Ironhelm

THE COUNCIL OF AMN

Cordell stroked the thin wisps of his beard, striving to contain his delight. He looked, he knew, resplendent in his green robe with its collar of emeralds and diamonds. Boots of blackest leather reached past his knees, and his ornamental steel breastplate and helm gave him a gleaming martial air.

Beside him stood Darien, her hood thrown back and her striking white hair glowing with its own iridescence. Her own gown of blood-red silk shone in stark contrast to her alabaster skin. A cluster of rubies gleamed in a lone hairpin, a shocking burst of color against the elf's snowy white hair.

"I tell you, one spell and we would have them all!" The elf spoke in an almost inaudible whisper, but the urgency of her argument was plain.

"No… it's too risky. The council is certain to have defenses against such an attempt!" Cordell spoke in a similar whisper.

"But do you think you can persuade them?"

"I am certain of it."

"The Council, Captain-General" A liveried guard opened the brass door with a flourish, bowing low and waving Cordell and his lady into the room.

Cordell strode casually through the door, Darien feather light on his arm. They walked on a carpet of snowy white, the elf woman's crystal slippers gliding through the woolen nap while the general's boots left faint smudges of mud.

"Captain-General Cordell, the Council of Six salutes you. You have struck a blow for Amn, and for the forces of order throughout the Realms." The speaker was a member of the council, one of the ruling merchant princes of Amn. He stood in anonymous darkness across the room. His voice was deep and resonant. The general could see several figures there, above him and behind a partition that looked like the front of a great bench.

Several small candles, shaded with stained-glass screens, cast a dim light through the chamber. The council held court at the great bench, while those who entered followed the carpet to a large, circular area before the six merchant princes of Amn.

Cordell noticed with satisfaction that all six members were present. All six stood to greet him. Each face, of course, was concealed by a black silken gauze of airy weight that provided total concealment. The six were the masters of the mighty trading nation of Amn, and their identities were the most closely guarded secrets in the land.

"The end of Akbet-Khrul's pirates is a historical moment for us all."

Cordell waved off the gratitude, raising his helmet and bowing deeply. Darien curtsied with elven grace, and the six members of the council took their seats as Cordell began to speak.

"Gentlemen — forgive me, and ladies, should you be present — it is an honor to attend you. I must point out in all humility that there may be small pirate outposts still thriving in the depths of the isles. But passage through Asavir's Channel should be uninterrupted for the foreseeable future."

"Indeed!" This speaker, a man with a rather high-pitched voice, sat on the far left of the council. Cordell pictured a fat merchant rubbing his palms together in glee, though of course the mask and voluminous robe made any estimate as to the merchant's appearance purely conjectural. "You will find your payment in the chest before you, together with a bonus we trust you will find satisfactory."

"Your generosity, as always, overwhelms me." With a supreme effort of will, Cordell forced himself to avoid looking at the chest. He paused, allowing them to note and wonder at his restraint. When he sensed their growing curiosity, he resumed.

"I wish to present you an alternate proposition, however — a chance to keep your treasure, and gain more. Tenfold, fiftyfold what you have here!"

He paused for another moment to let the seed take root. All six of the merchant princes sat unmoving, waiting for him to continue.

"The trade routes to Waterdeep and all the coast are open to you now, but what of the great land trail to Kara-Tur?" The image of vast Kara-Tur, he knew, could not help but conjure images of tea, spices, rubies, and silk among the merchants.

Cordell quickly launched his arguments. "These routes are closed now by the hordes of the steppes! The spices, the arts — treasures such as this very rug beneath my feet — all the goods of the East are lost."

This reminder, painful to all profit-motivated folk, was not really necessary. Everyone knew that all land routes through the center of the continent, the trade paths for all the goods of Kara-Tur, were currently useless. A vast migratory horde of barbarian horsemen had closed all these lands to civilized pursuits.

"Lost not just to Amn, remember, but lost to the entire Realms! Hundreds of cities thirst for goods that are not to be had!

"Think, O Princes, what rewards await the one who opens trade with the East… and the ones who support him!" They listen well… they will be mine.

"Surely you don't suggest that your legion open a route through the steppeland?" the squeaky merchant asked incredulously. The horde reputedly numbered more than a million savage fighters.

"Certainly not. That is a fool's task — at least, a task for fools other than myself." The members chuckled politely. They come closer, Cordell chortled inwardly.

"I ask you, Council of Amn, to fund me on an ocean voyage to Kara-Tur! I intend to sail to the west to reach the East!"

Two council members snorted in amusement, one shook his head, and three others remained immobile. Cordell turned to these unmoving ones and pressed on.

"Astrologers and sages have long said such a voyage is possible. Provide me with a dozen sturdy ships, provisions, and trading goods. My ships will carry the pick of the legion. With the support of your offices, I could take to sea in six months, before the first snows."

"But where… how would you sail?" The deep-voiced merchant prince, the one who had greeted Cordell upon his entrance, seemed intrigued.

"West. Actually, slightly south by west. Our Bishou has consulted Helm, patron god of the legion. Also we have sought the advice of the greatest sages on the coast, have conferred with wizards from Waterdeep to Calimport!

"The auguries are splendid. One strident symbol rides above all, in every vision. With each word from our god, the Bishou sees this promise. It dominates the seeking spells of the wizards, provides the theme underlying the speculations of the sages.

"It is an image so strong that we cannot but believe it lies before us on this quest.

"That image, good council members, is gold."

I have them.

"It is settled, then." The old cleric looked approvingly past Huakal to the prize of the past few hours of haggling. Erixitl stood motionless before his gaze, frightened and mystified by the proceedings.

In the months since her struggle with Callatl, little had changed in Erix's life. The young man had slowly recovered, though his voice had been permanently garbled by the girl's blow to his throat. Even worse, Erix's blow to his groin had destroyed his ability to father children. But throughout his son's long and agonized recovery, Huakal had been curiously distant… until this morning.

Then he had summoned her to meet this man, this white-robed cleric of Qotal. Huakal and Kachin, the cleric, spoke at some length in the language of the Payit. She understood little of the conversation between the two men, but she had noticed the cleric paying close attention to her. Now they switched tongues to Kultakan.

"A chest of cocoa, ten mantles, and two quills of gold dust, then. The girl is yours." Huakal nodded with finality.

Erix's heart sank. She had been sold! Then she thought a moment about the fee that had just been detailed. A man could buy a dozen able-bodied workers for that price!

Huakal turned to Erix, his voice firm. "This is Kachin. He is your new owner. He will be taking you to Payit." She looked at him with her proud, wide eyes, disturbing him. She has never acted like a slave! Huakal thought. She doesn't know what it is to be a slave! But those eyes…

The Kultakan noble walked brusquely past the girl, and she wondered if she saw tears in his eyes.

For a moment, she felt a sincere impulse to embrace him, to thank him or comfort him or say farewell. But even more quickly a sense of panic and foreboding flooded her, and she silently cursed Huakal for sending her away.

True, many nobles would have had her sacrificed without a second thought after such a fight as she had won. Callatl's scars would never heal. She had, in fact, expected, and prepared, to die.

But Huakal had spared her, selling her now instead for some absurd price to a cleric from the far fringes of Maztica. She knew little of Payit, other than that it was a land of jungles, swamps, poisonous serpents, and near-savage people.

The strange cleric's odd speech patterns and unusual dress also puzzled and frightened her. He wore a simple white cotton mantle, unadorned. He wore no feathers nor gold nor stones. His skin was very dark, his hair gray and long and tied in a single knot. His face, while creased with many wrinkles, was round and quick to smile. He moved his short, somewhat rotund form easily for an obviously old man.

Unlike the other clerics she had known, worshipers of Zaltec or his hungry offspring, this priest was obviously well fed. The only recognizable thing about him was the pendant of the Plumed One hanging about his neck, marking him as a cleric of Qotal. Perhaps the Feathered God did not require his devotees to fast as frequently as did those who worshiped Zaltec and the younger gods.

The faith of Qotal was not so widely spread as that of the warlike Zaltec, or the essential Calor and Tezca with their life-giving rain and sun. Still, Erix knew her father had revered Qotal, though this had been a private matter with him. Huakal, too, had maintained a shrine to the Plumed One. Huakal's son, like her own brother, had chosen to worship Zaltec instead of the gentle god of their fathers.

But Erix had learned to fear clerics, for they too often had but one use for a slave. And now she had been sold to a cleric who would take her to the distant shores of the True World, who for some mysterious purpose had paid an exorbitant sum for her.

She saw Huakal standing before her. Vaguely she noticed his eyes lingering on her token before he raised them to look at her face. As a woman of Maztica, she should have lowered her gaze then, but she did not, instead meeting her former master's gaze with her own penetrating dark eyes.

"You are a rare treasure, Erixitl." Huakal's voice came to her, seemingly from a great distance. The noble had indeed succumbed to emotion, and he made no effort to hide his tears as he spoke. "You are a child of grim destiny. My line has ended with Callatl, and now you are swept away. You shall go to Payit, and the land will not be the same for your being there.

"May the gods be kind to you."

From the Chronicle of the Waning.

May the wisdom of the Feathered One shine across the True World!

Now, just as swans take to the air, I see the strangers spread their wings and put to sea. But these creatures that glide ever closer to Maztica are more hawks than swans.

They come with powers beyond my understanding, devices and tools the likes of which I have never seen. I cannot imagine the uses of many of the things I am given the vision to observe. But most frightening of all my auguries is not the tools, nor the powers of these strangers.

It is the men themselves.

I sense — even across worlds of distance — that these men are somehow different. Their god is a fierce lord, perhaps more than the equal of the younger gods of Maztica. They are drawn by things, compelled by forces that I cannot comprehend. Visions of metal and stones move them with a power that leaves me mystified and awed.

I only know that they terrify me!