nothing, nothing at all. “Not so easily.”
“And Ceyaxochitl?”
His face turned towards the unconscious body of the Guardian. “She may survive.”
I wanted to rest, to lie down. I wanted the underworld to go away so that the coldness would abate. “It is ended,” I whispered.
The Wind nodded. “You have no more need of me.”
I stared, not sure I had heard Him correctly. I had never heard Him speak such words. He seemed to be waiting for some answer for me. “No,” I said, at last, not completely trusting my voice. “I have no more need of you.”
He had started to fade on the last word; obsidian planes blurred into nothingness.
By the time Macihuin and his men reached the house, and summoned a physician to take Ceyaxochitl away, He had disappeared.
But I still could hear His last words to me. “Until next time, Acatl.”
I stood over Itlani's body, shaking and weak from loss of blood.
“Acatl,” Macihuin said. “You have some explanations to give.”
“Yes,” I said. I let the physician bind my wounds, and fuss over them. I let Macihuin ask me questions which I was too weak to answer.
Evening was falling; darkness filled the house, but it was a darkness that the sun would dispel, come time. The Fifth Age would continue.
In the end, there were enough things to sort out, and I could tell Macihuin would be very busy in the hours to come. They left me alone, sitting on the dais with the remnants of my summoning, with the memory of the Wind's voice in my mind.
Payaxin was dead. We both had a share of guilt in that, and perhaps not even one. After all, he had been his own man, and had made his own choices. I could no longer go on, cutting myself off from the underworld and hating the Wind. As He had said, He was necessary.
I said, quietly, to the silent night, “Until next time.”
Beneath the Mask
First published in
“He's in here,” Huchimitl said.
I stood in the courtyard of her opulent house, amidst pine and palm trees, breathing in the smell of dust and fallen pine needles. Just outside, a few paces from me, was Moyotlan, one of the busiest districts of Tenochtitlan; but the bustle from the crowded streets and canals was barely audible, cut off by the walls of the courtyard. Around us were several doorways, closed by coloured entrance-curtains; and it was before one of those that Huchimitl and I stood.
Not for the first time, I wished Huchimitl wasn't wearing that accursed ceramic mask – so I could read her face. Or, failing that, that she'd at least tell me why she was wearing it. The only people in the city I'd seen wearing that kind of mask were disfigured warriors. But I'd asked the question twice on my way there, and been met with silence.
“I'm not sure I can do anything – “ I started, but Huchimitl cut me off.
“Please, Acatl. Just take a look at the man. And tell me whether he's cursed.”
Curses, unless they were from the underworld, weren't really my province. If I'd had any sense, I'd have refused Huchimitl when she'd arrived in my temple.
But she'd been wearing that mask, hiding her face from me. Surely…
Surely the girl I remembered from my childhood, the one who'd turned the heads of all the boys in our calpulli clan – including mine – couldn't possibly be injured?
I couldn't bring myself to believe that. There had to be some other explanation for that mask. And I had to know what it was.
Huchimitl was still standing before the door, waiting for my answer. “Acatl,” she said, shaking her head in that disturbingly familiar fashion, halfway between exasperation and amusement.
My heart twisted in my chest. In truth, I'd never had been able to refuse her, and even though it had been years since we'd last seen each other, it still did not change anything. “I can't promise you much,” I said, finally.
Huchimitl shook her head – sunlight played on her mask as she did so, creating disturbing reflections on the ceramic, like a breath from Mictlan, the underworld. I fought an urge to walk up to her and tear off the mask. “Acatl, please.”
Gently, I drew aside the hanging mat that closed the door, trying not to disturb the bells sewn into it. I paused halfway through, stared at Huchimitl. She stood unmoving, the mask drinking in the sunlight.
“I'll wait for you in the reception area,” she said.
I sighed and entered the room.
Its walls bore frescoes of Patecatl, God of Medicine, holding a drinking cup and an incense brazier, and of Quetzalcoatl, God of Creation and Knowledge, who stood with the bones of the dead in His outstretched hands. A strong smell of herbs rose from the back of the room, where the sick man lay on a reed mat. His legs were curled in an unnatural position.
