Quenami was coming back from the huts, and I could not remember having seen him depart. 'You have to see this.'
The huts were little more than awnings of wattle-and-daub over beaten earth – a shelter against sunlight, and nothing more. There were seven of them, arrayed in a circle around a focal point, and, where the centre should have been, a group of men sat, engrossed in an animated conversation.
'The flowers come from the heart of heaven…'
'That is accessory. What good are they, if they wilt and perish…'
'All the more reason to enjoy the vast earth…'
'They are–' Quenami whispered.
Carefully I set Acamapichtli on the ground, wincing as the weight left me. I stretched, ignoring the fiery pain that flared up my body again, and hobbled to the circle.
They were familiar faces: Manatzpa, Echichilli, all the members of the council I'd interviewed. One gave me pause, it was Pezotic. The last time I had seen him had been in Teotihuacan, under the guard of Nezahual-tzin's warriors. It seemed that the last inrush of star-demons into the world, which had taken both the council and Tizoc- tzin, hadn't spared him.
They all sat as if nothing were wrong, discussing minor points of philosophy like matters of life and death. But their faces were different, their skins stretched over the pale shape of their skulls, their eyes sunk deep into their orbits.
And Tizoc-tzin wasn't among them.
'Excuse me,' I said, pitching my voice to carry. 'We're looking for Tizoc-tzin.'
'The Revered Speaker,' Quenami interjected.
Manatzpa's face rose towards us for a brief moment, but then he turned back to his neighbour. 'As Nezahualcoyotl said, we are nothing more than feathers and jade…'
'I should think we're more than that…'
'Echichilli!' Quenami said. 'We need your help. Surely you know what's happening.' He grasped the old councilman by the shoulders, and forced him to look his way. 'Surely–' He stared into Echichilli's eyes for a while, transfixed, before releasing him, horror slowly stealing across his features. 'Let's go, Acatl. It's not here we'll find the answers.'
'I–' I said, and then I caught Manatzpa's gaze. A film seemed to have covered his eyes. His pupils were dull, like those of a fish dead for days, and nothing remained of the fiery, driven man he had been in life, the one who had killed Ceyaxochitl, the one who had almost killed me. Husks, that was all they were, what was left after the corn had been harvested – nothing of value, nothing that was real.
Shivering, I hoisted Acamapichtli on my shoulders again, and followed Quenami down to the lake.
He was pushing a reed boat into the water; when I arrived he looked up at me, all arrogance and impatience. 'Well? Help me.'
'You're something,' I said. 'I've been carrying Acamapichtli all the while, and you're the one complaining.' I didn't mention the fact that every moment we spent there weakened me, because he'd find a way to use it against me.
Quenami snorted. 'You could have left him behind.'
'And I could have left
The Duality take me, I'd had a debt to him, and never mind that it was being repaid to more than its value.
'Help me with the boat, will you?' Quenami insisted. Not for the first time, I fought the urge to shake some sense into him.
'Ask politely, and perhaps I'll consider it.' I put Acamapichtli into the craft, and moved to push with Quenami.
'It's for our survival, Acatl. If you can't see past that…'
If you can't make an effort, I thought, but didn't say. There was enough with one of us being petty.
Of course, I rowed. Quenami probably hadn't lifted an oar since the day he'd entered the priesthood; the way he wrinkled his face made it clear even the fate of the world wasn't enough for him to demean himself.
I said nothing, but it was hard.
I had been rowing since childhood and it should have been easy, but the wood of the oar quivered in my hands and I felt more and more light-headed with each oar-strike. Every drop of water against my skin seemed to burn, and the island in the centre seemed to blur and shift with every passing moment.
We were perhaps halfway across the lake when Acamapichtli woke up. 'Where–' he whispered.
'The heartland,' Quenami said.
'What happened?' I asked, but he shook his head, and closed his eyes again. It didn't look as though he was going to be much use, after all.
If I had thought the heartland was bad, the central island was worse. The moment I set foot on it, I felt a jolt travel through my chest, a particular tightness, growing steadily worse. There was something in the ground, something in the air, something that didn't want me, that would wash me away like a flood washed away boats and nets. Acamapichtli seemed to weigh as much as a slab of stone, and I could barely focus on the path, for there was a path this time, snaking upwards around the hill. I watched the earth, step after step, I watched the water that filled the footsteps of whoever had come before us clawed and monstrous, a trail I had seen before but couldn't seem to focus on…
Step after step, agonising breath after agonising breath, fire in my lungs, rising up to fill my brain, confused images, of seven caves gouged into the hillside, torn open by some giant beast, of fountains where herons bathed in a blur of white, of an old woman in rags, sweeping the threshold of her house and watching us pass by with bitter satisfaction in her eyes, and then the scene shifted, and her face was that of a skull, her hands were claws, and the broom she held was made of human femurs, bound together with thread as red as blood.
Up, and the seven caves faded away, and small shrines appeared by the hillside, mounds of earth with pyramids on them, shimmering with light, their staircases dripping with blood even though the altars were empty…
