than taken by the idea would have been an understatement. His grimace grew more pronounced as I explained myself, until I came at last to a faltering halt.
'That won't work,' he said.
'I don't see why not,' I said.
'You're counting on the complex being mostly empty.'
'It is,' I said. 'Except for pilgrims, and it's not the season for them.'
'Still…' Nezahual-tzin scratched his chin, as if his beard were bothering him. 'The death-sight doesn't work like that, Acatl.'
'You've never cast it,' I pointed out. He had so much power he didn't bother with such small spells.
'I know.' Nezahual-tzin said. 'You'll be able to see all living beings within the radius of its effect, but that's not going to allow you to discriminate.'
I had my own idea about this, too, but I saw no need to explain. He would have found it mad. Our Revered Speaker had grown too used to magic coming with barely any cost, to the point where he barely could envision functioning without it. As High Priest of a god who interfered very little with the mortal world, I'd learnt when to use spells, and when to refrain from shedding blood.
'Fine. If you don't believe it will work, will you at least allow us to try?'
His eyes narrowed. I could tell what he was thinking: was this our ploy to escape him? And, as a matter of fact, it was our best chance yet, though the main purpose wasn't escape at all. 'Look,' I said. 'I'm just trying to make this as fast as possible. It's in none of our interests to have the star-demons come down.'
Nezahual-tzin's gaze rested on Teomitl, thoughtfully. 'You can try,' he said at last. 'It should keep you busy until I'm done. But I don't expect any results.' He gestured to four of his warriors. 'Go with them.'
Not unexpected. We'd have to see about those later.
The wall around the complex was lower than the Serpent Wall which circled Tenochtitlan's Sacred Precinct. It had familiar elements though, the same snakes' heads on top of it, the same dark green carvings along its length.
The warriors had deployed to form an escort around us and Teomitl, who, judging by his dark face, could hardly wait to attack them.
We passed under a wide arch, and found ourselves in the religious complex. Before us stretched a long alley, bordered by dozens of smaller buildings like primitive shrines, and from every one of them wafted only silence, a heavy, oppressive atmosphere I knew all too well, the silence of the grave.
The alley was called the Avenue of the Dead, and each of the small edifices held a body, the physical remnants of those who had once been gods, before They offered up Their blood to the Fifth Sun and gave up Their mortal nature.
About halfway up the avenue was a pyramid, a huge, massive thing made of uncemented stone, every section of its construction visible. Even under the cloudy sky it shone like limestone in sunlight, like polished obsidian or chalcedony, the light pulsing to a slow, fierce rhythm like that of sacrificial drums. 'That's where…?' Teomitl asked, seeing the direction of my gaze.
I swallowed. 'Yes,' I said. Even this far, I could feel I wouldn't be welcome there. 'That's where the Fifth Sun rose into the sky from His pyre.'
I tried to keep my eyes from the end of the Alley of the Dead, all the way past all those tombs, to the smaller but still massive pyramid which shone with a colder light, the one where the Moon, who was She of the Silver Bells, who was our bitterest enemy, had risen into the sky, hoping to challenge Her brother's radiance and dominion.
'Right,' Teomitl said. He shook his head. 'And now?'
'I'm not sure.' I eyed the Alley of the Dead. Someday, I would know the place better, but I hadn't been High Priest for long enough to have come there for a formal celebration. On the other side, a white-and-ochre wall surrounded what looked like a complex within a complex. A procession was exiting through the main gates, priests in green and red, their hair matted with blood and their earlobes torn from years of penance, carrying a feather standard in the direction of the tombs. Priests of Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent; the pyramid looming over the complex, not quite as grand as that of the Moon or that of the Sun, looked to be dedicated to the Feathered
