This chap­ter cen­ters on the piv­otal encounter between Hernán Cortés and Moctezu­ma, the Aztec emper­or, in the blue throne room of Tenochti­t­lan. The scene is laden with ten­sion, as Cortés and his men are forced to adhere to strict cer­e­mo­ni­al protocols—removing weapons, veil­ing their faces, and main­tain­ing silence until addressed. Moctezu­ma, though seem­ing­ly hos­pitable, exudes an air of con­trolled pow­er, while Cortés strug­gles between arro­gance and ner­vous­ness. The cul­tur­al divide is stark: Cortés, dressed in Euro­pean fin­ery, con­trasts with the bare­foot, feath­ered nobil­i­ty of the Aztec court. The trans­la­tors, Mali­nal­li (La Mal­inche) and Aguilar, medi­ate the exchange, but mis­un­der­stand­ings per­sist, fore­shad­ow­ing the inevitable clash between the two empires.

The chap­ter takes a sur­re­al turn when Moctezu­ma offers Cortés a hal­lu­cino­genic cac­tus, the “cac­tus-of-tongues,” promis­ing it will allow them to com­mu­ni­cate with­out trans­la­tors. Under its influ­ence, Cortés expe­ri­ences a prophet­ic vision of the Span­ish conquest—Tenochtitlan’s fall, the death of Moctezu­ma, the rise of New Spain, and cen­turies of colo­nial rule. The vision blends his­tor­i­cal events with dream­like dis­tor­tions: his men turn into ani­mals, Moctezu­ma trans­forms into an eagle-like deity, and Cortés sees him­self as both con­queror and pawn in a larg­er cos­mic dra­ma. The sequence under­scores the novel’s mag­i­cal real­ism, blur­ring the line between fate and hal­lu­ci­na­tion, while hint­ing at the cycli­cal nature of pow­er and destruc­tion.

Upon wak­ing, Cortés is con­vinced of his inevitable tri­umph, believ­ing his vision con­firms Span­ish dom­i­nance. How­ev­er, real­i­ty sub­verts his expec­ta­tions. Moctezu­ma, now speak­ing in Nahu­atl (unin­tel­li­gi­ble to Cortés), sum­mons his broth­er Cuit­lahuac, who bru­tal­ly kills Cortés by break­ing his spine—a sym­bol­ic rever­sal of his­tor­i­cal events. Mean­while, Moctezu­ma orders his war­riors to pre­pare for war, sig­nal­ing the Aztec resis­tance. The chapter’s abrupt shift from dream to vio­lent real­i­ty cri­tiques the arro­gance of colo­nial nar­ra­tives, sug­gest­ing that his­to­ry could have unfold­ed dif­fer­ent­ly. The recur­ring motif of the “ant” (a silent but inevitable force) rein­forces the theme that empires, no mat­ter how grand, are sub­ject to unseen forces beyond their con­trol.

The chap­ter clos­es with the Aztec empire mobi­liz­ing for bat­tle, while Cortés’s bro­ken body lies dis­card­ed. Moctezu­ma, adjust­ing his crooked tiara, walks away, embody­ing the fragili­ty of pow­er. The nar­ra­tive then jumps for­ward in time, briefly sum­ma­riz­ing the fall of Tenochti­t­lan, the spread of small­pox, and the even­tu­al estab­lish­ment of New Spain—events that Cortés fore­saw but failed to tru­ly under­stand. The acknowl­edg­ments reveal the novel’s lit­er­ary influ­ences, from Borges to Calderón, fram­ing the sto­ry as a med­i­ta­tion on history’s flu­id­i­ty and the illu­sions of empire. Ulti­mate­ly, this chap­ter serves as both a cli­max and a decon­struc­tion of con­quest myths, leav­ing the read­er to ques­tion whether Cortés’s dream was prophe­cy or delu­sion.