Obsidian & Blood

  Commander Quiyahuayo shook his head. 'Power.'

  'I–'

  Gently, Commander Quiyahuayo rested his hands on the reed mat. 'Power incarnate.'

  'The Storm Lord's power?' I asked.

  He shrugged. 'The gods' powers are constrained in the Fifth World. That's why They find human agents.' He probed at the clay tablet on the ground as it were an aching tooth. 'But agents are tricky. Unreliable. They have a will of their own. Some gods desire a vessel that is more… pliant, shall we say?'

  I stared at him, my contempt forgotten. Surely… 'Tlaloc made a child?' I asked. 'He fathered a child with Eleuia?'

  Commander Quiyahuayo smiled with the pleased expression of a teacher who had just managed to pass on knowledge. In the flickering light of the braziers, the fangs of the jaguar maw framing his head shone: a second, far more dangerous smile. 'The Storm Lord wanted a child who would hold the full extent of His powers. To create life with those constraints is hard, more so when one is a god with no idea of where to start.' His voice was grim. 'Hence the stillbirth.'

  It was a fascinating story he was telling me, but I couldn't trust him. Every one of his words was a lie. This was the man who had arranged Eleuia's abduction. 'Why should I believe you?' I asked. 'You tortured her. You killed her.'

  'I didn't kill her. The bitch escaped.' Commander Quiyahuayo sounded angry. 'As to why you should believe me… That, I'm afraid, is your own problem. If you don't, it won't change many things for me.'

  He was right: either way, he had us at his mercy. I ought to have felt frightened. But I'd entered the Jaguar House knowing what I was doing. I wanted explanations.

  Commander Quiyahuayo spread his hands. 'Think of Eleuia. Of the kind of woman she was.'

  The problem was that for a lie, it rang true, too much in keeping with Eleuia's character. Bearing a child would earn her the Storm Lord's favour: an easy way to rise through the hierarchy, borne on the god's powers. And what better way to be safe from hunger than to have the favour of the God of Rain – He who made the maize flowers bloom?

  'I still don't understand,' I said slowly, to give me time to compose my thoughts. 'The child is dead. Whatever Tlaloc wanted to do, it wouldn't have worked.'

  From outside came shouted orders and the sound of footsteps, running in the distance. Commander Quiyahuayo shook his head in distaste. 'My, they're noisy tonight. Pay no attention. Where were we? Ah yes. The child.' He smiled. 'You see, there was a second child. And this one survived his birth.'

  I stared at him, incredulous. 'That's why you tortured her?'

  The shouting had moved away from us, and the sounds of running men were gradually dying down. A breeze stirred the curtain. Neutemoc cursed, and moved away from the draught.

  'No,' Commander Quiyahuayo said. 'I knew there was a child, made jointly by Xochiquetzal and Tlaloc, and borne in Eleuia's womb. I know that it was given to a family of peasants, to raise as their own.'

  By Xochiquetzal and Tlaloc. Of course. Xochiquetzal had brought the expertise about childbirth; and the Storm Lord the raw power. That was why the Quetzal Flower had lied to me about Mahuizoh and Eleuia. What a fool I'd been.

  Commander Quiyahuayo went on, 'And I also knew this: that this year is the year the child comes of age. The year Tlaloc can transfer His powers into him. What I wanted to know from Eleuia was where she'd hidden him.'

  A god-child. A child invested with immeasurable powers, loose in Tenochtitlan, with no constraints placed on his magic. The living extension of the will of a capricious, angry, cruel god…

  I shivered.

  'I fail to see what the Storm Lord could want,' Neutemoc said. He was clearly uncomfortable with the thought of the gods directly interfering in the Fifth World.

  I was more used to the idea. And there was only one thing that Tlaloc could want. Xochiquetzal Herself had told me.

  He moves up into the world, becomes the protective deity of your Empire. And We – the old ones, the gods of the Earth and of the Corn, We who were here first, who watched over your first steps – We fade.

  Xochiquetzal and Tlaloc had both been displaced by Huitzilpochtli's rise to power.

  'They want revenge,' I said.

  'Not revenge,' Commander Quiyahuayo said. 'Faith.'

  Another draught lifted the curtains, and spilled rain onto the floor – and the world seemed to grow still.

  'Acatl,' Neutemoc said, sharply.

  Commander Quiyahuayo was still sitting on the reed mat, but now he was staring at two bloody gashes opening on his chest. Even as I turned towards him, more wounds opened, blossoming like obscene flowers.

  Even without the true sight, I could guess at the mass of shapeless, frenzied things that would be fighting to reach his veins. The creatures were back.

EIGHTEEN

Season of Rain

As Commander Quiyahuayo stared back at us, his blood dripping on the reed mat, pooling in meaningless