Harbinger of the Storm - By Aliette De Bodard Page 0,120

extinction.

TWENTY-TWO

Sacrifice

I could tell that Quenami was none too pleased to see me. By the frown on his face, he was currently debating how best to proceed with my arrest.

We all stood on the wide platform of the Great Temple, in the middle of two altar-stones encrusted with blood. On the right hand side was the shrine of Huitzilpochtli, painted the colour of blood, with carved skulls on the mantel above the door; on the left hand side, the shrine of Tlaloc, with a simple vertical pattern carved in green. Everything seemed deserted, only a handful of people amidst all that blood, the pitiful few living among the dead.

Acamapichtli’s eyes flicked from Tizoc-tzin to me, and then to Quenami. “Don’t be a fool,” he snarled. “At least, not a bigger one than you’ve already been.”

”He… ” Quenami said. “He killed…”

How dare he accuse me of that? “You did that yourself,” I said. “You and your schemes to put an unworthy man on the throne.” I turned to the She-Snake, who was watching me with an ironic smile on his face, possibly the only person on the whole platform who seemed somewhat happy to see me. “Please tell me that he hadn’t been crowned.”

The She-Snake shook his head. His gaze was expressionless, as if the slickness, the animal smell of the blood around him didn’t matter at all. “That was his dearest wish, the one for which he had sacrificed everything. Did you think he wouldn’t put on the Turquoise-and-Gold Crown as soon as he was able to?”

I didn’t know. I couldn’t think. I could just stare at the damage, at the sky above us, and the lack of anything to protect us any more. In the space of days we’d lost two Revered Speakers, the last one killed by the god Himself, the god who had now withdrawn His protection from us.

Absurdly, incongruously, I remembered a time a year ago, when the Storm Lord had attempted to seize power, when I’d sat in Ceyaxochitl’s temple and wondered whether Tlaloc’s rule would be any more gentle than the Southern Hummingbird’s. I’d said no. I’d believed the Old Ones, the gods of the corn and of the rain, would be worse than the Southern Hummingbird.

But now, standing on this platform where the whole council had just died, under the warm, merciless gaze of the Fifth Sun, I couldn’t be so sure anymore.

If Acamapichtli saw what was going through my mind, he said nothing of it.

Footsteps echoed beside me. Nezahual-tzin, out of breath, had just finished crossing the platform. He leant against the largest altar-stone, the one dedicated to the Southern Hummingbird, his eyes rolling up, shifting to the white of nacre. No-one paid him more than a cursory glance. My stomach lurched, and I fought off a wave of unease. I felt like a fisherman’s boat adrift in a storm, the shore masked by veils of rain and fog, and no other landmarks than the heaving waves rising to drown me. Nothing was right, not anymore.

”There has to be something we can do,” I said. “Something to–”

”Crowning a new Revered Speaker would take days. There’s nothing we can do, not in so little time.” Quenami looked at Tizoc-tzin’s body, the flesh of his face heaving up as if he was about to retch. “Nothing, Acatl. We played and lost.”

You played and lost, the Storm Lord’s Lightning strike you. Your own fault…

No. No. That wasn’t the way forward. I needed to think, to find a solution.

But I had spent most of the journey to Tenochtitlan trying to think of precisely that, and found nothing.

”I fail to see the difficulty.” Acamapichtli’s voice was harsh and cruelly amused.

”He can send the star-demons any time–” Teomitl started.

”Silence, whelp,” Acamapichtli snapped.

Teomitl’s face contorted. “You–”

”I am High Priest of the Storm Lord.” Light was coalescing around him, a soft grey radiance like a torch seen through the gloom. “One of the three highest powers in the Mexica Empire.”

”You’re nothing.”

”Teomitl!” I snapped. “Now isn’t the time. What do you see that’s so amusing, Acamapichtli?”

He smiled again. “As I said. I fail to see the difficulty. The Southern Hummingbird has withdrawn His favour from the Mexica Empire, and taken the life of our Revered Speaker into His lands. All we have to do is convince Him to relent.”

Convince Him to– “You’re mad,” I said. Even a hint of the heartland had been enough to tear me to pieces; surely he wasn’t suggesting that we go down into it. “He’s a war