The chinamitls, or Floating Gardens, were artificial islands reclaimed from the lake. A mass of stones and clay, dumped at the bottom of the lake, served as a support for muddy, fertile earth. Over the years, the Floating Gardens had grown more numerous as well as closer to each other, and now formed a district of their own: a grid of fields separated by small canals, another city on the water.

"We need a boat," Teomitl was saying, his torch wavering left and right. "There." He all but ran to a small reed boat, moored to the bank ahead of us. "Let's take this one."

"It's not ours," I said, shocked. "At least ask for permission."

His eyes were wide in the torchlight. "Why?" he asked. "We'll bring it back."

"Before dawn?" I asked. "I can't guarantee that, and neither can you." A boat like that would be a family's sole means of transport, the only way to gather fish from the lake, to carry merchandise to the marketplace. To wake up in the morning, and discover it lost, to think it stolen... that would truly be disastrous. I scanned the banks: close by was the dark shape of a hut, its coloured thatch roof reflecting the torchlight. "Let's warn them."

"Acatl-tzin." Teomitl's voice shook on the verge of exasperation. "A life is at stake, and you worry about peasants?"

My own parents had been peasants. I had grown up in fields much like those we were walking in; and the weak were so easily overlooked in the scheme of things. Teomitl's attitude, while not unexpected, disappointed me. I'd hoped for more a intelligence? Compassion? "That boat is a family's living," I said, more sharply than I'd intended to. "I won't trample lives to save just one."

"But," Teomitl said, shaking his head, "you said you were looking for Priestess Eleuia..."

I was already walking towards the hut. With all the noise we were making, they would no doubt be awake.

A man dressed in a simple loincloth stood on the threshold of the dwelling, holding a trembling torch in his hand.

"We need to borrow your boat," I said.

His eyes focused on me, on my grey cloak, its colour uncertain in starlight, on the streaks of makeup that marked my face. I could have been anyone to him. But he saw that I was armed.

"Take what you need," he said. "But don't..." A sweeping gesture with his hands, encompassing the hut and those sleeping within.

"Oh, for the Duality's sake," Teomitl said. He threw something in the air. It glittered as it fell, and landed with the harsh sound of metal striking metal. "Buy a new boat with that, if we damage it. Come on, Acatl-tzin. Let's go."

The man bent down to pick up Teomitl's offering: quills of gold, tied together at the end, enough to ensure two months' living, if not more. Tossed casually into the mud, as if they were worth nothing at all: the quintessential warrior gesture. Some student. Obedience, like humility, was a foreign notion to him.

"Teomitl," I said as he untied the boat: an interesting feat, since he had one hand taken by his torch. "I thought I'd made things clear. You follow my lead."

He raised his gaze, briefly, to the sky. "You'd have stayed for hours arguing with the man."

"No," I said, stung. I knew how to handle such situations. "I would merely have eased things a little."

"Money eases things wonderfully," Teomitl said. He gestured for me to climb aboard.

The boat rocked as I stepped into it. My body, remembering gestures from more than twenty years ago, adjusted itself to the motion.

"Money won't buy him a better life," I said.

"No, but it will make the next months easier." Teomitl held out his torch to me, and I took it in my free hand, without thinking. "I'll row."

I watched him manoeuvre the boat into the canal, shifting my weight from leg to leg to compensate for the rocking. He had this natural authority, I guessed: something that made him hard to ignore when he gave you a command.

He also, quite obviously, had never rowed in his life. The boat spun to and fro in a haphazard fashion, and the jade heart in my right hand shifted from beating to still to beating again, as he directed us towards the nearest Floating Garden.

"Which one?" he asked.

"I have no idea," I said, annoyed, more because of the natural, insidious way he'd taken charge than because of his rowing. "If you kept us on course, I'd have an easier time."

"Not my fault," Teomitl snapped. "The thing won't stay still."

"It's a boat. They rarely stay still, The Duality curse you! Where were you raised? In the mountains?" Tenochtitlan was built on an island; every street doubled as a canal, and it was almost impossible for a boy to grow up without ever seeing a boat.

In the unsteady light, I felt his exasperation more than I saw it. "I'm doing my best, Tlaloc blind you! I'm just not used to this contraption."

The least that could be said. I sighed; and instead of holding the jade heart steadily in front of me, attempted to keep it on an even orientation. Not obvious, with only the starlight to go by. It kept becoming motionless without warning; but slowly, step by step, I managed to direct Teomitl to one of the furthest islands.

The boat ran aground in a spectacular fashion, scattering dried, slashing pieces of reeds over my legs. Teomitl leapt on the shore and snatched the torch from me. He stared at me, once more daring me to mock him.

I wasn't in a mood to reproach him, for the heartbeat under my fingers was faster than it had been on shore. "It's close," I whispered.

"Where?" Teomitl asked.

"On this island." I suddenly wondered why we were whispering. A beast of shadows would have hearing much keener than that of any jaguar on the prowl, and a sense of smell to match. It would sense me, a priest for the Dead, as it would sense the heart I carried in my hands. "Come."

This Floating Garden was, like most of them, a huge maize field. Dry husks crackled under my sandals, no matter how hard I strove to be silent.

The torchlight illuminated the small maize plants, poking out of the ground: it was the end of the dry season, and the maize had barely been replanted. In the night, the field seemed eerily desolate: every insect song echoed as if in the Great Temple, and every maize sapling rustle made me startle, and wonder if the beast wasn't going to leap at us.

The heartbeat grew faster still as we approached the hut at the end of the Floating Garden.

"In there?" Teomitl asked. "Can't we draw it out?"

I wished we could. "It's too canny for that. We'd just be wasting our time."

"I see," Teomitl said. "What an adventure." He didn't sound keen. I didn't feel so enthusiastic either. Inside the hut, we would have neither starlight nor moonlight, and fighting by torchlight was messy and ineffective. I looked up at the sky. The moon would rise soon, but we would be inside while it climbed into the sky. I didn't like that, but there wasn't much of a choice.

The heart went wild as I crossed the threshold. My hand dropped to the largest of my obsidian knives, and drew it from its sheath.

Nothing. No beast, leaping from the darkness to swipe at my chest. I released my hold on the knife; the hollow feeling in my stomach receded.

Teomitl stood on the threshold, his torch briefly illuminating the contents of the hut: walls of wattle-and-daub, embers dying on the hearth. And three bodies, face down on the ground, the sickening smell of rot and spilled entrails underlying that of churned mud.

The beat of the jade heart was frantic now, as if it didn't know where to start pointing.

I knelt by one of the bodies, lifted it to the wavering light: a man, his chest slashed open, and the heart missing. Of course. The beast of shadows had feasted on its preferred meal.

The other corpses were much the same, save that one of them was a woman. She could have been Eleuia. But I soon disabused myself: this woman was older than thirty-five, and wearing a rough cactus-fibre blouse and skirts, nothing like the clothes a priestess of high rank would have chosen.

"Acatl-tzin," Teomitl said, sharply. "There's something outside."

The heart was still madly beating, but it was useless at such close quarters. The beast could be anywhere. I rose from my crouch, drawing one of my three obsidian knives from its sheath.

"Stay where you are," I said.

A shadow passed across the threshold, knocking Teomitl offbalance. The torch fell: a brief, fiery arc before it was utterly extinguished. And in the interval before I gained my night vision, something huge bore me to the ground. Claws scrabbled at the clasp of my cloak a moving downwards, aiming for my heart.

NINE.

Shadows and Summoners I tried to roll aside, but the beast was too heavy. It breathed into my face the nauseous smell of rotting bodies, of pus and bleeding wounds. I wanted to retch. But I couldn't. I was pinned to the ground, my lungs all but crushed by the weight on my chest.

I'd dropped the jade heart, but my hand was still clenched around the obsidian knife. I tried to raise it, but the beast was blocking me. Its claws had shredded my cloak and were now digging into my chest, where the jade pendant was obviously giving it some trouble.

Good.

I heaved, felt the beast slide a fraction of a measure, enough for me to wedge the knife upwards and sink it into flesh.

The beast roared, but remained where it was, weighing down on my chest.

The Duality curse me. The jade amulet would slow it down, but at some point it would be entirely blackened a and thus useless.

I heaved again, to little avail.

Footsteps sounded in the hut. "Acatl-tzin!"

The beast roared, and turned away from me. I heaved again, sending it to the ground. As quickly as I could, I rolled upright.

My night vision was a little better, but not clear enough. Presumably, the two silhouettes hacking at each other in the hut were Teomitl, armed with his sword, and the beast, hissing like a frustrated ocelot. Teomitl's breath came in quick, heavy gasps, and he circled the thing in an awkward way: a wound, taken as he'd been struck down by the beast, must have hampered him.

Obviously, the beast had the upper hand. It didn't have the problem of inadequate night vision, and Teomitl's reflexes were no match for its rapid strikes.

But we had one advantage over it: because it was made of the deepest shadows of Mictlan, it hated light. Any kind of light. And outside the hut would be starlight, and the rising moon, steadily climbing into the sky. And a dense network of maize seedlings, which would betray the slightest movement.

I unsheathed both my remaining obsidian knives, feeling Mictlantecuhtli's power pulse deep within, and made my way to the door as fast as I could.

I closed my eyes, briefly, extending my priest-senses a and felt the beast, a black patch of raw anger and hatred, mixed with the deeper darkness of Mictlan. Not stopping to dwell on the consequences of failure, I took aim, and threw one knife at the combatants.

A howl informed me I'd hit the right target; I threw myself to the ground, and not a moment too soon. The beast leapt right over me, and landed in the maize with a dry, rustling sound.

The starlight limned its shape: a body half as large again as a jaguar's, a narrow snout, glittering fangs; and yellow, malevolent eyes that seemed to see right into my soul. That had to be what a deer felt, in the moment before the hunter closed on it.

No.

I had toa I threw myself aside again, and the leap which had been meant for my chest caught my left arm instead. Claws sank deep into my skin. I stifled a scream as the searing pain spread through the bones of my upper arm. My hand opened, out of its own volition, and the obsidian knife, the only one I had left, fell to the ground.

The beast withdrew its claws. Its muscles bunched up, to snatch me and bring me closer to it. I did the only possible thing: I let myself fall to the ground. The beast's claws went wide. Frustrated, it shook its head, growling in a decidedly unpleasant manner.

I flicked my eyes upwards, glancing at the sky: the moon was steadily rising higher and higher, but it would be a while before its light fell on the Floating Garden.

Huitzilpochtli strike me down.

At the threshold of the hut, a shaking Teomitl had hauled himself upwards. He was attempting to raise his sword, but I didn't think he'd arrive in time.

There was no point in discreetly retrieving my obsidian knife. I simply dived for it, as the beast braced itself for another jump, straight in the direction I was going in.

The shock of its weight sent me sprawling to the ground, fighting not to scream as my left arm became a mass of fiery pain. Its claws scrabbled at my jade pendant and the thread holding it around my neck parted. The pendant fell to the ground with a clink. The beast roared in triumph and reared, both paws held high above my chest a with all their claws unsheathed.

"Acatl-tzin!" Teomitl bellowed.

The world turned to thick honey; everything seemed to happen more slowly than needed: the claws descending to slash open my chest; Teomitl's unsteady footsteps, rushing towards me, but too late, it was already too late; the glimmer of the obsidian knife, lying in the mud inches from my left hand.

My left hand.

I had toa

Focus. I had to focus.