Convince Him to– "You're mad," I said. Even a hint of the heartland had been enough to tear me to pieces; surely he wasn't suggesting that we go down into it. "He's a war god. They're not known for their forgiveness." Not many gods were, to be honest, but I very much doubted the Southern Hummingbird had any mercy at all.
"It's not forgiveness. It would be in His best interests." He said it as though it was just a matter of strolling into a garden to speak with a senile relative. And, with a stomach-churning flip, I saw that Quenami's head had snapped up, like that of a man being offered a lifeline.
"It wouldn't achieve anything," I said.
Acamapichtli laughed, a hollow, mirthless sound that grated on my nerves. "We're the high priests of the Mexica Empire, the keepers of the universe's order. If there is a chance, any chance, that we can achieve something, shouldn't we try?"
He'd have had a point, I might have felt shamed, even, if he hadn't been spending so much of his time angling for personal gain. "You've both taken far too many risks with the Empire as it is."
"They might have," the She-Snake's voice was deceptively soft. "But still… Quenami?"
Quenami had risen, his face turned away from the bloody mass on the threshold, his eyes narrowed to give him the air of a vulture considering a kill. "Acamapichtli is right. There is still a chance."
"You tried this once," Teomitl said, taking the words from my mouth. "Remember, when you sacrificed the whole council as a price of passage? It didn't work."
I should have been arguing with them. But, as time passed, I found myself more and more ill at ease, nausea welling up in my gut, a strange, acrid taste filling my throat and mouth, as if I were going to retch. Unsteadily, I walked to Tizoc-tzin's remains, and, laying my hand in the warm blood, whispered the first words of a litany for the Dead, the familiar words a reassuring anchor to the Fifth World.
"We leave this earth
This world of jade and flowers
The quetzal feathers, the silver…"
I was on the floor, doubled over in pain The She-Snake's face loomed over me, swimming out of the darkness, mouthing words I could barely make out, something about funeral rites and evening falling…
"Acatl-tzin?"
I could feel it, the growing hole in the Fifth World, the yawning chasm waiting to devour us all – darkness and fire and blood, and everything out of kilter, everything as wrong as flowers in the underworld.
"Acatl-tzin!!" Hands steadied me as I rose. Teomitl, his face distorted by fear.
"It's nothing," I said. Acamapichtli was watching me with an ironic smile, and now that I knew how to look for it, I saw the slight tremor of his hands, the grimace of pain on Quenami's features, swiftly hidden as he turned his gaze away from me.
"You're right," I said, each word coming out like a stone, cold and heavy on my lips. "We need to go into the heartland."
"You said–"
I pulled myself up, fighting another wave of nausea. "I know what I said. But Acamapichtli is right, it's going to get worse un less we do something. The Fifth World is stretched to breaking point already."
Teomitl's lips worked soundlessly for a while. "Then I'm coming with you."
"You're not. There has been enough imperial blood shed as it is."
Teomitl's eyes narrowed. "And what will you do when you're in the heartland, Acatl-tzin? Someone needs to plead Tizoc's case. Someone needs to make apologies. I'm his brother." He said it simply, with no arrogance, and yet it carried an authority worthy of a Revered Speaker.
"You're my student," I said. "I can't…" I stopped. We'd already had this conversation so many times. Ceyaxochitl had been right, he was an adult, and this was his own family at stake, and the Empire he might one day rule. I couldn't keep him forever. "It's not my decision to make."
"Then I'll come." His smile was like a rising sun, the same one, I thought with a pang of regret, he had displayed when I'd taken him as a student and given him permission to court my sister.
"You should take me as well." In the gloom, Nezahual-tzin's skin shone the same milky colour as his eyes, and the mane of the Feathered Serpent spread around him like a cloak.
"Out of the question," Quenami snapped. "This is a desperate attempt, not a wedding banquet."
Nezahual-tzin's eyes narrowed. "I am the representative of Texcoco, and wield the Feathered Serpent's magic in the Fifth World. Do you think it's wise to set me aside?"
"You're also under suspicion of interference in Mexica affairs," Quenami said. "And there's nothing we want of the Feathered Serpent now."
Oh, but we did: knowledge and safety, and compassion, all that gods like the Southern Hummingbird or the Storm Lord would never understand. But, nevertheless, there were far too many of us as it was, and this didn't concern Nezahual-tzin any more.
"I don't make it a habit to offer advice," Acamapichtli said, "but I'd follow Quenami's lead, if I were you. This is a Mexica problem."
Nezahual-tzin's white gaze moved up, towards the heavens. "Not any more."
"Then we'll need you here," I said. "To hold things together." I didn't say "if we fail", but the words hung in the air all the same.
Nezahual-tzin grimaced.
"There are far too many of us going to the slaughter as it is," I said.
He wavered, looking at me and Quenami and Acamapichtli, and at the She-Snake, who had remained silent all the while. "I suppose." He didn't sound as if he believed much of it.
"Then it's settled." Quenami looked at us as if we were foolish subordinates, and I fought an urge to strangle him. "Shall we go?"
I'd expected Quenami to take us to the Imperial Chambers, the place where the council's journey had started. But instead, he took us downwards, to the small room under the pyramid where She of the Silver Bells was still imprisoned.
"There's a wound in the Fifth World," Acamapichtli said, almost conversationally. He'd changed out of his finery, into clothes sober enough to belong to a peasant, though he still bore himself regally enough to be Emperor. "The star-demons come here to drag souls back to their master. The door's been thrown open, which makes it much easier to reach on our side." He sounded amused. "A good thing. Sacrificing two dozen people for this would have taken too much time."
And been a waste. I bit down on a sarcastic comment, and rubbed instead the amulet around my neck, a small silver spider blessed by Mictlantecuhtli, with the characteristic cold, stretchedout touch of Lord Death and of Mictlan. I'd sent to my temple to retrieve it rather than trust Acamapichtli to provide me with one.
Quenami was going around the room, around the huge disk that featured the dismembered goddess, mumbling under his breath, dipping his hands into the blood that dripped down from the altars high above us. The air shimmered with power, and a palpable rage, a deep-seated desire to rend us all into shreds, a feeling I wasn't sure any more whether to attribute to She of the Silver Bells or to Her brother, the Southern Hummingbird.
"Here is what we're going to do," Quenami said at last, turning back towards us. "You'll stand here in the circle, and not move until this is over."