They were round, like sage seeds, like water drops, the blue of the sky, an instant before it darkened; the colour of lake waters, of turquoise stones, and at their hearts was a single dot of yellow – a kernel of ripe corn, moments before it was gathered up in the harvest, quivering in the warm breeze…
And I knew, in the instant before my vision was finally extinguished and darkness swept across the world in a great wave that swallowed everything up, that I'd been right – that I had read Him right, even though he was a god.
There had been fear in those eyes – not mild worry, nor annoyance at our trespassing, but a fear real enough to grip Tlaloc's whole being.
And, whatever was going on, if it was enough to scare a god, then it was more than enough to scare the wits out of me, too.
I regained consciousness in the Fifth World, my eyes itching as if someone had thrown chilli powder in them. I could see nothing of the world beyond pale shapes against the darkness. I fought an urge to bring my fingers to rub my eyes, knowing it would only make matters worse. It was my own fault for staring so long into the face of a god I didn't worship, and it would pass, in time.
At least, I hoped so.
Distant noises drifted: flutes and drums, and hymns to the Southern Hummingbird. It sounded as though we were back in the palace.
'Acamapichtli?'
I half-expected him to be gone, but finally he answered, his voice coming from somewhere to my left. 'I am here.'
'What… happened?'
'Nothing of interest.' He sounded amused.
'You saw–'
'I didn't see anything.'
He hadn't raised his gaze. He hadn't looked his god in the face – it was odd that he wouldn't, but then again, perhaps I was assuming too much from my own relationship to Mictlantecuhtli and His wife. I had never knelt to either Lord or Lady Death, and they would no doubt have laughed if I had removed my sandals and flattened myself on the ground. After all, what need was there for obeisance, when almost everything in the Fifth World descended into Mictlan at the very end?
'Well, what did you see?' Acamapichtli asked.
He hadn't moved to help me. His voice was relaxed, casual, as if I owed him everything – whereas I was the one who could barely see. But surely I didn't have to tell him? What could he do in his current state, hunted down by Tizoc-tzin's men?
But, if I did this – if I withheld information, playing games with the truth – then I was no better than he. 'He's afraid,' I said.
'Of us? That's ridiculous.'
'Of what's going on,' I said. 'He knows something.' Not that we were ever going to find out what: getting information from a god in Their own world was fraught with risk, as we'd amply demonstrated.
Acamapichtli sighed, rather more theatrically than was required. 'I have to go. But I'll try to pass a message to my Consort to see if she can help you track down whoever is using Chalchiuhtlicue's magic.'
'I thought they'd arrested her,' I said.
'Not yet.' He sounded smugly satisfied.
'Go… where?'
I imagined more than saw him make a stabbing gesture. 'Back to my cell, before my clergy pays the price for my little… escapade.'
He sounded almost sincere. 'You don't care for your clergy. You never did.'
'Don't I?' He laughed, curtly. 'You're right. Perhaps I don't. Till we meet again, Acatl.'
'Wait,' I said. 'I can't–' But his footsteps had already moved out of the room, and he wasn't answering me anymore. Which left me alone – within a deserted section of the palace, cordoned off because of the plague.
Great. Now how was I going to get out and find Mihmatini?
I fumbled around, and finally found the cane – by touch more than by sight, since everything was still dim and blurred. Its touch was comforting, but I didn't use it to drag myself up just then – I suspected standing up was going to be near impossible without shaking.
From the lack of sounds nearby, it was the middle or the end of the night. The air was cold, without a trace of warmth, and what little I could see was unrelentingly dark: the middle of the night, then, and I was in no state to walk. And even if I had been, I was half-blind, weak and in no state to find my own way through a deserted section of the palace.
Trust Acamapichtli to abandon me in the middle of nowhere. Although to be fair, he hadn't known I was half-blind.
Fine. Much as I disliked the idea, it made more sense to sleep here. Now if only I could make my way to the wall in order to sleep against something hard…
Rising, under the circumstances, felt a little pointless. Using the cane as a prop, I half-walked, half-dragged myself across the room. At some point, I hit one of the mats, and felt the jewellery scatter with a crunching sound. But, after what felt like an eternity of shaking and dragging myself – to the point my legs barely obeyed me anymore, threatening to collapse altogether – my hands met the solid surface of the wall. I could have embraced it at that point.
Instead, I propped myself against it with the last of my strength, and settled down to sleep.
I fell into darkness. In my dreams, the blurred shapes of the walls around me became the vast, watery
