Harbinger of the Storm - By Aliette De Bodard Page 0,96
hands to stop my fall. Pain shot up my wrists, an agony I silently pledged to Lord Death.
Slowly, like a hurt animal, I pulled my hands back, lifted my head to look at my surroundings.
More riots of colours – frescoes against the wall, the painted gods and goddesses wavering as if in a great heat, feather fans negligently propped against the pillars, carvings, rearing into sudden focus and just as suddenly vanishing into blurriness.
Close my eyes… I had never wanted so much to close my eyes, but I couldn’t. I needed to see… I needed to…
”We convene here today for the trial of Acatl, High Priest for the Dead. The charge is treason.”
Quenami. He stood somewhere to my left and ahead of me. I blinked, struggling to bring the world into focus. I could feel saliva drip down the side of my mouth again. I must have looked like an imbecile. Good. I needed them to underestimate me, even though I wasn’t entirely sure what I would gain by it.
Ahead was a dais I recognised from another lifetime. This time it held two people. The one to my left, decked in emerald-green, had to be Tizoc-tzin, and the patch of black, placed slightly lower than Tizoc-tzin, could only be the She-Snake.
”I’ve read the charges,” the She-Snake said. “I’m not quite sure what to make of them.” The volume of his voice wouldn’t remain steady, it kept hovering between a whisper and a shout. The Duality take me, why couldn’t I focus on anything useful?
”I don’t see what there is to add,” Quenami said. “First Xahuia, and then Nezahual-tzin. There is a definite pattern.”
”I admit to not knowing him as well as you do.” I couldn’t make out the tone of the She-Snake’s voice. “But, nevertheless, I’m surprised. His record is impeccable.”
”Biding his time,” Tizoc-tzin said, sharply.
”Until Axayacatl died?”
”Until such time as he could damage us most,” Tizoc-tzin said. “You have seen him worming his way into the court, weaving his webs like a spider for a few years now. First the appointment, then the taking on of my brother as a student, and finally, his sister…”
Mihmatini. I had to do something, I had to… My mouth wouldn’t move. The Southern Hummingbird blind Acamapichtli, couldn’t he have carved a stronger talisman?
”Much of that seems irrelevant, if not outright defamatory.” The She-Snake’s voice was mild, but I felt Quenami recoil. “And I don’t see the point of this farce, Tizoc. It’s also quite obvious he can’t speak. I’ll remind you that pain is an offering to the gods, not a means to silence people or interrogate them.”
”I… ” I managed through parched lips. I clenched my hands, felt my skin ache where Acamapichtli’s jaguar fang had seared it. “I… can… speak.” Every word was a burning stone, charring my windpipe and my lips as it came out.
”Quenami–” Tizoc-tzin snapped.
”It wasn’t meant to happen,” Quenami said. “I made sure–”
”Of what?” The She-Snake asked, but did not wait for an answer. “What do you have to answer the charges against you, Acatl?”
I had to focus. There had been a quarrel and the council had split, five days before Axayacatl-tzin’s death. On the following day, Manatzpa-tzin had gone to a priest of Quetzalcoatl the Feathered Serpent, to buy the Breath of the Precious Twin. “They’re hiding something,” I said, slowly, carefully.
”You do not have the right to speak!” Tizoc-tzin all but screamed.
”Perhaps they are,” the She-Snake said. His face swam into focus, grave and concerned. I could no longer be sure if it was an act or not. “But that has nothing to do with the accusations against you.”
”They… they’re trying to silence me,” I said. “Because I know… you did something to the council, didn’t you, Tizoctzin? Did whatever it took to be sure you’d be named Revered Speaker, even if you had to sacrifice them one by one.”
”That’s a lie,” Tizoc-tzin said, but I heard the panic in his voice, and the She-Snake must have as well.
”I was the one who ordered Xahuia arrested,” I said. I tried to stand, but my muscles wouldn’t support me. “How can you call me a supporter of Texcoco?”
There was a moment of silence, but Quenami was not about to be undone so easily. “And the boy-emperor?” he asked. “Nezahual-tzin. Will you also claim to have been investigating him?”
”He offered his help to find his sister.”
”And you took it?” Quenami said.
The note of triumph in his voice was all too evident. “Texcoco is a member of the