Doctor Who_ Left-Handed Hummingbird - Kate Orman [26]
‘This single god was divided into a male and female aspect, and this pair, the Lord and Lady of Our Duality, had four sons, the four Tezcatlipocas. The White Tezcatlipoca was Quetzalcoatl, a white‐skinned, bearded god who was overthrown by the Black Tezcatlipoca and exiled across the ocean. It was prophesied that he would return in the year One Reed – 1519, the year of Cortés’ arrival in the New World.’
Tough luck for the Aztecs, who’d mistaken the invaders for returning gods. If they hadn’t dithered over Cortés’ apparent divinity, they might have wiped out his tiny force. As it was, they waited long enough for the conquistador to ally himself with their enemies.
The Red Tezcatlipoca was the god of spring, Xipe Totec, who went about wearing a human skin as a sort of overalls. And the Blue Tezcatlipoca was the Aztecs’ patron, Huitzilopochtli. ‘Gotcha, Mr H. Let’s see. Huitzilopochtli’s name is variously translated as Left‐Handed Hummingbird, Blue Hummingbird, Hummingbird Wizard. The name is composed of two words, huitzilin, hummingbird (literally thorn‐jingle), and opochtli, left.
‘The hummingbird was the emblem of the warrior; those who died in battle were reincarnated as hummingbirds. Each of the four Tezcatlipocas watched over one cardinal direction. To the Aztecs, the universe was facing west, so the south was on their left. Hence the real meaning of Huitzilopochtli’s name: Southern Warrior. It is not unlikely that the god is a combination of the deity Opochtli, and an actual Aztec chieftain.’ So he was real. The god of war was real.
* * *
The stranger moved with surprising grace and speed. He caught Achtli’s hand in a tight grip, twisting.
The priest cried out, wrenching himself to one side to free his weapon, striking at the seated man with his knee.
In the courtyard, Iccauhtli lunged for the door. Ace grabbed his arm. ‘Stay put,’ she hissed.
The Doctor had rolled to his feet, dodging the blow. Achtli pulled off his cloak, letting it fall to the floor, balancing on the balls of his feet as he judged where next to put the knife.
A wave of anger crested through him, so strong and fast that he found himself leaping forward without consideration for skill or elegance. The foreigner took his elbow, so that Achtli’s knife‐hand was held uselessly behind his opponent’s back.
With a roar, Achtli twisted his foot between the stranger’s ankles and brought them both crashing to the floor. He wrenched the Doctor’s head back and pressed the obsidian blade to his throat.
That cool sky‐blue gaze burned into Achtli’s eyes, an impossible colour and depth…
* * *
‘Tradition has it that the Aztecs left their original home, Aztlan, somewhere to the north of the Valley of Mexico, in the year 1168. They spent a century and a half as nomads, following the magical idol of Huitzilopochtli which spoke to the priests in dreams.’
Bernice yawned, scratching her fringe. She had pages of notes and a stiff neck. And she was disappointed that, after ploughing through Aztec history for hours, she hadn’t come across a single reference to the Doctor’s original visit to their civilization.
She doodled a doodle on her notepad. From his description, she was pretty certain he’d turned up during the drought of 1454, when the Aztecs had been busy sacrificing humans to Tlaloc. The Rain God and Huitzilopochtli shared the Great Pyramid, their shrines built side‐by‐side on the top. ‘After many adventures in the wilderness, and many attempts to settle down, only to be driven out by the locals, the Aztecs came at last to a small marshy island in Lake Texcoco.
‘While the priests watched, an eagle flew down out of the sky and perched on a great cactus. When it saw them, it bowed its head. And the idol of Huitzilopochtli called out, “Oh Mexica, it shall be here!”’
So they’d built their city on the lake, dredging up mud and silt to make floating gardens, building causeways to the shore and aqueducts to bring in fresh water. For a century, they’d been the ruling power in Mexico, their empire stretching from shore