"And this means?"
"Now? Nothing much," Mihmatini said. "It looks as though she's just watching and waiting."
"But you don't think she's involved in the plague."
"I haven't said that."
"I see." I thought of the snapped quill again. I couldn't see why Xochiquetzal would ally Herself with Chalchiutlicue, but the evidence spoke against Xiloxoch. "I need to find her."
Yaotl shrugged. "Try the palace. She'll be there – too canny not to be."
"Where is she?"
"I don't know. I'd try the palace, if I were you. If she wants to keep an eye on the Flower Quetzal's interests, she'll have to be at the heart of things."
Not the first place I wanted to come back to, especially with the plague raging within its walls. But still… I didn't have much choice.
Ezamahual didn't leave my side as we walked out of the Duality House. I leant on the cane, grateful for its support – but the Southern Hummingbird strike me if I was going to accept help from one of my priests.
"I'm going inside the palace," I said to Ezamahual. "You might want to leave."
He looked at me as if I were mad. "It's not a safe place," I explained, feeling increasingly flustered.
His look was the patient one of a mother towards a wayward child. "You're High Priest, Acatl-tzin. I wouldn't dream of leaving you alone."
Great, so much for that.
I half-expected the guards to challenge us as we climbed the stairs towards the entrance, but they seemed more bored than busy, leaning on their obsidian-tipped spears while gazing at the sky, looking through us, half-expecting us to provide some distraction. But we both looked like ordinary priests for the Dead, on errands that could only be menial – nothing worth salvaging from that, no fun or currency to be had.
Inside, the palace seemed empty and forlorn, the usual crowds subdued and silent, hurrying from courtyard to courtyard without looking up. A few artisans crept by looking as if they were trying to make themselves forgotten about altogether, and the judges and clerks walking with codices under their arms didn't look much more reassured, either.
I directed us towards the part of the palace where the young warriors usually congregated, thinking to catch if not Xiloxoch, someone who would tell me where she was – or perhaps our wayward Teomitl, who would laugh and toss his head back, and assure me that Mihmatini and I were being foolish with our suspicions. He would make it all go away, like an image in a darkened obsidian mirror…
We reached a smaller courtyard, which doubled as an aviary: wooden cages with quetzal birds surrounded a fountain. The gurgle of the water mingled with the harsh cries of the birds, the glimmer of sunlight playing off against the iridescent sheen on their emerald tail-feathers.
A warrior stood in front of the fountain, gazing into the water. He had his back to us, but even so, I would have recognised him anywhere: that arrogant, casual tilt of the head, that falsely contemplative pose… except that it was all subtly wrong, distorted as through layers of water.
"My Lord?" I asked.
Nezahual-tzin didn't move.
"My Lord?" A little higher-pitched – and a little more desperate. I could have dealt with his usual sarcastic, careless remarks, but at this moment I might as well have been talking to a stone effigy. I moved to the other side of the fountain and met his gaze, which was slightly vacant, as if he weren't quite there. I extended my priest-senses – wincing at the effort. There was a slight trace of magic; a touch of something. Not sickly and spread out like underworld magic, but instead firm and strong, as unmoving as a rock or as the Heavens above us.
"It's all in the water," Nezahual-tzin said. The vacuous smile on his face was so uncharacteristic I wanted to shake it out of him. "Can't you see?"
"No."
He smiled – dazzling, mindless. "He's coming, Acatl. He's coming. Neither walls nor lines on the ground – neither rivers nor marshes were enough to hold him – not even a fisherman's net."
I didn't waste time asking who "he" was. Instead, I rubbed at the scabs on my earlobes until they came loose, and said a short prayer to Lord Death, asking Him to grant me true sight.
As I'd thought, Nezahual-tzin was saturated with the dark brown of Toci's touch – a veil that hung around him like the vapour of the sweatbath, billowing in the warm breeze, lazily unfurling deeper hues of brown; the smell of churned mud and dry, cracking earth, and in the distance, the faint cry of warriors fighting each other, for Grandmother Earth was also the Woman of Discord, She who brought on the wars we needed to survive.
What had happened to him?
He was still staring into the water, his grey eyes – a feature I'd always found uncanny – even more distant than usual, as if the fountain held the answers he'd always wanted. He was at rest, in a relaxed, non-threatening way that made my skin crawl. And where were his warriors – where was the escort, suitable for a Revered Speaker of the Triple Alliance…?
My gaze, roaming, found his hands – and the familiar, trembling haze of freshly-shed lifeblood. "They're dead," I said aloud. "Your warriors. Aren't they? Killed to cast the spell."
For a long, agonising moment, I thought he wasn't going to answer, but then, he looked up at me, his face cast into an expressionless mask once again – almost like the Nezahual-tzin of old. "Opened up like poinsettia flowers. Such speed and efficiency. One wouldn't think she'd be so fast…" His voice trailed off, and his gaze went down, towards the water.
She? Was it the same old woman who had visited Teomitl so often? What part did she play in this, other than seemingly ensorcelling two of the most important men in the Triple Alliance?
"Acatl-tzin," Ezamahual said. "What shall we do?"
I cast a glance around the courtyard. It was deserted, well away from the usual rush of people within the palace. But still…
His own people would probably know what to do with him, but they'd all be in the official residence of the Revered Speaker of Texcoco – literally next door to our own Revered Speaker's apartments, high on the list of places to avoid in the palace. Still… He'd been helpful, if only in his usual, cryptic fashion, and my conscience balked at the idea of just leaving him here.
"Let's bring you home," I said to Nezahual-tzin. "Someone there will probably have a better idea of what to do."
We all but had to drag him away from the fountain, but once we were away from the water he relaxed in our grasp and seemed to follow us – more, I suspected, because he had nowhere else to go than out of any desire on his part.
"What's wrong with him?" Ezamahual asked.
"It's obviously a spell," I said, curtly. "But I have no idea how to dispel it." And, more importantly of where and how he had managed to get it cast on himself. What was its purpose? Simply to prevent Nezahual-tzin from tracking the mysterious summoner of Toci's magic? Did his pronouncements make sense, or were they just part of the delirium of the spell?
I didn't like any of this – then again, it wasn't as if the previous days had been particularly relaxing or likeable.