'I know,' Teomitl said. He bowed, very low, a subject to his Revered Speaker, but I could feel the impatience brimming up in him.
'That will be all,' Tizoc-tzin said. 'You may leave.'
'Don't look so sad,' Acamapichtli said, as he raised the entrance-curtain in a tinkle of bells. We walked down the steps into the courtyard – deserted at this hour of the afternoon – almost companionably.
'I'm not,' I said, stiffly. 'We got what we wanted, didn't we?'
He looked at me, a smile spreading on his face. 'Of course. Because we worked together.'
I wasn't in the mood for a moral, especially coming from him. 'It's not an experience I'm anxious to repeat too often. Still, I suppose I don't have a choice.'
Acamapichtli smiled. 'You're learning.' He clapped me on the back, like an old friend. 'We'll meet again.' And then he was gone, striding down the stairs as if nothing had happened, ready to play his little games once again.
Learning? I supposed, in a way, that I was, but not lessons he'd ever have understood.
Teomitl caught up with me at the exit to the courtyard under a fresco of butterflies and moths, a stream of souls rising up from the ground towards the huge face of the Fifth Sun. Nezahual-tzin fell in with us, casually and innocently, though he never did anything without cause. 'So, I take it I'm invited to the wedding?'
Teomitl scowled, an expression reminiscent of Tizoc-tzin at his best. 'You're the Revered Speaker of Texcoco. I don't think I could leave you out if I tried.'
'How nice,' Nezahual-tzin said. 'I'll come with pleasure.'
'I have no doubt.' Teomitl shook his head, as if to scare off a nagging fly. 'Acatl-tzin –'
'Yes?'
'He hasn't changed, has he?'
I shook my head.
'People seldom change,' Nezahual-tzin said. We passed the imperial aviary where the birds pressed themselves against the bars of their huge cages, the quetzal-birds and the parrots, the herons and the quails, everything laid out for the Revered Speaker's pleasure. 'They think they do, but in the end most change is an illusion. Perhaps the greatest one put in the Fifth World.'
I knew. I knew that Quenami was going to continue grating on my nerves, that Acamapichtli would support me only as far as his own interests, that I would never be able to rely on them.
But, the Duality protect us, I was still going to work with them. 'He's granted you a wife,' I said finally. 'Don't ask for more than that.'
'It would be arrogant to. Not to mention out of place.' Teomitl puffed his cheeks thoughtfully. 'He'll deal with you, though, in the end. Quenami will convince him to.'
'He has what he wanted,' I said. 'The Turquoise-and-Gold Crown. He should be more amenable now.' So long as we didn't contradict him in anything. It was going to be a difficult reign. Thank the Duality I had the rest of my clergy with me.
'I guess so,' Teomitl said, but he sounded unconvinced. 'I'm not sure–'
'He's your brother. And the Revered Speaker.'
'I know. I guess… I guess he's not who I thought he was.' He smiled, suddenly carefree, pure Teomitl. 'But it's not so bad, in the end.'
This from a man who had just become heir-apparent to the Mexica Empire. I stifled a smile. 'I'm sure you can live with it. Come on. Let's find Mihmatini and tell her the good news, and then I'll go back to the Duality House and finish Ceyaxochitl's vigil.'
We strolled out of the Imperial Palace, past the Serpent Wall, and into the familiar crowd of the Sacred Precinct. The Fifth Sun was overhead, beating down upon us, the heavens bright and impossibly blue. Blood ran down the steps of the Great Temple, going underground to settle into the grooves of the disk, sealing again and again the prison of She of the Silver Bells, and the star-demons were gone. Everything was right with the world, or as right as it could be.
Except…
Except that, at the edge of the sky, I could see them, the same storm clouds as in the heartland, slowly closing in, grey and swollen and angry, a reminder of the god's presence. And I didn't need Mictlan's magic to see the skeleton beneath Tizoc-tzin's skin. We had put a dead man on the throne, an empty husk, animated only by magic and the blessing of a god.
When Huitzilpochtli's blessings and magic ran out – and they always did – what would happen then?
III
MASTER OF THE HOUSE OF DARTS
ONE
The day dawned clear and bright on the city: as the Fifth Sun emerged from His night journey, He was welcomed by the drumrolls and conch-blasts of His priests – a noise that reverberated in my small house until it seemed to fill my lungs. I rolled to my feet from my sleeping mat, and made my daily offerings of blood – both to Tonatiuth the Fifth Sun, and to my patron Lord Death, the Fleshless One, ruler of the underworld.
This done, I put on a simple grey cloak, and headed to my temple – more for the sake of form, for I suspected I wouldn't remain there long, not if the army were indeed coming back today.
As I walked, I felt the slight resistance to the air, the familiar nausea in my gut – a feeling that everything
