The irony was that the one thing we had achieved so far – extending the protection of the Duality – was preventing only one thing, the murder of Tizoc-tzin, the one thing I could, perversely, almost look forward to.
Nezahual-tzin sighed. "Not much of a plan."
"All we have." I looked at Teomitl, who stood rigid at the prow. The dark shapes of the ahuizotls were under the keel and beside it, a spine-tingling escort I could have done without. Ahead, the dyke seemed to have grown slightly larger, but the sun was past its zenith, and plunging towards the murky waters of the lake.
There was still time. There had to be.
We passed the dyke without trouble, and soon found ourselves navigating the canals on the outskirts of Tenochtitlan. As we left the vicinity of the Floating Gardens and found ourselves in the city itself, it soon became clear that something was wrong. The canals should have been bustling with activity, from merchants to waterpeddlers, from noblemen being ferried to their friends' houses to priests on errands – but there was none of this. Just the gates of houses, closed against the heat, the boats still at their anchor, bobbing on the rhythm of some huge, unseen breath, the sunlight shimmering in and out of focus on the water like a god's smile.
"We're too late," Teomitl said. He'd let go of the ahuizotls, which we'd assumed would attract too much attention, and was sitting against the prow, breathing heavily.
"That's not possible," Nezahual-tzin said.
Teomitl's eyes narrowed in anger, and then he rested his back against the reeds of the boat wearily. "Do you see any other reason why no one would be here? They're burying Axayacatl, that's what they're doing. If we're lucky. If not, the council has already started debating."
The debates were a matter of form, the real persuasion and ritual preparation having taken place beforehand. Teomitl was right, we were late.
"I'm calling the ahuizotls back," Teomitl said.
"No," I said, at the same time as Nezahual-tzin.
He looked at us, defiantly. "You have a better solution?"
"We'll be at the Sacred Precinct before you know it," I said. "And it's going to be packed with people." And the canals around it, in all likelihood.
"We're–" Teomitl started.
"I know. We're late. That's not the point." As if to prove me that someone, somewhere, was listening, we turned one more canal, straight into the largest mass of boats I had ever seen, a sea of vibrant colours, of flower garlands and feather-fans. The air smelled of incense and pine essence; the streets were packed with a tight mass of people, laughing and jostling each other, all wearing the colourful clothes of festivals.
Teomitl cursed under his breath. His gaze roamed from the boats, so close together they seemed an extension of the land, to the crowd on the nearby street. "Let's get out."
"On foot?" Nezahual-tzin said, but Teomitl was already leaping from boat to boat, elbowing his way through the crowd with the thoughtless arrogance of the noble-born. He was hard to refuse when he got that way, the gods knew I'd experienced it often enough.
Nezahual-tzin threw me a glance, hoping, I guessed, that I would contradict my hot-blooded student. But, much as I hated to admit it, Teomitl was right. There was no way we would manage to get a long, pointed reed boat through that kind of jam.
Not being as athletic as Teomitl, I disembarked and pushed my way through the crowd on land instead. I didn't have my High Priest regalia anymore, but my grey cloak, embroidered with owls, still marked me as a Priest for the Dead, and Nezahual-tzin and his warriors acted with enough arrogance to part the crowd. Together, we elbowed our way through the throng, into street after street filled with people. I had never seen so many. The gates of houses were open, and the courtyards full, the streets jammed, the boats on the canals so close we couldn't see the water any more. I could hear drums and the plaintive sounds of flutes, and shell-conches, blown in the distance like a call for the Fifth Sun to rise.
I could see the stars too, could feel the pressure above us, like a giant hand pushing through thin cotton, the cloth drawn taut, on the edge of tearing itself apart. It would hold, I'd told Nezahualtzin, but I wasn't so sure any more.
The crowds got worse as we approached the Sacred Precinct, men and women brandished worship-thorns stained with blood, held up their children, grinning and laughing, priests played drums and flutes, shouting their hymns to be heard over the din.
Nezahual-tzin grabbed my cloak. "Where?" he asked. "You're the local."
I almost snapped back that I hadn't been there for the previous imperial funeral, and that as Revered Speaker of Texcoco he had to know as well, but then memory flooded in, almost at an instinctive level. "They'll start at the temple for the Dead, where the High Priest of Lord Death will formally relinquish Axayacatl's body over to…" I paused. The rest depended on which god was watching over Axayacatl, whether he would be buried under the auspices of Tlaloc or Huitzilpochtli. Most emperors chose Huitzilpochtli, since the Southern Hummingbird was the most important god of the Empire. But Axayacatl meant "water face", and he had been born under Tlaloc's sign. "I don't know," I said at last. "But they'll be heading to the Great Temple anyway."
"Hmm."
I pushed my way closer to the Serpent Wall and used one of the friezes to gain some height over the crowd, whispering an apology to Quetzalcoatl the Feathered Serpent for defacing His effigies. Through the mass of headdresses and coloured garments I could make out the wake of the procession, a slightly emptier space that people were just starting to fill in again. They were almost at the stairs of the Great Temple.
"Let's go," I said. The smaller empty space in front of us could only be Teomitl, he would arrive ahead of us, but not by much.
I was almost at the Great Temple, close enough to see the priests gathered on the bloodied steps, and Acamapichtli and Quenami up there with the rest of the council, when the wards caved in.
Darkness descended across the Sacred Precinct as surely as if a cloth had been thrown over the Fifth Sun; for a moment – a bare, agonising moment of stillness – everything hung in silence, and I allowed myself to believe, for a fleeting heartbeat, that Teomitl was right, that Acamapichtli was right and that we would survive this as we had survived everything since the beginning of the Empire.
And then the stars fell.
One by one they streaked towards the Fifth World, leaving a trail of fire in their wake, growing larger and larger, pinpoints of light becoming the eyes of monsters, becoming the joints on skeletal limbs, becoming small specks scattered across the dark-blue skirts of stardemons as they plummeted towards the Great Temple.
I heard screams, but I was already running, elbowing my way through the press of bewildered warriors. I turned briefly to see if Nezahual-tzin was following, but could see nothing but a heaving sea of headdresses and garlands.