Douglas Niles - Viperhand

"This will take more than an apology," said Cordell softly, almost with regret.

"What do you mean?" Naltecona drew himself to his full height, showing no trace of fear. "Have you decided to slay me?"

"No," said Cordell. "That would do neither of us any good. Instead, you will gather your personal belongings and move in with us, into the palace of Axalt." Cordell kept his voice level, staring Naltecona in the eyes, as he concluded. "There you will remain as our prisoner."

"What's going on?" demanded Poshtli, trotting through the open doors to the throne room several hours after dawn. The dais was vacant, but he saw a number of spearmen arguing in a small group across the room. Striding over to the warriors, Poshtli commanded their attention with his presence.

"Naltecona has gone to the palace of Axalt to stay with the strangers," said one tall spearman.

"Of his own will?" asked Poshtli, astounded.

"It would seem not," continued the warrior. "His chamber slaves were slain."

"We must rescue him — or die trying!" growled Poshtli. Another thought occurred to him. "The strangers have signed their own death warrants with this outrage!"

"Perhaps, but perhaps not," said the warrior, shaking his head. "Chical was ready to lead a group of warriors after him when Naltecona himself appeared on the roof of Axalt's palace, commanding Chical and his warriors to return to their lodge."

Poshtli stared in disbelief for a moment, then spun on his heel. He raced from the throne room, through the long corridors of the palace of Naltecona, and out into the morning sunlight of the sacred plaza. Slowing his pace to a steady trot, he crossed the courtyard and came to the gates of Axalt's palace.

A scowling, mustachioed man stood guard at the gate, holding a long spear with the blade of an axe at its end. Beside him stood one of the short men the strangers called "dwarves," also scowling.

Halting before them, Poshtli tried to remember some of the phrases of common speech he had learned from Halloran and Erixitl.

"I… must speak to Naltecona," he said, looking from one to the other.

"No one sneaks to 'im without the captain-general's say-so," said the human.

Poshtli stepped forward, and the guard raised his weapon menacingly.

"He is… in there?" asked the Maztican.

"Sure. 'Cause he wants to be," said the soldier, with a sly smile.

"If you're lying" Poshtli said.

The haft of the man's weapon struck swiftly toward the warrior's chin, but Poshtli stepped backward, out of the way of the blow. The guard swung his weapon around to confront Poshtli with the blade, while the dwarf edged nervously backward, looking into the courtyard behind him, as if he hoped for reinforcements.

Poshtli and the guard stared at each other, neither showing a trace of fear. If anything, the legionnaire's gaze showed a slight measure of respect for Poshtli's quickness and courage. The warrior deeply regretted coming unarmed, though rationally he understood that the presence of a weapon in his hands could do little more than get him killed.

"Wait," came a soft voice that nonetheless had the strength to carry across the palace courtyard. Naltecona emerged from the doors and crossed to the gate, accompanied by several of his courtiers, and also by a half-dozen armed legionnaires. The counselor wore his full regalia — the towering headdress of emerald feathers, a rich, pluma cape, and gold plugs in his ears and lip.

"My nephew, you must listen to me" Naltecona urged when he reached the gate. "I am here of my own will. It was the only way!"

"How can you say this," objected the young warrior, "when you are surrounded by armed men? When they won't admit the members of your own court to see you?"

"Poshtli, listen!" Naltecona spoke with more harshness than Poshtli had ever heard him use. "This is the only way. You must go back to the warriors and the priests. Tell them that I came here of my own free will. They must not attack the strangers! Such a battle would be disastrous beyond imagination.

"And now it is up to you to prevent it."

Halloran relaxed easily in the sun-drenched yard outside Lotil's house, the wound in his ribs almost fully healed. Below, he could see the slow recovery of Palul as villagers demolished blackened buildings and cleaned away the debris of disaster.

Up on the mountainside, he felt a growing unease about his detachment from the brutal scene in the valley. The lack of activity had begun to grate on him, especially during hours like these when Erixitl labored down in Palul with her neighbors.

He wondered about the legion's fate in Nexal. Word of Cordell's entrance into the city had returned to Palul several days earlier, but no further news had followed.

A woman moved through a field where the Nexalans and Kultakans had clashed. She selected the ears of a mayz that had survived, loading them into a basket on her hip. Men wove new roofs of thatch over some of the lesser-damaged buildings.

Behind him, Lotil hummed in the house. Hal pictured him at his featherloom, dextrously tucking bits of plumage into a mesh of fine cotton, creating pictures of brilliance and splendor. Blind though he was, the old man somehow observed the labor of his craft with keen precision. Apparently he could feel the difference between feathers of different hues.

In the past days, he had seen, from his vantage on the ridge, the pastoral strength of these people. The pyramid stood in disuse. The priests had all been slain in the battle, and without clerical exhortations to faith, people had turned to more pressing concerns.

Hal shuddered as he thought of the dark side of this culture, at the placid resolution with which the folk accepted the bloody hunger of their gods. But he knew of Qotal, too. He knew that these people had not always practiced their gory rituals. Perhaps the day would come when they would no longer do so.

And in his reflections, the hours passed. He saw the graves outside of Palul, and he pictured the legion encamped in Nexal. Amid the wonder and the horror, what catastrophe might ensue? Whatever the fate, he felt that the culture around him deserved better than to be plundered for its gold.

Erixitl returned at sunset. Hal noticed her extreme agitation as soon as she came around the bend in the trail below the house.

"What is it?" He ran to meet her.

"They've taken Naltecona captive!" she gasped, breathless from a hurried climb.

"The legion? Where?"

"In Nexal, the sacred plaza. It was true, what we heard about Naltecona giving Cordell the palace of Axalt. Now Cordell has brought the counselor to the palace and holds him among the legion!" They moved into the house, and Erix looked wildly, in panic, from her husband to her father.

"Why are you so frightened, child?" asked Lotil.

"The shadows! As soon as I heard the news, everything became dark! I could barely see to climb the hill, as if it were the middle of a cloudy night." She took a deep breath, trying to calm down.

"I had a dream, Father, the first time I saw this spreading darkness. It was the night the macaw led us to water in the desert," she told them. The words poured forth, and the men could sense her relief as she unburdened herself of the tale.

"I saw the end of the True World in this dream. It began beneath the glow of a full moon, in Nexal. Naltecona was slain by the strangers — atop a building I didn't know then, but I recognized it when we reached the city. It is Axalt's palace!"

"But surely the warriors have attacked," declared Halloran. "The city must be torn by battle!"

"It sounds very strange" Erixitl admitted. "But there is no fighting. Slaves take food to the legion every day, and Naltecona himself appears — from the palace, from the roof — to discuss his contentment. He claims that he is there of his own free will."