Science-fiction. This is the third book of a trilogy set in an alternate world Aztec-Japanese interstellar empire in the far future which is threatened by its own attempts to scavenge the still-dangerous ruins of more advanced nonhuman empires of the distant past. The previous two books are WASTELAND OF FLINT and HOUSE OF REEDS. Military plotline involving Aztec-Japanese political manipulations alternates with plotline involving a woman who is an archeologist for a company seeking dangerous relic technology and an Aztec "Judge" who seeks such technology and wants to use paranormal skills she wasn't aware she had, both for his own purposes.