I left the two of them in Teomitl's room, impressing upon him to bring Mihmatini home, trying not to think of that thread stretching all the way across the city, laid over the buildings and the canals, a trail everyone would be able to see. So much for discretion. Then again, I had known about this when we had first set out to do the spell, so it wasn't as if I could complain.
Then I went to check on Palli.
I found him sitting on the entrance platform of the Revered Speaker's rooms, looking despondent. "Acatl-tzin," he said.
I handed him one of the maize flatbreads I'd taken from a nobleman's kitchen. "Here, have some food. I take it the search isn't progressing."
Palli took the flatbread, but did not bite into it. "It's worse than that," he said. "We've checked almost everywhere, Acatl-tzin. The storerooms, the treasury, the armouries, the tribunals…"
"The women's quarters?" I asked, thinking of Xahuia.
Palli smiled, briefly. "Those, too. But it's useless. There is nothing that looks even remotely like a summoning place."
"You haven't finished," I said, trying to be encouraging. In truth, I wasn't feeling optimistic. If Palli thought there was nothing, then it was likely to be the case.
Palli's eyes drifted into the courtyard, staring at the beaten earth. It was almost dark, now "It's just a handful of rooms, and they're used by everyone. If there was a summoning…"
"I see," I said. I tried to hide my disappointment. There must be some place they had missed, some obvious location…
But, with so many people helping out, I doubted it was the case. Which left me with a problem – how in the Fifth World were the star-demons getting past the palace wards?
I mulled the problem over as I walked out of the palace, but could find no satisfying solution. With a sigh, I headed back to the Duality House.
After all the animation of Mihmatini's designation, it seemed oddly deserted, as if night had robbed it of all vitality. Only a few priests were there, kneeling in the dust to beseech the Duality's favour for the Empire and the Fifth World. I found Ichtaca where I had left him, watching Ceyaxochitl's corpse. His face lit up when he saw me. "Acatl-tzin. I see you're still–"
"Alive? I guess." He had seen me taken away by Tizoc-tzin's guards; no wonder he'd worried.
I sighed. Now that I was back in a familiar setting, all the fatigue of the previous days was making itself felt; the lack of sleep over the previous night, the barely-healed wounds on my chest, the hasty meals – all of it came like a blow.
Ichtaca pulled himself straighter. "I've received word from the temple, while you were out. There is something you need to know about the order of the deaths."
"The… order?" It hadn't occurred to me that there was something to check there.
"We checked the records. They only give the days of the religious calendar, but we can work out the correspondence with the year count."
He made it sound easy, but it was far from it. The religious calendar was two hundred and sixty days, while the year count followed the sun's cycle. They overlapped, but working out dates from one to the other required patience and a talent for mathematics.
Ichtaca was pursing his lips, as he often did when contemplating a difficult problem. "The date of birth of Ocome-tzin was the Second Day of the Ceasing of Waters, that of Echichilli-tzin the Fifteenth day of the Ceasing of Waters, and Manatzpa-tzin was born on the Third Day of The Flaying of Men. All those dates are in the first or second month of the calendar."
"Coincidence?"
"I don't think so." Ichtaca rose, bowing to Ceyaxochitl's corpse, and turned to face me. "Or, if it is, too much of one. I took the liberty of checking the names of those councilmen I did know. Their dates of birth are all posterior to the dead ones."
"Said otherwise, they're dying by chronological order." I bit my lip. As Ichtaca had said, too much of a coincidence. It might explain why Echichilli had known his death was coming.But why?
The year had started on the day Two Rain, a time of unpredictability, a time of divine caprices. It was heading towards its end on the day Two House, and the nemontemi – the five empty days – a fearful time during which children were hidden out of sight, and pregnant women locked in granaries for fear that…
For fear that they would turn into star-demons. Oh no. "They're trying to hasten the end of the year, aren't they."
It wasn't a question, and Ichtaca did not treat it as such. "That seems a likely explanation. The five empty days would suit them."
These weren't just random summonings then, but I had been suspecting that for a while. This was organised, meticulously so, part of a ritual from beginning to end.
"This isn't good." I breathed in, trying to still the frantic beating of my heart. "If I give you the names of all the councilmen, can you work out who comes next in the order of deaths?"
"Yes," Ichtaca said. "But–"
"I know. It takes time. You've already done a great deal of work."
"I do my duty, Acatl-tzin. As we all do. I will have all the offering priests we can spare doing calculations. That's the most I can do. The novices don't know enough about the calendars. I wish the calendar priests were available, but they're overworked as it is, planning the funeral and the coronation."
"I see. Thank you." I gave him all the names of the council; they were not that many of them, and I had interviewed all of them.
Something occurred to me as I was about to walk out: the tar Palli had found in the Imperial Chambers. "Ichtaca?"
"Yes?"
"What does tar evoke to you? Magically speaking."
He looked thoughtful for a while. "Tar? It's not a common ingredient."
"No," I said. "But I have reasons to think it was used in a ritual in the palace. Something large."
"Tar is thick, and chokes. It can't be washed away with water."
"The Storm Lord?" I asked. Acamapichtli was away from Court, trying to make us forget he had supported Xahuia. But he could have done something beforehand. "Dying in the water, but not of it." The oldest rite, asking for His blessing on the crops.
"The Storm Lord's sacrifices tend to use rubber," Ichtaca said. "I suppose they might turn to tar, if rubber wasn't available." But he didn't sound convinced.
I thanked him, and walked out onto the Sacred Precinct in my bleakest mood yet. It didn't seem like Tizoc-tzin was to blame, after all. If he truly wanted to become Revered Speaker, then he would not have any interest in hastening the end of the world.
On the other hand, he was acting most suspiciously. What was he not telling us?
Or was there some other purpose to the order of the deaths, something I hadn't seen?
FOURTEEN
Darkness
Even though I'd only been a participant, the Duality ritual – and its stressful aftermath with Tizoc-tzin – had drained more out of me than I'd expected. I went to bed at a reasonable time, for once, early on in the night, and woke up to find it was already early afternoon.
I reached up, touched my earlobes, which bore fresh scabs. I must have done my devotions to the Fifth Sun in a trance, barely realising what I was doing.