Ixtli and I left the warriors at the entrance, covering all possible exits, and entered the house.
The woman who received us in the house's reception room was even older than Ceyaxochitl: too old to be Mahuizoh's wife. Her seamed face had seen far more than a bundle of fifty-two years, and the stiff way she sat in her low-backed chair suggested acute rheumatism. By her side was a slightly younger woman: middle-aged, with a face that had sagged too much to remain beautiful.
"I hear you've come looking for my son," the old woman said.
Mahuizoh's mother, then. I nodded – and then, unsure of whether she could see me at all, said, "We're here to ask him some questions."
The old woman cackled. "The law finally caught up with him? Doesn't surprise me, doesn't surprise me."
"Auntie Cocochi," the younger woman said, sharply. "That's not what you wanted to say."
The old woman's rheumy eyes focused on her neighbour. "Did I? I always knew he would amount to nothing, that boy."
"He's sheltering you in his house," the younger woman said, shaking her head. By her tone, it was an argument she'd tried before, to no avail.
Cocochi snapped, "He still doesn't respect his elders. It was a different matter when Xoco was alive. She knew her place as my son's wife, she wouldn't speak unless spoken to. I've always told him he should have done the proper thing by his clan, that he should have remarried–"
"Please," I interrupted. "We really have to find Mahuizoh. It's urgent."
"Urgent? Ha!" Cocochi said. "Trouble again, mark my words. That boy was trouble from the moment he exited my womb."
"Do you," I said, slowly, trying not to show my exasperation, "know where Mahuizoh might be?"
"My cousin isn't home," the younger woman said. "He didn't come home last night, either."
"Sleeping out with his whores," Cocochi mumbled.
The younger woman's eyes went upwards, briefly. "He's not here." She lowered her voice and said, "If he was here, she'd know it, and she wouldn't leave him a moment of peace."
I didn't think Cocochi was deliberately trying to impede my inquiry. Though I dearly would have liked to tone down some of that acidity, it wasn't my place.
"Any ideas where he might be?" I asked.
"In the girls' calmecac?" the young woman started, and then covered her mouth. "His sister is there," she said, a little too belatedly.
I sighed. When having an affair, be discreet, which was obviously an art neither Neutemoc nor Mahuizoh had mastered. I was starting to think subtlety wasn't the hallmark of Jaguar Knights.
"I know about the calmecac," I said finally. "Any other ideas?"
"What's he saying?" Cocochi asked.
The younger woman shook her head, in answer to my previous question.
"Can we look around the house?" I asked.
She shrugged. "Of course," she said, with a tired smile. "It will give Auntie Cocochi something to harp on for days." And get the attention of Mahuizoh's mother away from her, which would surely be restful.
Again, not much. We searched room after luxurious room: most of them were occupied by Mahuizoh's aunts, uncles, siblings and siblings' descendants, but Mahuizoh himself was nowhere to be found. Not a trace of him, or of someone who might know where he was. Wherever was he keeping Eleuia? Why abduct her, rather than kill her, if he hadn't wanted something out of her – sex, abject excuses for her infidelity – something else entirely?
Disappointed, Ixtli and I went back to the Duality House. We settled in a small, airy room that served as the headquarters for his regiment. A map was spread out on a reed mat, depicting the four districts of Tenochtitlan, with the streets and the canals coloured in a different pattern, and small counters obviously standing for men or units of men. Ixtli looked to be a careful, meticulous planner.
Slaves brought us refreshments, and a quick meal of atole, maize porridge leavened with spices. I washed it down with cactus juice, enjoying the tart, prickling taste on my tongue.
"We're wasting our time," Ixtli said. "Why don't we just arrest everyone? We might just start with that awful old woman."
I shook my head, although I had the same sense of standing on the brink of failure. "Do you really think it will solve anything?"
"No," Ixtli said. "But it would be something. Are we going to run around Tenochtitlan another cursed time?"
I said, "I have no idea where to look, but…"
His face was grimly amused. "Wherever he's hiding, we can't find it."
"No," I said. But we needed to find him. We needed Eleuia, alive, and evidence to present to Neutemoc's trial.
Tlaloc's lightning strike me, how could I be so utterly ineffective?
"Can you ask around the city?" I asked Ixtli.
He shrugged, in a manner that implied he didn't have much hope. "The Guardian put us at your disposal. I'll do my work. But I'll warn you beforehand–"
"That you promise nothing. I know," I snapped, and realised how tired I was. It was late evening by now. The sun had set. Every passing moment lessened the light that filtered through the entrance-curtain, and we still had no trail. Nothing. "I'm sorry," I said. "It's been a bone-breaking day."
Ixtli looked at me much as Yaotl had, on the previous evening. "Go get some sleep, priest. You can't help here. We'll send for you the moment we find him."
Ixtli was right. They'd be more efficient without my hampering them.
I walked back to my temple in a tense mood, thinking of Neutemoc at the Imperial Audience. Duality, what was I going to tell Huei?
There was no vigil in the darkened shrine: a handful of offering priests were laying out marigold flowers on the altar, but the hymns wouldn't start for another hour. Frustrated, I found a small, empty room reserved for the instruction of the calmecac students, and closing my eyes, sat in meditation.
It didn't work. All I could focus on wasn't the safety of the Fifth World, but the missing Mahuizoh; the fate of my brother, hanging in the balance; and over it all, the shadowy shape of Xochiquetzal, unattainable, unadulterated desire.
The Duality curse us. Did I really need to dwell on the goddess now?
I changed approaches, and made my offerings of blood: drawing thorns through my earlobes, once, twice, three times, until the sharp, stabbing pain had drowned every one of my thoughts.
But I still couldn't banish the image of the Quetzal Flower. In my mind, it merged with that of Priestess Eleuia: everything a man could desire or aspire to, a woman who would suck the marrow from your bones and still leave you smiling.
I threw the bloodied thorns on the floor, exasperated. I needed to focus on Neutemoc, not on a goddess I didn't worship.
Go bury yourself with the dead, Acatl, if you can't deal with what makes us alive.
I wasn't a coward. I'd made my choice, entered the priesthood of Mictlantecuhtli, but I hadn't been running away from the battlefield. I hadn't been running away from life.
The Southern Hummingbird strike Her. I wasn't a coward.
"Acatl-tzin?" The voice tore me from my nightmares.
Ichtaca. Good, reliable Ichtaca, his thoughtful face an anchor for my sanity. "Yes?" I said, attempting to keep my voice from shaking.
If he heard it, he gave no sign of it, save for a slight tightening of his lips. "You have a visitor. It's late at night, but given how urgent the matter sounded…"
I shook my head. Ixtli. It had to be Ixtli, with news of where the Jaguar Knight Mahuizoh was. "No," I said. "Show them in."
Ichtaca's lips pursed again. "In here?" he said. His torch illuminated the whitewashed walls, the minimal furniture. "As you wish."
But the man who came behind Ichtaca wasn't who I'd hoped for, not at all.
"Acatl-tzin," Teomitl said. He radiated untapped energy: the magical veil around him absorbing it, pulsing like a beating heart. "I've done what you asked of me."
I tried to remember what task I'd found for Teomitl. Something that would keep him busy, that would keep him away from me. Searching t
he girls' calmecac school, wasn't it?
"I see," I said, trying not to let my disappointment show. Whatever Teomitl had found, it could have no bearing on the investigation.
"I was given something for you," Teomitl said. "By a young girl in one of the furthest courtyards."
The young girl with the nahual, the one who saw far too much for someone so young. I hadn't imagined she would contact me again.
"She says she found it in the bushes near the centre of the courtyard. Probably shaken loose when the beast leapt over the wall."
He was speaking too fast for me to follow: every word tumbled on top of the previous one, forming the basis of some arcane structure I couldn't comprehend. I raised a hand. "Slow down, Teomitl. What did she find?"
Teomitl smiled, and held out his hand. "This," he said.
It was the missing pendant from Eleuia's room. As I'd suspected, it represented the warrior alone, an exquisite miniature of an Eagle Knight in full regalia. The stone was obsidian, though strangely enough, it didn't shine in the torchlight…
No! This wasn't obsidian.
I reached out for the pendant. "May I?" I asked Teomitl.
He dropped it in my hand. "It was meant for you."
I rubbed my fingers on it, felt the familiar protective energy arc from the pendant to my heart, but far, far weaker.
Not obsidian. It was jade. Blackened jade.
And that in turn could only mean one thing: that I had been wrong. Only underworld magic could blacken jade so thoroughly.
EIGHT
The Jade Heart
"I don't understand," Teomitl said, as I tied my cloak around my shoulders. "What does it prove?"
It proved I had been mistaken. It proved Ceyaxochitl had been wrong. Incompetents. Accursed incompetents. No wonder we couldn't find a nahual. No wonder the beast had been able to leap over that wall: it had never been a jaguar.
I strode into the courtyard of my temple. A group of novice priests in grey cloaks, who had been talking among themselves, hurriedly walked out of my way. "It proves we need to change what we're looking for."
"It's not a nahual?"
I shook my head. To blacken jade… I wasn't sure, but it was probably a beast of shadows, summoned from the eighth level of the underworld.
Which meant two things: the first was that, since underworld magic was involved, I could track the beast after all. The second was that I didn't have to worry about the summoner: the underworld had its own justice. The Wind of Knives punished those who blurred the boundaries between the underworld and the Fifth World, and our summoner would soon find himself facing his own executioner.
All I had to do was find the beast and send it back to Mictlan. And rescue Eleuia. I was reasonably sure, though, that it was too late for the priestess. Whatever her abductor had wanted of her, they had it by now.
But first, I wanted to ascertain something.
At the door of the girls' calmecac, the priestess who was standing guard looked at me questioningly. "I have to check something in Priestess Eleuia's room."
"At this hour of the night?"
"It's a matter of life and death," I said. Behind me, Teomitl's footsteps slowed down. The priestess's gaze moved to him: a warrior wearing a white cloak embroidered with hummingbirds, and with an obsidian-studded macuahitl sword at his side.
"He's with me," I said, not wanting to discuss the matter further.
"You people," she said. "Go in, if that's what you want. But don't cause a fuss."
As we ran through the various courtyards, under the curious gazes of young girls, I reflected that a young warrior and a priest for the Dead had to cause some fuss within her school. Unless she had a different definition than I did.
Eleuia's courtyard was still silent: even Zollin's rooms were dark, no light filtering between the painted pillars of its entrance. The nahual's trail, subjected to daylight, had completely vanished. But what remained…
What remained was another kind of magic entirely: dark and roiling, and angry, the one that had given its flavour to the summoning. Underworld magic.
It was the faded trail of a beast of shadows, eager to feast on a human heart, to receive its promised reward.
"Two magics," I said aloud. I could have wept. Why hadn't I seen that before?
Teomitl had followed me into the courtyard; he stood, silently watching the pine tree at the centre as if he could extract some meaning from its twisted shadow. "Two spells?" he asked.
"I didn't think…" I attempted to make sense of what I'd seen. "Someone summoned a beast of shadows from Mictlan. And someone else – someone in this calmecac – added nahual magic on top of it, to cover the trail."
"I don't see the point–" Teomitl started.
"Beasts of shadows aren't common," I said. "You can track them." I could track it. I could find Eleuia. But a full day and night had elapsed since her disappearance. The beast, if it had not killed her, had had time to do whatever its summoner had wished it to.
"You couldn't track a nahual?" Teomitl asked, with faint contempt.
I shook my head. "Too many of them. And the magic dissipates in daylight. But using one magic to cover another…" That had been a masterful stroke; an uncommon idea that required a great knowledge of magic.
Who had captured Eleuia, and why? Was it Mahuizoh? I didn't know. But I didn't think he'd have the skill to cover his tracks, even if he had breached the boundary between the underworld and the Fifth World.
Anyone with the proper knowledge could summon a beast of shadows. But if I could find the beast, I would learn who its summoner was: a beast of shadows was imprinted with the few moments that had followed its entrance into the Fifth World. It would remember its summoner.
"I see." Teomitl's face was set. "Now what?"
"Now you go home," I said.
Teomitl shook his head. "No."
It was late; I was tired, and not in a mood to negotiate. "You don't understand," I said. "It's going to get dangerous. Very dangerous."
Impatience was etched into every feature of his face. "All the more reason for you not to go into this alone."
"I've been tracking beasts of shadows for ten years," I said.
"Yes," Teomitl said. "But you're tired."
I started. "How do you know?"
He shrugged. "I can read it. It's not so hard, Acatltzin."
Not only was I tired, it showed even to callow youths. "I don't need help," I said.
"But you might," Teomitl said.
"Look–" I started, and stifled the yawn that threatened to distort my face.
"I'll be careful," Teomitl said. "I know how to fight."
"It's not a warrior's fight."
"No," Teomitl said. "But it is still a fight."
"And you're that eager to get into trouble?"
"To prove myself." The hunger in his gaze was palpable: an obsession that was eating him from inside.
"Haven't you proved yourself already?" I asked. "You took a prisoner."
He snorted. "With my comrades' help. That's no feat of arms."
I sighed, and presented what I hoped would be a decisive argument. "Understand this," I said. "If you do help me, you can't breathe a word about it."
Most youths would have refused at that point. For what is the use of feats, if you cannot boast of them to your comrades? But Teomitl tossed his head, contemptuously. "I don't care about my peers' opinions. Is it a 'yes', then?"
I had exhausted my arguments; and time was running short. "You'll do as I say," I snapped.
Teomitl smiled widely. "Of course."
"And don't put yourself in danger needlessly. I don't need a death on my conscience." But he would not go the way of my apprentice, Payaxin, wouldn't die because of a mistake.
Teomitl shook his head, as if implying that needless deaths were utter foolishness.
"Let's go," I said, aware I'd just been played on, with the same skill as a musician on the flute. For all his arrogance, Teomitl was a shrewd judge
of men. Too shrewd for his own good, perhaps.
Before Teomitl and I started tracking down the beast of shadows, I did take the precaution of sending someone to the Imperial Palace, to see if there had been any further developments in Neutemoc's case.
The offering priest – Palli, the burly nobleman's son who usually guarded the storehouse – returned as Teomitl and I were in the armoury of the temple, lifting throwing spears and arrows to find those tipped with magical obsidian.
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