Master of the House of Darts

by Aliette de Bodard

  Acamapichtli was in a large room on the second floor, reclining on a mat as if he were the Revered Speaker himself. He wore his customary heron-plumes, and his face was painted with the dark-blue streaks of his god – impassive under the makeup. As we came nearer, though, I saw the thin lines of fear at the corners of his eyes; and the slight quivering in his hands – and felt the stronger circle drawn around him.

  "Ah, Acatl," he said when I arrived. "Do be seated."

  "I'd rather remain standing," I said, curtly. "Do you have a better idea of what's going on?"

  "Not much better than you." Acamapichtli smiled, a thoroughly unpleasant expression. "Thanks to you and your protégé, this thing might already be loose in the populace."

  I disliked "populace", which he made sound like an insult. "The two warriors who carried the corpse would have passed it on anyway."

  "Not if we found them fast enough – we did catch up with one, if nothing else. He's sick, Acatl, perhaps worse than Coatl or the priest of Patecatl. But I fear that's not the point. The point is that when I give orders, you follow them."

  "Since when are you my master?"

  "Since the epidemic started." It would have been better if he'd looked insufferably smug, the way he usually did, but he didn't. He merely stated a fact.

  "And what about Quenami?"

  "Quenami is a fool. Nothing new under the Fifth Sun. I expected better of you." Of course, he hadn't.

  "May I remind you I have an investigation to run?" I asked. "Someone cursed Eptli. And, furthermore, containing the sickness is all well and good, but we need to find a cure for it."

  "And for all we know, this is the will of the gods."

  This time, he'd goaded me too far. "Fine," I said. "You know one way of solving this?"

  Acamapichtli's eyebrows went up.

  "Summon the dead man," I said.

  It was a crazy undertaking – chancy at best, even for Acamapichtli. I could never have attempted it: Eptli had died of a contagious disease, which made him the property of Tlaloc, and I didn't worship the Storm Lord. I could go into Tlalocan, the land of the Blessed Drowned, to see if his soul would respond to my call, but it was a risk. I would be at Tlaloc's mercy, and I had a suspicion the god was as vindictive as Acamapichtli. He wouldn't have forgotten that I'd thwarted His attempt to take over the Fifth World, a year or so before.

  Acamapichtli looked at me – I could see his face twisting, his lips preparing words of contempt, deriding my knowledge as a priest.

  "You know it's the only way," I said.

  "You're a fool," Acamapichtli said. "Most dead men don't know who killed them. Summoning him will be useless."

  "He might remember what contaminated him in the first place," I said. "Which is more information than you have."

  Acamapichtli shrugged. "I don't need to know what contaminated him. Containing this is good enough for me."

  "Not for me," I said. "And if you're so certain it's Tlaloc's will, you can ask Him what He wants." More likely, if it was Him – and I didn't believe that, not with such an odd magical signature to the disease – He didn't want anything. Tlaloc sent epidemics as He sent rain; He sometimes rewarded prayers, sometimes punished, and most of the time did so for reasons we weren't entitled to know.

  Acamapichtli grimaced. He didn't like giving in.

  "You'll have me under your eye," I pointed out.

  "I'm not sure whether to be pleased, or to wonder what you're up to."

  "I'm not up to anything. You're much better at plotting and conspiring."

  He smiled. You'd have thought I'd just complimented him. "Yes, you're still as hopeless at diplomacy as you ever were. Do you seriously expect me to agree?"

  "It's not about diplomacy," I said. Time to be blunt, anyway. "We have a hundred thousand people in Tenochtitlan, tightly packed. If the epidemic gets out, it'll be worse than the Great Famine. We'll lose thousands of people. And while you might think those are acceptable losses for the Fifth World, I for one don't intend giving in to the machinations of a mortal."

  "You forget. It might be the machinations of a god." Acamapichtli's voice was malicious.

  "Then I'll bow down my head to the inevitable. It wouldn't be the first time." I'd been there, during the whole ceremony that consecrated Tizoc-tzin as our Revered Speaker – wearing my High Priest regalia, watching as Tizoc-tzin ascended the steps of the Great Temple, feigning weakness, as our ally, the ruler of Texcoco, dressed him according to his new station, inserting an emerald into his nose, putting dangling gold bells on his ankles. I'd watched as he made his offerings, as the gathered nations of the Anahuac Valley cheered him on. And not once had I let on what I truly thought – that the man was unfit to wear the Turquoise and Gold Crown, that he would only lead us to further disasters.

  But, on the other hand, I had seen the cost of people fighting over the Turquoise and Gold Crown – the stardemons, the chaos, the fear within the palace – and even a flawed Revered Speaker was better than none. For the sake of the Fifth World, I could hold my tongue, and give no voice to my dislike.

  I didn't know what Acamapichtli thought, but I guessed he didn't much care for Tizoc-tzin, either.

  Acamapichtli said nothing for a while.

  "You make your own decisions," I said. "But you'll be the one accountable for them."

  He made a brief, stabbing gesture with his hand. "And you'll support me, of course." It wasn't a question, and I didn't answer. "Fine. I can waste some time to satisfy your morbid curiosity. But you'll learn nothing from it, Acatl."

  I'd expected Acamapichtli would want to prepare the spell in his quarters, to make good use of the strong foundations of magic he'd laid. But instead, he chose the courtyard to prepare his spell. He had his priests drag five braziers – one at each corner, and one at the centre. They drew lines around them to materialise the sacred quincunx, the fivefold cross that symbolised the order of the world.

  Acamapichtli himself remained at the centre, muttering prayers I couldn't make out from where I was standing. He drew out his worship thorns, and stared at them, thoughtfully – but didn't make any gesture to drag them through his earlobes.

  He seemed to be waiting for something, but I wasn't sure what.

  A growl drew my attention away from Acamapichtli: four slaves were carrying a wooden cage, in which was the largest jaguar I'd ever seen – a mass of muscles and fangs, with a burning gaze that suggested captivity ill-suited it.

  Of course, the jaguar was one of the animals sacred to Tlaloc – the god Himself had jaguar fangs, and the sound of His thunder was like the roars of the jungle felines. But still…

  The slaves put the cage in the centre, a few hand-spans away from Acamapichtli – who still didn't move. They withdrew, leaving no one but him and the beast in the circle. The jaguar paced within the cage, raising its head from time to time – opening its mouth to reveal glinting fangs. Acamapichtli, seemingly oblivious to its presence, picked up his worship thorns, and drew them through his earlobes. He didn't flinch as they went in: like any priest, he'd been doing this for far too long to pay attention to the pain.

  He whispered more words, with greater urgency than before. Then he planted the worship thorns, one by one – driving them into the earth halfway through.

  A faint tremor shook the courtyard – as if something were rising up to meet the fresh blood.

  At length Acamapichtli raised his head, and saw me, standing outside the quincunx. "Acatl! Come inside."

  I eyed the jaguar, doubtfully. I had my obsidian knives, but even I wasn't mad enough to take on a beast like that without preparations.

  Or – as the uncomfortable thought occurred to me – without live bait to distract it.

  Acamapichtli snorted. "Don't be a yellow-livered fool, Acatl. The spirit will only be visible inside the quincunx. Or do you want me to ask the questions for you?"

  And feed me the information he deemed fit for my consumption? Not a chance. I drew my obsidian knife, feeling
its reassuring heft and coldness against the palm of my hand – and stepped over the circle.

  The earth shivered as I walked, as if it were permanently shifting – as if it didn't know whether to be mud, water or packed dust. My feet squelched every other step, but when I lifted them, nothing clung to my sandals.

  I reached the centre, where Acamapichtli stood waiting. Was it just me, or had the sky overhead darkened – far faster than it should have for a late afternoon? I could have sworn…

  The jaguar yawned. Its pelt had grown almost featureless in the dim light; its eyes shone yellow, and its teeth glittered like opalescent pearls. I could almost see the saliva beading on the canines. It pressed itself against the door of the cage – and it was bending, the wood splitting up with a sound that resonated within my chest. The jaguar roared, a sound like thunder in the sky.

  Acamapichtli hadn't moved. He stood with both hands empty – they were long and supple, and in contrast to the rest of his regalia, quite bare, with no rings that could have caught on anything.

  "What are you afraid of?" he asked.

  At this stage, I wasn't sure if it was him or the jaguar, or both. He shifted – and all of a sudden his skin shone a dark orange, and his eyes were two black pits ringed with yellow, the same as the animal within its cage. Even the fluid, confident way he moved seemed to echo the beast's.

  "Acamapichtli–" I started.

  The jaguar threw itself against the door of the cage, and the wood, with a final sputtering sound, gave way. The entire latticework of wood exploded, but I had no time to focus on this, because the jaguar leapt out and ran straight towards me – muscles bunching up for a leap, and all I could see was its open mouth with the fangs glinting – my hand went towards the knife, a fraction of a moment too late – the beast was almost upon me, its jaw extending to clamp around my skull…

  And then, abruptly, it was on the ground in front of me, its legs scrambling for purchase, desperate to get up – and Acamapichtli stood over it, holding it down with both hands. He didn't even look to be in a sweat. The beast kicked and yowled, and made a racket strong enough to wake up the dead, and its claws raked the ground, sinking into the earth – but it made no difference. Acamapichtli still held on. He might as well have been a rock.

  My heart was threatening to burst out of my chest, but I didn't move, either – just stood there, watching.

  At length, the jaguar's struggles grew weaker; its legs quieted, its whole body heaving with huge breaths that didn't seem to sustain it. Then it grew quieter still – the face, flopping back towards me, bore the unmoving glaze of the dead.

  Acamapichtli stood away from the beast, withdrawing the noose he'd coiled around its neck. He didn't even spare me a glance. In the darkness, his eyes still shone yellow, and his face had lengthened, with a suggestion of a muzzle. The fingers of his hands, too, seemed to be longer and sharper.

  "O Lord, Our Lord

  O Provider, O Lord of Verdure

  Lord of Tlalocan, Lord of the Sweet-Scented Marigold,

  Lord of the Smoky Copal…"

  Acamapichtli withdrew the worship thorns from the earth in a single flourish, and walked back to the jaguar. He drove them into the pelt, at the height of the spine.

  "In the Blessed Land of the Drowned

  The dead men play at balls, they cast the reeds,

  They sip the nectar of numerous sweet and fragrant flowers,

  Grant us leave, O Lord, Beloved Lord,

  Grant us leave to call them back."

  Mist poured from the jaguar's spine, as if the thorns had opened up some vast reservoir. It pooled around the corpse, a swirling mass of white – and then it stretched, still remaining as thick, until I could barely make out the contours of the buildings around us, and it went upwards, driving even the darkness from the sky. Everything seemed to turn white and clammy, with the particular, watery smell of marshes.

  And then, gradually – as a shiver started low in my back and climbed upwards – I became aware we weren't alone anymore.

  SEVEN

  The Summoning of Spirits

  I'd summoned ghosts from Mictlan many times and they always appeared the same: faint silhouettes, with shadows playing over their features until they hardly seemed human anymore. But the ghost that Acamapichtli had called up wasn't like that: I could see the light of its teyolia soul, a scorching radiance in his chest that I could almost feel. Like Acamapichtli himself, his skin was mottled, halfway between a jaguar's pelt and human skin.

  Other than that, he looked much as he had alive. He no longer wore any finery, but the face bore familiar features – save that his lips were congealed purple, and deep pouches lay under his eyes. When he raised a hand to touch his chin, I saw that the base of his nails too were purple, and the tips of his fingers wrinkled, as if he had remained too long in warm water.

  "I–" he whispered. "Where–"

  Acamapichtli's smile was the jaguar's, before it found its prey. "I summoned you, Eptli of the Pochtlan clan, warrior of the Mexica."

  Eptli's gaze swung between Acamapichtli and I. I had no idea what he saw; I very much doubted that I still looked the same. "I don't understand." He hugged himself, as if he were cold. His eyes were two pits of darkness. "I was–"

  "Dead," Acamapichtli said, curtly. "My… colleague here is convinced you know something about that."

  "I remember–" Eptli shivered. "So cold. I was so cold when we entered the Anahuac valley. I barely even saw Tlacopan. But I was strong. I hid it, and no one guessed. No one guessed." He laughed – it started low, and climbed to a high-pitched, insane trill.

  "For how long were you cold?" Acamapichtli asked.

  Eptli shuddered, and the mist seemed to quiver in turn. "I don't know. Three, four days perhaps. I don't remember…"

  Great. Much as it pained me to admit it, Eptli was going to be useless. Some people kept their coherence after death, but he clearly wasn't one of them.

  "Three, four days." Acamapichtli nodded. "Then we have a little more time. What happened before? How did you catch this?"

  "I don't know."

  "The disease would take time to become visible," I said.

  Acamapichtli made a stabbing gesture with his hands. "No. Remember, Coatl and the physician took barely a few hours to show symptoms. Did anyone die at the camp, Eptli?"

  "Die?" He shivered again. The purple was spreading from his lips to his cheeks, marbling them like the skin of a corpse. "So many people died – the wounded and the weak, they all died for the glory of the Empire. It is right, it is proper." He turned the emptiness of his eyes towards me, almost pleading. "It is right…"

  Acamapichtli snorted. "See, Acatl? Useless."

  I wasn't prepared to admit defeat so soon. "Let's see." I came closer to the man – his face was turning darker and darker, and his eyes were drawing inwards, sinking towards the back of his skull. I focused on what mattered – there was nothing I could do for him. "What do you remember about your prisoner?"

  Something lit up in his eyes. "Prisoner? My fourth. I earned him, earned him…"

  I resisted the urge to strike him; he was a ghost, and it wouldn't help. "Eptli," I said, gently but firmly. "Your prisoner, Zoquitl. He was ill, too, wasn't he?"

  "I don't remember." He shook his head. "I–" His face twisted, and he fell to the ground, with a cry of pain. The warmth in his chest blazed.

  This wasn't normal. "Acamapichtli," I said. I could have cast a spell of true sight, but I had no idea what would happen if I did so inside another's ritual.

  Acamapichtli was watching Eptli, his fangs closed over his lower lips, his eyes dilated in the mist. "A spell of forgetfulness," he said.

  "Something strong enough to endure after death?"

  A drop of blood rolled off one of Acamapichtli's canines. "Evidently." He knelt, and took Eptli's face between his hands. "Very strong," he said, with a hint of admiration. "I'm not sure it can be removed, not without dispelling him."

  "The
n you're useless," I said, not without malice.

  "Tsk tsk," Acamapichtli said. "So little faith. I notice you're not leaping to my rescue either."

  "You seem to be doing just fine."

  He made a sucking noise between his fangs – and, lightning fast, brought his hands together, as if to crush Eptli's head. The radiance at Eptli's heart wavered, and then began to dim; the warrior began writhing as if in the throes of some great pain. Acamapichtli took a step backward, his face dispassionate. I realised with a shock that I'd taken a step forward – as if anything could help the man, when he was dead and gone already.