A light played on my hands, turning them paler – a radiance as green as quetzal feathers seen through water, first quivering on the edge of being, and then growing stronger and stronger, until it had washed out every colour in the room, making even the painted frescoes on the wall seem of carved jade, gilding the faces of gods and warriors on the adobe until they, too, seemed alien and faraway. Teomitl knelt by my side, his hands outstretched over the body of the priest.
"Coatl," he called, and his voice was the thunder of storm-tossed waves, the slithering sounds of ahuizotl water-beasts moments before they fed on a corpse. "Honoured one, keeper of the red and black codices, holder of the wisdom – of the words as precious as wealth. Honoured one, travelling far in the wilderness, in the jungles – the time has come to wake up."
Coatl went rigid. "My Lord," he whispered, without opening his eyes.
"Wake up, honoured one." Teomitl's voice had the cadences of ritual – and its pitch was getting higher and higher – deeper, too, no longer the voice of anything human.
Coatl shuddered again. "I can't, my Lord!" Foam pearled up on his lips – his body arched, as if in the grip of a seizure, and then he fell back down again, hitting the mat with a thud.
Teomitl looked as though he was going to reach out and seize the body. "No," I said, laying a hand on his arm – a mistake, for the power within him struck as quickly as a coiled snake – pain travelled up my arm, and for a bare moment I had the feeling my skin was being flayed away, exposing muscles and bones that bent and snapped, sending my arm into spasms…
I jerked back, biting my lips not to scream. "Don't – touch – him," I managed through dry lips. "You–"
Teomitl's gaze moved towards me – held me, and for a moment I saw not him, but Jade Skirt – waiting for me with arms outstretched, to drag me down into the waters that had cleansed me at my birth… "Teomitl!"
"I'm the one you shouldn't touch, priest." His lips quirked into a smile – lazy and cruel, nothing human anymore – and then, as abruptly as She had appeared, the goddess was gone, and we were left in an empty room with an unconscious priest – unconscious, not dead, thank the Duality, for while I could see the shadow of Lord Death hovering over him, his spirit had not yet departed his body.
Teomitl looked at me questioningly.
"I did something foolish," I said, a little more abruptly than I'd intended to. Chalchuihtlicue, Jade Skirt, like most gods, always made me uneasy: pretty much the only god I could claim a modicum of common understanding with was my own god, Mictlantecuhtli – ruler of a place that welcomed everyone, patiently waiting for the corn to ripen and wither, the fruit to fall and rot.
"So did I." Teomit's face was harsh again. He looked down at Coatl. "I don't think he'll be awake for a while."
I didn't think he'd ever been in a state to hear us. On the positive side, though, he wasn't going to walk away and spread the sickness yet further.
My eyes caught on the third sleeping mat, and I froze, remembering what Acamapichtli had said. "There was a third man in confinement, wasn't there?"
"That's the first I hear of it," Teomitl said.
I shook my head. "A warrior, one of those who carried the body. Acamapichtli told me they'd found him, and that he was sick."
I didn't like that empty mat: it made me feel uncomfortable. It was one thing to have healthy warriors possibly passing on the sickness unawares, quite another to have a sick man get up and leave.
"But we don't know where he is," Teomitl said.
"No," I said. And we were obviously not going to find out from either Coatl or the priest of Patecatl. I decided on a more constructive approach: I walked out, yanking the entrance-curtain out of my way in a tinkle of bells, and asked the first guard of the SheSnake I met where the priests of Tlaloc had gone.
He looked at me, hard. "You're not one of them." It sounded halfway between an accusation and a question: he didn't quite know what to make of me.
"No," I said, bowing my head – letting him take in the regalia. "I'm High Priest for the Dead in Tenochtitlan."
"Tizoc-tzin said they were traitors," the guard said.
He– he had arrested the whole clergy of Tlaloc – as thoughtlessly as that? He– What could he be thinking of, cutting away everyone that sustained him?
He–
Focus, I needed to focus. Little good I would do, if I managed to get myself arrested yet another time. "They… might have information we need," I said, gaining in assurance as I spoke. For the good of the city." I felt soiled, even though it wasn't quite a lie.
The guard looked at me, dubiously. Fortunately, Teomitl chose this moment to join me, and the sight of the Master of the House of Darts – Tizoc-tzin's brother – standing by my side helped the guard decide. "Fine." He gave me a location, which was a set of courtyards reserved for the private usage of officials.
When we arrived there, we found the courtyard had been turned into a jaiclass="underline" wooden cages filled it from end to end. Through the bars, I caught glimpses of the men crouched within – whispering hymns in a low voice, beseeching their god to help them. The hubbub of their voices was almost deafening – there had to be more than a hundred priests in that courtyard. Magic flowed over us: the harsh, pitiless feel of Huitzilpochtli's magic, laid over the cages and the courtyard to prevent the priests from casting any spells.
At the other end, under the pillars, a couple of wooden cages had been set aside for the higher ranks: Tapalcayotl and two other priests sat – it wasn't easy to look dignified and haughty while sitting hunched under a low canopy, but Tapalcayotl managed it. I guessed Acamapichtli had been giving his second-in-command lessons in arrogance.
"Well?" he asked when I came closer. "I assume you're not here to tell me we're to be freed."
"Not exactly," I said.
Dealing with Acamapichtli was bad enough; I didn't have to bear with that kind of attitude from Tapalcayotl, as well. "You're not in much of a position to argue or make demands."
Tapalcayotl grimaced. "Fair enough," he said at last. "What do you want?"
"The third sick man – the warrior. Where did he go?"
"He went away?" one of the priests asked.
"Why? He wasn't fit to walk either?"
The priest shook his head. "He died."
A dead man?
"There was no corpse. Someone took it away." Not good; not good at all. Eptli's corpse had still been able to propagate the sickness; I didn't want to see another instance like that.
Tapalcayotl hadn't said anything for a while. He was staring at the rings on his hands as if they held some great truth, his face pinched and twisted. At length, not looking up, he said, "I think the other warrior took it."
"Which warrior?"
"He came several times to enquire about the health of Coatl and his companion," Tapalcayotl said. "We told him he couldn't have the corpse for funeral ceremonies, and he was angry. He said warriors took care of their own."