Viperhand

EMPIRE IN CHAINS

Naltecona awakened suddenly, blinking in the alien light of a brightly glowing oil lamp. "What is the meaning of this intrusion?" he demanded loudly, sitting up in outrage and surprise.

Squinting into the hot glare, he saw Cordell, Darien, the Bishou, and a half-dozen legionnaires. The men-at-arms brandished longswords, several of the blades bloody. In the room beyond his sleeping chamber, Naltecona saw the still, bleeding figures of his personal slaves.

"We have been attacked in the rooms you gave us!" accused Cordell. "By one of your Jaguar Warriors."

"He acted in disobedience of my orders," objected Naltecona, rising to confront the captain-general.

"That may be, and it may not be. In any event, we must take steps to insure our security. This type of occurrence cannot be tolerated!"

"Your presence in our city is difficult for some of my people to tolerate!"

"We are here as your guests, and our safety is your responsibility. Since you have failed to provide that safety, we shall takes steps of our own!"

"Wait!" The Revered Counselor held up his hand. He was more puzzled than frightened, he even forgot his outrage against this intrusion in his efforts to analyze the problem. "This warrior… did you happen to note if he bore the brand of the Viperhand on his chest?"

"So that's what that red… Yes, he did," Cordell replied. "What does that mean?"

"They are a legion of priests and warriors," explained the counselor. "They have all taken a vow to defend the name of Zaltec to the last. They seem to interpret that as resisting your forces. I have forbidden this resistance, but there must still be uncontrolled fanatics. I apologize for the breach of faith."

"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."

"Perhaps he is," said Hal skeptically.

"Even if he is, the danger is still terrible. And in my dream, his death was only the beginning. The devastation that followed spread like nightfall, as if the world itself was destroyed!"

"If you see this, then it can come to pass," said Lotil, "for you are one whom the favor of Qotal has granted special knowledge."

"What do you mean?" asked Erixitl.

Lotil smiled. "Look at your cloak, the one from the featherworker in Nexal. What do you note about it?"

Erix removed the garment and spread it on her lap. Halloran, too, leaned over to look at it closely. "It's even more beautiful than I remembered," she said. She ran her fingers along the brilliant plumage, tracing strands of red, green, white, and blue. Each color formed a long, narrow plume, which overlaid others of the same and different colors.

The whole cloak, unfolded, covered a fan-shaped area some five feet long by an equal width at its full extent. It was several inches thick, with a light, airy mass that nonetheless seemed well-padded.

But Erix was busy following the strands of color together, toward the apex of the cape. Each quill joined its neighbors into a single plume, and these plumes merged again higher up on the cloak. At the top, she noticed as she carefully ran her fingers along the cloak, all of the feathers merged into one strong, supple stem.

"It's a single, giant feather!" she said, astonished. "But from what?"

"What indeed?" asked Lotil, his face creaking into an amused grin.

"What do you mean?" interrupted Hal. "So it's a single feather. So what?"

"The Cloak of One Plume is the gift of Qotal himself, the second harbinger of his return. I have known since you returned to me," said Lotil softly.

"His gift, like the return of the couatl, is his mark upon you. You are his chosen one. Keep this cloak safe, my dearest. There will be a time when it shall give you the blessing of Qotal."

"But chosen for what?" Erix snapped, frightened. "What do you mean? Why do I have this cloak? Just to see disaster before us?"

"Perhaps it has been given that you can do something to avoid that disaster," suggested Lotil quietly.

"But what? How can I?"

"Maybe we can do something!" Hal pressed his fists against his forehead, seeing Erixitl's agony, her absolute conviction that she had foreseen catastrophe. He thought for a moment, seeking some sort of a plan, and then spoke impulsively.

"You said that, under the glow of a full moon, Naltecona was killed by the legion atop the palace of Axalt. Well, what if he never goes to the roof? What if he's out of the palace altogether?"

Halloran quickly warmed to his topic, yet he needed to convince himself that his idea was not mere madness. "Perhaps we can rescue Naltecona, and get him to safety. If we can find Poshtli and get his help, we just might have a chance."

"But how? Break into the palace, through the legion's guards?" Erixitl's initial look of hope fell as she considered the obstacles.

"Didn't Poshtli tell us something about secret passages in those palaces? Remember, when we first got to Nexal. Maybe he knows where some of them are!"

Erixitl wondered at the thought, surprised as Lotil spoke. "Go to the door, daughter, Tell me where the moon is now."

"It's low in the east."

"Some time past sunset, correct? I feel the evening chill."

"Yes."

"Well, then," said the featherworker, turning his wrinkled face from Erixitl to Halloran and back again. "It would seem that you have about three days until it is full."

The priests dragged the Kultakan warrior forward, and Shatil saw that the victim was merely a strapping youth, too inexperienced to avoid capture by the retreating Nexalans at Palul. The sun touched the horizon as the scarred, gaunt clerics stretched him across the altar. Shatil's knife fell once, and then he raised the youth's heart to the great warrior statue of Zaltec.

The statue grimaced back, standing tall and broad, with its fanged mouth gaping. Tossing the pulsing flesh into that maw, Shatil turned back to the altar. Priests had already carried the body away, while others brought the next offering.

This one was older, a slave who had been given by his Jaguar Knight master to Zaltec. That warrior, having just received the brand of the Viperhand, had failed to acquire a captive during the recent battle. He made the offering of his lifelong slave in sincere atonement.

The slave didn't quite see it that way, and he struggled helplessly until the last moment. Shatil gave this heart to his god with a vengeance, embarrassed by the man's lack of faith.

And so it went. Hoxitl, Shatil, and a few of the other senior priests of Nexal tried to slake the ravening hunger of their god. Overwhelmed by the honor shown him — he was much younger than any of the other priests performing these desperate rites — Shatil strived to make each sacrifice perfect. Every heart must be another contribution to the strength to Zaltec. Soon now, Hoxitl had promised, would come their call to action.

The cult of the Viperhand flourished in all corners of the city, though its members remained outside the sacred plaza for the most part. The strangers never ventured beyond the walls of the palace of Axalt. Food was supplied daily by the servants of Naltecona, and the Revered Counselor often walked upon the palace roof, apparently happy and serene.

Full darkness settled across the valley before the final sacrifice had been offered. Finally the priests gathered before the altar to hear Hoxitl.

"I have seen the Ancient Ones," explained the high priest. The hearts of his exhausted compatriots pulsed to the news. They awaited his words with awed anticipation.

"Zaltec is pleased with our efforts. When the battle begins, his power will shield us from the metal weapons of the invaders. But we cannot strike yet. This is most important!"

Shatil's heart sank at the news. He sensed the disappointment of the other priests. Impulsively he blurted, "But, Patriarch, why can we not attack while the blood of the cult runs fresh and hot?"

Hoxitl sighed, a patient sound. "This is why it is forbidden: The Ancient Ones have had a warning. There is one who can destroy our plan. She is a young woman selected by the gods, who can by her very existence give victory to the invaders and utter, cataclysmic disaster to us!

"As long as she lives, our uprising would face disaster. Therefore, our entire task, for now, is to find this woman so that her heart can be given to Zaltec and our ultimate victory assured!"

"Where is she? Who is she?" The priests clamored for information, but Hoxitl quieted them with a look. His gaze came to rest on Shantil, and his voice was gentle.

"We are to wait for her to come to Nexal. She may be in the company of the stranger, Halloran." Shatil looked up with a start, to find Hoxitl's eyes squarely upon his own.

"She is your sister, Erixitl of Palul."

Chical, proud captain of the Eagle Warriors, came to see Poshtli in the throne room of Naltecona's palace. Poshtli did not sit atop the dais, but the chamber itself seemed to be the best place for him to conduct the business of the city and nation in the absence of his uncle.

In the presence of Chical and other ranking nobles, Naltecona had entrusted these tasks to his nephew, along with a grim admonishment to maintain peace with the strangers camped in their midst.

Poshtli's primary headache had been relations between the Kultakans and Nexalans in the sacred plaza, surrounding the palaces. The warriors of the city trained in the plaza and frequented the temples and altars there. The Kultakans, and to a lesser extent the Payit, had not yet interfered with these activities, but Poshtli expected a clash at any time.

Now he welcomed the arrival of his old captain, though he already guessed Chical's business.

"When will you order the attack?" demanded the Eagle.

"There will be no attack until Naltecona commands it. You yourself were there when he said this!" Poshtli shot back.

"Surely you could see that he spoke under the threat of the strangers' swords!"

"I saw no such thing. Is it your belief that the Revered Counselor would lie to his people out of fear for his own life?" The question held a grim undertone of challenge, and Chical dropped his eyes.

"No, it is not." When he looked up, deep pain showed in his eyes and in the tight set of his mouth. "But the spirit of Nexal, of all Maztica, is breaking beneath the weight of this outrage," he said quietly. "Our enemies may one day conquer us, but let it be through battle, not as our guests!"

"I am bound by my uncle's word to carry out his wishes, but if the strangers should do him any harm, that bond is broken. And know this, old warrior," Poshtli said, fixing Chical with an aggressive stare. "Before I will submit to conquest, there will be war!"

Privately he wondered if it was not already too late.

They camped in a high meadow, amid a riotous array of alpine blossoms. Staying off the main road, Hal and Erix traversed the shoulder of the northward volcano, Popol, high above the tree line. The only creatures they saw were birds, white far below them, in the valley, lay Nexal. They enjoyed a brilliant sunset while they ate. After dark, the city stood clearly outlined by ten thousand torches and candles.

But for the two lovers, this was a night still to look upward toward the heavens. The torches of the city paled to insignificance against the millions of stars that dotted the great blue-black dome of the sky from one horizon to the next. The moon, past the third quarter in brightness, still couldn't overcome the stars.

The night was just chill enough to make their blankets necessary and comfortable. For a long time, they spoke to each other without words. The terrors of the coming days still loomed, but each became a wellspring of strength for the other, making any horror tolerable so long as they could face it together.

Erixitl suddenly looked away from the city as they sat. Hal wrapped his arms around her, felt her trembling, and understood.

"The shadows come even by night now," she said, burying her face against his chest. "The city goes black. I see the torches and fires blink out one by one. Cant you feel the earth shaking?" she moaned.

He said nothing for a while, just holding her until her turmoil slowly faded. "We will find Poshtli," he declared finally. "With his help in the palace, and my steel-"

"And my pluma" Erix added, sitting up again.

"Yes." Hal winced at the thought of Darien, the biggest threat he perceived to their entrance into the palace.

Erixitl's token seemed to offer her, or them, some protection against the wizard's power. How much, they couldn't know, but she had described in intimate detail her experience with the blast of the frost wand.

"Together" Halloran agreed, holding her warm body to his own. There didn't seem to be any other way, and he began to feel grateful for the fact.

They came together then, with abandon, as if they both feared there would be no tomorrow.

From the chronicles of Colon:

A gallery of godhood waits for the contest to begin.

Lolth arises to her full presence and begins to take the measure of the gods, especially Zaltec, who claims the worship of her wayward drow. She studies the others, and she is pleased.

Zaltec feasts, all unknowing of the spider goddess. He is ready for the explosion of the Viperhand across the land, and he knows the hearts gained by the victory will grant him unchallenged mastery of the True Wbrld.

Helm observes as the legion gathers its gold. This warrior god from across the sea remains vigilant. He waits, prepared for anything.

And all across Maztica, the shadows lengthen.