Tlilpotonqui understood that this New Sun thing was a superstition and the sun didn’t give a damn whether the Colhua sacrificed quail and warriors in the Great Temple of Tenoxtitlan, but he also understood that the reason his office had invested so much in these rituals was that the Tenochca believed in them—or pretended to believe, because they brought wealth to Tenoxtitlan, gave the world solidity, and permitted the flow of magic mushrooms and vision-inducing cacti that made life tolerable in a city where everyone worked without cease.
