whose…'
'You can't say things like that,' I said. Of course the gods weren't fair – of course They expected our offerings and our devotion. But it was right; it was the order of the world. Mortals had no right to expect anything from gods. 'The gods can't be judged by your standards.'
'Why not?' Yayauhqui shrugged. 'The warriors of Tenochtitlan then took my wives, priest. Pierced a hole through their nostrils, and threaded rope through to tie them to the other slaves, and they led everyone away into Tenochtitlan, to serve your hearth-fires. And the god didn't lift a finger to help us. So yes, I judge.'
Warriors were killed; women taken as slaves. It was the way of the world – and, had Tlatelolco defeated us, we would have done the same thing.
He terrified me. It was as if he had weighed everything that held us together, all the rules and the morality that bound the Fifth World and judged them not worthy to be followed – discarded them as easily as a worn-out cloak.
Such a man would have no compunction on summoning an epidemic to deal with an enemy. He might even relish it – especially if the epidemic worked against Tenochtitlan.
'And so you decided to do something about it. You cast a spell on Eptli.' My voice was low and calm – every word dragged from a faraway place. I hadn't thought I'd meet someone like this, I hadn't thought the Fifth World could even hold such beliefs…
Yayauhqui snorted, gently amused. 'Look at me, priest. Look at me.'
I didn't understand. But he was still standing with the tamale in his hands, thin and harsh, moulded by war and by years of travelling into strange lands, serving the men who had led his people into slavery – helping them to conquer more lands.
I took up the obsidian knife at my belt, and slashed my earlobes.
'We all must die
We all must go down into darkness…'
A grey veil crept over everything: the canal water became insignificant, distant glimmers and the blue sky receded, opening up to reveal the darkness of tar. The wind over the city faded into the lament of dead souls, and the cold of the grave rose up, like thousands of corpses' hands stroking the inside of my arms and legs. I shivered.
Through the remnants of the adobe walls, I could feel the bustle of the marketplace: thousands of souls bartering and trading, the animals and the slaves, the magical amulets and charms – everything combining into a rush of life I could feel, even from the remove of Mictlan. It burned like a fire, shimmering and twisting out of shape, endlessly tearing itself apart, endlessly renewed.
It took me some time, therefore, to tear my sight from the large radiance of Tlatelolco, and to look at Yayauhqui.
But when I did, I forgot all about the marketplace.
Human beings usually shone in the true sight – the three souls, the
Yayauhqui, however, was dark – not merely faded and colourless, like the water or the adobe walls, but completely opaque, as if something had reached out and snuffed everything out of him.
Not something, I thought, chilled. Someone.
'The god,' I said, slowly.
His voice was mocking. 'As I said. They feed on pain.'
He had no souls – he might as well have been dead, save that even in death, some semblance of life would remain into the body, some scattered pieces of soul. He was – cut off from everything in the Fifth World. Was he even able to taste the tamale in his hand, could he even feel the wind on his skin? For him, everything had to have been receding into a numinous, uniformly grey background.
'You should have gone to see a priest,' I said. Not one of my order – for we parted the souls from the body for the final time, helping them slip into the underworld. But a priest of Patecatl, God of Medicine, or of Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent of Wisdom – they would have known what to do.
Yayauhqui's smile was bitter. 'I have seen one. Several, in fact. They tried to convince me I was an abomination, and should retire from public life. After that – well, I didn't feel so keen to go back to them. Perhaps the Revered Speaker might be able to do something, but…'
And, of course, he wouldn't present himself to the man who had destroyed his city – even if Tizoc-tzin had been willing to help him. 'It was Huitzilpochtli, then, who did this to you?'
Yayauhqui shook his head. 'Let me keep secrets, priest. They're of no use to anyone save an old man like myself.'
He didn't look old – but then again, without souls, how would he age? How would the Fifth World leave any kind of mark?
'So, you see,' Yayauhqui said. 'I couldn't care less about spells.'
He was dead, or worse. The blood in his veins would have no energy; the
'Of course. There's always that,' Yayauhqui agreed, gravely.
There was something about him I couldn't pin down. 'Why serve as a merchant-spy, then?'
His lips stretched. It would have been amusement with anyone else, but with him it was just a shadow of what it could have been. That was what had been bothering me about him: everything was subdued, lacking the inner fire of the living, or even the weaker radiance of the dead. 'I fear you still don't understand, Acatl-tzin. Now that we are one city, the glory of Tenochtitlan is also that of Tlalelolco. My relatives prosper on your coats of feathers, your cacao beans, your precious stones and your war-takings. Why should I wish to upset the established order? We'd be left with nothing.'
His speech had the intensity of truth – and for a bare moment, he seemed to shine with the souls he had lost, though it was only an illusion. 'You could destabilise us, and hope for Tlatelolco to secede.'
Yayauhqui snorted. 'And I could expect the Fifth Sun to tumble down. I'm no fool. I've seen what happens when you cross the gods, and you have the gods' protection.'
