Douglas Niles - Ironhelm

"The drow maintained a magical focus, deep under the earth, that they called the Darkfyre. Into this, they fed the bodies of their slain enemies, and the Darkfyre grew in power. Finally it overwhelmed those who fed it and grew of its own will into a great force, of cataclysmic destruction — the Rockfire.

"It consumed the world of the underground, destroying most of it. Mountains such as this were born in the fire, while whole cities and nations of the underdark were demolished." Luskag paused, and Poshtli sensed the pain of the tale, a pain that appeared as fresh as if the disaster had occurred only yesterday.

"The dwarven race was annihilated, except for a few small tribes, such as my ancestors. And even they found that life underground was no longer possible, for the hallowed caverns of antiquity, those that survived the fire, became caldrons of poison gas or pools of hot, molten rock. So the dwarves came to the surface, and now we live our lives in shallow caves, very near the baking heat of the sun. Now we dwarves, here in the House of Tezca, are the last survivors of a proud and noble race.

"But one good thing, too, came from the Rockfire. That was the complete destruction of the drow. At least now we live in peace, unthreatened by their evil machinations."

Poshtli lowered his eyes in respect for his companion's pain. He wondered at the power that could destroy a whole people, a whole nation. The dry wind swirled around him, and he felt a sudden chill.

Luskag's pride was evident as he raised his bald head and looked across the House of Tezca. The barren, hot desert became muted with distance, when viewed from this lofty vantage. The reds and browns and yellows flowed together in soft shades. The harsh and jagged skyline became a thing of beauty — distant, aloof, and unassailable.

"And the Sunstone… that, too, was born of the Rock-fire?" asked Poshtli, with a glance toward the summit.

Luskag nodded and climbed to his feet. "And we'd best get moving if you would consult the stone today. The sun will be high in the sky shortly, and we must reach the top before then."

Poshtli grunted acquiescence and stood stiffly. They had climbed most of the way up the mountain, but the last bit was the steepest, strewn with loose rock and dirty patches of snow. His mind became a haze of fatigue. Sweat dripped into his eyes, blurring his vision. They had brought no water. Luskag had informed him that the body and soul must be bared by the climb. One who sought the insight of the Sunstone must be pure and show his devotion by such abstinence.

Finally they crested the summit, and Poshtli saw that they stood upon the rim of a vast volcanic caldera. Through his fatigue, he looked down into the yawning crater and gasped with amazement at the sight of the Sunstone. His body tingled, his mind came sharply alert. This is a place of the gods! he realized in awe.

A great disk of silver lay flat in the crater, like a lake of molten metal. The inside of the caldera was dry and lifeless, a baked surface of black rock. But the disk, nearly the size of the great plaza of Nexal, seemed to gleam with a life of its own.

Poshtli could not have torn his eyes away even if he had wanted to. He squatted on his haunches, spellbound. He sensed Luskag sitting beside him, also facing the inside of the mountain.

Slowly, majestically, the sun crested the opposite side of the crater. Higher it climbed, warming them with its heat, but never did their eyes waver from the silver disk. Poshtli saw the metal begin to move, starting to swirl slowly in a great circle.

Faster and faster the metal whirled, and more magnificent, more enthralling grew the spell. The Eagle Warrior and the desert dwarf did not move, did not twitch a muscle or blink.

Finally the sun reached high across the mountain. Its light struck the disk in a scorching reflection, pouring brilliance in its concentrated beams.

Poshtli felt the force wash over him, almost knocking him backward. Grimly he fixed his gaze against the glare, feeling his body grow warm, then hot. His vision had suddenly become a white nothingness, but then a hole opened in the vast blank. In the very center of his vision, the hole grew, until he could see through it, into a region of clear blue sky. He looked through the hole in his vision and saw buzzards circling, wheeling downward, away from him.

Poshtli forgot his pain, forgot the heat. He dove with the buzzards, which had now become eagles. Soaring, he remembered sensations of flight, but never had they created such joy.

With sudden, sickening abruptness, he flew with the eagles over a vast black wasteland. Through the ashes, he could see the outlines of canals, a tumbled mound that might have been a pyramid, the swamps that outlined what once had been lakes.

Nexal! He cried for the city, his voice a harsh wail. This was truly Nexal that stood below him, but a Nexal of death and disaster. There were no people here, but strange, frightening things wandered among the muck and ruin: creatures of grotesque appearance, malformed shapes, and bestial, hateful eyes.

Poshtli still looked through the hole in his vision, though now he tried to look away — but he could not. He thought the sight would drive him mad. Despair threatened to burst his heart.

Then he saw, before him, a woman of indescribable beauty. She stood among the blackened ruins, and the darkness fell back from her. Where it recoiled, the city did not reappear, but at least the land emerged, green and whole again.

Poshtli's avian form reeled under the brutal assault of the vision. He twisted and squirmed in the air as if he would escape the horror below it, but it seemed that everywhere he turned he faced new scenes of devastation.

Then he saw jungle below him, broken by patches of savannah. The sun appeared in his vision, rising directly above an overgrown pyramid. Poshtli's vision fell toward the pyramid, and here he saw a strange sight, a beautiful woman, fighting desperately for her life. He saw a pack of coyotes snapping at her legs.

Beside her stood one he recognized as a white man from across the sea. He, too, fought the coyotes. Poshtli saw that the attackers were small, shaggy creatures of several colors — pale yellow, brown, and black.

The next thing he knew was Luskag's hand on his shoulder, shaking him. He sat up and blinked, unable to remove the glaring yellow spot from his vision — the spot where the hole had been. Dimly he realized that it was night.

"Come," said Luskag. Poshtli saw that the dwarf, too, blinked often. "Were the gods kind to you?"

"They were," Poshtli said softly. "I know now what to do."

Kardann, the assessor, reported to Cordell at noon. The captain-general kept the bookkeeper waiting outside the grand house while he dressed. Kardann fidgeted nervously on a stone bench in the courtyard, taking little note of his surroundings in the spacious palace that had once been Caxal's.

The house was huge, with an enclosed garden and bathing pool. Beyond this open area, whitewashed walls enclosed the high, airy rooms of the huge flat-roofed building. While most of the buildings in Ulatos seemed to be of wood or thatch, this one was made of stone.

Cordell soon emerged from his apartments to meet the Council of Six's representative.

"Of course, I worked under execrable conditions," began Kardann. "It's not like weighing nice minted coins. My estimate includes an error factor of plus or minus ten percent."

His apology out of the way, Kardann beamed. "My preliminary assessment, however, yields the pleasant sum of one million, one hundred thousand pieces of gold, once forging and minting have been accomplished. The gold seems to be of genuinely high purity, though my assumptions have been cautious there as well."

Cordell whistled softly. "That is splendid news, sir. Simply splendid!"