Mal and Aaronson nodded. As soon as Tlanextic looked the other way, Aaronson turned to Mal, eyes agog, and mouthed the word “ Fuuuuck! ” She nodded to him in return, no less incredulous than he, but able to mask it better.
A funicular lift took them up the ziggurat’s slanted flank. With every storey it rose Mal felt a mounting sense of unreality. She’d never in her life expected she would even set eyes on the Great Speaker, let alone be in the same room as him. Now, that possibility loomed. Within minutes she could be standing before the emperor of an entire planet, the most powerful man who had ever existed. An immortal, no less, gifted with prolonged life by the gods themselves. Moctezuma II, in the half-a-millennium-old flesh.
Mal Vaughn was not a vain woman, but at that moment she found herself wishing she looked better than she currently did, with her borrowed trousers and her practical travelling clothes. Not forgetting the bruise she could feel growing on the side of her face, courtesy of Tlanextic’s roundhouse right. She fingered the puffy, stretched patch of skin delicately.
“Don’t worry, boss,” Aaronson confided. “You still look fine. Every inch the plainclothes Jaguar. So what if you’re a bit ragged round the edges? It’s good for the image. Adds a touch of authenticity.”
“Thanks,” said Mal. “I think. How’s the acrophobia?”
Aaronson was standing with his back turned to the lift’s three outer sides, which were all glass. “Long as I don’t think about it, I’m fine.”
The lift deposited them a couple of floors shy of the ziggurat’s summit. Tlanextic went ahead while the rest of them cooled their heels in a reception area. In order to distract herself from the nerves fizzing in her stomach, Mal tried to engage one of the Serpent lieutenants in conversation. He was having none of it.
Eventually Tlanextic reappeared. “The Great Speaker will see us now.”
“All of us?” said Mal.
“Yes, that does fucking include you. Get over it. Let’s go.”
A short trapezoid passageway led to an antechamber dominated by a massive circular door. The entire surface of the door was covered by a mosaic of jewels taking the form of the four-quadrants symbol that represented the interrelatedness and universality of the Four Who Rule Supreme. It was an outlandishly lavish and opulent thing. The north quadrant, the cardinal direction associated with Huitzilopochtli, consisted of slivers of white opal across which rainbow glints of iridescence chased one another. The south, which belonged to Tezcatlipoca, was a jigsaw of flakes of purest midnight jet. The east, Xipe Totec’s province, was a scintillating mass of deep yellow citrine, while the west quadrant, Quetzalcoatl’s, was nothing but rubies.
There was scant opportunity for Mal to marvel, however. No sooner had they arrived at the door than it began to slide open. The quadrants parted, each withdrawing separately into the frame, and X-shaped gap expanding to reveal a round aperture. Tlanextic went through, inviting everyone with him to do the same.
The room on the other side was large and richly furnished but not as much as Mal had been anticipating. She’d expected a throne room, gold everywhere, more precious metal on show than the mind could take in, and a ceiling so high you could hardly see it. Instead, it was a single-storey space whose floors and walls were an expanse of plain black marble, buffed to a mirror shine. There were oblong onyx columns carved with sacred emblems. There were suites of sofas and armchairs upholstered in dark leather. It was more like a very swanky open-plan living room than anything else, Aztec-themed but ultramodern.
A row of windows occupied the far wall, and beyond them lay a terrace the size of a tlachtli court, dotted with parasols and outdoor furniture. At the parapet, a very tall robed figure stood with his hands clasped behind his back, admiring the view. He didn’t look round as Tlanextic ushered everyone out onto the terrace, but a slight shift in the position of his shoulders indicated that he was aware of their presence.
For a long time, nobody moved or spoke. Tlanextic, Mal, Aaronson, Reston and the Serpent lieutenants waited. The tall figure continued to enjoy the prospect over Tenochtitlan, across the wave-wrinkled lake, all the way to the skein of shoreline. The sun beat down but a cooling breeze mitigated its heat. The parasols fluttered.
At last the Great Speaker turned. His enveloping golden mask flashed dazzlingly, so bright it hurt to look at. It was a smooth, almost featureless blister of polished metal, with two tiny eyeholes and a grille-like slit for a mouth. It was beautiful and inhuman, like the face of a sculpture or an automaton, something manmade and empty of emotion. Yet there was a gracefulness about it too, and likewise about the Great Speaker himself as he raised a hand in greeting, the fingers fanned like a dancer’s.
Mal was mesmerised. Enthralled. Nothing she had read about the Great Speaker, none of the clips she had watched on TV, had prepared her for the experience of seeing him in the actual living flesh. He had a stillness and physicality that seemed to radiate outwards and fill the air around him. It was almost as if he was touching her — touching all of them — even at a distance of several yards. This, she realised, was the aura of true power. This was a man who rightfully inspired awe.
Tlanextic fell to one knee and dropped his head, and Mal and the others took their cue and followed suit, all apart from Reston, who remained standing with a bland, indifferent expression on his face.
The Great Speaker acknowledged the show of obeisance with the slightest of nods. When he spoke, his voice resonated deep and clear like a gong. The mask did not muffle it at all.
“You may rise,” he said, adding, “Those of you who had the good manners to bend the knee.”
“Your Imperial Holiness,” said Tlanextic, “I bring you Stuart Reston, as instructed.”
“Yes,” said the Great Speaker, studying Tlanextic’s prisoner. “Yes, indeed. The man who donned Conquistador armour and thumbed his nose at the Empire for many months. Quite the nuisance you were, Mr Reston, at least to your own countrymen and your High Priest. But the Empire is huge and thick-skinned, like a rhinoceros, and your little provocations were like the bites of a gnat. You scarcely penetrated its hide.”
Reston mumbled something.
“What was that?” The Great Speaker cupped a hand to his ear in a dumbshow of deafness. “Didn’t quite catch it.”
“I said, ‘But I’m here, aren’t I?’”
“The implication being…?”
“Well, despite your protestations, the Empire must have felt something, mustn’t it? I must have stung. Otherwise why the volcanic eruptions? And why has my sorry arse been hauled all the way over to your palace? Stands to reason. Oh, and by the way, while I have you, and because I’m never going to get an opportunity like this again… You’re a big fat phoney. Immortal? Ptah!” He spat at the Great Speaker’s feet. “Just the latest in a long line of anonymous dictators. Tell me, does it get stuffy in that mask? Does it stink of the sweat from all the others who’ve worn it before you?”
Mal couldn’t control herself. She delivered a knuckle strike to Reston’s waist, just where his left kidney was, so that he doubled over, grimacing in pain. “Don’t you behave like that before the Great Speaker. Don’t you dare.”
The Great Speaker cocked his head, as if amused. “Ah yes, the British policewoman. Vaughn. Am I right in thinking, Miss Vaughn, that you’re the one who headed up the Conquistador investigation?”
“I did, Your Imperial Holiness. It was my job to end his terror campaign. And I suppose you could say I achieved that.”
The Great Speaker inclined his head to examine Mal. Through the mask’s eyeholes she glimpsed a pair of irises so dark brown they were almost black. There seemed to be a vast depth of intelligence in those eyes, and a cold aloofness too. These, surely, were the eyes of someone who had lived for over five hundred solar years.