Ironhelm

SPIRALI

A black cape rustled softly in the darkness. The sound was intentional; the Ancient One announced his arrival to his fellows. But even more than this, the silken whisper told the others that this one had made a decision, a decision for action.

"Kizzwryll!"

The whispered word, spoken by the Ancestor, called to life the Darkfyre. The black liquid roiled in its caldron, shedding a darkness across the gathering that washed the faces of each of those present with an inky illumination.

The Darkfyre settled within its kettle, and the Ancient Ones turned to regard Spirali, the one of their number who had just arrived.

"The cleric is incredibly weak, even for a human. We cannot trust him to fulfill the task." Spirali's voice, a low whisper, echoed hollowly in the vast cavern.

"tou speak the truth." The wizened Ancestor, concealed by his robes where all the others gathered with bared heads, nodded.

"There is now a thing I must do."

Several cloaks rustled, a mute agreement with Spirali's remark and a comment about its drastic nature.

"tou must not reveal yourself if it can be avoided. But if the humans fail, you must slay the girl." The Ancestor rasped the command gently, knowing that Spirali had implicitly understood the situation long before any of the rest of them had acknowledged the truth. Sometime our deliberateness hampers us, reflected the Ancestor. The humans move so much faster.

"I will enact the will of the council," said Spirali. With another rustle of his cape, he bowed deeply and then turned back to the darkness.

Erix could not see the cycles of the sun, so she had no accurate means of measuring the length of her imprisonment. She had received ten meals — each a miserable portion of cold mayz and water — and her best guess was that ten days had passed.

Other than the silent servers who brought her food, slipping it to her through a small hatch in the cell door, she had no contact with other humans. Around her yawned a seemingly vast realm of silence. A perennial chill made her suspect that she was held somewhere underground.

Not long after her tenth meal, Erix again heard sandaled footsteps outside her cell door. She sensed that only a few hours had passed since her daily sustenance, so she knew this was an unusual visit. Crouching against the wall opposite the door, she waited. The latch lifted, and a sudden wash of torchlight filled the room as the portal opened, revealing a pair of men in loincloths.

With a shriek that contained all the pent-up anger and frustration of her life, Erixitl sprang at the first man. He stumbled backward in shock as her fingers raked across his face. Instantly her victim screamed and collapsed, moaning and clutching his bleeding face.

The second man stopped in shock, and the force of her charge bowled him over. She leaped on his belly, doubling him over, and then she sprang past. She was free!

Then she slammed into something hard, something that pushed back. She fell to the floor, stunned, and felt her arms gripped by talonlike fingers. In the fading light of the torch, she recognized the horrid visage of a Jaguar Knight. His dark eyes glowered at her through the gaping jaws of his helm. The jaguar teeth, long and ivory white, seemed to reach menacingly for her face.

"That was foolish, little one!" he hissed, lifting her easily off the floor and holding her upright. "You may have blinded one of my slaves."

He shook her like a rag doll, and she felt as if her teeth would bounce from her jaw. "Now, behave!" he warned, setting her on her feet. Instantly her fist flew at his chest, scraping her knuckJes on his hishna armor of jaguar hide. She spit in his face and he cuffed her, she kicked his knee and he knocked her down.

Finally he grabbed her unceremoniously and tossed her over his shoulder, neutralizing her struggles. "You are a spirited one, hey? Zaltec will relish the feast of your heart!"

For a moment, the confirmation of her suspicions drained her, and she slumped limply across his shoulder. She felt the knight, too, relax. And she realized that his remark had told her nothing at all, for she had never doubted that her captors intended her for the sacrificial altar.

She twisted to the side and brought her knee into the knight's throat in a crushing blow. He gasped and stumbled as she savagely struck his shoulders with her elbows. Like a wild beast, Erix twisted free as the man dropped to his knees. She saw him reach for her, and somehow she eluded his grasp, feeling his fingers slip from her arm.

Erix sprinted down the corridor, bursting through a reed curtain into a small courtyard. A wall obstructed her view of everything but the starry sky. She raced across the dark courtyard, pounding into a large gate and finding it barred.

Mixtal waited nervously in the courtyard while Gultec went to get the girl. He paced back and forth in agitation. The past ten days had been, for the cleric, a miserable period of suspense and anxiety. The girl had been hidden well, but her very presence had caused him constant, soulwrenching fear.

What if Kachin gained proof of Mixtal's involvement? The thought sent shudders through Mixtal's scrawny frame. The cleric of Qotal had been persistent in his questioning, outraged in his accusations against the Jaguars.

That house of warriors had defended itself well, claiming no knowledge of the capture. The blame, it was hinted, rested upon some young warriors who had partaken of too much octal. Their identities were unknown, but if they were discovered, Kachin would of course be informed.

Anxiously Mixtal looked back toward the dark entrance to the cellar. What was keeping Gultec?

A group of apprentice priests awaited them outside, ready to witness the sacrifice. The ritual would be secret, performed away from the city. They all knew that the priests of Qotal, peaceable though they claimed to be, would exact a terrible vengeance should the abduction of the princess be traced to the temple of Zaltec.

And now something was wrong!

The priest saw a lithe figure emerge from the house, dashing across the courtyard toward the gate. The girl had escaped! With a low groan, Mixtal turned toward the swinging reed curtain, hoping to see Gultec in pursuit.

He heard the girl bang on the gate, and his heart sank. He had no illusions as to his own fate should she escape. The summoning from the Ancient Ones had made that clear. Mixtal ran across the courtvard and saw her moving along the base of the wall.

The cleric grasped his necklace of snake fangs, calling forth the hishna sorcery of Zaltec. He pulled a wriggling snakeskin from his pouch. The object writhed with a life of its own. Holding the twisting thing before him, he concentrated on the girl, seeing her turn at the sound of his voice.

"Zaltec Tlaz-atl qoo!"

Mixtal pointed at the girl and released the skin. The object flew through the air, darting like an airborne eel into a tight circle around Erix.

"Tziliit!" Mixtal finished the spell by commanding the strands to contract around his victim.

He saw the girl shrink away from the encircling magic. Her own hand seized something at her throat, a gesture that looked instinctive. Mixtal heard a sound like a burst of air, and suddenly he shouted in pain. The skin fell motionless to the ground, and the cleric blew frantically upon his blistered palms. Somehow the girl had resisted the hishna, and with strength enough to send shock waves of pain crackling back to the magic-wielding priest.

Groaning, Mixtal looked up again. He saw, or imagined, an aura around the feathered necklace the girt wore. His hishna had been defeated by something, and he suddenly felt the coolness of pluma, the magic of feathers, emanating from the young woman before him.

Erix released her feather token as if it was a scalding stone. Stunned, she watched the sorcerous attack fall away. But in the next instant, she realized that her father's gift had only offered her salvation if she could seize it instantly.

She saw a nearby tree with branches extending over the wall, and she raced toward it like a gust of wind, leaping a bench that she barely saw in her path. In moments, she would reach the safety of the tree.

Then a shadowy form crossed her path, disappearing into the predawn darkness below the tree. Erix stopped, but she could see nothing in the inky blackness.

A low growl — a deep, horrible, animal growl — emerged from the darkness, and Erixitl moaned in all-encompassing terror. She took a step backward, but her body finally sagged with exhaustion, horror, even defeat.

A jaguar burst from the shadow, its paws striking her in the chest and knocking her heavily to the ground. She gasped for air, staring upward at bright yellow eyes, the slitted pupils burning with hatred. She felt its warm drool spattering to her chin and neck.

And then the jaguar was gone, and the knight she had attacked knelt upon her.

Roughly he pulled her to her feet, jerking her sharply around and binding her hands until the cords cut into her flesh. He stuffed a filthy rag into her mouth and bound that behind her head. Then he pushed her through the gate, where she was forced into the center of a procession of several dozen young priests. She did not need to inhale the scent of caked blood to know that these were priests of Zaltec, for the scalp of each bristled with the characteristic spikes of hair.

They would perform their sacrifice outside the city, she saw, as they led her down a street and then past the fields of mayz. Soon the trail entered the jungle, but just as quickly it emerged along the coast. For perhaps an hour, they marched along the beach. Erix felt numb, barely aware of the fading light of the stars as dawn approached.

Finally the procession of priests and victim reached a steep bluff. Erix saw two massive stone faces carved into the cliff face of the bluff, a man's and a woman's image staring out across the great sea. She recognized the place as the one she had heard about from the girl in Pezelac, the place called Twin Visages. The faces, she remembered ironically, had been sculpted by worshipers of Qotal, a sign of hope and reverence in awaiting that god's return. Now they would be the site of a sacrifice to bloody Zaltec.

The priests climbed a trail up the bluff, winding between the two faces. The steep ascent took a long time, as the immensity of the escarpment only gradually became apparent. Behind, and soon below them, the rolling breakers of the sea crashed into shore, still invisible in the gloom. The approaching dawn had become a rosy glow in the east. The stars had almost all disappeared.

Now the numbness of the long march began to fade, and Erix sensed the cold proximity of her death.

Here Erixitl saw a small pyramid, a barren block of stone atop the bluff, overlooking the sea. She twisted and struggled as they approached it, but the group of apprentices simply lifted her to their shoulders and marched her up the steep steps, fifty-two in number, to the top.

The young priests formed a ring around the top platform of the pyramid while the Jaguar Knight and high priest went to the stone altar. That bloodstained block stood at one side of the platform atop the pyramid. Beside the altar squatted a bestial image of Zaltec, carved from stone. The war god's mouth gaped open, awaiting its gory feast.

Erix saw the black stains across the altar, streaking the sides and smeared across much of the platform. She twisted and scratched, but the apprentices finally held her immobile.

The rosy light became orange, then red. Erix watched, horrified and spellbound, as the sky grew ever brighter. All of the priests, too, kept their eyes upon the eastern horizon. Vaguely she felt the knight untie her bonds and remove her gag. She knew that four priests would stretch her across the altar while Mixtal wielded his obsidian knife. She saw the weapon now, tucked into his waistband, a sinister, shining black blade with a turquoise and jadestone hilt.

Then the intent concentration of the priests wavered. One whispered an exclamation, another an urgent prayer. Their attention turned toward the ocean. Erix at first took no note of the change, until even Mixtal, the high priest, looked toward the sea, an expression like fear creeping over his features.

"What is that?" muttered the cleric nervously.

The other priests muttered, too, and even Gultec peered through the darkness of the clearing to stare out over the sea.

"By Zaltec, they are great winged creatures!" gasped one of the young priests.

Erix stood spellbound as the dawn light spilled across the pyramid and the sea below. She saw creatures, elegant monsters, wondrous billowing white things, bigger than houses. They seemed to fly, just touching the water, and their course took them toward the shore. Their wings were huge, but they did not flap, instead seeming to stand upright, as if to slow the creatures' awesome momentum. The young priests crowded to the east side of the pyramid, all straining to get a better view.

"It is a sign from Zaltec!" groaned Mixtal.

"Nonsense!" Gultec snarled and stepped forward to push his way through the priests. Nonetheless, he said nothing for a time.

Erix stood alone with Mixtal in the center of the pyramid. The cleric wrung his hands nervously, staring to the east. The woman saw one glorious opportunity.

Her hand flashed out and pulled the dagger from Mixtal's belt. In the same instant, she drove the hilt against his scalp, just above the ear. Mixtal uttered no sound as his knees collapsed.

Before the cleric's body had fallen, Erix had leaped from the west side of the pyramid to race down the stairs and into the tenuous protection of the jungie beyond.

From the Chronicle of the Waning:

May the light of the Plumed One illuminate my miserable ignorance!

My hand trembles such that I can barely paint this tale. I can only relate what I have seen and hope that time and perhaps sleep will allow me to plumb its depths. The time is today, the setting of the sun…

Naltecona attends the sacrifices upon the great pyramid, performing two of them himself — hearts offered to Crimson Zaltec and Black Tezca. The throng crowded in the plaza, even the priests on the pyramid, seemed held in some kind of thrall. Movement slowed, perception heightened.

A great noise drew our eyes to the sky, and there appeared a beast, a huge creature the like of which Maztica has never known. Shaped like a bird, it had no feathers but was covered with leathery skin like a crocodile. A long beak, sharp and fagged, extended from its maw. The monster settled slowly to the top of the pyramid as the priests recoiled in panic. I myself fell to the stones in awe.

Naltecona stood firm in its presence. His nephew Poshtli, wearing his full armor as an Eagle Knight, stepped before the counselor and raised his maca to defend his uncle. The black and white feathers of Poshtli's cloak spread from his shoulders in challenge to the monster.

The beast spread and flapped its wings, sending a hurricane of wind across the pyramid, driving the priests still farther away. Finally Poshtli, too, tumbled to the side. And then we saw the will of the gods.

Across the broad breast of the beast spread a shiny surface, like obsidian or smooth, perfect ice. I stared, awestruck, at my own dumbfounded reflection in this mirror from heaven. Others, I learned later, saw the same thing as I: a reflection of the pyramid and the assembled priesthood.

Except Naltecona.

The Revered Counselor recoiled two steps, staring into the mirror. The beast stepped toward him, and Naltecona made noises of fear. He stared for a full minute, and though none other could see the vision granted his eyes, he groaned and he wept. He pounded his chest in disbelieving fear. He spoke of two-headed monsters, of silver spears, of houses that floated upon the ocean.

Then did the beast spread its wings and soar aloft, nearly driving us from the pyramid with the wind of its ascension. Then, too, did Naltecona fall to his knees and kiss the stones before the creature's footsteps.