Master of the House of Darts: Obsidian and Blood Book 3

by Aliette Bodard

  No, not only the plague. They'd made a deliberate sacrifice to Jade Skirt, gathering up power with those deaths packed so close by. The plague wasn't the finality: our sorcerer was preparing for something much, much worse.

  "I'll try to locate them. But you must know–"

  That the palace was large, and in utter chaos; that they might not want to be found. "I know." But it had to be tried, all the same.

  "I'll inquire," Ichtaca said. He looked at the She-Snake, who still stood near the empty cages, looking at the corpses as if it could all make sense. But of course it would all make sense, once we caught the culprit. Once the Mexica Empire was safe. "One more thing, Acatltzin. About the Master of the House of Darkness."

  "Pochtic?" Our mysterious suicide, who was probably mixed up with all of this.

  "Yes," Ichtaca said. "I examined the room in which he died, as you requested me to."

  I hadn't – not exactly – but the gods knew I wasn't about to begrudge him for taking initiatives. "And?"

  "There is something I have to show you."

  "Ichtaca, there is no time – " I started, but his face was set.

  "I could tell you, but I need your opinion."

  I sighed. "Fine," I said. "Let's go." At least it would get me away from that courtyard and that pervasive smell of meat and blood – else I was going to retch up the little I had in my stomach.

  Pochtic's rooms were deserted, the focus of attention having moved elsewhere. We climbed the stairs of the pyramid, passing by a couple of bored-looking guards – and found ourselves in the room again.

  The body had been removed to our temple, and everything smelled – stale, neglected, as if reflecting the misery and despair that had led Pochtic to commit the sin of suicide. The braziers had been extinguished, and the smell of copal incense had turned into the unpleasant one of cold ashes. The frescoes, though, were as vibrant as ever – the painted faces of the gods such as Tezcatlipoca the Smoking Mirror looking back at us, at the stains of blood that had changed the colour of the floor – mocking and empty-eyed, as if They knew secrets we weren't worthy of.

  Tlaloc the Storm Lord had known something – something that had scared him. And if a god, one of the Old Ones, could be scared of something…

  The Duality curse me, I didn't want to think about that, not now.

  Ichtaca stopped at the back of the room, near one of the windows, looking down at the blood-stained sleeping mat. "Here," he said. "Can you look at this?"

  I still had Lord Death's true sight upon me, and for a moment, all I could see was death – the memory of blood spurting out from cut arteries, of a soul sleeping away into the underworld. "Not the blood," I said.

  "No," Ichtaca said. "Beneath."

  Beneath… There was something – not an image, but the faint memory of a smell, something I'd seen before, sweet and sickening…

  Jimsonweed. Peyotl. Teonanacatl, the gods' food, the sacred mushrooms – a compound of powerful hallucinogens that pierced the veil between the Fifth World and the world beyond. So close to a sleeping mat. "Dreams," I said. "Portents. He was in contact with the spirit world."

  Ichtaca grimaced. "Yes."

  He had been seeking it, deliberately. "Taking advice from someone dead?" I shuddered to think of all the sorcerers whom he could have contacted, with the boundaries weakened. At least the dead who descended into Mictlan didn't survive for more than four years – after their journey through the underworld, they dissolved at the foot of Lord Death's throne. But the other dead – the ones who went to the Fifth Sun's Heaven, or into Tlalocan – they were still there, waiting to be summoned, or freed.

  "There's something else, too."

  Something else… I extended my senses, probing at the edge of the cloud. Something sharper, like pieces of a broken knife – corrupted almost beyond recovery. "Wards?" I asked. "Some kind of spell…"

  "Yes," Ichtaca said. "I was hoping it would remind you of something."

  Not that I could think of. "Wards aren't my specialty," I said, almost sheepishly. "Have you asked a priest of the Duality?"

  "I tried, but they're too busy warding off the epidemic from the rest of the population."

  "I've seen them somewhere, that's the trouble. Something much like it, but I can't pinpoint…"

  "It'll come back to you," I said, finally. I looked at the pieces again, but they had faded too much, and unlike Ichtaca, they didn't remind me of anything at all.

  What could Pochtic have done, which would require guidance from the dead? I thought back to when I'd seen him in the courtyard of the prisoners' quarters. Cuixtli, the Mextitlan prisoner, had said Pochtic had been looking for a spell.

  Looking for a spell, or… or making sure everything was as it should have been?

  "He cast the spell," I said, slowly. It made sense – an altogether chilling kind of sense.

  But why? Why would the Master of the House of Darkness, one of the four on the war-council, seek to act against the clergy of Tlaloc? Some old rivalry I hadn't known of? Some grievance? It all sounded too extreme.

  "What spell?" Ichtaca asked.

  "The one in the prisoners' quarters. The one that took the lives of Tlaloc's priests."

  There was silence. "He did what?"

  The voice wasn't Ichtaca's; it came from behind us, from the entrance to the room. And I knew it.

  I turned around, slowly, and watched Acamapichtli limp into the room. Like his priests, he was all but unrecognisable – his face scarred, his movements slow and stiff – and the eyes…

  The corneas had burst, drowning the irises. "You–"

  He fumbled his way into the room, tapping the floor with a wooden cane – his other hand wrapped into something I couldn't see. Behind him was a black-clad guard, not his jailer, but his only help to move, to climb stairs – to see anything at all. The steady tap of the cane against the stone floor was all I could hear as he made his way towards us. "I caught the sickness, yes. But, as you can see, it passed me by. Almost."

  Almost – and it had left its mark everywhere. And it had damaged his eyes, too. I had been blind for a while, after entering Tlaloc's world – but I had recovered. For Acamapichtli, there would be no such grace.

  "You–" He was alive – alive, ready to help us, to rebuild his own clergy. But the cost, oh gods – the cost…

  "Always be prepared," Acamapichtli said. His voice was raw, as if he hadn't spoken for a long time – I thought of blood, dripping down his throat, of vocal chords distended as those few blood vessels within burst, and bled, and left whitish scars everywhere within. "I–" He stopped in the middle of the room, the cane finally falling still – blessed silence flowing all around us. He unclenched his hand, revealing the bone-white shape of an amulet. "Always be prepared." There was a shadow of the old, mordant sneer on his face, if not in his voice. "It's served me well, as you can see."

  "You're alive," I said – stupidly, because it seemed to be the only fact filling my head. "I thought–"

  "That I was dead?" He grinned, a truly frightening expression – his thin lips parting to reveal teeth, covered in the blood that had leaked from his gums. "Not such luck, I'm afraid. I'm a hard man to kill." He tapped his cane against the ground, once, twice. "Now, what were you saying about the–" he paused there, his hands shaking "the deaths of the clergy?"

  "I think," I said, slowly, "that the Master of the House of Darkness was involved. I don't know if he cast the spells or made sure they were in place – but he certainly played his part in them." And that – not the deaths, those were part of the ritual – but the betrayal of the Empire and the Fifth World – that would be a sin the gods might forgive, but that Tizoc-tzin wouldn't, and he had already seen how much score Tizoc-tzin set by priests and by the gods' rules. He had to have known, even after his penance, that it wouldn't keep him safe, that nothing would ever keep him safe from Tizoc-tzin.

  But why had he thought…?

  Oh, of course. I had come into the prisoners' quarters
and challenged him, and he had assumed I knew something. He had been wrong, of course. I ought to have felt sorry, but the memory of the priests in the courtyard made it all but impossible.

  "I see," Acamapichtli said. "Can you summon his soul?"

  "I don't know–" I glanced at Ichtaca, who still hadn't moved. We'd already summoned the soul of one victim, and it hadn't been of great help. "I need preparations for that; it certainly won't be until tomorrow."

  "I don't care. This – rabbit-faced coward has just played his part in all but exterminating my clergy." Acamapichtli gripped his cane – he was still a blind, scarred man with a limp, but power shimmered in the air around him, a reminder the enemy underestimated him at his peril. "Anything we can do to avenge this…"

  I could understand – I'd had some of the same burning hunger within me, and knew how much worse it would all be for him – but we couldn't afford anger; we couldn't afford revenge. "It's not over yet, that's the problem. The deaths were just the beginning. They're the fuel for another spell."

  Acamapichtli said nothing for a while – his ruined eyes staring straight ahead. "I want revenge."

  "I know. But the Fifth World–"

  "–can take are of itself?" He laughed, sharp and bitter. "Probably. But they were my priests, Acatl. They will not be used for some ritual against us. Tell me how I can help."

  I shook my head. "You need to find your Consort," I said. "If she's still alive. We need to understand what kind of ritual we're dealing with. Ichtaca, can you set up the summoning?" I asked.

  He grimaced. It was far from a straightforward thing – the body was unwashed and unadorned, and the vigils hadn't even started. And we both knew how important procedures were, at a time like this. "I'll see what I can do," Ichtaca said. "In the meantime–"

  I glanced at the darkening sky – the air as heavy as before a storm. "I have an errand to do. I'll see you afterwards."

  TWENTY

  The Jaguar Knight's Brother

  It was late by the time I arrived at Neutemoc's house; and in the darkness, the leaping jaguars painted on the gates seemed as luminous and as threatening as haunting mothers hovering on the edges of the Fifth World. Faint voices wafted out from the courtyard, and the laughter of children – for a moment, it seemed as though I had gone back to a few years before, when there had still been a mistress of the house, and my brother had epitomised the success I'd never know as a priest without possessions.

  In the reception room, Neutemoc was sitting, nibbling on a fried newt; the laughter came from Necalli and Mazatl, who sat listening to Mihmatini telling a story – though my sister herself wasn't laughing. Her eyes were red, and it was obvious her mind lay elsewhere.

  "Brother." Neutemoc lifted his bowl towards me – a salute, almost. "Be welcome."

  I sat next to him, helping myself to a handful of maize flatbreads. For a while, neither of us spoke; the children squealed and laughed as Mihmatini mimicked a bumbling warrior seeking to eat dried-out corn, and a merchant obsessed with counting his feathers and gold quills. It was all… so hauntingly familiar, a reminder that outside the tensions of the Imperial Court and the threat of our extinction, there were still flowers and songs, still quetzal feathers and precious jade. And yes, they wouldn't last, they would be soiled and marred – but did that make them less valuable, while they still shone brighter than the Fifth Sun?

  "How is she?" I asked.

  Neutemoc made a stabbing gesture with one hand. "Brittle. Be careful what you say."

  I grimaced. "I'm always careful."

  "You know what I mean." Neutemoc turned, to look at me for a while. "You look melancholy as well. Still that warrior's death?"

  "I don't know," I said. I'd walked back there, rather than my temple, and to be honest, I still didn't know why. I could have made four hundred excuses about needing to talk to Mihmatini, or to keep contact with my family, but there had been no such rationality in my choice. Like a hunted beast, I'd gone to ground in familiar surroundings, and those had turned out to be my brother's house. "There is too much going on."

  Neutemoc was silent for a while. "There is always is, isn't there? The gods move and plot, and we are the pawns on the patolli board." He raised his bowl again, as if addressing an invisible assembly.

  "You know–"

  "–that you don't think that." The ghost of a smile quirked up his lips. "But still… they talk, in the Jaguar House."

  "Of the deaths?"

  "That, yes." Neutemoc laid his bowl on the mat, between the jug and a plate of tamales. Then he looked at me sideways, from the corner of his eyes. "There are a lot of Knights missing, too. Officially, they've gone back to their families for the Feast of the Sun."

  "I can't–" I started. I wasn't supposed to be telling anyone about Teomitl; the gods knew we had too many people, from Nezahual-tzin to the She-Snake, who already suspected. But if I didn't speak out, the weight on my heart would blacken and tear it. "They went to join Teomitl."

  Neutemoc's face went deathly still. "He has desires beyond the House of Darts, then?"

  "I don't know," I said, a little more annoyed this time. "He's not involved in this." It might have been his goddess' magic, but he'd almost died. No, he had nothing to do with the sorcerer. But he was making use of the chaos for all it was worth. "But the situation suits him, and he is taking advantage of it."

  "And you never foresaw any of this," Neutemoc said – displaying a disquieting shrewdness for a man who had once been oblivious to the goings-on in his own household.

  "No," I said, at last. "I don't understand–" I didn't understand how both Mihmatini and I could have failed to see anything – to interpret the signs, the portents; to peer into the shape of the future and see how it inevitably led to this, brother against brother.

  "He was your student," Neutemoc said. "Your beloved son, if you want to go that far – and knowing you, I suspect you would. But even beloved sons go astray, Acatl. It's the nature of raising children." His lips quirked up again, in what might have been a smile if it wasn't so weak and devoid of emotion. "Our parents might have had a few things to say about that, had they lived."

  But it wasn't that – what Teomitl was doing went against everything I'd been trying to teach him. I poured myself cactus juice into another bowl, letting the sharp, pungent aroma waft up to me, washing away all other smells. "Yes," I said, sarcastically, raising the bowl towards him. "They might." Look at us now, the priest they'd always disapproved of, and the bright warrior all but disowned by his own order.

  Mihmatini rose, leaving Ollin and Mazatl on the mat – both curled up and sleeping. Like Quenami, she quelled the shaking of her hands well, but she couldn't quite disguise it.

  "You saw him," I said.

  "Of all the stubborn-headed–" she stopped herself, and sat by our side. "I can't… I just can't make him listen."

  "You're his wife," Neutemoc said, finally. "He'll heed your opinion, but not on this."

  She took a deep breath. "I thought–" She blinked, furiously, her eyes wet – and for a moment I wished Teomitl were there, so I could shake some sense into him.

  "He loves you," Neutemoc said, gently. "But he wasn't always smart, that one."

  Mihmatini said nothing – her hands clenched, briefly.

  "Did he…?" I hesitated. "I'm sorry, but I have to ask. Did he tell you anything?"

  I had to repeat the question twice before Mihmatini could bring herself to answer it. "Say anything? No, nothing useful," Mihmatini said. "But the chaperone is the driving force behind this."

  "The old woman?" I asked. She had been the one to see him; the one that had set him on his bid for the Turquoise and Gold Crown. "Who is she?" She'd exuded Toci's magic, as naturally as we breathed – as if nothing stood between her and the goddess. Another agent we knew nothing of? Unlikely: few gods ceded Their powers to mortals, and Toci – the hungry earth, the broken furrows – tended to keep Herself to Herself.

  Mihmatini grimaced. "His sister.
Always had a bit of a weakness for her brother – though really, he's almost young enough to be her nephew, or worse. And she doesn't look like she likes Tizoc-tzin – or Axayacatl-tzin – very much, for that matter."

  More palace politics? I hid a grimace. The last woman who had interfered in imperial succession had been by far the more successful and canny claimant – even though she had failed, in the end. An old imperial princess would be as sharp as broken obsidian – and as dangerous as a jaguar mother deprived of her children. "Between both of them, they might just get what they want." That was, in the case of the princess , the support of the palace; for Teomitl, that of the army. And Tizoc-tzin out of the city… Had I done the right thing?

  But no, I had to. We couldn't afford to have our Revered Speaker fall to Chalchiuhtlicue's magic, not so soon after the last one's death – and with him unconfirmed, too, devoid of anything but the simplest magics of the Southern Hummingbird.