man to his wife, but in the face of Mihmatini's glower, he opted instead for a simple, nonchalant wave of his hand.
I knelt, and peered at the black thing. It stank – not the rank, deep smell of the altar of sacrifices, but something closer to a bloated corpse left in the sun for too long. It looked like a lizard – save that it seemed to have little to no tail.
I'd expected magic, but when I extended my priest-senses towards it, I felt – almost nothing. A faint, residual beat perhaps, but one that would take true sight to be prised apart. It looked like–
Southern Hummingbird strike me, I'd seen this before – not the blackness or the stench, but this vague curled-up shape, almost small and pathetic.
A symbol, that was what it was. It wouldn't give sickness: it was just the shadows which had been given a physical body, a physical reality Mihmatini and Nezahual could expel from Teomitl's body.
Carefully, using the tip of one of my obsidian blades, I prised the thing apart – it had vestigial limbs, which I carefully disengaged from the body, and what I'd taken to be a tail were in fact two legs, all but fused together by the violence of Mihmatini's spell. I had seen this before – where had I–?
A human child.
True, the head was wrong – flat rather than round, and slightly too small – but the rest – the rest was unmistakable: the small limbs just starting to branch into fingers and toes, the sharp edge of the spine with its vertebra. I hadn't attended many vigils for premature children, but several times, I had had cause to examine a woman who had died in childbirth with the child still in her womb – praying all the while that her spirit was at rest, that she wouldn't see the indignity of knives tearing her open from the Heavens where she now dwelled.
That made no sense – carefully, I lifted the thing again, but saw only the same resemblance.
And then I remembered, with a chill – that Xochiquetzal, the goddess who watched over the courtesan Xiloxoch, was not only Goddess of Lust and Desire, but also watched over childbirth.
TWELVE
I must have remained there for an eternity, staring at the thing – and not knowing what to do.
Xochiquetzal's magic. And Tlaloc's influence. I had been right: it looked like the plague came from those two – seeking to damage the Fifth World once again. And Xiloxoch had been the self-confessed worshipper of the goddess – doing Her will in Tenochtitlan in Her absence. But still…
Still, all this for revenge?
Xochiquetzal would not remember the Mexica, or Tizoc-tzin, kindly. Neither would She blink at slaughtering dozens to make Her point.
Before rushing out to the temple of Xochiquetzal, I needed – confirmation. Some evidence that the thing had indeed been the result of a spell which called on Xochiquetzal. I needed to cast a spell of true sight, and look for magical traces.
A shadow fell over me – the priests of the Duality? Perhaps even the people we'd sent to Chipahua's house, with more information on what had happened?
The shadow did belong to one of the priests; what I had not expected was that they wouldn't be alone: leaning on their shoulders were two Jaguar warriors – the same ones that Teomitl had so peremptorily recruited on the way out of the palace.
'What happened?' I asked the priests.
They had little to report. The bodies of Chipahua and his household had been taken to a remote spot on the edge of Tenochtitlan, past the Floating Gardens, where Ichtaca and the other priests of my order could conduct more thorough examinations – hopefully with a reduced risk of contagion.
The Jaguar warriors looked pale, and probably felt as bad I did; but appeared unharmed otherwise. I wondered about the sickness – it didn't seem to take time to show symptoms, but its progress seemed… erratic, to say the least? It didn't look natural at all.
'I need you to do one thing,' I said.
They looked at each other – with an eagerness I found troubling. 'When you go back to the palace, can you arrange for the other bodies – Eptli and his prisoner – to be taken with the others? My order will need to examine this.'
'Of course, my Lord.'
The entrance-curtain tinkled again: Nezahual-tzin, his face set in a careful mask. He looked angry, or contemptuous, I wasn't sure. 'Acatl,' he said. 'You have to see this.'
The first thing I saw when I entered was Teomitl. He was awake, sitting propped against the wall, pale and wan, his eyes dark wells in the beige oval of his face, his hands clenched within his lap in a way that was anything but natural – it was obvious that if he released them, they would start shaking. Mihmatini was by his side, crushing his hand in hers – her face a mixture of elation and relief. The luminous thread between them was all but gone now, faded enough to become part of the beaten earth.
'You're awake,' I said.
Teomitl's face twisted; it would have been a carefree smile, if it hadn't suddenly seemed so old. A white light played on his cheeks and forehead – the same one that had been on Mihmatini's face, save that on him, it made his skin recede, until I could see the arch of his cheekbones, the empty holes of his eye-sockets.
Like Tizoc-tzin – but I caught and crushed the thought before it could wound. 'As you can see.' His voice was toneless.
'So it worked, then,' I said.
'It didn't.' Nezahual-tzin was standing away from all of us – leaning against the wall near the entrance, his head level with a fresco of a snake emerging from a man's open mouth. His arms were crossed, in that familiar nonchalant attitude which belied the seriousness of his words.
'You're obviously better at healing than you think,' Teomitl said. His voice shook, but the sarcasm was unmistakable.
