Douglas Niles - Feathered Dragon

“The magic of pluma,” said Erix, softly so as not to disturb her child. The baby suckled noisily, content with his world now that he was being held by his mother and fed.

Halloran turned back to Poshtli, clapping his companion on both shoulders. “And to see you again, my friend, is a wish I would not have dared make.”

“1 have been… fortunate,” Poshtli said dryly.

“But what- Look out!” Jhatli’s eyes widened as he looked past Halloran.

Colon turned with sudden quickness, surprising Halloran into looking away from the spectacle before him. And in that instant, he saw Darien, hissing and spitting and racing toward his wife and child.

But even before the swordsman could react, the priest of Qotal seized the cloak-the brilliant plumage that lay over the altar, that had, after its miraculous transformation during Erix’s childbirth, opened passage for Qotal into the world. The cleric whirled it at the drider.

Darien shrieked in hatred and revulsion. At the same moment, the cleric threw himself upon her. Coton moved with surprising quickness, and by the time Halloran had drawn his sword, the cleric and the drider were clasped together like a pair of grim lovers, the cloak of plumage bright between them.

Again the gods clashed, and the world shook. The dragon breathed another spout of fire, and whole sections of forest burned away to ashes. Zaltec pummeled the dragon with his great stone fists, and where the blows fell, great barren craters opened in the ground. The chasms in the earth widened, and it seemed as if the loser must take Maztica with him when he perished. Earthquakes wracked the point, and parts of the bluff fell away, crashing into the ocean below. The world seemed ready to fall apart around them.

Coton, too, sensed this imminent peril. A lifetime of service to his god had led him to this, to the end of all life. Once again the land rumbled, and the pyramid settled lower on its foundation. The drider and the cleric lashed around atop the pyramid, a mingling of hishna and pluma, of the respective magics of Zaltec and Qotal.

The battle continued to rage, and then the cleric of Qotal did a thing that surprised even his god. For more than two decades, he had remained silent, bound by a vow to this god who now threatened imminent destruction.

Coton threw back his head, and he cursed out loud.

“Damn your pretensions!” he shouted, and the gods paused in their strife. “Damn your greed and your cruelty- yes, both of you!”

For a moment, the gods held their blows, turning their great heads to this impudent mortal. Then Qotal bellowed in rage, lunging toward the cleric who had betrayed his vow and now cursed his god. Zaltec, too, lumbered toward him, ready to slay the one who dared interrupt the immortal tasks of the gods.

Coton twisted to look at Halloran. The cleric’s face tightened with the agony of his struggle as he clasped Darien, still holding the blanket of pluma around her, enclosing her own power of hishna.

Then the priest spoke to Halloran. “They will destroy us! We must send them back-remove them from this world. They do not belong here!”

“But-but how?” demanded Halloran, his blood chilling as the monstrous figures loomed closer.

“You dare curse my name?” Qotal’s voice was a rumbling bellow, nearly shattering their ears. “You, who have prayed for my return, pleaded for my presence?”

The two gods loomed overhead, one the source of pluma, the coalescence of all its power; the other, the dark font of hishna and the root of its dark might. They looked with cold detachment at the mortals. They saw a man of pluma, bearing a cloak of high feathermagic, wrapped about a foul creature of hishna. The essence of the two powers flowed through the blood of these tiny creatures and gave them the vitality to carry their fight across the world.

The priest whirled back to Halloran. “Kill me!” he hissed, his voice taut. “Kill us both-now! It’s our only chance!”

The gods loomed closer, rearing above the pyramid, ready to squash them all into nothingness. But Halloran couldn’t force his hand.

“Now! There is no time!” Coton’s voice was a desperate plea.

Halloran stood mute and helpless. He couldn’t bring himself to strike this old companion who had silently and patiently accompanied them across the True World. He tried to force his hand to his blade, but it wouldn’t move. Erixitl looked at him in terror, clutching the baby in her encircling arms.

But one man was free of those restraints. Poshtli suddenly grasped the sword from Halloran’s hand. Whirling toward the combatants as the spread his jaws, ready to immolate them all, the warrior sprang.

And he thrust the keen blade home.

The bloodstained tip of Helmstooth cut easily through the cleric’s body, tearing the cloak of pluma and driving into the drider’s bowels. Darien shrieked in pain, staggering backward with a force that pulled the blade from Poshtli’s hand.

But the cleric clung to her even as he died, and as the blood of pluma and hishna mingled and flowed onto the top of the pyramid, the power of the gods waned.

Qotal’s jaws emitted a short gasp of smoke, but already the dragon had begun to fade from sight. The stone behemoth of Zaltec, meanwhile, staggered weakly backward. Then it teetered once and crashed to the ground with thunderous force, shattering into so many lifeless boulders.

By the time the dust had settled, Qotal could no longer be seen.

Tokol joined Cordell and the defenders of Helmsport on the field before the fort. Together they watched the beasts of the Viperhand withdraw from the field, disappearing into the jungle.

“Did our arrival scare them away?” the Kultakan war chief wondered.

“Perhaps,” replied the captain-general. “Or perhaps it was

something else. All of the urge to fight seemed to leave! them.”

“Let’s hope the urge is gone for good,” growled Daggrande, with a scowl at the retreating foe.

“Chical tells me there’s no sign of the colossus, either;’ added Cordell.

A weary party approached along the shore, and they hurried over to greet Poshtli, Halloran, and Jhatli. Erixitl, carrying the baby, rode in a makeshift travois pulled by her husband.

“The gods are gone-back to their own immortal planes,” Halloran told them quietly. “They have left the world to us.”

“lb make of it what we will,” said Poshtli, with a meaningful look at Cordell.

“What’s that’” wondered Daggrande, pointing to a scroll of painted symbols that Halloran carried.

“Coton’s chronicles. He painted the tale of our adventures on these scrolls. They tell a good part of the history of the True World.”

“A history that changes by the hour,” Cordell added in a rare thoughtful moment Then he shook his head quickly, as if forcing his mind back to the present. He looked at Halloran. “The first ships sail for Amn in a few days. You’ve earned passage, should you desire it.”

The weary swordsman looked at his former commander and shook his head. “My home is here now, in Maztica. It may be that I’ll return to the Sword Coast, sometime, for a visit. But for now, I-we-won’t be going anywhere.”

A wind sweeps in from the Trackless Sea, blowing from the east and carrying with it an unstoppable force. It whips the waves and hurls breakers against the shore.

The wind sweeps up the bluff of Twin Visages, abandoned now, its surrounding jungle torn by fissures and chasms, the trees splintered and trampled. The pyramid still stands, and the two faces still stare outward from the bluff into the teeth of the wind, but the sea before them remains empty for now.

Next the wind swirls and soars on to Ulatos, which has burgeoned into a bustling trade city, combining with the harbor of Helmsport to become the main port of call along the entire coast of the True World. From Ulatos, treasures beyond gold-treasures such as rich cocoa and lush may a- are carried to the east. And other cargoes-horses, steel, wagons, livestock, and more-arrive here from the Sword Coast and make their way across Maztica.