"You're sure?" I asked. Not that I disbelieved him. But still, it had been sixteen years.
Neutemoc pointed to a handful of rocks, arranged in a circular pattern. "I remember those." He knelt, rummaged within the grass, and gave a small grunt of triumph. "Her marker's still here."
Eleuia's marker was a small rock, engraved with two fragmentary glyphs: one for "water", and one that might have been "blessing" or "luck". They looked much like the ones she'd tried to draw in the Floating Gardens – while she was held captive by the beast of shadows, waiting for those who would torture her and push her into the lake. Odd. It wasn't any spell I recognised; and no magic that I could see hung over the tomb.
I turned to Palli. "Can I see the contents of that pack?"
The young offering priest smiled. "Of course, Acatl-tzin."
He'd brought many things: obsidian blades, herbs to heal wounds, to curse a man; a variety of containers for blood, their shapes ranging from eagles with an open beak to chac-mools, small men holding a blood-stained bowl in their outstretched hands. Among them, I finally found what I was looking for: a small, pointed shovel, which I withdrew from the pack. "Thank you."
"Do you need help, Acatl-tzin?" Ezamahual asked.
I shook my head. "There's only one shovel, and it's not a large grave. I'll work faster if I do it alone." I whispered a brief prayer to Mictlantecuhtli and to the Duality for what I was about to do – disturb the rest of an innocent child – and hoped They'd understand, if not forgive.
I hoped my instincts didn't turn out wrong about this.
It was harder than I'd thought: the ground was mostly rocks, mixed with a little soil. I had to go carefully in order not to break the bones, which would be small and fragile. Neutemoc had stepped away with a stern, disapproving face, and didn't offer any help.
At last, I overturned something that was neither earth nor rocks: a cloth with faded colours, sewn closed at both ends. I withdrew it from the hole, and brushed the earth from its folds, gently. Then, using one of my obsidian knives, I sliced through the threads.
Small, yellowed things spilled into my hands: the pathetic, familiar remnants of someone who hadn't had a chance at life.
"Bones," Palli whispered, by my side.
Yes, bones. But they felt wrong. Deeply, fundamentally wrong. They were the right shape, they had the right touch. But my skin was crawling, and the longer I held them the more ill at ease I felt.
"Neutemoc?" I asked.
My brother turned, saw what I was holding. "You've found what you wanted," he said, flatly.
No. I hadn't. They were wrong, subtly wrong, but I couldn't see why.
"You were with her when she buried the child?" I asked.
"Yes," Neutemoc said. His gaze said, "I told you it was a waste of time."
"Did she do anything particular?" The bones were still in my hand, and everything in me wanted to throw them down.
"Particular?" Neutemoc looked at me as if I were mad. "No," he said. "She sewed them in that cloth, buried them, and carved the marker."
"That's all?" I asked. What was wrong with those bones?
Neutemoc said nothing for a while. "She went into a cave to say a prayer to the Duality," he said. "The same one where she gave birth."
"A cave?" I laid the bones down in the clothes. The uneasy feeling on my skin abated, but didn't cease. Nausea welled up in me, sharp, demanding – I struggled to focus through it.
A cave was a good shelter to give birth in with impunity, especially in this arid country. And praying to the Duality for a child wasn't extraordinary, since They watched over the souls of babies. But the Duality was worshipped in the open air, or on pyramid temples. I'd never heard of such a temple in a cave.
I took the baby's bones and wrapped them back into their cloth. "Can you take us to the cave?" I asked.
• • • •
It was further away than Neutemoc remembered: we had to go down the hill to another one. Shelves of rock rose around us as we trudged on the steep path. The air was cold, crisp with a bitter tang that insinuated itself into my bones.
The cave had a small entrance, half-obscured by a fall of debris. Faded paint stretched on both sides, and traces that might have been bloody handprints, weathered away by the rain. A wet, pungent odour like that of a wild animal rose as I ducked under the stone ceiling.
Inside was only darkness, the sound of our own breathing – and, in the distance, the steady sound of dripping water. "Is anybody here?" I called.
No answer.
"Some place," Palli said behind me.
I paused for a moment to light a torch with some flint and dry kindling from Palli's ever-useful bag. The flame shone over moist rock walls, reflected in a thousand shards of light.
"It must have been abandoned some time ago," Neutemoc said, defiantly.
"If it ever drew large crowds," Ezamahual said. He sounded sceptical. "Everything looks faded here."
"I know," I said. I shone the torch towards the back: the cave narrowed into a rock corridor. Having no choice, I headed straight ahead.
My footsteps echoed under the stone ceiling: a deep, faraway sound, as if the place had been twice as deep. And as I made my way deeper into the cave, a sense of wrongness slowly crept up my spine. It was the same thing I'd felt when holding the baby's bones, but much, much stronger: a growing disquiet, an impression that the world around me wasn't as it seemed – a sense of a cold power coiling around me like the rings of a snake.
"Neutemoc," I whispered, but there was only silence, and the feeling of something immense, barely contained within the walls. Something that hadn't yet seen any of us; but that might, at any moment, turn its eyes our way.
"Acatl-tzin," Palli whispered, and I heard the same fear in his voice.
I reached towards the knife at my belt, with agonising slowness – and closed my hand on the hilt. The dreary, familiar emptiness of Mictlan rose: a welcome shield against whatever lay in the cave. It wasn't strong, and it waned with every passing moment. But it would have to do.
"Use your knives," I whispered to the two priests behind me. "Mictlan's magic will ward us."
Neither of the priests answered. I pushed ahead, stubbornly, and heard their footsteps behind me, more hesitant. They were falling behind.
The corridor ended in a circular place, filled with the sound of water dripping onto the rock. There was a pool at the centre, with barely enough water to reflect the light of my torch; and small tokens, scattered around the rim: dolls of brightly-coloured rags, fragments of chipped stones and seashells.
Offerings. This was – had been – a shrine, till not so long ago.
I shone my torch around the room: the paint had run, but frescoes still adorned the walls. The sense of disquiet, of wrongness, was rising, slowly drowning out Mictlan's rudimentary protection. I had no intention of remaining in that cave any longer than I had to. Close by, the frescoes were hard to identify. Characters in tones of ochre moved across a narration in smudged glyphs: fighting each other, or perhaps handing something to each other?