Douglas Niles - Feathered Dragon

Kardann’s eyes glowered, but finally he turned and stalked away from the Captain-General. Cordell watched him go, feeling his own frustration rise again. Pushed by the circumstances of their surroundings, he saw no prospect other than flight. Yet this fact burned painfully inside of him. He didn’t like to yield to destiny.

Instead, Cordell liked to sweep fate before him.

In flight before the ranks of chaos.

The horse carries me like the wind across the face of the True World, but always the places I pass are realms of darkness, destruction, and despair. We fly along the road to Cordotl and pass the smoking ruins of that town.

Here the monsters of the Viperhand have erected a great edifice atop the pyramid, like a great skull image of Zaltec. They seek to raise their bloodthirsty god to new heights, but they do not understand that it was he who cast them down among the beasts. The folk of Cordotl are gone, either fled or given to the fanged jaws of the war god in sacrifice.

Now past ruined fields of mayz, the great flat valley between Cordotl and Palul that has been trampled into mud. Palul, too, lies in ruins, though again the pyramid has been raised to new heights and crowned with its grotesque image.

Here the horse carries me up the face of the ridge, crossing back and forth along a winding trail. We see none of the beasts of the Viperhand here, for they have been summoned back to Nexal by Hoxitl.

Finally the horse crests the ridge, and we pause before a small cottage. It is a place of holiness, I sense, and strong pluma.

The man who comes to the door to greet me is old; he is also blind.

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.”