I was losing him. The time for the ritual was past, and he was going away from me, gathering himself for the plunge into Mictlan. I needed to get something, and fast. 'What does he want, Pochtic?'
The soul was unravelling like a skein of maguey fibre, faster and faster – drawing away from the corpse, coalescing into the shape of a man, but growing fainter and fainter the whole while. 'Pochtic!'
But he was gone, and I remained alone with his corpse, within a circle that was stone again. The room was cold; and the wind on my exposed arms chilled me to the bone.
Something was left behind, a mere whisper on the wind: a name, quivering out of existence with each spoken syllable. 'Moquihuix-tzin.'
• • • •
'Moquihuix-tzin?' Mihmatini asked. She sat on the terraced edge of Pochtic's quarters, looking down into the courtyard. Neutemoc was by her side – as if standing guard. 'That's the last Revered Speaker of Tlatelolco. He's–' she stopped. 'It doesn't matter whether he's dead, does it?'
I grimaced. 'Partly. The dead can't cast spells, or summon creatures. But they can influence.' And Moquihuix-tzin had been a strong character – both Nezahual-tzin and Yayauhqui had described him as a man used to getting his way. No wonder Pochtic had been such a pliant tool.
'Which isn't helping us, is it?' Mihmatini said. 'With Pochtic gone, he could be influencing pretty much anyone.'
Below, a few noblemen were crossing the courtyard, and a couple was coming towards us, the woman ahead of the man – her face utterly unfamiliar, as sharp and rough as broken obsidian, her clothes slightly askew, as if she'd dressed in a panic.
They were almost upon us when I realised that the man behind her – tall and unbending, with a headdress of heron feathers – was Acamapichtli. He stood once more with his old arrogance, as if his scarred face and sightless eyes meant nothing. He wore a carved fang around his neck, a beacon of power I could feel even without my true sight, and he moved confidently, as if being blind were no trouble at all.
'Further evidence of your charms?' I asked.
He shook his head, impatiently. 'Behave, Acatl. This isn't a time for levity. I've brought my Consort, as you asked.'
The woman bowed to me. Up close, the lines on her face were clearly visible – she would never be called beautiful, but she was striking as only priestesses could be, secure in her identity and power, which gave her a place in society above the common folk. Two black lines ran on her cheeks, calling to mind the face of the goddess Herself – whom I had seen once, more than a year before, when Teomitl had been granted his powers. 'Greetings, Acatl-tzin. I am Cozolli, priestess of Chalciuhtlicue, and Consort of Tlaloc.'
'No need to be formal,' I said. Acamapichtli shot me a quick look; I didn't know what he thought of the position of women in the clergy – who, save for the Guardian, could only ever be the inferior of their male homologues.
'Fine, fine,' Acamapichtli said. 'We can dispense with the idle chit-chat, Acatl. We've come here because we have news.'
'And from the look on your face, not good,' Mihmatini interjected.
Acamapichtli turned in the direction of her voice. He was silent for a moment. 'Oh, I see. The Guardian. What a pleasure.' I expected him to be mocking, but Mihmatini's strength must now be evident, and he had always been a man to respect that.
Mihmatini looked less happy – much as if she'd swallowed live eels. 'Acamapichtli.' She made no pretence of respect to him, though, and to my surprise he nodded, as one equal to another. 'What do you want?'
'The boundaries are breached, Acatl. That's why the gods are so scared.'
Even blind, he must have felt by our silence he wasn't achieving quite the effect he'd intended. 'We know this,' I said, wearily. 'We're working on how to fix this. If you're here, you can confirm something for me.'
Acamapichtli turned his face towards his consort; who said nothing. 'Go ahead.'
The entrance-curtain tinkled, letting Ichtaca through. He had changed out of the formal regalia, and his hands were now clean of the sacrifice's blood. He nodded, curtly, towards Acamapichtli and Cozolli, and sat cross- legged, patiently waiting for us to finish.
'I need to know if your god had Moquihuix-tzin's soul in His keeping.'
'The Revered Speaker of Tlatelolco?' Acamapichtli looked surprised. He shrugged. 'How would I know this?' But his consort nodded.
'He died by the noose,' she said, curtly. 'Every priest knows that.'
The jab completely bypassed Acamapichtli. 'And how does this help us, exactly?'
'It doesn't, per se,' I said, slowly. Why was I bothering with this? There was only one thing which should have mattered to me. 'We need to close the boundary.' I turned to Ichtaca, who had remained silent until then. 'You had started working on that.'
Ichtaca grimaced. 'Yes. It's far from being a simple problem. The gates need to be drawn close without being shut – leaving just enough magic for Tizoc-tzin to exist, but not enough for widespread ghosts.'
And even that would still leave a risk – summoners would find it slightly easier to work, and there would be more creatures slipping through the cracks. But it was still better than star-demons.
Pretty much anything was.
'And?' Mihmatini asked.
'I think–' Ichtaca said, slowly, 'that it would take the three High Priests, again – as it took them to open it in the first place.'
Three High Priests. I had a mental vision of trying to convince Quenami he needed to work with us. 'It won't work,' I said. 'Even if Quenami is still here. We need mastery, and subtlety.' And, while he might be a fine diplomat, the events of the previous days had proved, quite unequivocally, that he didn't have much magical expertise.
But Ichtaca was right – what had taken three to do couldn't be undone by two. We needed… someone to stand in for Quenami. Someone linked to life, virility and good fortune.
'If you want to keep it open, you can't close it from the Fifth World,' Acamapichtli said, acidly. 'You have to be on both sides, to keep control over what you're doing.'
