Douglas Niles - Feathered Dragon

“How long must we fly?” Gultec persisted. “Is it right to move farther into the desert? Could not the gods have laid for us a cruel trap, and we will reach the end of this chain of food and water only to starve and perish of thirst?”

“This new valley you found… it sounds as though there is food there, enough to last a long time,” Halloran observed.

“ Indeed there is, and enough land to cultivate. If the water remains, a city could be built there that would rival Nexal.”

“Provided we’re not driven away like a herd of goats,” Hal said bitterly.

“I do not know what goats’ are,” Gultec said, “but I share

your feeling.” The warrior paused a moment before raising a question that had obviously occupied his mind for some time.

“You and your people have used powers in the battles against us-sorcery, you call this. Is there not some sorcery that could defend us against the Viperhand?”

Halloran shook his head in resignation. “Sorcery is a skill known only to a few. Among the legion, there was the wizard Darien, the albino elf. She had great powers of wizardry, but she used them in the service of the drow. She died-she must have-when the top of the volcano exploded.”

“She was the only one?” asked the Eagle Knight.

“The cleric, Domincus, had powers of clerical sorcery. He perished on the altar of Zaltec. Otherwise, there are a few men among the legion who practiced low levels of magic- not many, and their skills are not very great.” Halloran chuckled.

“I am one of them, as a matter of fact. I once studied as an apprentice to a great sorcerer, and I still know a few spells. An enchantment of light, for example, or a magic arrow. I can increase the size of an object with an enlargement spell.”

Gultec looked at him in amazement, but could see that Halloran spoke the truth. They both remembered the great fireballs or the blasts of killing frost or the poisonous smoke with which Darien had made her presence known. “As you can see,” Hal concluded, “there is little I could do to change the course of a battle.”

For a while longer the men lapsed into silence. Then Halloran looked back toward the sky

“There’s the matter of Poshtli,” he ventured. “He flew east late today, over land we know is dry desert. How can we take all these people on such a path, simply because of a bird, despite what he used to be?” Halloran understood that the folk of the Realms he came from would never have made such a choice; about Mazticans, he was not so sure.

“Perhaps he does not mean for all of the people to follow him.” mused Gultec. “Just those who can make a difference.”

Halloran looked at the Jaguar Knight in surprise. He had never considered that possibility, but the notion seemed to make a lot of sense. Before he could reply, a shape materialized from the darkness, and they saw the priest, Xatli, approach.

“May 1 join you?” asked the cleric of Qotal.

“Please sit with us,” Hal replied as Gultec nodded.

Xatli looked toward Erix, her cloak dimly visible even in the darkness. “It is good she sleeps. Her burdens weigh heavily upon her, and slumber is the greatest healer of all.”

“It seems that she only knows peace when she is asleep now,” Hal agreed softly.

“1 have heard that a lush valley awaits us,” ventured the cleric after a short while.

“Gultec has seen it. There’s food and water aplenty.”

“Yes,” the Jaguar Knight said, nodding. “The first of our people will reach it late tomorrow; by the morning after, everyone should be there.”

“A good place to camp,” Xatli said, squatting on the ground, “A thing to look forward to.”

“A good place to camp, perhaps,” agreed the warrior. “But a bad place for war.”

“You know,” the cleric announced, sitting upright again and fixing his two companions with his gaze, “there is a place in this desert that was made for war.”

“What do you mean?” asked Hal.

“It is called Tewahca, the City of the Gods. I have never seen it, but the tale of its making is known to all priests. It was the scene of Qotal’s last victory over his brother Zaltec.”

“Zaltec, Qotal… brothers?” Hal was genuinely surprised. “I didn’t know this.”

“Brothers indeed, though very different from each other. The one desired only killing and blood; the other could not bear to hurt a living soul.”

“That must have been a liability if he had to fight a war,” Hal observed dryly, and Xatli chuckled.

“lb the point,” the priest continued. “The gods commanded the humans of the world to build them a great edifice for this war, a pyramid greater than any in the True

World. They made the desert fertile so that the people could build this place.

“Of course, the details are as old as legend, but all the tales point to a place somewhere here, in the House of Tezca. No man has seen it, certainly not in a dozen lifetimes or more. Perhaps the desert has swallowed it.

“But I am certain Tewahca is out there somewhere, long abandoned by man. Could not the gods again desire a confrontation there? And the tales of the desert made fertile… is this not what sustains us, what sustains all these thousands now?”

“Do you think we are being led to Tewahca?” Gultec asked, his tone telling Hal that the tale of the great ceremonial center was familiar to him.

“I doubt it,” said Xatli. “The gods created a wasteland around the place to keep humans away. It seems unlikely they would desire to bring us back in great numbers.

“Still, the building of such a place makes one think that it could be done again,” mused Xatli. “It gives me faith that the Nexala will again have a home.”

Hal nodded, for a moment almost relaxing in the vision of the cleric’s hopes for the future. In the next second, he remembered Jhatli and the cruel and violent presence that loomed close in the desert night.

The beasts of the Viperhand remained a great cudgel hanging over them, prepared to smash any hopes into a hundred thousand bleeding shards.

Steam hissed from wide cracks in the ground, forming a dense fog, a funeral shroud for the valley of Nexal. Now the beasts had departed, and except for the rats that picked their way through the ruins, the rubble on the flat island lay still and lifeless.

From the center of the dead city, the pillar of stone towered like a great monolith, a hundred feet tall. Only by the most careful inspection could one make out the details of arms and legs, the snarling, tooth-filled maw, that caused this rock to be regarded as the image of Zaltec.

But its strength did not lie in its visual power, but rather within the essence of the pillar itself, Hundreds of years ago, this same rock-at that time, not much larger than a man-had been discovered by a faithful cleric of a primitive, warlike tribe. The pillar had spoken to the cleric, commanding him to lead his tribe on a great pilgrimage through desert and mountain, until they came at last to the great valley with its cool, clear lakes.

Others dwelled here already, in cities around the shores of the lakes. The newcomers chose for their own rude village a low, marshy island. Still bearing the pillar that had come to symbolize their god, the people placed the stone monolith at the site of their first small pyramid.

Centuries passed. The village grew to a town, and the people formed shrewd alliances. Layer upon layer was added to the pyramid, and the town became a city. The people of the crude tribe practiced diplomacy and war, and at last came to be masters of the beautiful valley. Never did they forget that they owed their success to Zaltec, god of war.

Now that god claimed his reward, and the people who had praised him fled in terror across the fertile desert. The pillar grew, bursting out of its confines, looming far above the rubble strewn around it.