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The city of Tenochtitlan is bright and beautiful, the glory of the world. Nothing should be able to taint its majesty. Nothing should shake its foundations, should topple the walls of the heavens its Revered Speaker holds up. It has reigned in splendor over the Anahuac Valley for nearly a hundred years, and it should—should—reign for hundreds more, Revered Speakers and Guardians and High Priests and even the peasants in the fields all working together for the betterment of the Fifth World. There should be children playing in its streets and merchants calling to each other as they row along the clear waters of the canals.
It shouldn’t be like this. Tenochtitlan is no stranger to war, but war is war. It is blood and screaming and chaos. It is not this silent occupation, Tlaxcallan warriors marching alongside those strange, boorish, pale-faced men on their giant deer carrying terrible weapons. It is not in the streets of their city, their glorious city where they are supposed to be safe. It is not a lying diplomat holding a knife to their Revered Speaker’s throat, to their Guardian’s throat.
To the throats of their High Priests.
Acatl supposes, at least, he can count himself fortunate that his knife isn’t literal. The pale-faced men who call themselves Castilians and stink of sweat and sour wine look at him and see only an old man, a man with long white hair and a bad back and worse knees who is fortunate to still have most of his teeth and all of his hearing, even if his vision isn’t what it once was. They haven’t even put him under heavy guard.
Nor have they watched their tongues around him. The fools.
The man Cortes is gone from the city; Teomitl’s spies, those who haven’t been silenced, whisper that he is going to bring back yet a larger force of Castilians, with more giant deer and steel blades and fire-throwing tubes. The ahuitzotls have sworn they will eat whoever steps into the water, but it won’t be enough. The Castilians are planning something. Something worse than their attacks on imperial allies.
Acatl just doesn’t know what. All he can do is wait, and pray, and trust in his gods. And be thankful that the men who flank him like shadows see no need to forbid an old man a simple knife.
Today is the feast of Toxcatl, held despite the glowering of the Castilians’ sweating black-robed priests. There are those, Acatl knows, who resent Teomitl for this. Who think he should have thrown off the Castilian ropes and slaughtered them all long before today, when they must ask permission to honor Tezcatlipoca as though He holds no power, as though it is only some whim that says blood shall fuel the sun. But he sees Teomitl in the crowd, though they are too far to speak, and the man he has loved for forty years meets his eyes and smiles. It’s sad, that smile, but he holds it for one beat, two, and then he mouths words Acatl was afraid he would never hear again in this life.
I love you.
Acatl closes his eyes for a moment. Takes a few slow, deep breaths. I love you too, he thinks, but he doesn’t say it. If he opens his mouth, he will scream it to the heavens, and then all eyes will be on him and he can’t afford that, not if he hopes to survive this.
The man they call Alvarado is speaking quietly to one of the guards—one of the jailers—by Teomitl’s side. Hatred rises sharp and bitter in Acatl’s throat, but he chokes it down. He can’t kill him yet. Not alone.
All eyes are on the High Priest of Tezcatlipoca being forced to lead a rite without sacrifice, without the blood, the light. All souls await the wrath of their cheated gods. All souls pray to be spared.
Acatl prays too, but not the words of the rite. No one is looking at him, at the High Priest of Mictlantecuhtli huddled in the far corner of the plaza like the poorest commoner. Even the guards give him a little space. He draws his knife, nicks his earlobes, and whispers his desire for deliverance.
He is still praying when a sound like thunder splits the air.
No. No.
He is still holding his knife, but what can he do? He is old—he is old, and everything hurts, and if they mean to attack him—
There’s no time to panic. There’s not even any time to think, because the Tlaxcallan guards have spun towards him with their swords in their hands and he may be old, but he has enough blood in him for this. He has enough rage in him for this, if for nothing else. He slashes a quincunx open on the back of his hand, reaches for their life forces, and pulls. They drop like rocks.
He sucks in a sharp breath. Think. I have—I have to think...
Someone screams that the gates are closed. And then just screams. Men in armor—Castilians, Tlaxcallans—are pouring in, and they are defenseless. His people are dying in front of him. He scrambles away from the corpses of his guards, putting his bony back to a wall, and runs through all the spells he knows.
“To me!” Teomitl’s voice, raised above the chaos. There’s a sharp crunch Acatl somehow hears through the fighting, quite as though his middle-aged Revered Speaker has broken someone’s kneecap with his walking stick. The guards surrounding him are Tlaxcallan, after all. They see a man covered in scars who moves slowly, unsteady on his feet; who often forgets dates and is known to lose track of conversations when he’s tired. Who hasn’t taken the field in years. They forget that before he nearly drowned, Emperor Ahuitzotl was the terror of the sea-ringed world.
And they certainly don’t remember who trained him. Mictlan gnaws at Acatl’s guts, ice pooling in his veins. When he breathes, he tastes ash and dust on his tongue, but the only scent filling his nostrils is blood.
He is yet High Priest of Mictlantecuhtli, and there is one thing he can do. One way to stop this senseless slaughter of his people, though it means his life.Teomitl, I’m sorry.
“The river flows northward,” he murmurs. “The mountains crush, the mountains bind...”
This ritual is not quite forbidden, but only because no one had ever thought it needed to be. Not with the price it exacted from the caster. But for the sake of his family, his lover and sisters and children, his nieces and nephews and their children—for the sake of the Fifth World, each magnificent corner—for the sake of his gods, who he knows can die—Acatl is more than willing to pay it.
He drops to his knees and makes the first cut. There is no ignoring the pain, but he grits his teeth and bears it. The more important thing is not to stop praying, to ensure that the words and the blood and the pain reach gods beyond just his patron. He knows Lord Death is listening. It is the others who must heed him, for Their own self-interest if nothing else. The Castilians won’t stop with simple murder; they mean to erase their culture, their way of life, leaving nothing but ash behind.
More screaming. The flash of steel in his peripheral vision. The thuds of running footsteps, of bodies falling. More thunderous cracks of Castilian weapons.
He keeps cutting. Too deep, but soon it won’t matter.
He’s getting dizzy from loss of blood, but his hands are still steady enough for this. He shuts his eyes, tries to shut his ears as well. He fails. There’s a new sound now—the high-pitched singing of ahuitzotls. Men are screaming in agony over the clash of steel and the chanting of priests casting what spells they can. As yet, none have turned towards him.
The quincunx he traces is sloppy, the glyphs just barely legible, but it will do. There are no dogs or bats or owls to sacrifice, but his people are dying around him and their blood is power enough.
His lips still move, barely audible over the sounds of fighting. Gods, he prays the ahuitzotls are holding their own. “We draw you out from Chicomoztoc, honored one. We draw you out from Tamoanchan, honored one. We draw you out from Tlalocan, from Mictlan, honored ones. We draw you out—”
A shout. A language he doesn’t recognize.
He looks up into the flash of steel, the blood-stinking hulk of a man bearing down on him, and thinks, No. No, he can’t die yet. There’s still something he has to do, something that will keep the Fifth World safe, and if these brutes kill him now—if he allows himself to die now, before the ritual is complete—while Teomitl is fighting for his life—
In the next breath, the Wind of Knives is there between them.
“Acatl,” He says, almost warmly.
Acatl makes his numb lips move. “How are you...”
“You called me,” the Wind of Knives says, and a palm like the delicate points of a thousand knives rests on Acatl’s shoulder. “I came.”
He exhales. He didn’t realize he was holding his breath. “...I need...to finish.”
The Wind of Knives casts an eye over the ritual space he’s prepared, crawling with the gray-black gangrenous smoke of the underworld. “I will guard you.”
He wants to say no. Their little corner of the plaza is safe for now, but he’s intrinsically aware of flashing steel and the burn of magic mixing with more of those terrible, earthshaking steel tubes the Castilians call cañones. But they have the gods on their side, and the priests of Huitzilopochtli have discovered that the same thing that powers the cañones also explodes spectacularly when lit on fire.
So in the end, he nods.
He nods, and returns himself to the ritual, and the presence of the gods presses in on him like a headache. Vaguely he’s aware of the Wind of Knives all around him, black death to any who might interrupt him, but he can’t afford to focus on that now. Were he not High Priest of Mictlantecuhtli, he would already be slain for the temerity of trying to summon the gods like a man might call a dog. But he is, and he is dying, his blood leaching into the packed earth, and so they come. They press against the thin skin separating the worlds like worms under the skin of a corpse, writhing and writhing but not—yet—willing to step into the Fifth World where they will be weakened.
He hears a scream, rising above the chaos and his own chanting. A scream from a throat he knows as well as his own, from a man who would not scream like that unless...
Unless...
The Wind of Knives whispers, “The Guardian has fallen,” and does not wait for Acatl to dismiss Him before flowing like a river towards where Mihmatini lays.
Acatl cannot move. Even if he hadn’t lost so much blood, his legs won’t obey him. Mihmatini is the Guardian of the Sacred Precinct. She is his little sister. She can’t—she cannot—
He has no time to grieve. Mictlan gnaws at him like a cancer, leaving no space for tears. He must finish this spell. He must keep chanting, even as a Castilian thug sees him and thinks to finish off one bloodstained old man, even as he hamstrings the bastard and slices through his femoral artery in one smooth motion, even as he sinks back down in a kneeling position with blood splattered across his face. At least the circle wasn’t broken. There is enough living blood to ensure that.
“By Your hand are the flowers torn, by Your hand is the jade crushed, by Your hand are the ringing bells stilled. You who are Two-in-One,”—there is a brilliant flash of ultramarine light, and he knows the Duality has answered, and his sister is dead, and his voice cracks—“you who are the source of life, you who are the source of death...”
He hears footsteps. He doesn’t look up this time. He can feel the sun’s heat on his skin, smell the sun-warmed algae of the lake even through the blood and ash of Mictlan. There’s a grunt and a thud as someone else tries their luck with approaching him, and the Revered Speaker’s stolen sword flashes bright through his closed eyelids.
“Acatl,” Teomitl half-breathes, relief plain in his voice. Relief tinged a moment later with horror, as he realizes nearly all the blood Acatl is covered in is his own. “Love, what are you doing?!”
He forces a smile. It probably looks more like a skull’s rictus grin.
Teomitl doesn’t ask again. “...I see,” he whispers. His voice is ragged. “Mihmatini is...” A raw inhale. A half-strangled sob. “But my ahuitzotls got that bastard Alvarado. I’ll...” He stops. Swallows. Continues, “I’ll buy you as much time as I can. When this...when your ritual is over...”
I won’t be here, Acatl thinks. He doesn’t say it. First, because he can’t stop the prayers now, and second because his lover knows. The Tlaxcallans are one thing, but the weapons of the Castilians can level entire towns. They can limp along, doing their best to fight back against foes who ignore all rules and customs of war, or they can end it here. He’s fine with that. He’s lived long enough, and death will take him on his own terms.
But he still has one regret, so he opens his eyes and lifts his head and looks at his Revered Speaker. The man he loves. The man whose children he helped raise, as dear to him as if he’d fathered them himself. The man who stands before him now, exhausted and bloodstained and with tears carving through the grime on his cheeks, whose right hand still holds a sword even though the left leans heavy on his walking stick.
The man who’s turning back to smile at him over his shoulder one last time. “The heavens will welcome you.”
Acatl smiles back.
And then there is a crack, and Teomitl staggers.
No.
Teomitl crumples, his eyes wide and blank. There is a hole through his neck, ragged and round.
No.
The Revered Speaker is dead. The Revered Speaker is dead, and the gods are waiting to bestow their might upon the Mexica, and there is a hole in the Fifth World—a hole—he should close it, he knows he should, before every horror he’s ever contained breaks free and rains destruction upon—upon—
Upon the people who took him from me.
There is a hole in the Fifth World. Acatl jams his will into it like a knife into a corpse, like fingers into rotting fruit, and tears it open wider.
The last thing he sees is darkness.