any moment. Despite the accumulation of magic in the room, I didn't think this was possible.
Eliztac shook his head. 'Acatl's blood should be enough.'
Neutemoc wasn't speaking. He stood inside the glyph in his appointed place, but he was sunk in one of his moods again.
Eliztac began chanting: a repetitive hum that started low, and gradually rose until it resonated in my chest:
Gently, he set the figurine within the brazier. The fire flared black for one moment, before the flames began eating away at the statue. It burnt, not like wood, but with the mingled, acrid smells of resin and copal, creating a black smoke that fled towards us. The magic in the room intensified.
I knelt and opened three slashes on the back of my hand with my obsidian knife. Blood dripped out, settling in the grooves of the glyph.
The smoke, billowing around us, grew thicker and thicker until only the area within the glyph was left clear. I couldn't make out Eliztac; his voice, singing the end of the hymn, receded further and further away.
Through the pungent smell came another: that of wet earth, mingled with the faint, heady scent of flowers. The smoke swept through the glyph, wrapping itself around us until I could no longer see anything. Copal and resin invaded my lungs. A cough welled up, irrepressible, and I found myself on my knees, struggling to breathe.
Light blazed, across the glyph. The smoke slowly vanished, revealing, as far as the eye could see, a land of marshes and deserted Floating Gardens. The air was saturated with magic – not the feeble makings of humans, but something far more primordial: the magic of a goddess, unconstrained by any mortal concern.
I stood up, carefully. My sandals squelched: the lines of the glyph were traced in the mud at my feet, and filled with water instead of blood.
Neutemoc and Teomitl were still on their knees, clearing the last of the smoke from their lungs. I stood, looking around the pools. It was a quiet, peaceful land. But I wasn't fooled. We weren't welcome here, and never would be. The more quickly we got out of here, the better.
TWENTY
Knowing where we had to go wasn't difficult. A path opened, though the heart of that marshy land: an area of drier land snaking between brackish pools and stunted trees, leading towards the silvery surface of a lake. Behind us was the shimmering shape of Eliztac's gate, the only way back into the Fifth World.
Neutemoc grimaced, but he still went ahead, soldiering through the mud as if it were a march. Teomitl followed, casting a glance in my direction from time to time.
I was last, keeping a wary eye on the magic swirling around us. This wasn't our territory but Chalchiutlicue's, and She had known perfectly well that we were coming.
A splash in the water made me start. I turned in its direction; and saw two yellow eyes, at the bottom of one of the pools. Two eyes that followed me with naked hunger. Huitzilpochtli curse them. Couldn't we ever leave the things behind, even in Tlalocan?
'What is it?' Teomitl asked. Neutemoc was halfway to the lake by now, unconcerned by the mud that sucked at his gilded sandals.
I shook my head, irritably. 'Nothing.'
Another splash. I turned towards the ahuizotl – and, with a fright, saw that it was crawling out of the pool.
It was black, as sleek as a fish; but instead of fins, it crawled on four clawed hands. Its wrinkled face was vaguely human: not that of an old man, but that of a child that had stayed for too long in the water; and the eyes were those of eagles or pikes, round and unblinking and filled with frightful intelligence. Its tail was long and sinuous, ending in a small, clawed hand that kept clenching on empty air, a motion that was oddly sickening.
'Acatl-tz…' Teomitl started, behind me, then stopped. He must have seen the ahuizotl too.
Two more splashes of water: two other beasts, crawling out from other pools. And then a fourth, and a fifth, until the path was crowded with a dozen of them. They moved towards us, blocking our way. Their tail-hands clenched, unclenched in a swaying motion. I tried in vain to forget Eleuia's empty eye-sockets, and the claws that had scrabbled at her face to tear her flesh.
'Acatl,' Neutemoc said.
I didn't move. I couldn't move.
Two handspans away from us, the ahuizotls stopped. Their eyes shone with the desire to drown, to rend, to maim. But they didn't come any closer.
'What do we do?' Teomitl asked.
'Move,' I managed. I cleared my throat. 'Forward. Move.' The message, after all, was clear enough.
