feather-clad noblemen instead of dark-faced priests. As I crossed into the courtyard that had been the centrepiece of Acamapichtli's power – albeit temporarily – I couldn't help but brace myself against protection spells, as if some kind of veil would still remain across the threshold.
But nothing happened; I crossed easily, as if nothing were there. We found the room where Acamapichtli had confined his sick men without much trouble: it was wide, swept clean of any furniture save three sleeping mats – and two of those mats were still occupied by groaning bodies. A slave was crouching by the second one – wiping the forehead with a wet cloth; he looked up as we entered, and then bent back to his task.
'They're still here,' Teomitl said.
Both Coatl and the priest of Patecatl lay on the ground – their skins as pale as muddy water, their eyes sunken deep into the oval of their faces – and a familiar blue tinge around the lips, like the touch of a drowned man.
I knelt by Coatl, careful not to touch the body. My protection tingled and tightened – how effective was it, really? If this thing was passed on through contact…
Coatl was shivering, beads of sweat pearling at his temples; his gaze swung wildly from left to right, quite obviously not focusing on anything in the Fifth World. He lay curled on the sleeping mat, like a warrior around a mortal stomach wound, and his skin was black as if he'd been charred in a fire – except that it looked smooth, without any of the blisters I'd have expected. The eyes… the eye-whites were a deep red, against which the cornea obscenely stood out.
'Coatl?' I asked, though it was quite obvious he could no longer hear me – lying in the clutches of sickness, his mouth in the earth, his face in the mud, oblivious to anything save the voices of the gods. 'Coatl.'
A light played on my hands, turning them paler – a radiance as green as quetzal feathers seen through water, first quivering on the edge of being, and then growing stronger and stronger, until it had washed out every colour in the room, making even the painted frescoes on the wall seem of carved jade, gilding the faces of gods and warriors on the adobe until they, too, seemed alien and faraway. Teomitl knelt by my side, his hands outstretched over the body of the priest.
'Coatl,' he called, and his voice was the thunder of storm-tossed waves, the slithering sounds of
Coatl went rigid. 'My Lord,' he whispered, without opening his eyes.
'Wake up, honoured one.' Teomitl's voice had the cadences of ritual – and its pitch was getting higher and higher – deeper, too, no longer the voice of anything human.
Coatl shuddered again. 'I can't, my Lord!' Foam pearled up on his lips – his body arched, as if in the grip of a seizure, and then he fell back down again, hitting the mat with a thud.
Teomitl looked as though he was going to reach out and seize the body. 'No,' I said, laying a hand on his arm – a mistake, for the power within him struck as quickly as a coiled snake – pain travelled up my arm, and for a bare moment I had the feeling my skin was being flayed away, exposing muscles and bones that bent and snapped, sending my arm into spasms…
I jerked back, biting my lips not to scream. 'Don't – touch – him,' I managed through dry lips. 'You–'
Teomitl's gaze moved towards me – held me, and for a moment I saw not him, but Jade Skirt – waiting for me with arms outstretched, to drag me down into the waters that had cleansed me at my birth… 'Teomitl!'
'I'm the one you shouldn't touch, priest.' His lips quirked into a smile – lazy and cruel, nothing human anymore – and then, as abruptly as She had appeared, the goddess was gone, and we were left in an empty room with an unconscious priest – unconscious, not dead, thank the Duality, for while I could see the shadow of Lord Death hovering over him, his spirit had not yet departed his body.
Teomitl looked at me questioningly.
'I did something foolish,' I said, a little more abruptly than I'd intended to. Chalchuihtlicue, Jade Skirt, like most gods, always made me uneasy: pretty much the only god I could claim a modicum of common understanding with was my own god, Mictlantecuhtli – ruler of a place that welcomed everyone, patiently waiting for the corn to ripen and wither, the fruit to fall and rot.
'So did I.' Teomit's face was harsh again. He looked down at Coatl. 'I don't think he'll be awake for a while.'
I didn't think he'd ever been in a state to hear us. On the positive side, though, he wasn't going to walk away and spread the sickness yet further.
My eyes caught on the third sleeping mat, and I froze, remembering what Acamapichtli had said. 'There was a third man in confinement, wasn't there?'
'That's the first I hear of it,' Teomitl said.
I shook my head. 'A warrior, one of those who carried the body. Acamapichtli told me they'd found him, and that he was sick.'
I didn't like that empty mat: it made me feel uncomfortable. It was one thing to have healthy warriors possibly passing on the sickness unawares, quite another to have a sick man get up and leave.
'But we don't know where he is,' Teomitl said.
'No,' I said. And we were obviously not going to find out from either Coatl or the priest of Patecatl. I decided on a more constructive approach: I walked out, yanking the entrance-curtain out of my way in a tinkle of bells, and asked the first guard of the SheSnake I met where the priests of Tlaloc had gone.
He looked at me, hard. 'You're not one of them.' It sounded halfway between an accusation and a question: he didn't quite know what to make of me.
'No,' I said, bowing my head – letting him take in the regalia. 'I'm High Priest for the Dead in Tenochtitlan.'
'Tizoc-tzin said they were traitors,' the guard said.
He– he had arrested the whole clergy of Tlaloc – as thoughtlessly as that? He– What could he be thinking of, cutting away everyone that sustained him?
He–
Focus, I needed to focus. Little good I would do, if I managed to get myself arrested yet another time.
