Obsidian & Blood (20 page)
"There is nothing to understand," the Wind of Knives said. "A transgression was made. Justice must be dealt."
Though He had been human once – a long, long time ago, before He swore himself to Lord Death and became the Wind – He didn't think like us any more. An eternity of watching over the passage of souls and of dealing with transgressors had moulded His mind into something else. Pity, or even reason, was alien to Him.
"There are other lives at stake," I said, raising my good hand in the air, as if to ward Him off. "I need to know who she was working with."
He watched me, unmoving. Moonlight outlined the shape of His head: huge and pointed, more akin to that of a beast of shadows than that of a human. "I do not investigate," He said.
"But I do," I said, and groped for arguments that He could accept. "She wasn't the only transgressor. There are others still at large."
He was silent for a while. At last, He said, "I end all transgressions. She was the only one to open the gate."
"But what of those who gave her the magic?" I asked, sensing an opening I could wedge myself into. "Aren't they as guilty as she?"
"Guilt is irrelevant," the Wind of Knives said.
"So, if I gave people the means to summon a beast, you would never kill me? That doesn't seem just."
He looked at me, lowering His head in a shimmer of blades. "I am justice," He said. "But not, I think, your justice."
"I can't accept–" I started.
"Acatl." His voice stopped me. "Do not lie to Me."
"I'm not lying." I still stood in the entrance; and He still did not strike me down, although it was only a matter of time before He grew bored with me.
"You are protecting her," the Wind of Knives said, "because she is of your blood."
"She isn't of my blood," I said. But as I said it, I realised that all I had given Him, all my reasons for His not killing Huei, were indeed just convenient lies. If I dug deep enough, the real reason didn't have anything to do with the investigation: it was that I couldn't face the thought of Huei's death. It wasn't just. There could be no exceptions. But I could not let Him pass. I could not let Him kill Huei. It went beyond reason.
I stood as tall as I could; and I raised the knife that Mictlantecuhtli had blessed, feeling the power of the underworld seep into my flesh. "I cannot let you pass," I whispered.
He came, again, to stand in front of me. Once more the wind keened into my ears; once more, I heard an endless lament for the dead, echoing in my mind.
"This knife?" He said. He reached out, plucked it from my fingers, and snapped it in two. "You're not Mictlantecuhtli's agent, Acatl. You have scraps of His power, but not enough to stop Me. And it is as it should be."
Before I could break out of my shocked stupor, He'd reached out again and enfolded me into His embrace. The obsidian shards dug into my flesh, each a source of fiery pain that spread outwards. I gritted my teeth not to scream and bit my tongue, so hard that blood flowed into my mouth.
He lifted me upwards effortlessly, gaining speed as He did so. In a brief, panicked moment, as I spun under the pitiless gaze of the stars, I saw what He was going to do: throw me out of His way like a sack of useless refuse.
I tried to grope for a hold, anything I could use to slow Him down. But my good hand closed only on cold, cutting shards, which I couldn't hold. His hands opened, releasing me. I fell, the lament of Mictlan's souls rising in my ears as the ground got closer and closer.
I had time to think on how thoughtless I had been, seconds before the Wind's hands closed again, catching me a hand-span from the ground. Pain blossomed everywhere He touched me, in my left leg, in my left hand, rising to meld with that coming from my chest.
Almost gently, the Wind of Knives laid me on the ground. "You serve well. But do not presume to interfere," He said, even as He walked away into the house.
I lay on the ground, amidst the discarded bandages. The smell of pulque rose to fill my nostrils. I struggled to get up. Blood ran down my chest: the beast's wounds had re-opened. Teomitl would be angry, I thought, with a short, wry laugh. But even that slight contraction of my abdominal muscles hurt. Every movement I made was constrained by pain. After one or two attempts, I gave up, and fell back onto the ground. I lay there, feeling pain rise within me like the steady beat of drums at the sacrifices.
He was in the house now, killing Huei. Things were as they should be, as He had said. I thought of Neutemoc in his cage – and of Huei's proud, bitter face as she told me about her family's future – and a different pain took hold in my chest.
What a fool I had been. The underworld's justice could not be swayed, or even delayed. In my mind, the familiar pressure of the Wind of Knives receded: giving way before the pain, I thought, dizzily.
"Acatl?" A familiar voice: my sister's, I realised. My head turned towards her, instinctively. Pain shot up my neck, but it was almost muted compared to the pain in my chest.
All I could see of Mihmatini were her sandals, and then her deerembroidered skirt, as she knelt on the ground. "You're hurt."
"Tell me something else," I whispered.
She snorted. "Men! Why must you always be heroes?"
"I didn't–" My reasons were too much work to articulate.
"It looks like you did try," she said, then: "Can you bring some maguey sap?" I presumed she was speaking to a slave.
"What happened?" I asked. "The Wind–"
"He's gone, Acatl."
"What happened?" I asked. "The Wind–"
"He's gone, Acatl."
Gone? Then that was the real reason why the pressure in my mind had lessened.
Mihmatini's fingers ran over my chest, slowly, with the efficiency of a healer: gestures she'd probably learnt in school. For all that, I still couldn't help sucking in my breath as she probed the beast's claw-marks.
"Sorry," she said. "I'll go more carefully. Where in the Fifth World did you get those?"
"The beast of shadows," I said, curtly. "Huei."
"She's gone, too," Mihmatini said. "While you were outside temporising with the Wind, she left by the back door. The Wind is chasing her. She's slightly ahead of him; but she cast some kind of spell before leaving. It certainly seemed to slow Him down." She sounded halfway between horror and admiration. Her hands held me, effortlessly, as I struggled to rise. "Don't be a fool. You're leaking blood all over the courtyard. You won't go far."
"I need to–"
"You need some bandages, and rest." She sighed. "Knowing you, I'll settle for the bandages. Don't worry. We'll get you healed." More feet in my field of view: naked this time, with calluses. Slaves.
"Here," Mihmatini said.
That was all the advance warning I got: for the second time this night, maguey sap was poured onto my wounds, and the pain that spread from the contact points was almost worse than before. Tears filled my eyes by the time they were finished applying the lotion.
"Here," Mihmatini said at last, and hands lifted me, propped me upright. "Don't move."
I wasn't planning on that.
She was silent as the slaves dressed my wounds and splinted my arm again: Teomitl's makeshift device had got broken in my aborted fall.
When they were finished, the slaves left. I was feeling more and more like a funeral bundle: bandages tightened around my whole chest, and spread downwards on my left leg. But at least I could move – not much, the bandages constrained me tightly – and I was ready to leave. Mihmatini helped me to my feet.
"Where did Huei go?" I asked. I realised I didn't need to ask the question. I closed my eyes, and felt, beyond the pain that filled my body, the familiar pressure of the Wind's mind. He was once again moving through the streets of the Moyotlan district, though He appeared bewildered for some reason. Huei's spell, surely. What had she cast? How had she known all that magic? "She's still in Moyotlan. He hasn't caught her."
Mihmatini squeezed my hand, briefly, and withdrew. "There's a boat outside in the canal. Oyohuaca will row for you. She's a competent girl," she said. "Go."
"I don't need–" I started, stubbornly.
"I don't need–" I started, stubbornly.
Mihmatini shook her head, more amused than angry. "Help? Can't you accept, for once in your life, that you can't do it on your own?"
A groundless accusation: I had taken Teomitl's help. And then I thought, uneasily, of the way I'd summarily sent him home, getting rid of him before the climax.
Mihmatini watched me, silent – not judging, she'd never judged me. For her, I'd always be the brother who helped her climb trees, and brought her treats from the festivals. No, not quite; for the priestesses at the calmecac had changed her, moulded her into this coolly competent girl whom I hardly recognised.
"I'll take the boat," I said, finally.
Her face relaxed, a minute sag of her skin that made her less alien. "Go," she said.
"With not even a warning?" I asked.
"With not even a warning?" I asked.
"You know them all, Acatl. And you'll still ignore them. Go."
But, as I left the garden, she still called after me, "Try to come back standing on your feet, will you?"
Feeling even more broken than before, I limped out, bent on finding the Wind before he found Huei.
Given my present state, it was a hopeless undertaking, but I had to try. For Huei's sake, and also for my own.
ELEVENServant of the Gods
In the canal before Neutemoc's house, Oyohuaca, a slave-girl clad in a rough maguey-fibre shift, was waiting for me in a long, pointed reed boat. I climbed in, wincing as my bandages shifted.
"Where to?" Oyohuaca asked, straightening up the lantern at the boat's bow.
I closed my eyes, feeling for the Wind's presence. He was a few streets away from us. He had slowed down, oddly enough, and was going in a slow, wide circle towards the south-western edge of the Moyotlan district.
"Left," I said.
She rowed in silence, with the easy mastery of one who had lived all her life at the water's edge. With each gesture, she whispered the same words, over and over like a litany for the dead. It took me a while to realise that the words were those of a prayer asking for the blessing of Tlaloc, the Storm Lord, God of Rain, and of His wife Chalchiutlicue, the Jade Skirt, Goddess of Lakes and Streams.
"O Lord, Our Lord,The people, the subjects – the led, the guided, the governed,Their flesh and bones are stricken with want and privation
They are worn, spent and in torment–"
There was something eerie about the sound of Oyohuaca's voice, floating over the canals in counterpoint to the splash of her oars. As we moved into deserted canal after deserted canal, it seemed to call up the mist, to trail after us. And something else trailed too, something dark and quiet that swam after the boat, biding its time.
Under the splash of the oars – in, out of the water, in, out – was its song: a quiet, hypnotic air that wove itself within my mind, melding with Oyohuaca's prayers until I no longer knew what belonged to whom.
"In Tlalocan, the verdant house,The Blessed Land of the DrownedThe dead men play at balls, they cast the reedsGo forth, go forth to the place of many cloudsTo where the thick mists mark the Blessed Land
The verdant house, the house of Tlaloc and Chalchiutlicue"
For too long, it had bided its time at night, quieting its hunger with fish, with newts, with algae: the sustenance of the poor, the abandoned. But now it smelled blood: a living heart, so tantalisingly close. Soon, it would feast until satiation…
"Let the people be blessed with fullness and abundanceLet them behold, let them enjoy the jade and the turquoise – the precious
vegetationThe flesh of Your servants, the Providers, the Gods of RainLet the plants and animals be blessed with fullness and abundance–"
The song stopped; the oars fell against the boat's frame with a dull sound that resonated in my bones. "Acatl-tzin," Oyohuaca said, urgently.
With some difficulty, I tore myself from my reverie. "What?"
"Don't," Oyohuaca said. The slave-girl sounded frightened.
"I don't understand." The Wind was moving again, picking up speed, straight towards the edge of Tenochtitlan.
"An
ahuizotl
," I said, aloud. A hundred memories came welling up from my childhood. The water-beasts were Chalchiutlicue's creatures; they lived in the depths of Lake Texcoco, and would drag a man to the bottom, feasting on his eyes and fingernails.
ahuizotl
," I said, aloud. A hundred memories came welling up from my childhood. The water-beasts were Chalchiutlicue's creatures; they lived in the depths of Lake Texcoco, and would drag a man to the bottom, feasting on his eyes and fingernails.
Oyohuaca's face in the moonlight was drained of all colours. "Don't listen to its song."
"I didn't know they sang."
Oyohuaca shook her head. "They don't. Not unless they truly want you. Don't listen," she said, picking up her oars again.
I thought of Huei's spell, which had so bewildered the Wind. It certainly was possible she'd summoned the beast to cover her tracks, in case some more mundane agency attempted to follow her.
How in the Fifth World had she become proficient enough to know all of this?
Oyohuaca and I followed the Wind's trail across the canals of Moyotlan. As the night became older, the houses had become silent and dark, their thatch-roofs wavering in the light of the torch; and the only sounds that came to us were the distant shell-blasts from the Sacred Precinct.
Oyohuaca kept singing her hymn, but now I could discern its urgency: it was her only protection against the ahuizotl. It didn't cover its song, though. That kept insinuating itself in my mind, whispering promises of happiness below the water – easy, it would be so easy to lean over the edge of the boat, lose myself in the Blessed Land of the Drowned…
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