Feathered Dragon

7

The nearest troll lunged upward, and Halloran slashed it away in a shower of black blood. Daggrande fired the last of his quarrels, then grimly unslung his axe, ready to fight to the last. The two fighters stood before the rest of the companions as dizzying cliffs plummeted into sheer gorges beside and behind them.

Halloran growled inarticulately, slashing at a troll, but then a strange dizziness whirled in his mind. Stumbling, he stepped backward and planted his feet firmly.

A cocoon of color swirled around them. Startled, Halloran looked at Erixitl and saw that she was equally amazed. Her cloak puffed outward and began to spin in a brilliant kaleidoscope of color. Slowly the brilliance reached out to encircle the desperate party on the ridge.

The trolls gaped dumbly. The companions saw the desert through the filter of pluma, everything painted in bright greens, deep blues, and vibrant reds. The colors grew to blazing brightness, and the monsters cowered involuntarily backward.

“What’s happening?” gasped Jhatli, gazing wide-eyed at the rainbow dervish.

Then, with a sudden blink, the world around the companions shifted. The ground fell away, and everything became a blurry maze of motion. In another second, they stood together, still, but in a different place. The ridgetop below their feet was wider, firmer. Most importantly, there was no sign of the trollsBelow them lay the same bleak chasms and barren rocks that had blocked their passage this day. Yet now that landscape lay to the west, behind them!

“Here, where we stand! This is the ridge we saw this morning,” Erix said. She pointed to the west. “We were over

there!” “How-what happened?” demanded Jhatli, sitting heavily on the rocks.

“Teleportation,” Daggrande said gruffly. “And a mighty timely bit of it, too. We moved somehow across all that stuff down there.” The dwarf gestured at the chaotic land. “It would have taken us days to walk this far!”

Slowly Halloran adjusted to the shock of the teleportation. He and Daggrande gazed westward, relieved that all sign of the trolls had now disappeared in the distance. Jhatli sat on the ground, an expression of blank astonishment on his face.

“Poshtli’s coming!.” Erixitl pointed to the sky. The eagle winged toward them in a shallow dive, accelerating out of the western sky. It soared forward, then flashed over their heads, continuing its dive into the valley to the east.

“And look,” Erix said softly as her eyes followed the eagle’s flight to the land beyond the high ridge on which they stood. “This is the place where he leads us.”

“What in Helm’s name is fhat?” gasped Halloran. Jhatli and the dwarf, equally surprised, could only stare in astonishment.

The valley to the east was surrounded by steep ridges, its floor an expanse of dry, sandy flats broken by massive clumps of jagged boulders. It was a place of wilderness, uninhabitable and uninhabited.

Vet that was the most astonishing thing about it, for in the center of the valley rose a structure so magnificent, so immaculate in its crisp lines, so fresh-looking in its brightly painted colors, that it could have been completed yesterday.

It was a pyramid, certainly. Yet it was a pyramid three times or more the height of the great pyramid in Nexal. It rose like a mountain into the sky, a series of tiers encircling it at regular intervals. The walls above these tiers were painted in bright colors, depicting abstract images of parrots, jaguars, and snakes in an eternal chase around the pyramid. A steep stairway ascended the side facing them.

Erixitl recognized the place, for her knowledge of the True World was the most complete of the four. More to the point, the place triggered a deep sense of reverence in her soul, and she felt that the object of their quest lay before them.

“This is Tewahca,” she said- “The City of the Gods.”

Zaltec lumbered southward. The monstrous stone figure covered twenty human paces with each step. Yet some profound sense of urgency caused the god to increase his pace until the earth thundered under each crushing footstep.

The god of war marched inexorably across the desert, taking no note of the parched land, the complete lack of life, The mountainous form stood out like some jagged, natural bluff, worn by wind and water into the crude resemblance of monstrous features. Yet in its motion, it belied the explanation, for it became a menacing, monstrous object of impossible scale.

Zaltec moved in a straight line, not veering for mountain or canyon. His eyes always remained fixed before him, as if he searched for a place he remembered from a long time ago.

A place where, finally, his destiny compelled him to return.

The companions approached the pyramid of Tewahca with an unconquerable sense of awe. Though it had seemed to loom, huge and near, from the ridgetop, its very size made that proximity an illusion. Each step they took toward it made it grow even larger, until they could only believe that the thing had been made by the gods themselves.

It had been midday as they recovered from the shock of the teleportation. Yet the sun had neared the crest of the western ridge by the time they had descended and crossed the valley floor before the pyramid. The structure stood in

pristine beauty, shining over the wasteland of the valley

On top of the mountainous edifice stood a tall stone temple. Unlike the sides of the pyramid, which were decorated \w detailed mosaics and murals etched in vivid color, the temple walls were barren of symbology. Its door, huge and open, gaped like a black mouth awaiting nourishment.

As the companions walked, they noticed other shapes around them. Here was a square framework of stone, visible at the base of a dune. There stood a series of stone arches, surrounded by waste now, but once they must have supported a grand structure. A much smaller pyramid, now broken and eroded, with sand dunes drifting around its base, squatted off to the side. Gradually they realized that they walked among the skeletal remains of a once massive city

“Tewahca,” Erixitl breathed softly so that her voice did not break the thrall of awe that bound them. “Built by humans as a battleground for the gods.”

Always the great edifice loomed above them, but now they identified a second, smaller pyramid off to the side. As they neared the base of the huge structure, they saw that they walked down what had once been a wide avenue, leading directly to the pyramid.

What had first appeared to be shapeless mounds of sand now assumed regular, evenly spaced forms-the remains of old buildings. Palaces, perhaps, or great temples.

“Look at this one,” Daggrande indicated as they passed a wide, flat plaza, like the porch of some great structure. Square, blocky columns stood in long rows, like silent sentinels guarding a ghostly abode. Behind the columns, dark doorways, framed by partially collapsed stone mantels, gaped like dead, silent eyes.

Shadows lengthened among the many stone columns, and the companions shuddered, sensing the lingering presence of ancient lives.

“This place must be centuries old,” Halloran whispered, as if he worried that the gods could hear.

“Many centuries,” Erixitl agreed. “I can feel the age in the dust under my feet. It’s been more than a thousand years

since these buildings were abandoned. And how long before that were they built?”

“And all ruined,” said Daggrande. “All except that one!” He gestured toward the great pyramid.

“It might have been painted yesterday” Jhatli whispered. “The colors are so bright, the pattern so vivid.”

They reached the foot of the massive structure. The shadows lengthened around them as the fading sunlight slowly climbed the western face of the pyramid.

The steep stone stairway extended up the side of the pyramid before them, though from directly below, it was visible only as far as the first terrace.

“Look!” Halloran, gasping in surprise, looked at the dirt around the pyramid’s base. He indicated a clear outline of hoof-prints-the prints of an iron-shod horse!

“Could one of Cordell’s scouts have found this place?” Daggrande asked.

“Not likely. He’d have to cross the same ground we teleported over. Can’t see any horseman coming across that if he didn’t have to.” Halloran followed the prints along the base of the pyramid.

“They’re fresh,” Jhatli explained, looking at the dust swirling into the faint depressions. “Less than an hour old.”

Further questions died on their lips as they rounded the corner of the pyramid. Two men stood there, before a black mare that nickered tentatively as Halloran came into sight. “Storm!” he cried, astounded but absolutely certain that this was his faithful war-horse. He had given the steed up for lost, since Storm had been in the very heart of Nexal on the Night of Wailing.

Then he turned to the men, aware that Erix had already rushed into the arms of… her father! The blind featherworker was here, in the desert! Halloran identified the other man by his garb as a priest of Qotal, more wrinkled and stooped than others he had seen.

“My daughter! My son!” Lotil embraced Erixitl and reached out a hand to clasp Halloran. The old man displayed joy but not a great deal of surprise, Hal noted with interest. “This is Coton, patriarch of Qotal,” added Lotil, indicating the priest. “Now we must hurry.”

Erixitl looked at her father in surprise. “Hurry? For what? Why are you here? What should we do?”

“Why, to welcome the Plumed One, of course! Why do you think that we are here?”

Harak blinked his deep-sunk, bloodshot eyes as he scanned the horizon for signs of the quarry. The huge troll was grateful that the brightness of the midday sun had begun to fade, yet he was irritated that he seemed unable to find the trail of the humans and the dwarf.

He led a portion of his creatures across the broken ground between the two ridges. The trolls, fearing for their lives should Hoxitl learn of their failure, had hastened to the east, propelled in that direction by some instinctive awareness that their quarry fled somewhere before them.

As dusk settled around him, Harak quickened his pace, at last leading the band of trolls up the steep ridge that followed their rough crossing. His heart pounded, and he felt as though he approached a place of great power. It awakened some dim, primordial feeling within him, a feeling that mixed loathing and terror with the most joyous exultation.

Before the Night of Wailing had showered its god-sent change upon Harak, he-like most of the other trolls-had been a priest of Zaltec. The transformation had left his mind shriveled and weak, yet some of his learnings remained with him.

The former priest remained devout, for was not the power of Zaltec manifest in Harak himself? In his long arms and legs, the green and wart-covered skin a thin disguise for the strands of ropelike sinew beneath? In his hooked talons, or his long, curving fangs?

These thoughts propelled the great troll forward. The others of his kind, three hundred strong, lumbered after their leader. They had pressed through the barren wasteland in a long, straggling file, scrambling up steep slopes of dusty red rock or picking their way through chaotic,

boulder-strewn expanses. Now finally they all quickened their pace. The sense of anticipation permeated the band until a frantic eagerness marked their scramble up the last, steepest portion of the ridge.

At last the beasts crested the summit and stood there, outlined by the last rays of the dying sun, staring in dumbfounded awe into the valley before them. The massive pyramid dominated the scene, but the ruins stood out clearly before the trolls, framed by lengthening shadows. The specks of the companions were invisible in the distance, for they had reached the base of the pyramid. Yet Harak knew that they were there-especially the woman who wore the pluma.

He thought again of this woman. In the dim memory of his brain, he knew she was called the Chosen Daughter of Qotal. He knew that she carried the blessing of the Plumed Serpent. Vet why would she come here?

And why would she draw him after her?

Then he felt another presence, an imminent sense of great power and great menace. He sensed its nearness and knew of its impending arrival. From the north it came, a growing and dominant power that shrank every Other feeling into nothingness. Finally Hanak trembled in the glory and awe of his bloodthirsty god.

And at last he understood.

“The warriors are ready, my chieftain,” reported Tokol. The leader of the Kultakans was the first to report to Corded, but this fact did not surprise the commander. Despite the disaster in Nexal and the long flight with his Nexalan enemies, Tokol had remained fiercely loyal to the general who had conquered his nation.

Cordell tried to shake off a grim feeling of unease as darkness settled over the vast camp. The Nexalans had reached the valley Gultec had discovered, and in truth it offered a lush bounty-not only water, grain, and berries, but an abundance of fish and fowl as well.

Also to its credit, the valley had a high, sleep rim separating it from the natural pathway by which they had entered. Knowing that the beasts still pursued them, Cordell and the chiefs had deployed their fighting men along this crest.

At least, that was the plan. Tokol’s warriors, some five thousand strong, promised a good hold on the right flank. Cordell’s legionnaires would stand in the center. The left flank, which was the longest, had been entrusted to the Nexalans, who could muster some twenty thousand warriors. But now Cordell waited to hear back from Chical or any of the other war chiefs responsible for positioning that line.

He stiffened as he heard a sentry cry a challenge, but then the clatter of hoofbeats told him that one of his own men approached. Cordell turned to face Grimes as the rider dismounted and raised his hand in casual salute.

“They’re out there, but still a couple miles back,” he reported. “A big camp of em. They seem to be settling in for the night”

“Did any follow the decoys?” Cordell asked.

“You mean Daggrande, with Halloran and his woman?” asked the captain.

“Yes, dammit! Did they draw any of the beasts away?”

“One of my men saw a large company of big ones-trolls, the whole lot-heading for the east ridge. It seems likely that’s who they were after.”

“Well, that’s something, anyway.” Cordell turned as another shape emerged from the darkness. He recognized the tall, haughty figure of Chical, captain of the Eagle Knights.

“My warriors are emplaced upon the ridge. If they come, we will meet them. With the favor of the gods, we will throw them back.” Chical reported to the captain-general, but he did not bow.

“Good,” Cordell replied. The line of defenders was ready, straddling the route between the monsters and the Nexalans in the valley At night they were most vulnerable, and this was when he most feared an attack. They could only wait for an attack, or dawn, whichever came first.

“With the favor of the gods…” he repeated after Chical and Grimes had left. Could they ask for that much anymore?

The eagle perched on the platform atop the pyramid. His bright eyes glittered as he looked at the humans and the dwarf who climbed to meet him. The companions gasped for air under the strain of the long climb, while the drop to the highest terrace of the pyramid fell dizzyingly away below. Each flight of stairs was successively steeper than the last until here, near the summit, they placed their hands on steps that seemed mere inches from their faces as they carefully scaled the last stone stairway.

“We have come, Lord Poshtli,” said Erix quietly as they finally reached the summit. “You have called us and we have come.”

The eagle cocked its head to the side, and it seemed to Halloran as ii” the bird understood her words perfectly. He remembered the noble warrior who had been his friend, and he wondered how this bird could be that man. Yet he never questioned the fact that this was Poshtli.

The top of the pyramid formed a broad square plaza, perhaps fifty paces on a side. The temple building itself occupied most of the square, though a wide shelf passed around the building on all four sides. Though the wall had appeared featureless from the distance, now they could see that intricate carvings of snakes, birds, and jaguars covered the sides of the temple building. The creatures, carved in detailed relief, had been left unpainted.

The huge door yawned before them, larger now even than it had seemed from the ground below. It loomed a good thirty feet high and nearly that wide.

But their sense of proportion vanished entirely as they stepped through the door. They entered a monstrously huge chamber, with floor and walls of stone and a roof of thatch supported by the longest tree trunks they had ever seen. A dim glow lighted the temple interior, though no source of light was visible.

It took only an instant to realize that the building, on the inside, was a far larger structure than it was on the outside.

“This is truly a place of the gods!” whispered Jhatli, staling around in open-mouthed awe. The cleric Coton stepped lightly past them and turned to the companions. His face bore an impish, almost childlike smile.

The carvings on the outer walls continued within, extending across the high walls. A pattern of inlaid stones, depicting butterflies, fish, and hummingbirds in square relief covered the entire floor.

The eagle stepped through the door behind them and then, with a beat of powerful wings, took flight. Poshtli soared into the air and then coasted in gentle circles, high above the floor.

At the center of the vast chamber stood a clean white block of stone. No one had to tell Halloran that this was an altar dedicated to Maztican gods, though he felt a sense of relief at its pristine cleanliness. It was unmarred by the sinister, rust-colored stains that so often designated these sacred altars as the feeding plates of the bloodthirsty deities.

“What do we do now?” asked Hal, with a look at his wife.

“I know,” she said. “I don’t know how, but 1 know!’

Erixitl, with Hal at her side, advanced slowly toward the center of the huge chamber, reaching it after a hundred steps. There she removed her cloak and placed it on the altar. Then the pair hurried back to join the others just inside the door.

“What was that all about?” Daggrande wondered aloud, but he lapsed into silence when Erix ignored him. Instead, he, like the others, focused on the center of the room.

The shade of sunset spread across the entire valley floor around them, but the top of the pyramid towered high enough to linger in the last rays of daylight. Straight to the west now, the sun’s illumination spilled directly through the western door, spreading across the temple floor and flickering across the Cloak-of-One-Plume.

For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then the cloak, laid carefully across the altar, started to shimmer. Us colors whirled and shifted, spreading like a rainbow across the

room-many rainbows, actually spreading outward from the altar of the gods.

Slowly majestically a dim outline took shape there. They saw its huge size first, then the serpentine shape of a sinuous body. Next they saw dimly a pair of monstrously massive wings, beating slowly but not stirring the air.

Coton and Lotil threw themselves face-first on the floor. After a second, Jhatli did the same. Halloran and Daggrande stared, awestruck, while Erixitl slowly stepped forward. After a second, Halloran stumbled to her side, taking her arm. He could feel her trembling, but her advance did not slow.

Gradually over a period of many minutes, a massive? shape appeared, squatting above the Cloak-of-One-Plume. The serpentine image was clear yet insubstantial, as if a stone thrown at it would pass right through. A mane of bright feathers encircled its neck, brighter than a hundred rainbows. Deep, glistening eyes, golden and wise, looked down upon them. Its legs curved beneath it, tipped by swordlike talons. Even through the faintness of the image, the brilliant hues of the creature’s feathered coal shone with unearthly brilliance.

Halloran had no doubt that they stood now in the presence of the Plumed One, the god Qotal himself. Yet it was a presence that was not fully there.

When the spoke, his voice was surprisingly gentle, yet it possessed a deep resonance that belied his vaporous appearance.

“You have done well, Daughter of the Plume,” he said.

“I have done what I had no choice but to do,” Erixitl replied simply.

“Yours is a faith that is all the stronger for its doubts. It is proper that you were chosen. And even now, I know, you have questions. You wonder why I come now, after disaster has swept the land? Why have I delayed so long?”

Erixitl, mute, nodded. She stood facing the huge image, her body tense but her courage unwavering. Hal remained at her side, trying to overcome his own sense of awe.

“Centuries ago I turned my back on my people in anger as they took up the cult of blood and killing.” The dragon’s

voice was soothing and laced with sadness. His body remained insubstantial, yet it seemed to grow more solid with each minute. The rays of the setting sun shone full upon the cloak now, and it created a dazzling nest of colors below the great serpent.

“As years passed-decades and centuries of years-my anger faded, and I saw the foolishness with which I had acted. I resolved to return to Maztica, to right the wrongs that now scarred my land.

“ But when 1 tried to enter the True World, 1 found that the cult of killing held me at bay. My brother Zaltec had grown so powerful, and his followers sated his gory appetite so well, that I lacked the power to overcome him.

“Then came this event you humans call the Night of Wailing. This cataclysm smote the followers of Zaltec as well as my own, In that chaos, his own power was weakened- weakened just enough that, with the aid of a human of strong faith, I might be able to return to the world that is my

true home.

“You opened that passage for me by your act of faith, when you placed the Cloak-of-One-Plume in this sacred place-a place so holy it is one of but two such in all Maztica. Now I am coming.”

Qotal’s voice grew strong, a ringing challenge. “And when I am here, I will face the evil one and again I will smite him atop my pyramid.”

“He comes here?” Erixitl asked in shock. “Zaltec comes here?”

As she completed the words, a great shadow fell across the doorway blocking out the sunset. They turned in shock to see two massive pillars of stone, where before had been open sky The great monoliths moved, then bent to reveal the torso of a looming giant of stone. It stepped quickly through the huge door. Once inside the temple, it stood upright again. Its rock-hard eyes fixed the with their impassive glance, even as the giant’s legs cast the Cloak-of-One-Plume into shadow. The thing’s face was a grotesque caricature of humanity corrupted by an insatiable hunger for blood, for living hearts.

Halloran heard Erixitl moan in fear beside him. Jhatli dropped his bow in shock, while even the stalwart Daggrande gasped. Only Coton and Lotil remained apparently unaffected, the old men standing impassively while the shade from the giant’s body darkened the entire vast temple.

And in that shadow, the image of Qotal began to fade.