From afar came a blast of conch-shells, and a slow beating of drums, and a din, like a thousand voices shouting the names of a thousand different cities at the same time. The air wavered, and the battle was joined.
She was upon me almost before I could move. One wing brushed against my arm, opening up a flower of pain, and I was on my knees, one hand scrabbling to stem the flow of blood. Then She was gone, watching me from afar.
"Pathetic," She whispered. "Is that the best among you?"
"You should know," I said through clenched teeth, fighting the darkness that quivered at the edge of my vision. "You took one, and incapacitated the other."
She laughed. "All is fair in war, as you should know."
No, I didn't. I didn't know the rules of the battlefield or even of the training-ground. My world had been the calmecac school, the penances and the night-runs to watch the stars in the sky, in another lifetime where the stars were pinpoints of light faraway, unable to harm us.
She moved fast, far too fast for me to outrace Her, especially in my current state. My only hope was to be ready for Her when She came. I hefted the knife carefully, watched Her, the way Her wings spread around and behind Her, larger than those of a bird, with obsidian knives hanging from their thin bones like obscene fruit…
The wings merged into Her desiccated shoulders almost seamlessly; but there had to be some junction, some point of weakness I could exploit.
She was upon me again, the breath of Her passage the only warning I got, about an eye blink before Her wings slashed me again. This time, instead of trying to remain standing, I threw myself to the floor, and rolled under the thin shape of Her legs.
There.
A small bump, where the obsidian blades sank back into the bones, a raised area of yellowed flesh, as taut as the paper of a codex.
She was gone again, watching me, toying with me like a jaguar with its prey. "I've fought worthier opponents."
"Teomitl?" I asked. "What have you done with him?"
"Taken my sacrifice, what else?"
A fist of ice closed over my heart. But no, I couldn't afford it, not any more weakness, not any more ways for Her to reach me. "He's alive, isn't he?"
She didn't deign to answer me. But this time I caught the slight shift of Her skirts which announced Her move, the muffled rattle of seashells that heralded Her, as it did all star-demons.
When She came upon me, I was already down, and rising to meet Her, my knife blade sinking into the flesh of Her back.
She shrieked, raising Her hands to the sky, her cry steadily rising in intensity until I thought my ears were going to burst. When She turned back towards me, Her pupils had become vertical slits, Her eyes windows into chasms.
"So… not so foolish after all, priest." So… not so foolish after all, priest." Her smile was wide, cutting – the obsidian blade of her tongue shone in the light.
Her next attack knocked me on the floor. The knife, torn from my hand by Her left wing, skittered on the floor. As if in some distant nightmare I watched it totter over the edge of the platform and fall down with the inevitability of a heartbeat. I tore myself from Her embrace pain blossomed on my arms and chest as Her knives sliced against my flesh.
I was on the ground, bleeding and dizzy, dizzier than before, though I hadn't thought it possible, watching, with a distant, nagging sense of worry, my blood pool into the grooves of the platform, quivering with a power that was denied to me, for the only god present here would not accept my sacrifice. The world was folding back onto itself like a rolled-up sacrifice paper. The air was almost too tight to breathe, searing my lungs, and darkness hovered at the edge of my vision.
I heard – something, a buzzing of flies, a grating of bones against bones, my name, spoken in a low but insistent voice. Dragging my gaze upwards, I caught a glimpse of Acamapichtli's pale face, turned towards me, one of his hands extended, pointing at something, the place where the knife had gone over the edge?
He was gesturing to me, but understanding him was too much work, and Itzpapalotl would be back, anyway. I had to–
It came to me then with preternatural clarity, that it was indeed the knife he was pointing to, that he carried a second one with him, and meant to give it to me. But he was too far away; and I knew, with the certainty of those about to die, that I would never make it.
I tried to move towards him, as if through tar, even though I knew it was futile.
Itzpapalotl laughed, Her voice infinitely distant, echoing in what little remained of my mind. "You delay the inevitable." Her shadow fell over me and I felt the shift in the air; She was moving to pick me up, to throw me over the edge.
Over, it was over. Why had I ever thought I could be a warrior, that I could fight a goddess with no weapons and no rules, nor hope to win?
That I could–
She had said–
No rules.
She had said everything was fair on the battlefield.
And She had Her back to Acamapichtli, whose hand was holding a second knife.
In the moment She bent over me, the moment Her claws dug into my skin, deeper into my wounds, I did the only thing I could, putting what little strength remained into my voice, I screamed.
"Acamapichtli! Throw it – now!"
As She swung me up like a broken doll I heard the hiss of the knife and prayed to whoever was listening – to the Duality, to Lord Death, to the Feathered Serpent – that it would fly true.
It did.
There was a thud and Itzpapalotl screamed again, a sound that seemed to echo in the bones of my ribcage, filling my lungs and stomach with a buzzing like a knife against bone. The world spun and spun as She lost control, and faded into darkness.
It seemed to last but a moment, but when I regained consciousness I found Acamapichtli propped over me. "What… happened?" I tried to pull myself upwards, and gave up. Everything ached, but I couldn't feel the searing pain of wounds. Gingerly I touched my arms and felt nothing but my skin and the scars that had been there before the fight.
"A trick," Huitzilpochtli said, but He didn't sound displeased. "It seems priests can still surprise."
Itzpapalotl was sitting on the stone altar, nonchalantly staring at Her hands. She, too, appeared unharmed, and in the gaze She directed towards me was nothing but the wary respect between warriors.
"I don't understand," I said, and then it hit me. "Nothing was real."
"Everything is as real as I make it," Huitzilpochtli said. "It is My world, after all."
It wasn't a comforting reminder, though I guess I appreciated the knowledge that I wasn't going to bleed to death. "Does this satisfy you?"
His attention shifted from me to Quenami. "A smooth speaker, a fighter and a resourceful man. I see." There was something like amusement in the air, but more that of a parent for a child. "Yes, I suppose it does. A bargain is a bargain."
I let out a breath I hadn't even been aware of holding. As He had reminded us, we were in His world, and the rules were what He made them, if He had wanted to break His promise, He could have done so without trouble.