Harbinger of the Storm - By Aliette De Bodard Page 0,92
glum, Acatl,” Quenami said as the guards took me away from the sweatbath. “We should have a new Revered Speaker to decide your fate.”
Oh yes. And we both knew what he would be, and what he would decide.
SIXTEEN
In Enemy Territory
The cell was small, a square of beaten earth surrounded by four adobe walls, with barely enough space for me to lie down, and a mangy reed mat as its only furniture.
But still, as far as cells went, it was comfortable. A year ago my brother Neutemoc, a respected Jaguar Knight, had awaited his judgement in a wooden cage on the platform before the palace, out in the midday sun. At least I was in the shade, and they had even given me a few maize flatbreads.
The ground under my feet was slightly warm, impregnated with a magic I wasn’t quite sure where to place, faint and distant, like the echo of something vast.
The first thing I tried after they’d drawn the entrance-curtain closed was to cast a spell. The remnants of that were still on the ground, my blood a duller shade than the earth, stubbornly refusing to quicken. It was as if something were blocking me – perhaps the other High Priests? I hadn’t imagined they had that much power.
With nothing much to do, I sat against the wall furthest from the entrance, watching the quincunx I’d drawn on the ground recede further into the shadows as the blood sank into the earth.
Everything seemed to grow fainter as time passed. Emptiness crawled across my limbs – a terrible sensation of dislocation like a maize stalk uprooted from the field. I tried moving my fingers, and it was as if my body no longer knew how to answer.
The flatbreads. Was that the same poison that had killed Ceyaxochitl? But no, I was a paranoid fool. Manatzpa had admitted to that, the only thing he had turned out to be responsible for, in the long string of magical offences that had brought me here.
But still…
Still, I felt as if I was rising in and out of consciousness – sleeping a restless sleep, waking up gasping and no longer quite sure of where I was, as if whatever they had put in here was eating at me, gnawing at my spirit little by little.
With faltering hands, I reached for my obsidian knife, hoping for the comfort of Lord Death’s power arcing through me, the aching, stretched emptiness that was my province, but they had taken that away from me, too.
The Duality curse me, I needed to focus. I couldn’t let it end like this, not with the star-demons the gods knew where, not with Teomitl still vulnerable against the intrigues of his brother. I needed to–
My hand fell back on the ground, limp, and somehow I couldn’t muster the strength to lift it again. Shadows flickered at the edge of my vision, like the smoke of the She-Snake’s ritual, slowly spreading to cover the world.
There is a temple, in the Sacred Precinct, the walls of which are painted black…
I needed to get up, I needed to…
The name of that temple is Tlillan. Darkness.
Just one moment. A moment’s rest, that was all that I needed, a moment with my eyes closed, thinking of nothing but the bare walls, a moment here on the earth, warmed up by its touch. I needed…
The entrance-curtain was drawn aside with a jarring sound. I knew that sound, I thought, but it seemed too far away to be recovered, too much of a struggle to retrieve; like lifting my hands, like clenching my fingers. Like…
Footsteps echoed on the beaten earth, and a dark silhouette came to stand over me, its features moving in and out of focus in the shadows.
”Well, aren’t you a sight. Pathetic, Acatl.”
Acamapichtli? I’d expected Quenami with more accusations, or promises of what punishments Tizoc-tzin would push for; but why Acamapichtli? He hadn’t even been in the palace recently. He was in disgrace, according to the She-Snake. Why?
Dimly, as if from a great distance, I saw him bend over me. Something glinted in the darkness, coming to rest by my side and gradually, as the fog across my vision lifted, I made out its shape – a polished jaguar fang, carved with images of seashells and frogs, shimmering with the blue-green magic of Tlaloc the Storm Lord. A slim piece of paper wrapped around it, steeped in a dark, pulsing colour I knew all too well – fresh blood.
Acamapichtli had withdrawn, was once more towering