Harbinger of the Storm - By Aliette De Bodard Page 0,57
Priest for the Dead.
Or perhaps Tizoc-tzin was just biding his time. I didn’t know. I’d never pretended to understand how his mind worked.
I steered the conversation to another, albeit related, subject. “Teomitl has been different lately.”
Mihmatini sat by my side with a sigh. She wore her black hair long in the fashion of unmarried women, it fell back from the smooth, perfect oval of her face. that is, until she spoiled the effect by grimacing. “He has a lot to face. He might be Master of the House of Darts in a few days, one of the inner circle, moving in the wake of power.”
”I didn’t think that would frighten him,” I said, finally.
”No. But you know how he is.” She smiled, a little self-consciously. “Always trying to be the best at everything, always judging himself to have fallen short.”
Was that the only explanation? “And that’s why he talks to Tizoc-tzin.”
”You might not like him,” Mihmatini said, and the tone of her voice implied she didn’t much care for him either. “But he’s still Teomitl’s brother. They still share something.”
”I guess,” I said, finally. Out of all my brothers, the only one I saw semi-regularly was the eldest, Neutemoc, a Jaguar Knight and successful warrior elevated into the nobility. But our understanding was recent and fragile, and I couldn’t say he’d ever been much of a confidante.
If anyone had filled that role, it had been Ceyaxochitl.
”Acatl?” Mihmatini asked.
”It’s nothing.” I watched the light glimmer across the entrancecurtain, and wondered if things would ever feel right again.
I couldn’t believe they would.
ELEVEN
The Obsidian Butterfly
I must have slept again. The priest’s healing spell was more effective than bandages, but still no miracle. I woke to the bright light of early morning. A whole day had elapsed, lost to my healing.
Teomitl was nowhere to be seen; not surprising, given my student’s inability to sit still at the best of times.
Mihmatini lay curled up in sleep behind me, looking oddly young and innocent – she who was eighteen, almost too old to be married and have children of her own already. I revised my opinion of Teomitl’s disappearance. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had slept elsewhere, rather than cast a slur on my sister’s virginity.
Good.
Everything ached, from the ribs in my chest to the stiffness in my legs, and I felt even more empty than before, as if hope and joy had drained out of me into the hole in the Fifth World.
I got up. My head didn’t spin, a vast improvement over my previous awakening, and I could stand steadily on my legs. Slowly, carefully, I dressed again into something suitable for the High Priest for the Dead, and went back to the Revered Speaker’s room.
The room was subdued, the few priests for the dead left were renewing the blood around the quincunx with their own, making sure that nothing untoward could follow the Revered Speaker into the underworld. Palli himself was sitting cross-legged at the centre of the quincunx, watching a silver plate which depicted the progress of the soul through the nine levels of Mictlan. From time to time, his lips would move around an incantation, and he would nod. Everything appeared under control.
I leaned against a wall, watching them, the familiar chants and litanies washing over me, reassuring and unchanged. For all the chaos and the uncertainty, death remained constant, always by our side, something to be relied on no matter what else might transpire.
A refuge, a goddess had once told me accusingly. I’d flinched at the time, but now I knew that she was right, and that it was nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone had a refuge: some in pomp, some in family. Mine was a temple and chants and bodies, and the god that was everywhere in the Fifth World, underlying even the most boisterous songs, the most vivid flowers.
At last, there came a pause in the rituals. Palli looked up, and his eyes met mine. He gestured to another of the priests, and motioned him to take his place at the centre. Then, carefully, he stepped out of the quincunx and walked towards me. “Acatl-tzin.”
”Tell me what’s going on,” I said.
”Revered Speaker Axayacatl-tzin is on the third level,” Palli said. “Nothing unexpected so far.”
The third level was the Obsidian Hills, still a relatively friendly place by underworld standards. If something bad happened, it would be on the deeper levels, where the beasts and creatures of the underworld prowled. “And the search?” I asked.