Feathered Dragon

4

The vast circle of gleaming silver lay quiet, still dark under the fringe of morning shadow, deep within the mountain’s central crater. The chiefs of the desert dwarves sat patiently atop the rim of the volcano, opposite the rising sun. Soon the miracle of the Sunstone would begin.

Luskag felt Pullog shift uneasily beside him, and the chief of Sunhome smiled to himself. The ritual of the Sunstone held risks to the faint of spirit, and Pullog had never before experienced the revelations of the gods through the great silver lake. Doubtless he had heard tales of men driven mad, of dwarves blinded by the searing truth of their visions.

Still, Luskag felt certain his fellow chief-in fact, all the chiefs of his clan, gathered here at his request-would face the Sunstone steadfastly. He wouldn’t have brought them to the mountaintop if it were otherwise. And Luskag understood that only if all the dwarves experienced the same revelation would cooperative action be possible.

The sun crept higher, and soon its rays washed over the western shore of the silver disk. As the minutes passed, the area of brightness grew. The bright metal gleamed with a transcendent purity, perfectly smooth. As large as a huge courtyard, the metal showed no trace of wrinkle or dip.

Then slowly the surface of the lake moved, like liquid. With serene grace, the lake began to spin, as if a giant vortex compelled its slow, majestic wheel. The shimmering glow increased as the sun rose.

The vortex gathered momentum as the sun spread across its surface, until finally the rays seemed to focus in the very center. There every color became one in a magnified, mirrored display of the sun’s power.

A beam of hot light lanced into the desert dwarves atop the rim of the crater. For a long time, the squatting figures remained immobile, transfixed by brilliance.

Luskag stared into the white glow. For a time, he saw nothing, but then a creeping darkness came into view in the very center of the glow. Slowly it expanded, reaching outward with smoky tendrils that grew like the limbs of a spider stretching out from a black, venomous body.

Now Luskag stared at the expanding cloud, and he felt glimmerings of deep fear seize his soul. For the first time, he felt the true, awe-inspiring might of the Sunstone, and his fear quickly blossomed into stark terror.

The smoky limbs became solid tentacles, grasping upward, threatening to seize him and drag him down into darkness. Never before had the images of the Sunstone been so tangible, so ultimately terrifying. The dark tendrils twisted into a circle, and suddenly they framed a place in the vision-a place that he knew.

The City of the Gods! He saw the great pyramid rising from the sands, impossibly beautiful. Around it sprawled the other ruins, rows and rows of columns, massive portals with no buildings, and tall mounds of sand that betokened mysterious shapes beneath,

Like smoky limbs of pure, unadulterated devastation, the tentacles wrapped around the ruins in a doleful embrace. Luskag’s chest tightened in pain as he saw the blackness creep toward the pyramid, slowing masking its piercing beauty. At the center of that bright swirl of color, Luskag saw a brilliant flower of light, a blossom so heartbreakingly beautiful that it cried out for his protection.

And shelter it required, for now the encircling tendrils of darkness threatened to smother it, forever blotting its beauty from the face of the earth.

Luskag did not see a nearby chieftain, overcome by terror, leap to his feet and try to turn away None of the desert dwarves heard him cry out in despair. Even had they watched, they would not have seen the tentacles wrap his body in an iron-hard grip, for there was no thing of substance in the air.

But they were nonetheless real in the mind. The unfortunate chieftain, his face wracked by horror, toppled inward, rolling and scraping down the steep inner surface of the crater. He did not stop until he reached the great silver lake.

Still unseen by the others, his body struck the liquid metal and instantly disappeared. No ripples spread outward from the scene of his vanishing.

Luskag remained transfixed. He saw the darkness more clearly now, as a black blanket of doom that seeped into the House of Tezca and spread across his desert home like an all-consuming plague. Finally the last gleaming brightness from the City of the Gods darkened and then vanished.

He stared into a vast, limitless expanse of blackness.

Finally the vision broke as the sun climbed higher into the morning sky The chiefs awakened from the thrall of the gods, frightened and dismayed. They did not talk of their vision, yet by looking into each other’s eyes, they knew that they had shared a common experience. Even the absence of one of their number went, for the time being, unremarked. They had all come perilously close to such a fate.

Yet now, at least, they knew what they had to do.

Halloran watched them carefully as they walked. He was relieved to see that her gait was steady, her spirits high. Indeed, she paid heed to little else than the great eagle that soared lazily before and high above them.

“Remember,” he finally offered, “you can ride if you start to get tired.”

“Really, I’m fine. The walking feels good.” She smiled patiently at him. Her humor remained even as Xatli caught up with them. The priest puffed slightly mopping his brow.

“This sun is enough to broil me!” he groaned. “But I guess that’s why they call it a desert.”

Erixitl laughed, then looked upward, making sure that the great eagle remained in view. Poshtli wheeled majestically just to the south.

“His return is a miracle, don’t you think?” inquired Xatli.

“A miracle, perhaps. A just reward for his courage. Is it the magic of pluma?” she queried in turn.

“Or the blessing of Qotal. Can you not admit, sister, that his goodness could have brought Poshtli back to us?”

For once, Erixitl seemed to ponder his question. “Perhaps. I know that it is the most joyous news I can imagine.”

“It is a sign to you of the Plumed One’s pleasure,” observed the cleric quietly.

“How do you know that?” asked Erix in good-humored skepticism.

Xatli shrugged, grinning. “I don’t. But it could be, couldn’t it?”

Erixitl looked at him curiously, without replying, so the puffing priest continued. “1 only mean to suggest that you need not fight the will of the god. You are his chosen daughter; that much we all know. He spared your life on the Night of Wailing, and you have led your people away from the horrors behind us. He has a great purpose in mind for you, Erixitl of Palul!”

She turned back to the trail before her, her expression serious. “1 have fought against that will-that purpose.” Once again she looked at the great eagle, wheeling lazily above. Her joy at Poshtli’s return remained, and she admitted to herself that his presence seemed miraculous.

“I shall try to accept his wishes, to do as he wills,” she finally promised, almost inaudibly.

Jhatli hurried toward the rise in the undulating desert terrain, panic urging him forward. How could he lose a thousand people? He asked himself the question angrily, but then his body weakened with relief as he reached the crest and looked into the shallow, windswept vale beyond.

Quickly the youth tensed again, mindful that he would let no one know that he had been lost. Already the hours of fright faded, and he began to look upon his daylong trek as a sort of grand exploration.

That, in fact, is how he had gotten separated from the column of refugees in the first place. In the valley before him trudged a small part of the survivors of Nexal, trailing the vast mass by several days. These included some of the weaker and injured folk, many of whom had already perished on the trek through the desert.

They followed the wide valley on the well-trodden trail blazed by the main body. For most of its length, that pathway wound through parched desert valleys, surrounded by bleak, rocky heights or vast expanses of rolling dunes. But every so often-two to three days’ march apart-the trail descended into a deeper valley, and here water had somehow burst from the ground. In these valleys, the procession remained for a few days, resting and preparing for the next march before the food was totally exhausted. Thus the straggling groups such as Jhatli’s still found sustenance as they moved along after the rest.

Jhatli and several other youths approaching the age of warriorhood served as the scouts and runners for the band. In this constant, wearing routine he had begun to find solace from the nightmare he had left behind in Nexal. The images of his mother, swallowed by the steaming crack opening in the ground, or his older brother, torn asunder by a monstrous green beast even as he bought time for Jhatli to flee, still lived in his mind. He had not seen his father die, but Jhatli knew he could never have escaped the crumbled house alive.

These visions remained with Jhatli throughout each long night, and so he filled the hours of light with hard work and complete vigilance. At dawn of this day, the young man had taken up his bow and obsidian-tipped arrows and his flint dagger, setting out to explore a shallow canyon that seemed to parallel the course of the valley

But the canyon had deepened and diverged in course from the valley followed by the rest of the group. Finally forced to scale a rough, cactus-studded cliff, Jhatli had hurried in order to rejoin his family by sunset.

Or at least, what remained of his family He had fled with his father’s brother and the man’s two surviving wives. In a wide, straggling column a mile long, the folk of that family

and a hundred others marched steadily southward, along the trail of the Nexala. Weary, but determined not to let his exhaustion show, Jhatli strutted toward the distant group.

Then he froze, suddenly alarmed. He hadn’t noticed the clouds of dust roiling along the opposite side of the vale. Now, however, he saw creatures-huge creatures! — trundling from the rocks. Vaguely manlike in shape, they loomed over the humans before them. Hundreds of others followed these monstrous forms, merely human-sized but just as beastlike of aspect.

Even at this distance, he could tell that they were armed and that they were attacking! Wave by wave, the creatures burst from concealment. Jhatli heard snarls and howls, mingled with the terrified screams of women and children.

“No!” Jhatli howled his anger and sprinted forward, watching the people reel backward from the surprise attack.

The initial slaughter quickly gave way to full massacre as the mostly defenseless Mazticans tried to flee, but quickly fell to the talons of the attackers. The few warriors and armed youths leaped bravely to the defense, but the superior numbers of the foe and crushing strength of the attack soon doomed them to a man.

Gasping and sobbing, Jhatli slowed his pace. He realized that he was too late to fight, for already the killing was complete.

“Monsters!” he cried, shaking a fist. Several of the beasts, a few hundred paces away, looked up and growled.

“I will avenge my people! You will all be slain!” Furiously he nocked an arrow to his bow and let fly, though the missile carried barely half the distance. Now, he saw with grim satisfaction, several of the smaller man-beasts started toward him. The creatures’ pig eyes were narrow in their bestial faces, above beastlike muzzles that gaped to display long, curved teeth. Yet their hands and arms were manlike and clutched the macas and shields of Maztican warriors.

Jhatli nocked another arrow, drew back his bow, and waited, using the first shot as his range mark. Squinting, he released the missile and watched it soar true toward its target. It struck the beast in the chest with a solid thunk, and the creature cried out as the force of the shot knocked it to up from the gory trophies around them.

Jhatli sensed the futility of further combat and quickly turned away. He paced himself slightly faster than the lumbering beasts pursuing him, and as he had expected, they soon broke off the chase.

The young man jogged southward as night fell across the House of Tezca. He felt a dull pain for the deaths he had witnessed this day. But too much of his recent life had been spent in sorrow and mourning. Now, Jhatli decided, it was time to think of revenge.

A dense thicket of jungle growth masked the mouth of the cave, indistinguishable on the outside from the rest of the bramble-covered slope. From within, however, the verdancy merely proved that the surface world lay beyond.

Darien, leading the column, paused and listened. The white drider sensed the sunlight before her, and her old sense of revulsion returned. But she was a dark elf no longer, and the light of day was not a thing that could master her.

“Incendrius!” she cried, pointing a pale finger at the obstructing foliage. The power of fiery magic blasted the lush barrier, and the leaves and branches crackled into smoke. Without a pause, she pressed forward, creeping for the first time in months into the surface world.

Behind her followed the rest of the driders, their black longbows held ready. The spider-beasts walked with mechanical, insectlike motions of their eight legs. Their weapons, however, they wielded with the familiar fluid movements of drow veterans.

Following the driders came the army of giant ants. The red insects lurched awkwardly but quickly from the cavern. Antennae tested the air before them while their huge, blank eyes looked about the jungle. The creatures of Lolth emerged from the darkness into a world that lay vulnerable and unsuspecting before them. Immediately the ants began to eat. and as the file emerged from the cave, a steadily expanding area of devastation grew around the entrance.

The ants turned to trees, bushes, even grass, tearing and chewing, reducing all to a wasteland. They pulled the bark from the trees, killing centuries-old forest giants in a matter of moments. Hard, knife-edged mandibles ripped and splintered the wood of the forest, while more and more of the monstrous insects poured from the cave.

Darien and the other driders began to move, compelling the ants to follow their new masters. Still more of the creatures emerged from the cave, expanding into a column twenty paces wide, steadily growing in length, pressing through the jungle.

And everywhere the ants destroyed.

“Do you know where he’s leading us? Or why he comes in the body of an eagle?” Halloran wondered aloud about the majestic bird wheeling gracefully above them.

“No… of course not.” Erixitl, too, followed Poshtli with her eyes. “I saw something in his eyes, though, when he perched on that rock. A message, or a plea of some kind. It seemed to promise hope.”

“We could use a little of that,” Hal agreed.

They looked backward from the low rise where they rested, along with a hundred others who had collapsed to the ground in exhaustion. The file of refugees filled the valley behind them, stretching to the dusty horizon in the north. Before them, the column continued unbroken to another rise, perhaps a mile away. A further elevation, even higher, beckoned beyond the next ridge.

“How is your strength, today, sister?” The voice, behind them, signified the approach of Xatli.

Erixitl looked at the priest, a wan smile across her dustand sweat-streaked face. “I’ll make it the rest of the afternoon, but I think I’ll sleep well tonight.”

The priest chuckled and lowered himself to the ground beside the couple. “You will have earned your sleep, for certain,” he agreed. “May Qotal see that you are untroubled by dreams of ill.”

Erix looked upward, quickly spotting the eagle as Poshtli soared over the winding trail that led steadily, endlessly southward. “Once I would have argued with you, you know,” she told the priest. “But now 1 can only hope that the blessings of Qotal are real, that he will return to us.”

She sighed, then asked no one in particular, “Without that hope, what do we have?” She met the eyes of an old woman who walked slowly along the trail, clutching the arm of a young man. The woman smiled, and then the steady march carried her away. But her face was replaced by others-a pair of young children holding hands; a man carrying a child; a husband and wife. All of them looked at Erix, and each sought some measure of comfort and hope from her face. She tried desperately to communicate her own sense of hope.

“ Faith can only lighten your burdens,” declared the priest. “The signs have been fulfilled; his return is imminent! Accept his help, and you will gain his everlasting strength!”

“But it must be soon” the woman said, sitting up and staring into the priest’s dark eyes. Slowly Xatli nodded. He understood.

“My friends!” A voice pulled their attention toward the front of the column and they saw the broad-shouldered form of Gultec approach. The Jaguar Knight wore his tunic of spotted jaguar skin, with the helmet that framed his face through the open jaws.

“Gultec!” Erix cried, brightening immediately. The lanky Jaguar Knight crossed the ground in long strides, coming back toward them beside the file of Nexalans who marched steadily southward. In moments, he reached them and squatted, resting easily on his haunches. “What did you find?” she asked, seeing the look of promise in the warrior’s thin smile.

“Water. A day and a half away. A large lake, with marshes-and even fish!” The warrior’s eyes flashed as he conveyed the news. “To the southwest… this trail leads directly there.”

“That’s splendid.” Erixitl looked skyward. The great eagle wheeled overhead, as if patiently waiting for them.

“Perhaps we can remain there for a while,” said Halloran. “Let everyone rest and restore their strength.”

“Yes,” said Erixitl absently as she cast another look skyward. Hal knew that she would only be content to rest as long as the eagle did not urge them on.

There was also the matter of her father. When the two of them had journeyed to Nexal before the Night of Wailing, he had seemed safe in his house, high on the ridge above the town of Palul. Now, with chaos spreading across the land, the blind old man’s life could not help but be endangered. Erix spoke of him only rarely, but Halloran knew that Lotil was much on her mind. He, too, worried and wondered about the old man. Yet he accepted the fact that they could not go to him-not with the horde of the Viperhand looming between them.

With the growing life of their child, the man knew that his wife needed a quiet, secure place to live, to go through her pregnancy and to make a home. Yet for now they could have none of that, and this knowledge tore deeply at his soul.

“I hope that we may have that time,” Gultec added, “but I fear it will not be so. I myself may have to leave you.”

“Leave us? Why?” Erixitl looked at the Jaguar Knight with genuine fondness.

“I owe a debt to one who is my master in all ways, in a place very far from here. He granted me freedom to journey to Nexal, to witness the shape of the threat looming over the world. But always 1 await his summons to return, and when he calls I must obey.”

“Have you been called?” asked Halloran.

“No, but I sense… things in the air around me, in the earth beneath my feet, terrors stalk the land-terrors beyond those we know and already fear. It is this, I am certain. that will call me back to Tulom-Itzi.”

Erixitl nodded, meeting the warrior’s gaze as her own eyes misted. “We cannot long escape the needs of… fate,” she said.

“Or gods.” Gultec smiled, raising his eyes but still speaking to Erix. “Perhaps we can use whatever help is offered.”

Erix sighed. Abruptly she turned away from the priest, from all the Mazticans, and started away from the procession. Halloran stepped after her.

He took her hand, silently accompanying her as they walked slowly over the brushy, rock-strewn ground. He sensed her need to get away from the silent, shuffling mass of people. He tried, by his presence, to comfort and shelter her.

Finally Erixitl sat on a boulder. She was not out of breath, but lines of strain showed around her eyes and mouth. Halloran sat beside her.

“They all need so much,” she said finally “And all we can offer them is hope! When will something happen? How long do we have to wait?”

“We’re alive, we’re healthy” Halloran said. “The important thing is to stay that way. The rest will take care of itself.” It has to! he added silently.

While the people of Maztica marched past, she leaned against him and he held her for a while. Then Halloran saw a horseman galloping toward them. At the sound of hoof-beats, Erix stiffened and stood up.

“Hello, milady… Halloran,” grunted the rider, Captain Grimes, as he dismounted. “We’ve got some bad news.”

“What is it?” asked Erixitl.

“A young lad just caught up with the rear scouts. Seems he was with a group bringing up the rear. They were attacked, massacred almost to the last man, woman, and child! He gave some details. Sounds to me like it was ores and ogres.”

“How far back?” asked Hal.

“Don’t know. He said it happened this morning, so not more than a few miles.”

“It’s more than that to the next water,” Erix reminded them.

“There’s another question,” said Hal, suddenly looking skyward. “Gultec said that the water lay to the southwest, right?”

“Yes,” Erix said, also looking upward. And as she did, she understood Halloran’s concern.

The eagle had veered away from their path, now soaring with greater speed. His path lay eastward.

Zochimaloc arose early on a mist-shrouded morning, passing from his small house through his garden. Soon he reached the broad, grassy street leading to the observatory

The air lay dense across the jungles of Far Payit. The great buildings of Tulom-Itzi stood like sentinels against the fog, but the bright mosaics, fountains, and pluma bedecking the structures merged into a pale sameness, diffused by the creeping mists.

The old man tried to shake off a feeling of dull menace, but he could not. Resolutely he turned toward the dome-roofed observatory. There, so many times before, he had found the answers to his questions in the stars.

The city in the jungle was silent at this early hour, as it was silent for all the day and night. The great buildings emerged from the mist and melted away again, monuments to the hundred thousand or more who had once built Tulom-Itzi and mastered the surrounding lands.

But most of them were gone now, and the vast city sheltered a population perhaps a tenth as large as it once held.

Now, as always, Zochimaloc found the emptiness of his city strangely soothing, as if he lived in a library or museum dedicated to the study of people, not among the people themselves.

Yet no longer could he deny that fact, for he knew that the gap between Tulom-Itzi and the world around it would soon close violently The feeling had risen within him for years, and it was the reason he had brought the Jaguar Knight Gultec here, to train the men of his city for war. This Gultec had done, though Tulom-Itzi was no nation of warriors.

Gultec was gone now, and Zochimaloc sensed the importance of his student’s mission. Soon, however, it would be necessary to call him home.

The old Maztican finally entered the observatory. The building, with its domed roof of carefully cut stone, stood in the center of Tulom-Itzi, a place of sacred peace and wisdom. Now Zochimaloc went to the center of the round chamber and looked at the apertures in the roof. The stars lined up with those openings at precise moments, he knew.

But today it was not the stars he sought. Zochimaloc needed deeper, more practical knowledge, and so he produced a small bit of plumage from his belt. He kindled a small fire in the floor, and then dropped the tufts of feathers in a ring about the bright blaze.

The feathers caught the light and dazzled with colors. On the encircling wall of the building, the feather-shadows appeared as black pictures, marching around the observatory, around Tulom-Itzi.

They marched as a file of giant ants.

For a long time, Zochimaloc touched the earth beneath his body He touched it, and he sensed its distress. Waves of pain radiated outward from the ground. He sensed a scourge upon the land, and it was a threat that he now understood to be near.

Hours later, though still well before dawn, the moon rose. The sliver in the east cast its pale beam through a slit in the building’s ceiling, and soon the moonlight washed over Zochimaloc.

He sat, immobile, until the moonlight faded. Even then he waited, until finally the cool blue of dawn lightened the eastern sky. Then his eyes closed and his lips moved.

“Gultec, we need you,” he whispered.

Hoxitl thrilled to the extent of the slaughter, howling gloriously as his minions grunted across the battlefield, ripping and tearing the corpses until the victims no longer resembled humans.

“Let that be their lesson,” chortled the great beast that had once been patriarch of Zaltec. “They will be even less human than us! And the might of Zaltec will prevail!”

For a long night, the beastly army remained on the bloody field. More and more of the monsters joined them, for the attacking group had only been a small advance guard. It pleased Hoxitl to see how effectively they had slain a group of the enemy that had outnumbered them substantially.

Of course, most of the humans had been helpless, but that mattered not to the manned figure. Indeed, he identified the fact as his greatest advantage: His forces could travel quickly and strike hard, unencumbered by non-combatants. The refugees, on the other hand, moved slowly and tried to protect the great majority of their number, the ill, the sick, the aged, a majority that could offer no aid in battle.

Dimly Hoxitl remembered the great sacrifices with which he had celebrated victories as a priest. What a waste, he realized now, to capture and hold captives for ritual execution when it was so much more gratifying and appropriate to slay them on the field.

The idea settled into the beastly, but still shrewd, mind of the monster. Hoxitl began to see some of the reasons that the armies of Maztica had suffered so horribly in combat with the foreign invaders. The strangers had no such compulsion to take their opponents alive.

“Feast, my children! Feast and exult!” he howled in the language that had become his own. The ores and ogres and trolls understood their master, for they, too, spoke in the bastardized tongue that had come to them during the Night of Wailing.

“Feast and give thanks to Zaltec for his mercy!” cried the priest-monster, startling the vast assemblage of gore-soaked humanoids.

“Yes, you hear me true-thanks to Zaltec!” Hoxitl’s voice rumbled through the shallow valley as he surprised even himself with the power he felt thrumming through him at the name of his god. He thought of the great stone monolith, the statue back in Nexal that had come to embody all the might and terror of this bloodthirsty god.

“We will wage war in your name across the width and breadth of the True World!” gloated the beast, tearing a heart from the cold corpse of an old man and holding it upward.

And Zaltec heard, and rumbled his pleasure.

From the chronicles of Coton:

7n the nearness of Qotal, now the True World knows its hope.

I sit with the blind featherworker, Lotil, and we hear the beasts snuffling outside the house. The horse of the legionnaire remains in the building with us, while the monsters of the Viperhand prowl without.

They plunder each home on the ridge above Palul, smashing and burning and looting. Great cries of glee explode from monstrous maws when a golden treasure or piece of salted meat is discovered.

I fear not so much for myself, but for the old man. The blessing of the Plumed One surrounds me, and if his pleasure brings me to my end amid this sea of chaos, so be it. The pluma worker, however, must be spared this fate. He is needed for something greater. What this is, I cannot know, hut I shall stay with him and try to help him fulfill his destiny.

For some reason, they pass the house of Lotil, these panting monsters, and do not enter. And so we wait out the scourge, alone and helpless, yet somehow alive.

Again I sense die imminence of the One Plumed God.