'The Old Ones?' Mictlantecuhtli said. 'And the newer ones – the upstart?'
'Huitzilpochtli.'
Mictlantecuhtli ran His bone-thin fingers on the fibulae and femurs that made His throne. 'Yes. The Imperial upstart and Tonatiuh, His incarnation as the Sun-God.' He sighed, an uncannily human sound, although not a feature of His death-head's face moved. 'My dominion is here. My power is here. Why should I look elsewhere? Let the others squabble over the Fifth World. I see no need to.'
'So you don't know?'
'No,' Mictlantecuhtli said. 'I don't know what Eleuia would have known, or why she died. I presume that's what you want.'
'Yes,' I said. 'But–'
He smiled again. 'All I can offer is My knives, and some advice. Be careful of what you meddle in, Acatl. Cornered animals have a way of turning on you.'
'I don't see what this has to do with anything,' I said slowly, not daring to question him further, not in His dominion.
Lord Death shook His head. 'Perhaps nothing. Perhaps everything. I think you can find your own way back, Acatl.'
I'd never been this deep into the underworld, though I had caught glimpses of Mictlantecuhtli Himself before. I knew, theoretically, the path I would have to follow: back through the City of the Dead, the Plain of the Shadow Beasts, and through every level, until I could cross the River again and go back into the Fifth World.
'I–' I started.
I could feel Their amusement. 'The gate is that way,' Lady Death said, Her bony face stretched in a rictus grin. She gestured, and a cold wind blew around us, raising the dust at Her feet. Underneath was stone: cold, unyielding. And as the dust lifted, it revealed the carved pattern of a quincunx, pulsing with magic.
I stepped towards it but Mictecacihuatl caught my arm in a grip as unyielding as the embrace of death. Her bony hands probed my flesh, cold, unresponsive. I tried not to wince as Her pointed fingers slid into my wounds.
'You've bled much,' She said. 'Mostly in Our service.'
I didn't speak. I was trying not to let Her see my pain.
Mictecacihuatl smiled: a grin that revealed yellowed teeth, as clean as animal-picked bones. 'I suppose that after going all the way down here, you deserve something for your pain.'
Light blazed around Her, sinking under my skin. Something tightened, impossibly compressing my bones, pressing my flesh against my rib cage – stretching me thin, as if on a funeral altar. The smell of rot grew strong, and then faded into the dryness of crumbling bones, of the dust at my feet. My wounds were closing one by one, not so much healing as being drained of pus, of blood, and each wound closing hurt worse than it had opening. I struggled not to scream.
When She released me, I crouched, panting, by the side of Her quincunx. I was unmarked again, even though my skin tingled, as if blood were returning to every vein in my body at the same time.
Lady Death was smiling again. 'A fitting gift, I should think.'
Standing where I was, in the deepest level of Mictlan, there was nothing I could answer to this; nothing beyond a croaked 'Thank you, My Lady', which rang insincere. It had been a healing, but I almost wished it had not taken place.
'My pleasure,' Mictecacihuatl said. 'Go, now.'
I did not need to be told twice. I stepped into the quincunx; and I welcomed the blurring of the world with relief.
When everything coalesced again, I was in the examination room, my wounds still tingling: an unpleasant reminder of what I had just undergone. Neutemoc, who had been kneeling by the altar, jumped up with a start.
'I thought you'd never come back,' he said.
'How long has it been?' I asked.
'Two hours or more.'
It had felt much shorter, but the time of the gods wasn't our own.
'Did you see her?' Neutemoc asked.
I shook my head. 'I couldn't enter.' I was too ashamed of myself to go into details.
'But–'
'It all depended on the Storm Lord's goodwill. And He wasn't very co-operative, to say the least.'
'So you couldn't find her.' Neutemoc sounded disappointed. I wanted to scream at him to stop being obsessed by her; to do something about his own wife, his own family. But all I would achieve was to set him further against me.
The smell of blood was strong, sickeningly so. My water-glyph had all but vanished, absorbed in the aborted passage to Tlalocan, but the smell had insinuated itself everywhere. 'No, nothing learnt. I'll go and see if I can get something to clean the room,' I said.
Neutemoc was watching Eleuia's body again, and didn't answer me.
When I came back with a reed broom, I found Teomitl in the courtyard, obviously waiting for me. His crutch was gone; his wounds were healed, far too quickly to be natural. I presumed his family – clearly noblemen, judging from his attire – would have had access to spells to facilitate his recovery. Teomitl himself was still as lean and as sharp as a jaguar on the prowl, still bursting with that boundless energy.
He bowed when he saw me: the sketchy gesture of one unused to obeisance. 'Acatl-tzin,' he said. 'How are you?'
How was I? Angry – at Neutemoc for being such a fool; at Huei for being so easily manipulated; at myself for being blinded by my old illusions. And frustrated at being unable to enter Tlalocan. Although I didn't know what I
