“I can hardly believe it. An experience as unsettling as meeting my own legendary Grandfather Motecuzóma. Or like seeing a stone figure step down from a temple frieze. Imagine! A genuine Aztécatl, come to life.” However, his natural suspicion quickly asserted itself, and he asked, “But what is he doing here?”
“He brings a gift, my lord, as I suggested to him when I rediscovered Aztlan. If you will go down to the plaza and look at it, I think you will find it worth many broken paving stones.”
“I will do so,” he said, but added, still suspiciously, “He must want something in return.”
I said, “I think also that the Moon Stone is worth the bestowal of some high-sounding titles on its giver. And some feathered mantles, some jeweled ornaments, that he may be dressed according to his new station. And perhaps the bestowal of some Mexíca warriors as well.”
“Warriors?”
I told Motecuzóma the idea I had earlier expounded to that ruler of Aztlan: that a renewed family tie between us Mexíca and those Aztéca would give The Triple Alliance what it did not currently have, a strong garrison on the northwestern coast.
He said cautiously, “Bearing in mind all the omens, this may not be the time to disperse any of our forces, but I will consider the notion. And one thing is certain. Even if he is younger than you and I, our ancestor deserves a better title than that of Tlatocapíli. I will at least put the -tzin to his name.”
So I left the palace that day feeling rather pleased that a Mixtli, even if it was not myself, had achieved the noble name of Mixtzin. As things turned out, Motecuzóma complied in full with my suggestions. The visitor left our city bearing the resounding title of Aztéca Tlani-Tlatoáni, or Lesser Speaker of the Aztéca. He also took with him a considerable troop of armed soldiers and a number of colonist families selected for their skill at building and fortifying.
I had the opportunity for only one brief conversation with my namesake while he was in Tenochtítlan. He thanked me effusively for my part in his having been welcomed and ennobled and made a partner in The Triple Alliance, and he added:
“Having the -tzin suffixed to my name puts it also on the names of all my family and descendants, even those of slightly indirect descent and divergent lineage. You must come again to Aztlan, Brother, for a small surprise. You will find more than a new and improved city.”
At the time, I supposed he meant that he would arrange a ceremony to make me some sort of honorary lord of the Aztéca. But I have never been again to Aztlan, and I do not know what it became in the years after Mixtzin’s return there. As for the magnificent Moon Stone, Motecuzóma dithered as usual, unable to decide where in The Heart of the One World it might best be displayed. So the last time I remember seeing it, the Moon Stone was still lying flat on the plaza pavement, and it is now as buried and lost as the Sun Stone.
The fact is that something else happened, to make me and most other people speedily forget the visit of the Aztéca, their bringing of the Moon Stone, and their plans for making Aztlan into a great seaside city. What happened was that a messenger came across the lake from Texcóco, wearing the white mantle of mourning. The news was not shockingly unexpected, since the Revered Speaker Nezahualpíli was by then a very old man, but it desolated me to hear that my earliest patron and protector was dead.
I could have gone to Texcóco with the rest of the Eagle Knights, in the company of all the other Mexíca nobles and courtiers who crossed the lake to attend the funeral of Nezahualpíli, and who would either stay there or cross the lake again, some while later, to attend the coronation of the Crown Prince Ixtlil-Xochitl as new Revered Speaker of the Acólhua nation. But I chose to go without pomp and ceremony, in plain mourning dress, as a private citizen. I went as a friend of the family, and I was received by my old schoolmate, the Prince Huexotl, who greeted me as cordially as he had first done thirty and three years before, and greeted me with the name I had worn then: “Welcome, Head Nodder!” I could not help noticing that my old schoolmate Willow was old; I tried not to let my expression show what I felt when I saw his graying hair and lined visage; I had remembered him as a lithe young prince strolling with his pet deer in a verdant garden. But then I thought, uncomfortably: he is no older than I am.
The Uey-Tlatoáni Nezahualpíli was buried in the grounds of his city palace, not at the more expansive country estate near Texcotzínco Hill. So the smaller palace’s lawns fairly overflowed with those come to say farewell to that much loved and respected man. There were rulers and lords and ladies from the nations of The Triple Alliance, and from other lands both friendly and not so. Those emissaries of farther countries who could not arrive in time for Nezahualpíli’s funeral were nevertheless on their way to Texcóco at that moment, hurrying to be in time to salute his son as the new ruler. Of all who should have been at the graveside, the most conspicuously absent was Motecuzóma, who had sent in his place his Snake Woman Tlácotzin and his brother Cuitláhuac, chief commander of the Mexíca armies.
Prince Willow and I stood side by side at the grave, and we stood not far from his half brother, Ixtlil-Xochitl, heir to the Acólhua throne. He still somewhat resembled his name of Black Flower, since he still had the merged black eyebrows that made him appear always to be scowling. But he had lost most of what other hair he had had, and I thought: he must be ten years older than his father was when I first came to school in Texcóco. After the interment, the crowd repaired to the palace ballrooms, to feast and chant and grieve aloud and loudly recount the deeds and merits of the late Nezahualpíli. But Willow and I secured several jars of prime octli, and we went to the privacy of his chambers, and we gradually got very drunk as we relived the old days and contemplated the days to come.
I remember saying at one point, “I heard much muttering about Motecuzóma’s rude absence today. He has never forgiven your father’s aloofness in these past years, particularly his refusal to help in fighting petty wars.”
The prince shrugged. “Motecuzóma’s bad manners will win him no concessions from my half brother. Black Flower is our father’s son, and believes as he did—-that The One World will someday soon be invaded by outlanders, and that our only security is in unity. He will continue our father’s policy: that we Acólhua must conserve our energies for a war that will be anything but petty.”
“The right course, perhaps,” I said. “But Motecuzóma will love your brother no better than he loved your father.”
The next thing I remember was looking at the window and exclaiming, “Where has the time gone? It is late at night—and I am woefully inebriated.”
“Take the guest chamber yonder,” said the prince. “We must be up tomorrow to hear all the palace poets read their eulogies.”
“If I sleep now I shall have a horrendous head in the morning,” I said. “With your leave, I will first go for a walk in the city and let Night Wind blow some of the vapors from my brain.”
My mode of walking was probably a sight to see, but there was nobody to see it. The night streets were even emptier than usual, for every resident of Texcóco was in mourning and indoors. And the priests had evidently sprinkled copper filings in the pine-splint torches on the street corner poles, for their flames burned blue, and the light they cast was dim and somber. In my muddled state, I somehow got the impression that I was repeating a walk I had walked once before, long ago. The impression was heightened when I saw ahead of me a stone bench under a red-flowering tapachíni tree. I sank down on it gratefully, and sat for a while, enjoying being showered by the tree’s scarlet petals blown loose by the wind. Then I became aware that on either side of me was seated another man.
I turned left and squinted through my topaz, and saw the same shriveled, ragged, cacao-colored man I had seen so often in my life. I turned to my right, and saw the better-dressed but dusty and weary man I had seen not quite so often before. I suppose I should have started up with a loud cry, but I only chuckled drunkenly, aware that they were illusions induced by all the octli I had imbibed. Still c
huckling, I addressed them both:
“Venerable lords, should you not have gone underground with your impersonator?”
The cacao man grinned, showing the few teeth he had. “There was a time when you believed us to be gods. You supposed that I was Huehuetéotl, Oldest of Old Gods, he who was venerated in these lands long before all others.”
“And that I was the god Yoáli Ehécatl,” said the dusty man. “The Night Wind, who can abduct unwary walkers by night, or reward them, according to his whim.”
I nodded, deciding to humor them even if they were only hallucinations. “It is true, my lords, I was once young and credulous. But then I learned of Nezahualpíli’s pastime of wandering the world in disguise.”
“And that made you disbelieve in the gods?” asked the cacao man.
I hiccuped and said, “Let me put it this way. I have never met any others except you two.”
The dusty man murmured obscurely, “It may be that the real gods appear only when they are about to disappear.”
I said, “You had better disappear, then, to where you belong. Nezahualpíli cannot be very happy, walking the dismal road to Míctlan while two embodiments of himself are still aboveground.”
The cacao man laughed. “Perhaps we cannot bear to leave you, old friend. We have so long followed your fortunes in your various embodiments: as Mixtli, as Mole, as Head Nodder, as Fetch!, as Záa Nayàzú, as Ek Muyal, as Su-kurú—”
I interrupted, “You remember my names better than I do.”
“Then remember ours!” he said, rather sharply. “I am Huehuetéotl and this is Yoáli Ehécatl.”
“For mere apparitions,” I grumbled, “you are cursedly persistent and insistent. I have not been this drunk for a long time. It must have been seven or eight years ago. And I remember … I said then that someday, somewhere I would meet a god, and I would ask him. I would ask him this. Why have the gods let me live so long, while they have struck down every other person who ever stood close to me? My dear sister, my beloved wife, my infant son and treasured daughter, so many close friends, even transient loves …”
“That is easily answered,” said the ragged apparition who called himself The Oldest of Old Gods. “Those persons were, so to speak, the hammers and chisels used for the sculpturing of you, and they got broken or discarded. You did not. You have weathered all the blows and the chipping and the abrasion.”
I nodded with the solemnity of inebriation and said, “That is a drunken answer, if ever I heard one.”
The dusty apparition who called himself Night Wind said, “You of all people, Mixtli, know that a statue or monument does not come already shaped from the limestone quarry. It must be hewn with adzes and ground with obsidian grit and hardened by exposure to the elements. Not until it is carved and toughened and polished is it fit for use.”
“Use?” I said harshly. “At this dwindling end of my roads and my days, of what use could I possibly be?”
Night Wind said, “I mentioned a monument. All it does is stand upright, but that is not always an easy thing to do.”
“And it will not get easier,” said The Oldest of Old Gods. “This very night, your Revered Speaker Motecuzóma has made one irreparable mistake, and he will make others. There is coming a storm of fire and blood, Mixtli. You were shaped and hardened for only one purpose. To survive it.”
I hiccuped again and asked, “Why me?”
The Oldest said, “A long time ago, you stood one day on a hillside not far from here, undecided whether to climb. I told you then that no man has ever yet lived out any life except his one chosen own. You chose to climb. The gods chose to help you.”
I laughed a horrible laugh.
“Oh, you could not have appreciated their attentions,” he admitted, “any more than the stone recognizes the benefits conferred by hammer and chisel. But help you they did. And you will now requite their favors.”
“You will survive the storm,” said Night Wind.
The Oldest went on, “The gods helped you to become a knower of words. Then they helped you to travel in many places and to see and learn and experience much. That is why, more than any other man, you know what The One World was like.”
“Was?” I echoed.
The Oldest made a sweeping gesture with his skinny arm. “All this will disappear from sight and touch and every other human sense. It will exist only in memory. You have been charged with the remembering.”
“You will endure,” said Night Wind.
The Oldest gripped my shoulder and said, with infinite melancholy, “Someday, when all that was is gone … never to be seen again … men will sift the ashes of these lands, and they will wonder. You have the memories and the words to tell of The One World’s magnificence, so it will not be forgotten. You, Mixtli! When all the other monuments of all these lands have fallen, when even the Great Pyramid falls, you will not.”
“You will stand,” said Night Wind.
I laughed again, scoffing at the absurd idea of the ponderous Great Pyramid ever falling down. Still trying to humor the two admonitory phantasms, I said, “My lords, I am not made of stone. I am only a man, and a man is the frailest of monuments.”
But I heard no reply or reproof. The apparitions had gone as quickly as they had come, and I was talking to myself.
From some distance behind my bench, the street lamp flickered its moody blue flames. In that mournful lighting, the red tapachíni blossoms that fluttered down onto me were dark, a crimson color, like a drizzle of drops of blood. I shuddered, for I felt a feeling I had experienced only once before—when for the first time I had stood at the edge of the night and the edge of the darkness—the feeling of being utterly alone in the world, and desolate, and forlorn. The place where I sat was only a tiny island of dim blue light, and all about that place there was nothing but darkness and emptiness and the low moaning of the night wind, and the wind moaned, “Remember….”
When I was awakened by a street-lamp tender making his rounds at dawn, I laughed at my unbecomingly drunken behavior and my even more foolish dream. I limped back to the palace, stiff from having slept on the cold stone bench, expecting to find the whole court still asleep. But there was great excitement there, everyone up and dashing frantically about, and a number of armed Mexíca soldiers inexplicably posted at the building’s various portals. When I found Prince Willow and he glumly told me the news, I began to wonder if my nighttime encounter really had been a dream. For the news was that Motecuzóma had done a base and unheard-of thing.
As I have said, it was an inviolable tradition that solemn ceremonies like the funeral of a high ruler would not be marred by assassination or other such treacheries. As I have also said, the Acólhua army had been all but disbanded by the late Nezahualpíli, and the token few troops still under arms were in no state of readiness to repel invaders. As I have also said, Motecuzóma had sent to the funeral his Snake Woman Tlácotzin and his army commander Cuitláhuac. But I have not said, because I did not know, that Cuitláhuac had brought with him a war acáli carrying sixty hand-picked Mexíca warriors, whom he had secretly debarked outside Texcóco.
During that night, while in my drunken confusion I was conversing with my hallucinations or with myself, Cuitláhuac and his troops had routed the palace guards, had taken over the building, and the Snake Woman had summoned all its occupants to hear a proclamation. The Crown Prince Black Flower would not be crowned his father’s successor. Motecuzóma, as chief ruler of The Triple Alliance, had decreed that the crown of Texcóco would go instead to the lesser prince Cacáma, Maize Cob, the twenty-year-old son of one of Nezahualpíli’s concubines who, not incidentally, was Motecuzóma’s youngest sister.
Such a display of duress was unprecedented, and it was reprehensible, but it was incontestable. However admirable Nezahualpíli’s pacificatory policy might have been in principle, it had left his people sadly unprepared to resist the Mexíca’s meddling in their affairs. Crown Prince Black Flower put up a furious show of black indign
ation, but that was all he could do. Commander Cuitláhuac was not a bad man, despite his being Motecuzóma’s brother and his following Motecuzóma’s orders. He expressed his condolences to the deposed prince, and advised him to go quietly away somewhere, before Motecuzóma should get the very practical notion of ordering him imprisoned or eliminated.
So Black Flower departed that same day, accompanied by his personal courtiers and servants and guards and quite a number of other nobles equally infuriated by the turn of events, all of them loudly vowing revenge for having been betrayed by their longtime ally. The rest of Texcóco could only seethe in impotent outrage, and prepare to witness the coronation of Motecuzóma’s nephew as Cacámatzin, Uey-Tlatoáni of the Acólhua.
I did not stay for that ceremony. I was a Mexícatl, and no Mexícatl was very popular in Texcóco right then, and indeed I was not very proud of being a Mexícatl. Even my old schoolmate Willow was eyeing me pensively, probably wondering if I had spoken a veiled threat when I told him, “Motecuzóma will love your brother no better than he loved your father.” So I left there and returned to Tenochtítlan, where the priests were jubilantly arranging special rites in almost every temple to celebrate “our Revered Speaker’s clever stratagem.” And Cacámatzin’s buttocks had barely warmed the Texcóco throne before he was announcing a reversal of his father’s policy: calling a new muster of Acólhua troops to help his uncle Motecuzóma mount still another offensive against the eternally beleaguered nation of Texcála.
And that war too was unsuccessful, mainly because Motecuzóma’s new and young and bellicose ally, though personally selected by him and related by blood to him, was not of much help to him. Cacáma was neither loved nor feared by his subjects, and his call for volunteer soldiers went absolutely ignored. Even when he followed his call with a stern order of conscription, only a comparatively few men responded, and did so reluctantly, and proved remarkably listless in battle. Others of the Acólhua, who would otherwise eagerly have taken up arms, pleaded that they had grown old or ill during Nezahualpíli’s years of peace, or that they had fathered large families they could not leave. The truth was that they were still loyal to the Crown Prince who should have been their Revered Speaker.