Obsidian & Blood

  His eyes narrowed. 'Again? I thought we'd moved past that. I'm no fool, and neither should you be. I know the cost of strolling around a god's country as much as you do – and I don't suggest this lightly. But we're desperate.'

  'You are desperate. I'm not.' And then realised what I'd said. 'Sorry. I know the cost of angering Tizoc- tzin.'

  That stopped him; he looked at me through darkened eyes. 'Yes. You do. As I pointed out earlier – I don't have much time.'

  'You haven't told me–'

  'How I got out of the cell? Let's just say I have – unexpected resources.' He grimaced; something about his escape had obviously been a source of unpleasantness. Had he ended up pledging a favour to someone? 'But that's still dancing around the point.'

  'Like a warrior at the gladiator-stone,' I said, wearily.

  'Well?' Acamapichtli took a step away from me, and stood, wreathed in the dimming light of the sun. 'If you're not coming with me, I'll be going alone. Just decide, Acatl.'

  I – I leant on the cane, feeling the ache in every one of my muscles. Going into the country of another god was dangerous enough; it would be worse in my weakened state – the epitome of foolishness.

  But still…

  Still, what if he was right and this was our only chance? 'Fine,' I said. The wood of the cane was warm under my fingers. 'Let's go see Tlaloc.'

FOURTEEN

Lord Death's Gift

The back of the room held a couple of rush brooms: Acamapichtli picked up one, and handed the other back to me.

  Under other circumstances I would have protested, but we had already made clear the necessity of the journey.

  'You want to dedicate this place to Tlaloc?'

  'As small a space as I can.' He grimaced. His eyes kept slipping to the entrance-curtain, as if he expected someone to interrupt us at any time. 'Because of the plague, it's been touched by Chalchiuhtlicue, which should help. But still, if I can avoid Her…'

  'She's your god's wife,' I said, though I wasn't entirely surprised. Tlaloc and Chalchiuhtlicue formed a… tense couple, always ready to oppose one another. He had ended the Third Age, the one ruled by Chalchiuhtlicue; She had opposed Him when He'd attempted to rule the Fifth World.

  I swept the room in silence – I hadn't swept anything since the days of my novitiate, and the dust, pushed back to each corner of the room, brought back memories of the month of Drought, Toxcatl, with everything cleansed for the arrival of the gods, and the palpable tension in the air, like moments before the storm…

'Aya! Paper flags stand in the four directions

In the place of weeping, the place of mists

I bring water to the temple courtyard…'

  Acamapichtli knelt, and started tracing two glyphs in the beaten earth – Four Rain, the Second Age, the one ruled by Tlaloc. Then, with a swift, decisive movement, he raised the knife, and slit his wrist – not a superficial cut that would have nicked both veins, but deep enough to hit the artery. It happened so suddenly the blood was already spilling on the ground before I could even so much as move.

  'You're mad,' I said.

  'Desperate,' he grated, keeping a wary eye on the entrance-curtain. 'Get inside that glyph, Acatl.'

  'But–' The blood pooled, lazily, at his feet, spreading into the furrows of the glyphs – shimmering with layer after layer of raw magic. Bright red blood, coming from the heart instead of going to it – pressing against the edge of the wound with every passing moment, pumping itself out of the body in great spurts. Acamapichtli was already pale, and swaying.

  He was chanting as the blood pooled – not slowly and stately, but a staccato of words, the beat of frenzied drums before the battle was joined – a series of knife stabs into a corpse's chest.

'You destroyed the Third World

The Age of Rain, the Age of Mist and Weeping

The Age of your unending bounty

Drought swept across the earth,

The fruit of the earth lay panting, covered with dust.'

  And, as the blood hit the floor in great spurts, it turned to mist and smoke – with a faint hint of the stale odour of marshes – sweeping across the room, subsuming everything, until it seemed that nothing of the Fifth World was left. The glyphs shone blue and white for a bare moment, painful across my field of vision, and then faded, and when I looked up again, we were standing in churned mud, at the foot of a verdant hill.

  Acamapichtli, however, had lost consciousness – his blood still spurting out from the open wound. Suppressing a curse against illprepared fools, I retrieved my obsidian knife from his limp hand, and slashed the bottom of his cloak into shreds – it was either that or my cloak, and I had no wish to argue with Ichtaca about damaging the High Priest's regalia. I worked quickly – there was no time – pressing my fingers against the nearby muscles to stem the flow of blood. He'd lose the hand – there was no way this would heal gracefully, not after he'd spent so much time bleeding.

  At last, I was done, and looked critically at my handiwork – I was no priest of Patecatl, and the gods knew it showed. At least he was no longer bleeding, though it felt I'd spent an eternity with my fingers pressed against his