Inside the room the atmosphere was hot and oppressive, like the air of the dry season. The smoke of copal incense lay over everything, and everyone present blurred into hazy, indistinct silhouettes. Nevertheless, I counted at least ten people gathered at the furthest end against the featureless wall.
As we approached, I made out the familiar hue of Tizoc-tzin's turquoise cloak. His sycophant Quenami was here, and a host of feather-clad warriors I didn't recognise, probably the higher echelons of the army. In the centre…
I had caught a brief glimpse of Pochtic when the army returned: he'd been standing with the other three members of the war-council, though all I remembered were the crimson feathers of his headdress, and the black- trimmed mantle, held together with a folded rosette. The man lying on the reed-mat, though, had nothing to do with that image.
His face was cut – not lacerated by a knife, but abraded everywhere, deep enough to draw blood. The wounds did not look deep, but they were horrific; circular patches covering his entire skin from cheek to forehead. His earlobes were torn – not by sacrifice or by penance, but as if a wild animal had bitten them off – and his eyelids were a bloody mass. His chest still rose and fell, though he was unconscious.
'It looks like he's been mauled,' the She-Snake said, behind me.
Teomitl frowned and shook his head. 'No. That's no wild animal. He'd have wounds with torn edges.'
'Then what is it?' Tizoc-tzin's livid face turned towards us. Under the Turquoise and Gold Crown his eyes seemed to have sunk deeper, his cheeks gaunter and paler, giving him the air of a corpse just risen from its funeral vigil. 'What is it? No one attacks my warcouncil in my palace. Do you hear, brother, no one!'
It was getting worse, then – the lack of grace, the paranoia. I sought Acamapichtli with my eyes, but couldn't find him. It seemed he'd stayed with his patients – for once doing the right thing.
'I don't know.' Teomitl knelt, throwing his red-and-white cloak behind him – he extended a hand towards the bloody face, and seemed to remember something. In a fluid, violent motion, he tore the jade rings from his fingers, and dumped them on the ground. Then, gently, as if caring for a sick child, he raised Pochtic's head towards him. Blood ran down in lazy streams, staining Pochtic's chin and neck.
I picked one of my obsidian knives, and quickly slashed my earlobes, whispering a prayer to Lord Death – waiting for the familiar cold sensation in my belly, and for the world to recede.
'We all must die,
We all must go down into darkness…'
There was a welter of magics in the room, all the protective spells the warriors and Tizoc-tzin had surrounded themselves with. Teomitl himself radiated the strong, undiluted power of his patron goddess. And from the unconscious Pochtic…
It was faint, like an echo at the bottom of a cenote; like a minute trace of water on the skin, barely shining in the light of the Fifth Sun. A trace of magic clinging to the face: a thread spun in the darkness that went towards…
I moved, slowly, cocking my head left and right. It was coming through the knot of warriors – I pushed my way through, ignoring the glares they shot me.
Behind them was nothing but a wicker chest – but now that I was clear of the knot of entangled magic the feeling was stronger, achingly familiar. I threw open the chest. Behind me, people were whispering, but no one, it seemed, dared to interrupt me.
Inside were codices, papers, folded cloth – there didn't seem to be anything in there that would have that particular aura. Had I been mistaken?
Unless…
I started emptying the chest, dumping on the floor everything from golden ornaments to maps of the city. There was nothing at the bottom of the chest, either – just the knots of wicker that made up the structure. But the feeling of magic remained.
Underneath, then. I shifted the empty wicker chest out of the way – and there was indeed something under it.
I knelt to examine it. It was the oval shape of a mask, with the vague, grotesque suggestion of eyes and mouth – but without any holes. Some image of a god.
My hands were slick and warm – the other side was sticky with some substance that…
Gently, carefully – afraid of what I'd see – I flipped the mask. The reverse was covered with blood. I lifted it to the light: it was semitransparent rubber, letting me catch glimpses of the room through it. In its grooves and protuberances I saw a human face in reverse – the skin clinging to the mask, the nose and mouth completely plugged, the eyes themselves sealed, until the world reduced itself to the impossible struggle for breath, to a scream that couldn't be uttered through glued lips.
And now I knew how he'd got the wounds.
'The blocked breath,' someone said by my side – Nezahual-tzin, looking at the mask as if it were nothing more than a curiosity. 'Sacrifices for the harvest and the rain.'
But this wasn't a sacrifice. This was – someone had tried to murder Pochtic in his own rooms. 'How would they get it on him?'
Nezahual-tzin shrugged. 'I can think of several ways, but we'll know more when he wakes up. By the way, your student says that the body is saturated with Tlaloc's magic.'
Why did this fail to surprise me? The blocked breath – a mask that mimicked a drowning – not dying of the water, but close enough. Strangled and suffocated men belonged to Tlaloc the Storm Lord, after all.
And Acamapichtli had said the epidemic had been called up from Tlalocan. It fitted – all too well.
I was still looking at the specks of blood against the mask. 'He tore it off his own face…'
'He's a strong man.' Nezahual-tzin made an expansive gesture with his arms. 'He'll survive.'
At this stage, Pochtic's survival wasn't what I cared for most. 'Coatl,' I said, carefully. 'And now Pochtic. Someone is targeting the war-council.' No, that wasn't possible. The attack on Pochtic had been deliberate, but how could the sorcerer foresee that Coatl would be in the room with Eptli's body and catch the sickness?
Nezahual-tzin said nothing – but somebody else was speaking, in a familiar high-pitched voice. Tizoc-tzin was working himself into a frenzy again. For a brief moment, I considered ignoring him – but I couldn't do this. Whether I liked it or not, he was Revered Speaker, and I had to stand by him.
'I want every sorcerer who uses Tlaloc's magic rounded up,' Tizoctzin was saying as I walked back to the dignitaries. 'Arrest them all.'
