I finished my spell, and carefully brushed my hands clean, praying that Neutemoc and Teomitl would have had the good sense to wait before launching an attack.
I said to Palli, "Whatever you've found will have to do. I'm not sure we'll have time for real blood-magic." Sacrificing an animal and doing a full ritual required preparation. In the midst of a battle, I didn't think we'd have time for this.
Palli said, "Ichtaca is sending messengers to the palace, to request the Guardian's help at the Heart of the Lake."
"He sent Chimalli?"
Palli shook his head. "No," he said, grimly amused. "The two calmecac students, the ones that were frightened by the whole prospect."
"You're not frightened?" I asked, remembering how he'd preferred storehouse duty because of how quiet it was.
"When I stop to think about it. But then, it doesn't change anything, does it?"
He looked and sounded disturbingly like Teomitclass="underline" like a warrior, uncaring of his own life. I finished erasing my quincunx, and rose in turn. "No," I said. "It doesn't change anything. Come on. Let's get to the boats."
The boats were the flotilla of the temple, moored on the boundary between the southwest district of Moyotlan and the northwest one of Cuepopan, beyond the Serpent Walls. We had a dozen sturdy reed boats, which the priests took on their errands throughout Tenochtitlan.
Ichtaca was already in the second largest of those, with a novice priest holding the oars, and two clustering at the back. He pointed, wordlessly, to the largest craft, the one reserved for the High Priest. It bore the spider-and-owl design of Mictlantecuhtli, and shone with the wards accumulated on it.
Ixtli and his Duality warriors had their own boats: long, thin vessels holding nine warriors in a single line, with two rowers, one at the back and one at the prow. Ixtli raised his hand to me in a salute; I nodded to him, and climbed aboard my own boat. Palli took the oars; and Ezamahual positioned himself at the prow.
Every temple boat, including ours, was full of covered cages. It wasn't so much the cages I saw with the true sight though, but the light cast by the animals they contained: the rabbits huddled against each other, and the hummingbirds flitting against the covers in a whirr of wings.
Palli pushed the boat away from the shore in a splash of oars, and gently directed us south.
The docks were on the western edge of Tenochtitlan; the tree of the Great Vigil on the eastern side of the city. Even though the town was crisscrossed by canals, the fastest way to go east wasn't through Tenochtitlan, but around it, passing south under the Itzapalapan causeway and swinging back in a north-easterly direction.
The rain fell steadily around us, but there was something different about it. Something distinctly hostile. In the semi-darkness of the true sight, I could see nothing, but the sense of disquiet increased. The oars splashed in the water, on the left side, then on the right – and back on the left, like a slower heartbeat.
I turned around, briefly, and saw the city, a mass of huddled houses enclosed by the rain. Light spilled from the Sacred Precinct, beacons in the growing darkness: the temples of Mictlantecuhtli; of Mixcoatl, God of the Hunt; of Tezcatlipoca, God of War and Fate. And towering over it all, the blazing radiance of the Great Temple.
Something about the last light was wrong. I watched it for a while, as Palli's rowing got us clear of the causeway. Something about the light, which kept flickering.
The light wasn't strong any more, but tinged with the green of algae. With every passing moment, the green grew stronger. And, crowding around the twin shrines atop the pyramid, were the halfdistinct shapes of Tlaloc's creatures, swimming through the air like some sick imitation of fishes, sinking into the stone of the stairs like transparent blood.
"It's fallen," I said, aloud.
"What's fallen?" Palli asked.
Ichtaca, whose forehead also bore the mark of the true sight, was watching the same direction. "Not yet," he said. "Huitzilpochtli is stronger than you give Him credit for."
"He's weak," I said, watching as the light flickered.
"So is Tlaloc's child, for now," Ichtaca replied. And, to his oarsman: "Faster."
Palli's gestures quickened, as if he'd been the one given the order.
Faster, faster, I thought, listening to the splashes of water on either side of me. In the darkness, all I could see were the beacons of the temples – and the creatures, slithering in and out of the Great Temple. Faster…
The Itzapalapan causeway faded behind the veil of rain; the creatures, too, until the whole world seemed to have turned to water. Around us was the vast expanse of Lake Texcoco, the shores so far we couldn't make them out in this stormy weather; above us, the rain-clouds unleashing their fury on us. Thunder rolled overhead, and lightning flashes tore the heavens: the Storm Lord's full anger, finally unleashed.
And ahead…
It should have been an artificial island isolated in the middle of the lake, with an altar where the Revered Speaker would sacrifice to Tlaloc.
But it wasn't, not any more. Or rather: the island was still there, surrounded by a group of boats I couldn't identify from this distance. But at its side was something that drew one's gaze.
The tree offered at the Great Vigil, sixteen months ago, had indeed rotted to nothing. But something had taken its place: an aftershadow of a trunk, a silhouette outlined by the lightning flashes, with half-transparent branches reaching up to join the black rainclouds with the surface of the lake. Magic pulsed from the roots and the branches, joining in the middle to form a tight knot of light.
Around the tree were more of the creatures, attached to the trunk like leeches, gorging on Tlaloc's bounty, growing fat with every passing moment.
I couldn't repress the shudder that ran through me, or the rising nausea that always came when I saw so many of those creatures.
Behind me, someone – Ichtaca? – let out a string of curses. A more sensible answer than mine, I guessed.
As we got closer, the situation became clearer: in the group of boats were two dozen priests dressed in the blue-and-black garb of the Storm Lord, their blackened faces filled with the light of magic. They watched us come without a word.
At the centre of the island, the altar to Tlaloc was overwhelmed with creatures. They passed through the stone as though through water, their clawed hands moving to and fro. They looked like brothers to the ahuizotls, with the malevolence but not the intelligence of Chalchiutlicue's beasts. They seemed to be guarding something. A young child, I suddenly realised. I caught a glimpse of a childhood lock, sweeping over a face the colour of cacao beans, and of wide eyes, as green as algae.
Mazatl. The god-child. And, by his side, lying in the mud, were two adult bodies. My heart sank. They had to be Mazatl's foster parents.
Below the altar were more of the creatures, gathering around two silhouettes, one of which stood knee-deep in the water, magic streaming out of him. Teomitl – and the ahuizotls, gathering around him, snapping at the creatures with their jaws, reaching out with their claws. And beside Teomitl…
Neutemoc, the wards of Huitzilpochtli shining weakly in the dim light of the true sight, hacking and slashing at the creatures, even though it seemed to make no difference.