Harbinger of the Storm - By Aliette De Bodard Page 0,91
baths, seated on one of the low stone benches. Three attendants stood by his side. The firebox at his feet was already warm, and the feathers of his headdress drooped in the growing heat. His face was mottled, a dark shadow against the vapour, and his arms and legs bore the wheals of the rushes and of the blades of cutting grass the attendants had struck him with: thin raised welts, with blood barely pearling up through the broken skin.
His eyes were closed, and he didn’t move when we came in. “Ah, Acatl.”
”Impressive,” I said. He was deep into his meditation, his eyes still closed; but obviously he saw on another plane than the Fifth World.
”A trick, as the She-Snake would call them.” His voice was deprecating. “I see the pup is with you.”
I didn’t have to turn round to guess Teomitl’s hands would have clenched. “Let’s try to be civil here,” I said, ignoring the fact that I was talking to one Revered Speaker and a man who could very well become one in the future. “As you said, the Fifth World is at stake. Whatever quarrels you have can wait.”
Teomitl glowered at Nezahual-tzin, but he said nothing.
”I’m surprised to find you here,” I said. “Sweatbaths don’t belong to Quetzalcoatl.” Several gods and goddesses took an interest in those places of purifications, not least among Whom was Tezcatlipoca, the Smoking Mirror, Quetzalcoatl’s eternal enemy.
Nezahual-tzin smiled. The vapour swirled around him, coalesced into the shape of a huge serpent, so much clearer than the one I’d seen in his rooms that I could count every feather, every jewelled scale on the huge body wrapped around the boy-emperor. “Enemy territory is where you prove yourself, where you’re most sharply defined against what you’re not, what you’ll never be.”
”Interesting,” I said. “Nezahual-tzin, there is something I need to ask you about Tizoc–”
He shook his head. “After the ritual. It can wait.”
I wasn’t sure it could.
”We’re not here to talk.” Nezahual-tzin leant back against the wall of the sweatbath. The serpent leant with him, growing larger and larger, its outline sinking into the wall, gaining colour and texture until it seemed a living fresco.
“Into the place of the fleshless, away from the abode of life
You came, You descended
Into the region of mystery
For the precious bones, for men to inhabit the earth…”
The serpent was growing larger; the world was receding, fading into insignificance, the city a child’s map, spread on the ground far, far below us, the Fifth Sun so close we might touch it.
“You came, You ascended
Into the gardens of the gods, into the place of the Duality
You came, You made them whole
The broken bones, made whole through Your penance…”
Abruptly, everything faded out and I came to in the vapourfilled room, the unpleasant prickle of an obsidian blade against my back.
The attendants had retreated, Nezahual-tzin had risen, regal and wrathful. “What is the meaning of this?”
”You can’t possibly–” Teomitl said.
I turned, slowly. Three warriors stood with their macuahitl swords pointed at me; and Quenami was with them, smiling from ear to ear. “I don’t understand,” I said, though I did perfectly. My time had just run out. “Teomitl is right. You have no authority.”
”Oh, I don’t do this on my authority,” Quenami said. He smiled even more widely. I hadn’t thought that was possible, but the son of a dog managed it. “Tizoc-tzin is the one who gave the order.”
”On what motive?” I asked.
Quenami jerked his chin in Nezahual-tzin’s direction. “Conspiracy with foreigners against the good of the Mexica Empire should do, for the moment.”
Meaning there was another reason, and that, given enough time, he’d find a way to present it before the judges, whoever they might be. “I see.” I threw a glance at my two companions who now stood apart, as if to make it clear they’d have nothing to do with each other. It might have been amusing in other circumstances.
Teomitl was working himself up to a speech; I silenced him with a brief shake of my head, and hoped to the gods he’d have the wits to remain silent. It was highly doubtful anyone would arrest Nezahual-tzin, who was Revered Speaker of an allied city, but Teomitl did not have such protections. I didn’t think Tizoc-tzin would want any harm to come to him, not unless the fool spoke up for me.
Luck must have been with me, for Teomitl remained silent, his eyes wide in his dark face, as if not quite sure what had happened.