Aztlan: The Last Sun by Michael Jan Friedman

started getting confused?” I asked.
    “None. He just seemed distracted, as if there was something else on his mind.”
    Something like First Sun? I wanted to ask. But I still didn’t want to put the silversmith on his guard. I might need to talk to him again sometime.
    “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll get in touch with you if I need you.”
    “Anything I can do to help,” he said.
    As I left his shop, I buzzed Necalli to tell him we needed to find Olintecke. He said he would put out an all-points call.
    I was on my way to the rail line, thinking I would be right on time at Aunt Xoco’s, when my buzzer went off. Thinking it was probably Necalli getting back to me about something, I answered it: “Colhua.”
    “Is this a better time?” asked the voice on the other end—the same one that had called me earlier, after I spotted Olintecke’s reflection in the flower shop window.
    It was still tinny, still hard to hear. And as before, the number was untraceable.
    “Yes,” I said. “Sorry about before.”
    “It’s all right.”
    “Can you tell me who you are now?”
    “I prefer not to.”
    “How do I know the information is dependable if you won’t identify yourself?”
    “Hear me out and judge for yourself.”
    I didn’t want to scare the guy away, if it even was a guy. So I said, “All right.”
    “It’s not the cultists who are responsible for those murders. It’s Molpilia, the developer.”
    Molipila? “How do you figure that?”
    “He’d like you to believe that the de-sanctification of those pyramids will hurt him in the pouch. But in fact, it’s the other way around. If they hadn’t been de-sanctified, they would have ruined him.”
    I didn’t get it. “He went on the Mirror—”
    “Misdirection,” said my mystery caller. “Forget it and think about this. Molpilia’s a luxury builder. The Patecatl, the Xilonen, the Itztli. . .they’re all his. He’s never built in anything but a high-income district before. Why start now?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “You’re the one telling the story.”
    “Because he got a special, one-time sweetheart deal from the Empire to build pyramids in districts other developers wouldn’t touch. You with me?”
    “Sure.”
    “Of course, he had to build these pyramids on a fast track so they would open in time for the Fire Renewal. That way, the Empire could demonstrate its regard for the common people during the Five Unlucky Days—a time when the winds of dissent and rebellion were likely to blow their strongest.”
    “If you say so.”
    “And in exchange for his cooperation, Molpilia received huge tax breaks with regard to not only his new properties, but his other properties as well—amounting to a sum considerably greater than what he had ever made as a builder.”
    “Good for him,” I said.
    “It was very good for him. Critical, you might say. You see, Molpilia had been putting big beans on ullamalitzli for many cycles, and—because he wasn’t very good at it—losing a lot more than he won. His debts had become more than even he could handle. The Empire was aware of this, of course. It knew that Molpilia would do anything to stay out of the prison house. And with the Empire’s help, he did.”
    “A happy ending.”
    “It should have been. Molpilia’s windfall was precisely enough to wipe the slate clean and keep him out of debtors’ court. Except he couldn’t resist using some of it to bet on Ixtapaluca versus Malinalco.”
    I recalled the game. After all, it was just a few moons earlier. Malinalco had been the better team by far. It should have won going away, but Ixtapaluca pulled it out at the last moment. The upset of the cycle.
    “Molpilia had put his beans on Malinalco. He believed he couldn’t lose.”
    “Yet he lost,” I said, seeing where this was going. “Suddenly, he was back where he started from. Except now he had the additional burden of having to build low-income pyramids, which would take forever to return his