Teomitl shrugged. "I've always thought the Great Temple was disharmonious. There should be rooms for more gods, shouldn't there? For the peasants as well as the warriors; for the waters as well as the battles."

"Don't lie to Me. You're a warrior," the Jade Skirt said. "All that matters to you is glory on the battlefield."

Teomitl shook his head. "No," he said. "The only glory comes from winning battles. But there are many battlefields."

"In My realm?"

"Fighting currents," Teomitl said, simply. "Struggling not to capsize in a storm. Swimming ashore with the ahuizotls surrounding you, eager for your eyes and fingernails..."

She regarded him for a while. By Teomitl's shocked, blank gaze, She was probing into his mind, as she had into mine. "You are sincere," She said, finally. "When you become Revered Speaker a will you re-establish My worship?" She didn't, I noticed, say "if", but simply assumed it was certain that Teomitl would succeed Tizoctzin a who in turn would succeed Axayacatl-tzin.

If Teomitl noticed that, he gave no sign. "Should I ever become Revered Speaker, I'll make You and Your husband a worthy temple: a building so great that everyone will prostrate themselves on seeing it, so magnificent that it will be the talk of the land..."

Chalchiutlicue laughed, but it was amused laughter: waves lapping at a child's feet, a stream gently gurgling over stones. "Will it?" She asked. "That would be something to see indeed, child of the Obsidian Snake. I should wait for it."

"Will you accept my allegiance, then?" Teomitl asked, impatient as ever. Someone was really going to have to teach him forbearance, or he'd never survive at the Imperial Court.

The Jade Skirt watched him for a while, perhaps weighing Her choices. "That would be interesting," She said. "Amusing, if nothing else. Yes, child. I'll take your offer."

Power blazed from the heart of the lake, welling up from the earth in an irresistible geyser. It wrapped itself around Teomitl like a second mantle, sank into his skin until his bones echoed with its ponderous beat. He fell to his knees in the mud, gasping for breath.

Neutemoc, finally finding some energy, took a step towards him. I laid a hand on his shoulder. "Wait," I said. Intervening would just make things worse, both for Teomitl and for us.

Teomitl's head came up, in a fluid, blurred gesture that had nothing human about it. His eyes were the colour of jade: a mirror of Chalchiutlicue's triumphant gaze. His mouth opened; but all that came out was a moan, a shapeless lament.

"Feel it," Chalchiutlicue whispered. Her voice made the ground tremble under our feet. "Feel it, child of the Obsidian Snake..."

Teomitl closed his eyes. His head fell down again; his back slumped, as if under a burden too heavy to bear.

In the silence, all we could hear was his breath, slow and laboured. Something cold and slimy bumped against my legs: one of the ahuizotls, creeping closer to Teomitl. I bent down, instinctively, to recover my obsidian knives from the mud into which Chalchiutlicue had flung them.

"No!" Her voice was the thunderclap of the storm. "He made his choice, priest. Let him bear the consequences."

In the eerie silence of Chalchiutlicue's Meadows, the ahuizotls converged towards Teomitl. They formed a wide, malevolent ring, circling him like a flock of vultures, and their hypnotic song rose, slowly, faintly, ringing in my chest like a second heartbeat: "In Tlalocan, the verdant house, The Blessed Land of the Drowned The dead men play at balls, they cast the reeds..."

The clawed hands over their heads clenched, unclenched, a sickening counterpart to the rhythm of the song. I couldn't hear Teomitl's breathing any more.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Teomitl rose from his kneeling position. He raised his head, and every one of the ahuizotls around him did the same.

Nausea welled up in me, sharp, uncontrollable.

Teomitl's eyes weren't jade any more; but yellow, the same colour as the beasts surrounding him.

"Acatl," Neutemoc whispered. I said nothing. I waited for Teomitl to say something, anything that would prove he was still human.

Teomitl sucked in a breath, and then another a slow, deliberate. "It... hurts," he whispered. "It..." And, for the first time, he wasn't a warrior or an Imperial Prince, but just a boy, thrust into responsibilities he'd never been meant to have.

Chalchiutlicue smiled. "They'll come to your call."

"And the child?" Neutemoc asked.

Teomitl shook his head, as if to clear his thoughts a which must have been moving in another place, far from the Fifth World. The ahuizotls' heads moved slightly; but they seemed more to be following him than mimicking his gestures. I didn't know whether that was an improvement. Everything about the ahuizotls made my hackles rise. But the Jade Skirt was right: Teomitl had made his choice, and couldn't go back on it.

"The childa" Teomitl whispered. "I can feel him," he said. "Everywhere..." His face twisted. "In the rain, in the waters of the lake... Like a wound in the Fifth World."

"My husband placed a spell of concealment on the child," Chalchiutlicue said. "He was given to a family in the Floating Gardens in the district of Cuepopan, to raise as their own." She opened Her hands wide. Within them lay a small, translucent jade figurine of a baby, shining with an inner light. She blew on it: the baby scattered, became dust blown into Teomitl's face. "That is where you'll find him."

Before going back, I retrieved my knives from the water, and put them back in my belt. They still pulsed, but the emptiness of Mictlan was somehow different, tainted with Chalchiutlicue's touch.

The ahuizotls followed us on the way back: an escort I could gladly have done without. Teomitl was silent, his eyes lost in thought. The veil of protection I'd always seen on him was still there. But it had subtly changed, shimmering with green reflections. Like my knives, Chalchiutlicue's magic had altered it.

Neutemoc, too, was silent. Brooding again, probably. I could only hope I wasn't at the forefront of his thoughts.

When we reached the remnants of the glyph through which we'd entered the Meadows, the world spun and spun, and coalesced into the small room where we'd started our journey.

Eliztac stood watching the brazier, in which the last remnants of the copal and resin figurine were consuming themselves. He looked up when we stepped out of the glyph. "You've returned, I see." His gaze froze on Teomitl. "She's made you Her agent?"

Teomitl said nothing. His eyes were still unfocused.

"There's no time," I said. "We have to go to the district of Cuepopan. Can you lend us a boat?"

Eliztac's eyebrows rose. "Always in a hurry, I see."

"It's the rain," Teomitl whispered, and his voice echoed, as if Chalchiutlicue were speaking through him. "It's all wrong, can't you see?"

Eliztac said nothing. He had to have seen. "This temple has many boats," he said. "But few boatmen who will be ready to brave Tlaloc's anger."

"I'll row," I said at the exact same time as Neutemoc, who glared at me, defiant. Of us both, he'd always been the faster rower; but it had been many years since he hadn't had a slave rowing for him.

Eliztac smiled. "I'll take you to the docks, while you decide."

When we did reach the docks, there wasn't any discussion: Neutemoc settled himself into the boat, taking the oars and glaring at me. Quarrelling would have been futile, so I let him be. In any case, I was more worried about Teomitl, who looked at the boat blankly, as if he had forgotten what it was.

"This way," I said.

Teomitl sucked in a breath and exhaled slowly, as if it had hurt him. "We have to hurry," he said. Around him, the rain fell in a steady curtain: magic shimmering around us, chipping away at our wards.

When our wards were gone... I didn't want to think on what would happen, but it was a fair bet the creatures would be close.

"I know," I said. "Get in."

Teomitl laid an unsteady hand against the boat's edge. "Ia" he said. He breathed in, again. "I'm not used to it."

I'd never been a god's agent, but the Wind of Knives' powers had been invested in me, for a very short while. "It will get easier as time passes."

Teomitl snorted. "A good guess," he said. He climbed into the boat; Neutemoc stilled its rocking effortlessly.

"I'll guide," Teomitl said.

There was still a chance we would find the child before the full measure of His powers manifested; before he became much harder to kill. But Teomitl was right. We had to make haste.

The streets and canals Neutemoc rowed through were deserted: the unexpected, unrelenting rain seemed to have sent everybody indoors. At one intersection, a woman stood watching the water level under a bridge, her face creased into a frown. I could understand her worry: all of Tenochtitlan was an island, and the lake was our foundation. A flood would be a disaster.

But there were other, deeper worries: the Fifth World would not last if Tlaloc tumbled Tonatiuh, the Sun God, from the sky. Everything would once more be plunged into the primal darkness.

"This way," Teomitl said, as we reached the first of Cuepopan's Floating Gardens. He steered Neutemoc from island to island with small gestures; my brother said nothing, only rowed like a man who had nothing to lose any more.

The Floating Gardens were silent. With the rain, no peasants planted seeds, or tilled the fields. It was as if everything had withdrawn from the world, save for the steady patter of rain on the water, and the regular, splashing sound of Neutemoc's oars, leading us ever closer to our goal.

And a couple of other splashing sounds. Without surprise, I saw two dark shapes in the water, trailing after the boat like an escort.

"You can feel them?" I asked Teomitl.

He shook his head. "I could tell them to go away."

I was tempted. The ahuizotls frightened me; but we weren't there to be subject to my whims. And against a god-child, any weapon could prove useful. "No," I said. "Let them be."

They followed us, whispering of the Blessed Lands, of the dead gathered in Chalchiutlicue's bosom. Of Father, still unaware of how much I mourned him.

"This one," Teomitl said.

There was nothing remarkable about the Floating Garden he singled out. Like the others, it was a mass of earth and roots, anchored into the mud of the lake by poles and woven reed mats. A single house, perched on an artificial rise, dominated it: a small affair a and yet, as in my parents' house, it would host hordes of children; old people; and a couple of peasants, struggling to feed them all.

I laid a hand on one of my obsidian knives, feeling the emptiness of Mictlan within my chest, mingling with the bitter tang of the Jade Skirt's magic. This wasn't the time for reminiscence.

Neutemoc moored the boat near the edge of the Floating Garden, where we all disembarked. I couldn't help remembering the last time I'd done this, when Teomitl had run us aground. At least my brother was a decent oarsman.

"And now what?" Neutemoc asked.

I shrugged. "We go see what's inside."

The rain, though heavy, didn't yet hamper our vision. I wasn't confident the situation wouldn't change, though, if the god-child grew into his powers. Hopefully, it wouldn't happen. Hopefully.

Wordlessly, we crept up the small rise. Neutemoc was in the lead, his sword drawn. I was right at his back, Teomitl trailing some way behind us. The ahuizotls remained in the water a for which I was grateful.

Inside, it was dark and cool, but the air was saturated with magic: the same deep, pervasive sense of wrongness that I'd sensed at Amecameca. Here, however, it was strong enough to choke the breath out of me. "I... I don't think I'm going to last for long."

"What's the matter, Acatl-tzin?" Teomitl asked.

It hurt to breathe, even to focus my thoughts. Wrong, it was so wrong. Teomitl had had it right: it was like a wound in the fabric of the Fifth World, a wound that kept widening, spilling its miasma to choke us all.

"Who comes here?"

By the extinguished hearth crouched a wizened figure, wrapped in a tattered shirt, its clothes torn to shreds and stinking of refuse.

"Huemac? Is that you?" the figure asked.

An old, old woman, her face seamed with the marks of many seasons, blind gaze questing left and right, still trying to see us. She didn't look threatening, though the magic pervaded her, soaking through her skin, outlining the pale shapes of her bones. Wrong. All wrong.

"We're not your son," Neutemoc said.

"'We'?" she asked. "How many of you are there?"

"I'm not sure that's relevant," Neutemoc said, nonplussed.

"This is a small house," the old woman whispered. "A small, small place, my lord. We have nothing worth your time."

Even without her sight, she could still distinguish the confident tones of a warrior's voice.

"We're not here to attack you," Teomitl said, finally. "We're looking for your... grandson?"

"I have many grandsons." Her voice was sly. "Many, many children of my own; and many fruitful marriages."

Teomitl closed his eyes for a bare moment. "He's young. Six, seven years old, no more. His hair is as black and as slick as dried blood, and his skin the colour of muddy water." He spoke as if he could see the child. And perhaps he could, indeed; perhaps that had been part of Chalchiutlicue's gift.

"Chicuei Mazatl," the old woman whispered. "My sweet, sweet Mazatl." She crooned, balancing herself back and forth on her knees. "Mazatl. A deer, a strong child like his father; born to be a hunter..."

I didn't know what was worrying me more: the wrongness that crushed my chest, or the chilling fact that this old woman was completely unanchored from the Fifth World.

"Mazatl." Neutemoc's voice was flat. His own daughter was called Mazatl a simply after the day she had been born, like many children a but he would see the parallels. "Where is he, venerable?" "Not here," she cackled. "No, not here. The deer has fled into the forest, into the trees. Not here..."

Teomitl knelt by the fire, and took her hands. "Look at me," he said.

Her blind eyes rose towards his face, and stopped. Slowly, hesitatingly, she extended her right hand in his direction. Teomitl didn't move. He let her touch his skin and recoil, as if she'd burnt herself. "You shine, like a sun, like the sun at the beginning of the world. You a who are you?"

"Ahuizotl," Teomitl said, softly. "He who bears Chalchiutlicue's gift."

"Ahuizotl. It is a strong name," the old woman whispered. "Will you protect me? They've left, they've all left, taking their reed mats and the last embers, and the altar of the gods, and the ceramic bowls. Gone..."

"I see," Teomitl said. His voice was soft, with the edge of broken obsidian. "Do you know where?"

"Ia" Sanity returned to her face, for a brief moment. "They'll kill me if I tell. They said they would. They never lie, you see."