'Why?' Again, genuine puzzlement. 'Would you put your sister in danger?'
He was a god – had been mortal, once, in the beginning of the Fifth Age, before He gave his blood to move the Fifth Sun across the Heavens. He couldn't understand us, not any more – couldn't understand fear and hope and despair, and the knowledge that I needed to bargain for this now before knowing who would win the fight – that I needed to put my own sister's soul in the balance, agree to consign her to Mictlantecuhtli's oblivion if she lost the battle – so that the Mexica Empire could be great, could follow the destiny set by the Southern Hummingbird – guzzling hearts and captives like a glutton, taking in riches from the northern deserts and the southern jungles until it choked on them.
'I–'
'Acatl?'
They were shadows again – the fight a hint, like a painting hidden underneath a layer of maguey paper – and all I could do was guess, and hope against all hope – and do what was needed.
'My Lord.' I kept my voice steady, focusing on the polished bones of the dais, on the musty smell of earth and dry corpses. 'A soul that comes before Your throne finds oblivion.'
'That is truth.' I felt Him shift, high above me – waiting as He always waited, for everything to come to an end.
'I–' The words caught in my throat – I kept my thoughts away from the fight, focusing them on the memory of the dead and the wounded – of Tapalcayotl, of Chipahua, of Acamapichtli. 'What of a soul who dies before Your throne?'
There was silence – flowing like the calm after a successful birth. At length, Mictlantecuhtli made a sound I couldn't interpret – a bark of laughter, of anger? 'Look at Me, Acatl.'
'I–'
'You're asking for no favours. You never do. You merely want Me to take my due as I have always done. You know as well as I do that there is no ceremony in Mictlan.'
Slowly, carefully, I pulled myself up – how was Mihmatini doing? Could she hold out for that long? – and looked him in the eye.
His face was smooth, polished bone, His cheekbones spattered with drops of blood; His headdress was of owl feathers and paper offerings; His teeth were white, and as sharp as those of a jaguar. His eye-sockets weren't empty like those of a skull, but rather filled with a soft, yellow light, like the Fifth Sun at the end of the afternoon. 'Few have asked this. Your need must be pressing.' Between His teeth glittered light, too – a hundred stars, caught in His throat, in His empty rib-cage, imprisoned there to keep the Fifth Sun safe.
'I do what I must.' The words were ashes in my mouth.
'For the Fifth World?'
I could have said the Empire, but it would have been a lie – I wasn't sure I could believe in that anymore, not with our current Revered Speaker. Or perhaps I needed to believe in it – in the idea rather than the man, to make it all somehow palatable. 'For balance, and our survival. And justice.' For the warriors and the crippled clergy of Tlaloc, and all those dead before their time.
'I see.' His eyes were – no, not warm, for He was death, and would ever be cold – but there was sadness in them, and sympathy, and for a bare moment, as we looked at each other I had the feeling the He encompassed me, and weighed me, and understood me better than anyone ever would, and it was a thought as bitter as raw cacao. 'I said it before, Acatl, it is not a favour – mainly an extension of rules.'
'Then You agree?'
He was silent, for a while. 'It sets an uncomfortable precedent. But you are My high priest, and I know your need. So go, with My blessing.' He smiled – a bare uncovering of the stars that whirled within Him. 'For what it's worth, Acatl.'
Something shimmered and tightened in the air. When I turned around, the fight had stopped shivering in and out of reality, and had become entirely real.
'We shall meet again, Acatl.' They were fading away, leaving me on an empty dais – with a sense of odd warmth running through me.
Not a promise; a mere statement of fact. Almost all the Dead were His.
I didn't move. I couldn't, for I stood on the threshold of the gateway, and I couldn't enter one world or another, lest the ritual fail. I kept my eyes on the fight ahead – Mihmatini was moving yet more awkwardly, stumbling every other step. On Coatl – Moquihuix-tzin's – face was nothing but sheer determination. He had lost his sword, but wielded the axe with the ease of one of Chalchiuhcutlicue's devotees – thank the gods he couldn't use his magic, not here in the underworld where Lord Death's wards were at their strongest.
I called up the courtyard, briefly, and met Acamapichtli's exasperated eyes. The
'We still have – a problem,' I said. 'Hold on, will you?'
In the underworld, Nezahual-tzin was stirring, dazedly pulling himself up – and they were all so far away, stuck as if behind a pane of glass, neither of them seeing me – I would have screamed, but even as I shifted, Moquihuix-tzin sent Mihmatini's dagger flying – and closed in for the kill.
'Mihmatini!' The scream was torn out of me before I could think, fear and rage mingling in one primal, unstoppable force that seemed to take its substance from my wrung lungs. 'Mihmatini!'
At the last moment she sidestepped and, for a moment, her eyes met mine, and saw me. She smiled, shaking her head – that same expression she had whenever I tried to mother her.
It happened in an eye-blink – she rolled to the ground, avoiding the axe stroke which would have split her skull; her outstretched hand met Nezahual-tzin's, and she rose, holding something sharp and white – the aura of Duality magic around her flaring like the hood of a snake, an expenditure of power that must have utterly drained her – and, grasping the axe in one hand, used the other to drive her weapon into Coatl's chest.
He gasped, and collapsed like a felled tree, while Mihmatini stood over him, her face expressionless, her hand dripping blood from the deep wound she'd taken from seizing the axe.
She smiled up at me, then turned to Nezahual-tzin and pulled him towards the dais. I couldn't hear them at first – my sister seemed to be whispering furiously, and Nezahual-tzin, still dazed, mostly nodded – a fact which must have pleased her no end.
At last, they stood below me. Nezahual-tzin smiled up at me. 'As timely as ever, I see.'
I shook my head – now wasn't a time for jibes. 'Are you–?' I asked Mihmatini. 'I thought he was going to kill you.' I thought I was going to lose her forever, that I'd bargained for nothing but one more death. 'I–' It hurt, to
