To some degree, Ahuítzotl and his builders had heeded the caution of Nezahualpili that the stream of water be controllable. At the angle where the aqueduct joined the causeway, and again at the point where it entered tie city, the stone trough had been notched with vertical slots, into which fitted stout boards shaped to the curvature of the trough. The boards merely had to be dropped into the slots to cut off the flow of water, should that ever be necessary.
The new structure was to be dedicated to the goddess of ponds and streams and other waters, the frog-faced Chalchihuitlicuó, and she was not so demanding of human offerings as were some other gods. So the sacrifices that day were to be only as numerous as necessary. At the far end of the aqueduct, at the spring, out of our sight, was another contingent of nobles and priests, and a number of warriors guarding a gathering of prisoners. Since we Mexíca had been lately too busy to engage even in any Flowery Wars, most of those prisoners were common bandits whom the Younger Motecuzóma had encountered in his marchings hither and yon, and captured and sent to Tenochtítlan for just such purposes.
On the causeway where Ahuítzotl stood—along with me and some hundreds of others, all of us trying to keep our various plumes and pinions from taking wing on the east wind—there were prayers and chants and invocations, during which the lesser priests swallowed a quantity of live frogs and axololtin and other water creatures, to please Chalchihuitlicuó. Then an urn fire was lighted, and some priestly secret substance sprinkled on it to make it billow a blue-colored smoke. Though the gusts of wind tore at the smoke column, it climbed high enough to signal the other ceremonial group at the Coyohuacan spring.
There the priests threw their first prisoner into the trough of that end of the aqueduct, slit his body open from throat to groin, and let his body lie there while his blood ran. Another prisoner was thrown in and the same thing done. As each earlier corpse began to run dry, it was yanked out, so that more and freshly gushing ones could be piled in. I do not know how many xochimíque were slain and drained there, before the first of their blood sluggishly oozed into view of the waiting Ahuítzotl and his priests, all of whom sent up a praiseful cheer at the sight. Another substance was sprinkled on the urn fire, producing a red smoke: the signal for the priests at the spring to cease their slaughter.
It was time for Ahuítzotl to make the most important sacrifice, and he had been provided with a uniquely suitable victim: a little girl about four years of age, dressed in a water-blue garment with green and blue gems sewn all over it. She was the daughter of a fowler who had drowned when his acáli overturned sometime before she was born, and she had been born with a face very like that of a frog—or of the goddess Chalchihuitlicue. The girl's widowed mother had taken those water-related coincidences as a sign from the goddess, and had volunteered her daughter for the ceremony.
To the accompaniment of a great deal more chanting and cawing of the priests, the Revered Speaker lifted the little girl into the trough before him. Other priests poised themselves beside the urn fire. Ahuítzotl pressed the child supine in the trough and reached for the obsidian knife at his waist. The urn fire's smoke changed to green, another signal, and the priests at the mainland end of the aqueduct let loose the spring water. Whether they did that by pulling free some kind of stopper, or breaking one last earthen dike, or rolling aside a boulder, or what, I do not know.
I do know that the water, though at first it came colored red, did not come oozing as the blood had done. With the momentum of its long slide from the mainland, it came rushing, an immense liquid spear, its point made of boiling pink foam. Where the water had to round the angle of the trough at the causeway, all of it did not; some of it reared up there and broke over the parapet like an ocean comber. Still, enough of it surged on around the bend to take Ahuítzotl by surprise. He had just slit open the child's breast and grasped her heart, but he had not had time to sever its connecting vessels, when the rush of water swept the still-writhing child away from him. She tore loose of her own little heart—Ahuítzotl stood holding it, looking stunned—and the girl shot off toward the city like a pellet through a blowpipe.
All of us on the causeway stood as if we had been sculptured there, motionless except for our wind-whipped feather headdresses and mantles and banners. Then I became aware that I was wet to the ankles. So was everybody; Ahuítzotl's women began squealing in distress. The pavement under us was awash in water that was rapidly rising. It was still leaping the parapet from the angle in the aqueduct, and the whole Acachinánco fort was shaking from the impact of it.
Nevertheless, the greater part of the water continued to race along the trough and on to the city, with such force that, when it hit the branching channels there, it broke like surf on a beach. Through my crystal I could see the tightly packed crowd of spectators milling in the splash and spray, fighting to disperse and flee. All through the city, beyond our sight, the new channels and storage basins were brimming over, wetting the streets and emptying into the canals. The new plaza fountains were spurting so exuberantly high that their water did not fall back into the drainage pools around them; it was spreading in a layer across the entire extent of The Heart of the One World.
The priests of Chalchihuitlicue broke out in a babble of prayers, beseeching the goddess to abate her abundance. Ahuítzotl roared for them to be silent, then began bellowing names—"Yolcatl! Papaquiliztli!"—the names of the men who had discovered the new spring. Those who were present obediently sloshed through the now knee-high water, and, knowing well why they had been called, one by one leaned backward across the parapet. Ahuítzotl and the priests, without any ritual words or gestures, tore open the men's chests, tore out and flung their hearts into the racing water. Eight men were sacrificed in that act of desperation, two of them ancient and august members of the Speaking Council—and it did no good whatever.
So Ahuítzotl shouted, "Drop the trough gate!" and several Arrow Knights leapt forward to the parapet. They seized the wooden panel designed to shut off the water's flow, and slid it down into the trough's slots. But, for all their combined strength and weight, the knights could push the panel only so far. As soon as its curved lower edge went into the water, the powerful current tilted it in the slot and jammed it at that point. For a moment there was silence on the causeway, except for the water's swoosh and gurgle, the sighing and hooting of the east wind, the creaking of the beleaguered wooden fort, and the muted hubbub of the fast-departing crowd at the island end. Looking at last defeated, with all his plumes drenched and drooping, the Revered Speaker said, loudly enough for us all to hear:
"We must go back to the city and see what damage has been done, and do what we can to allay the panic. Arrow and Jaguar Knights, come with us. You will commandeer all the acaltin on the island and row immediately to Coyohuacan. Those fools yonder are probably still celebrating. Do whatever you can to stop or divert the water at its source. Eagle Knights, stay here." He pointed to where the aqueduct joined the causeway. "Break it. There. Now!"
There was some confusion as the several designated groups disentangled. Then Ahuítzotl, his wives and his retinue, the priests and nobles, the Arrow and Jaguar Knights—all were slogging toward Tenochtítlan, as swiftly as they could with the nearly thigh-deep water dragging at them. We Eagle Knights stood contemplating the heavy stone and stout mortar of the trough. Two or three knights struck at the stone with their maquahuime, making the rest of us dodge the flying splinters of broken obsidian. Those knights looked disgustedly at their ruined swords and threw them into the lake.