Feathered Dragon

1

A great gulf of ether separates the planes, the dwelling places of gods and mortals. Billowing outward, murky and obscure, the ethereal mist settles and seethes like a vast, cosmic cloud bank. It fills the space between the flesh-bound worlds and the higher planes of the immortals, a place of emptiness, and a void.

It lay thus, eternal and unchanging, through eons of mortal lives. Occasional travelers passed through the ether, aided by magic or godlike power, yet such journeys left no trace of their passage. Always the ether settled back, washing smoothly over any spoor.

Even when the gods of the many planes grew restless, when epic destinies clashed in convulsions of good and evil, did the ether ebb and flow in its timeless tide. It held no track, showed no clue.

Now color flashed in the ether, bright green trailed by red and orange and yellow. An iridescent glow, like the blue of a shallow coral sea, surged and as quickly faded again into the massive fog of ephemeral essence.

For a while-ages, perhaps, or mere minutes-all remained gray and featureless. Then the colors flamed again, and now a form appeared within the mists of the ethereal plane. No basis for comparison existed here, yet the shape seemed unspeakably massive, world-like in breadth and inexorable in momentum.

A pair of great wings, huge enough to embrace the sun, spread to either side of the form. Each swept the mist with blazing hues, leaving a wake of color in the ether like streaks of a rainbow. The body between the wings appeared, serpentine and massive, ringed by brilliance.

The form vanished into the mists again, reaching places where the ether washed against the worlds. Only the eternal mist remained, still seething, still swirling. Then, abruptly, the shape broke free and dazzled in the full glow of the sun. It circled the great star, searching for the world it sought, and settled toward that troubled, turbulent globe.

As it descended, its passage cast a broad shadow across the Realms.

“Water here, too!” Luskag scratched his bald, sunburned pate. The desert dwarf felt a great puzzlement, tinged with a little alarm. True, extra water in the sun-baked wastes of the House of Tezca could not possibly be bad. Or could it?

“More strangeness, like the beasts rumored to control Nexal,” muttered Tatak, his equally sunburned companion. Like Luskag, Tatak wore a smooth leather loincloth, with a band of snakeskin about his scalp. In the younger dwarf’s case, this served to restrain his long, shaggy growth of hair. Both dwarves concealed mouths and chins behind bristling, waist-length beards.

The pair stood beside a long pool of clear water in a twisting, rocky vale, where two days previously had lain a dust-filled depression in the desert. Craggy bluffs, their red stone faces glowing like fire in the hot daylight, towered overhead. Ripe, green shoots sprouted from the stony ground around the precious moisture. If the pattern observed throughout much of the House of Tezca was repeated, within weeks this former wasteland would produce an abundance of life-giving mayz.

“And the humans? How do they proceed?” inquired Tatak, knowing his chieftain had ordered spies to observe the great exodus from the wasteland that had once been fabulous Nexal.

“Southward, as before,” grunted Luskag. “They cross the House of Tezca like locusts, descending on these newly created water holes, scourging them of food, and then starting south again.”

“As if the gods had placed the food for them…” mused young Tatak.

Luskag huffed, uncertain and annoyed. He, the chief of Sunhome, had known an unchanging world for more than a century of life in the desert. He and his folk coped with that harsh environment, and if they did not master it, neither did the land master them. They found what water they needed from the plump sand mother, the cactus that grew to serve their needs. Food remained scarce, yet the desert dwarves needed little to survive.

Now, when confronted with a multitude of changes, Luskag could not dispel a sense of unease that closed in around him, disturbing him like a shadow on this bright, sunny day.

Indeed, as if to echo his thoughts, a great flicker of darkness passed over the land- The dwarf ducked reflexively, as if a monstrous hawk passed overhead, but when he looked upward the great dome of azure loomed empty above him.

“Did you see that?” Luskag inquired.

“What?”

Not answering, the chief of the desert dwarves studied the sky for some clue as to the origin of the shadow. “We must beware,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “And prepare.”

“Our craftswomen work hard on the plumastone,” offered Tatak, though of course his chieftain knew this fact very well. “Already they have built many sharp arrows.”

“Indeed. Another group, ten sturdy dwarves, left just this morning on the journey to the City of the Gods. In ten days, they will return with yet more of the gods-blessed obsidian.”

“How is it, Chieftain,” asked Tatak, scowling in confusion, “that the gods can allow the desert to claim a place like that? A pyramid such as stands there shows the work of many faithful followers, does it riot?”

Luskag grunted. “Our lot is not to question the acts of the gods. Perhaps they placed the City of the Gods in the desert so that only we could find it-only we could master the plumastone.” The chief chuckled wryly. “Though perhaps the gods will now show us why we need such weapons.

They both knew that it had been luck, more than any recognizable destiny, that had allowed Luskag to discover the shiny. super-hard obsidian. The stone seemed to exist only in the ridges around the City of the Gods, the sand-swept ruin that stood in the heart of the bleak desert. From the stone’s icy smooth surface, the stoneworkers of the desert dwarves had begun to form weapons far stronger than any they had known in Maztica, indeed, the blades were reminiscent of the steel edges dating back to the dwarves’ origins, before the time of the Rockfire.

“They say that the arrowheads are hard enough to shatter boulders,” observed Tatak.

“Yes, and they have begun to fashion the heads of axes from this stone as well.” Indeed, Luskag himself carried one of the weapons, its obsidian edge rendered keen and reputedly unbreakable by the feathermagic of skilled dwarves. “Perhaps spears will follow, but still, our numbers are small.”

Luskag felt, rather than heard, a presence behind him. The ground shook with the weight of a heavy footfall, and the desert dwarf spun, swiftly pulling his stone axe from his belt. He noticed Tatak’s face blanch, but the young dwarf sprang to his chief’s side without hesitation.

The creature looming behind Luskag almost sent him reeling backward in astonishment and dismay. Huge and vaguely manlike, it towered eight or nine feet in the air. Broad sinews rippled across its torso and limbs as it raised a club the size of a small tree. He dimly noted the blood-red brand, like the diamond-shaped head of a viper, on the thing’s chest.

But it was the face that drew Luskag’s attention, for he stared into the most horrifying visage he had ever seen. Tiny bloodshot eyes gleamed at him while a broad mouth, flecked with drool, gaped open to display sharp, finger-length tusks. Something within his nature rose in deep loathing at the sight of the monster, and Luskag’s body tensed in primitive hatred.

“Watch out for the club!” cried the chieftain, seeing Tatak charge forward.

The young desert dwarf carried merely a stone knife, yet he thrust the weapon at the beast’s sagging belly. With surprising quickness, the monster stepped back, at the same time hammering its club toward the charging dwarf. The stout limb met Tatak’s skull with brutal force, crushing bone and brain in the same instant.

Luskag snarled his rage, flinging himself into battle with all the primordial hatred this creature aroused in him. He had never seen such a beast, yet the dung’s mere appearance drove him into a killing frenzy.

Luskag’s stone axe, encircled by the tiny tufts of pluma, sought the monster’s bulging gut. Before it lifted its club again, the keen obsidian edge scored a deep gash across the creature’s flesh.

The sun-browned dwarf shouted his joy savagely, a harsh bark of vengeance as he saw the monster’s blood. A killing rage upon him, Luskag crouched, watching for the beast’s return blow.

With a bellow that shook the valley, the creature swung wildly at the desert dwarf. Luskag easily twisted away from the blow, and this time he chopped hard into its knee. The monster’s cry held tones of fear now, and Luskag attacked again, and again. His fury burned through his body, becoming a murderous rage that sent him after this grotesque aberration with brutal determination. Even without the slaying of Tatak, he would have had difficulty restraining his hatred.

As it was, the need for vengeance left no room for any thoughts of mercy

The beast cowered backward, stumbling away from the furious slashes of the gleaming stone blade. Suddenly it dropped its club and turned to flee, lumbering frantically up the loose stones toward the rim of the valley

One sharp chop into the creature’s thigh tore its hamstring. With a panicked bellow, the beast flopped to the earth, writhing pathetically. Luskag’s next blow, to the creature’s brutish neck, silenced it for good.

Gradually the battle frenzy disappeared from Luskag’s eyes, and he felt a great tiredness press upon his shoulders.

Sadly the chieftain turned back to Tatak’s body. He remembered the shadow across the sky and looked upward again, but only the clear blue sky arced above him, mocking in its pristine clarity.

Luskag gently lifted the body of his companion and turned his steps toward Sunhome.

The man and the woman rested, enjoying the quiet peace of their rocky niche. From here, atop the red-ribbed, twisting ridge, they looked westward across a brown and sandy expanse of desert. They savored these moments alone together, for they were young lovers, and of late times such as this had become increasingly rare.

They faced the pristine wild lands, away from the bitter trail and the thousands of footsore, weary humans camped behind them to the east. Now, finally, after weeks of flight, the great smoldering mass of Mount Zatal lay out of sight, below the northern horizon. Throughout their long trek, the volcano’s towering summit had loomed above the mass of terrified Mazticans. a scarred and jagged reminder of the night of violence that had driven them from their city and left wondrous Nexal a wretched, smoking ruin.

The Night of Wailing, it had come to be known, and an apt name it was.

“How long must we flee?” Erixitl asked wistfully. The evening’s chill began to settle in, gently urging them back to a place where they did not want to go. She was a woman of striking beauty, with long black hair cascading across her shoulders and flowing down her back. She wore a bright cloak, smooth and soft, with a lushly feathered surface of brilliant colors that seemed to shimmer in the pale light.

At her throat, she wore a jade amulet, surrounded by the silky plumes of emerald feathers. The wispy tendrils seemed to float in the breeze with a life of their own, and the rich green of the amulet’s stone heart reflected a sense of verdant vitality.

“We can survive a long time, as long as we keep finding

food,” countered Halloran, avoiding a direct answer. “I know that it’s no future, no life for us… for…” His voice trailed off as she took his hand. In contrast to the woman, the man was tall, with pale though ruddy skin, and a smooth brown beard.

At his side, in a plain leather scabbard, he wore a long, straight sword. The weapon’s keen steel blade gleamed in the narrow gap where, near the hilt, it lay exposed to the air. He also wore a breastplate of steel, once shiny but now stained from the rigors of the trail. His heavy leather boots showed the scuffs of a long, rugged march.

Only at his hands did a sense of cleanliness linger, a brightness that the lowering dusk seemed to accentuate. A thin, colorful strap of beaded leather encircled each of his wrists, tiny tufts of plumage puffing from them, blossoming in the twilight.

“What other kind of life can there be now?” Erix sighed. “Perhaps this is the beginning of the end of the world.”

“No!” Hal sat upright. “The desert is only a pathway for us, not our life! As long as the food and water hold out, we can keep moving. Somewhere we’ll find a place where we’re safe, where we can build a home! Your people have built cities before; they can do it again! They-we-can do it again, with your leadership, your guidance!”

“Why does it have to be me?” Erix demanded, then grew suddenly tired as she answered herself. “Because I wear a cloak made from one feather? Because the people-the priests-claim that I am the chosen one of Qotal?”

“I’ve never claimed to understand the workings of gods,” Hal responded quietly. “But you are trusted by the people, and they need you! Even the men from the legion, my own countrymen, look to you.

“If a prophecy of the return of the is the thing that brings us all to you, don’t question it!’.’ he continued. “Use that belief to try and bring us together!”

“Yes” Erix sighed, “I know. All of the signs have been fulfilled. First the couatl returns to Maztica, only to die on the Night of Wailing. Then his cloak is discovered-the Cloak of One Plume-and I happen to be wearing it. Finally we have the Summer Ice.”

“The ice was the only thing that allowed us to escape Nexal,” Halloran reminded her, “and the last sign that was supposed to predict his return.”

“But he comes too late, if he comes at all!” she snapped harshly. “Where is he now? And why could he not come when Nexal could still have been saved, before all the killing and war?”

“Perhaps nothing could save Nexal,” Hal suggested. Though the city had been magnificent, he couldn’t forget the files of captives that had been claimed daily by the priests of Zaltec, their hearts offered to their bloodthirsty god. The whole image was one of vast and sinister darkness, an evil that could not long remain upon the world.

“Remember, your cloak saved our lives on the Night of Wailing.”

“That it did,” Erixitl admitted. She leaned against her husband. “And for all the terror and fear we’ve experienced since then, I would not want to relinquish one minute of the time we’ve had together.”

“There will be many more,” Hal promised, and he made the vow deep in his heart

He took her in his arms and held her against the chill of the night that now surrounded them. She melded to him, and for a time, they knew of no one, of nothing beyond themselves.

And for that too-brief time, they had all that they needed.

Smoke drifted upward from the mound of shattered stone that once had been the Great Pyramid of Nexal. The surrounding space of the sacred plaza, now torn, buckled, and cracked, stretched like a hellish wasteland of steaming ruin.

Still, the site remained sacred, for here had been buried, centuries earlier, the sacred talisman of the Nexalan tribe. It lay in the ruins now below the torn surface of the plaza and the shattered pyramid, yet not lacking in potency.

This talisman was a pillar of sandstone, discovered by a devout cleric of Zaltec many centuries earlier. Legend claimed that this pillar had come to life, speaking as Zaltec to the cleric, commanding him to lead his people on an epic pilgrimage. It had been borne by the wandering tribe of the Nexal until they had come to this valley and claimed this island as their home.

Before they erected the first pyramid to their hungry god, they had buried the pillar in the earth below the temple site. As succeeding generations had expanded the tribe’s influence, they had also added layer upon layer to the simple pyramid. At last the structure had become the Great Pyramid of Nexal, even as its people became masters of the True World. And always, at the base of the towering pyramid, the sandstone pillar formed its solid foundation. it symbolized the deep and abiding power of the god, much as the looming volcano overhead had come to represent his fiery and explosive hunger.

Months had passed since the eruption of the great volcano, Zatal, yet still the waters in the valley seethed with heat, and gouts of foul gas exploded upward with unpredictable violence.

The island that had once sheltered the humans and their great city of Nexal now suffered the anger of the gods. Great cracks scored the land, filled with black water or bubbling, steaming muck. The fabulous wealth of its gold had sunk into darkness, buried beneath stone and dirt and flesh, while its art, its pluma feathermagic, its brilliant mosaics and magnificent architecture, all vanished in the violence of the destruction.

Around the shore, the other towns and cities of the valley lay wracked and abandoned. Once fertile fields had been flooded by the ancient clear waters of the lakes and now stood as vast swamps, steaming and fetid, or even poisoned by the foul spume from the still-smoldering mountain.

Dark creatures moved about here, shadowy beasts of tusk and fang, leering hatefully through the murk at the world that had cursed them to their fate. AH humans who had not fled had long since perished by the tusk and claw of the city’s current masters.

The greatest of these monsters dwelled in the ruins of the pyramid itself. Hoxitl, once high priest of Bloody Zaltec, now became his master’s ultimate tool. His grotesque body towering to a height of twenty feet, Hoxitl’s face bore no resemblance to its formerly human nature.

Instead, a great protruding muzzle snapped savagely, revealing row upon row of sharp, wickedly curving fangs. His arms and legs, long and sinewy, ended in hooked talons, while a long tail, tipped with venomous barbs, lashed behind him. A thick mane surrounded his head, a mane of blood-caked, thick fur that bristled when he vented his rage. And now Hoxitl knew naught but rage.

Often did the beast curse his master-Zaltec, god of war- who had condemned him to this fate. Yet at the same time and despite his most venomous curses, Zaltec ruled him yet. On those rare occasions when a human was found hiding among the rubble of Nexal, the captive was always dragged, shrieking in terror, to Hoxitl. Leering over the pathetic victim, Hoxitl would tear out his heart and then cower, offering the gory sacrifice upward in craven obeisance to his ruling god. Always Haiti prayed for the guidance of Zaltec, for the beast could form no ideas of his own.

One of these victims, an old man who accepted his faith with the stoicism of a true believer, finally seemed to provoke a response. Haiti tossed the heart into the maw of the shattered statue that had once represented the god Zaltec. As he did so, he felt a rumbling, centered deep within the earth, far below his feet.

The cleric-beast moaned in terror, remembering the wrack visited upon him during the Night of waiting. All around him, the craven creatures of his cult howled in fright and cowered in any niche they could find, fearing the further wrath of their master.

A great shaking and crashing shook the ruins of the temple, and Hoxitl prudently backed away as large boulders rumbled from the pile. A form rose from the wreckage, stonelike of visage and mountainous in size, driving back the rubble as it slowly emerged from the ground.

At last it stood like a monolith, high over the head of even the towering Hoxitl. Around him his creatures cringed, begging for mercy, but the cleric-beast stepped boldly forward and knelt before the form.

For the stone pillar before him, he knew, was none other than Zaltec himself, the god of war. For long centuries, he had lain at the center of the pyramid, buried beneath the layers of construction added by successive Revered Counselors of Nexal. But now, unconstrained by the city and the faiths above, he emerged as a mighty colossus, and he made his will known to Hoxitl.

And Hoxitl knew that Zaltec still favored him. Despite his misshapen form, despite the wracking of his people and his world, Hoxitl howled his gratitude.

“My Master! You speak to me! I am your slave!”

An image jolted Hoxitl to his full height, an image of blood and death and fire.

“War!” Hoxitl gloated. “Master, I shall make war in your honor! I shall lay waste to all who do not hail your name!

“My creatures!” He summoned his followers to him with a vibrant command. Despite their fear of the colossus, they heard Hoxitl and they obeyed. “We go forth to make war in the holy name of Zaltec!”

He howled and cursed his creatures, ordering them into ranks and legions. Cuffing and battering the ogres, he sent them to do the same to the ores. He took his fleet, savage trolls and formed companies of death-dealing hate.

The great mass assembled in the ruined center of Nexal. Black and green trolls stood sentinel around the army, their dark, sunken eyes peering suspiciously. They raised great sinewy limbs, clasping their talons at the sky. Some of them carried clubs, or crude stone macas, while others held tattered shields or bore some torn relic of human garb. Others stood naked. But all of them came.

The brute ogres clubbed and whipped the masses of ores, and the smaller creatures scurried to obey their monstrous leaders. The ores gathered in companies with spears and bows and clubs, the weapons they had borne as warriors of the Viperhand.

And the whole rank formed a snakelike column behind their master. Hoxitl raised his voice and stood to his full height so that he towered over even the trolls. He led them across the ruined causeway, past the festering mire of the smoking lakes, and then took them southward, toward the desert beyond Mount Zatal.

They would find the humans who had fled their city. They would find them, and Bloody Zaltec would feast once more.

The eagle entered a billowing mass of cloud, diving lazily. The bird’s vast wings caught each gentle updraft, speeding its flight and holding its altitude at the same time. For long minutes, the black and white form slid easily through the encloaking vapor, finally bursting free into the sunny expanse of the southern sky.

Never had Poshtli flown this far south before. The eagle’s body relished the freedom granted by his total mastery of the skies, as hawks, vultures, and lesser eagles-and all other eagles were lesser eagles-dove away from the great bird’s flight.

Yet within that powerful, plumed body, a man’s mind wondered at the changes in the land below. Poshtli saw the new greenery, oases of water surrounded by mayz and berries, where once the brown sands of the House of Tezca ruled supreme.

The sands still existed-indeed, they dominated the landscape-but the precious islands of vitality dotted the True World to the far northern and southern horizons like a series of cosmic footsteps leading away from the devastation that had once been mighty Nexal.

With a human sob, Poshtli remembered his grand city, now reduced to ashes, rubble, and mud. The volcano, Zatal, had finally ceased its convulsions more than a month after its initial eruption. By then, little remained of the once beautiful, vibrantly fertile valley except the wasteland.

And the creatures! Hideous monsters, born in the cataclysmic forces when the god of war claimed his faithful and

made them in his image. Humans branded by the Viperhand, marked as Zaltec’s servants, became beasts the like of which the eagle had never seen before and man’s mind could not have imagined. Never before had these monsters roamed the True World, though Poshtli’s friend Halloran had told him of their existence in other parts of the Realms.

Now they laid claim to all of Nexal. Even more frightening, Poshtli’s aerial observations had showed him that these monsters had formed legions, and now they began to march.

The eagle had soared over the muddy encampments of refugees, many scores of thousands of humans fleeing Nexal, following the verdant islands southward into the desert. The monsters pursued, and the humans fled. Each oasis. with its surrounding food, fed the people for several days, but then, its bounty exhausted, compelled the population to flee farther to the south, away from the press of bestial fangs and talons.

Poshtli observed the struggle from his position of sublime detachment, for he no longer belonged to that earthbound world. Yet he could not totally remove himself, for too long had he been a noble leader of the Nexala.

So now he flew to the south, to see where the path of fertility drew his people. Always his eyes, far keener than any man’s, searched the horizon before him.

And finally he reached the end of his trail.

It appeared as a small mound on the horizon, growing swiftly as the eagle soared closer. It did not lie along the path of greenery, but rather some distance to the east. Soon he recognized it for the shape it was, though how it had come to the desert he could not explain. Higher and higher it towered, seeming to rear upward as he closed.

The structure rose from a flat expanse of barren sand, but around this area the eagle saw other ruins: a low building, partially covered with sand, revealing a few dark, half-obstructed doors and a courtyard consisting of many rows of parallel columns. A smaller pyramid stood nearby, mostly eroded, and he saw square outlines that showed where

other structures had stood.

Over it all loomed the towering pyramid, clean and bright and pristine in its regal beauty As he neared it, Poshtli saw that it was greater than any other such thing in the land, easily reaching twice as high as the now-ruined Great Pyramid in Nexal had stood.

Finally he circled the bright, steep-sided pyramid. Many terraces scored its sides, and steep stairways, of many hundreds of steps, ascended each of the four sides. Bright mosaics marked all of its faces, in colors more brilliant than any he had ever seen before. Sharply outlined, freshly colored, it showed no sign of ruin nor abandonment.

He swooped closer, past the dark, gaping door to the temple consecrated to whichever god the pyramid glorified. Atop the structure itself, the building stood windswept and empty.

It seemed he had found the greatest pyramid in the land, yet it was a temple that still awaited its god.

The Night of Wailing was viewed by the inhabitants of the True World as a monstrous calamity, a disaster visited upon them by vengeful gods. Those humans who had been corrupted by the storm of arcane power-the members of the Cult of the Viperhand, now in the form of ores, ogres, and trolls-cursed and reviled their fate. Those who had survived the violence of that portentous night and had not suffered such a transformation fled in terror, thinking of little more than safety.

How different was the perspective of that night when viewed from the realms of the gods themselves!

Zaltec had grown tremendously, and the power of the convulsion had allowed him to insert his physical presence into the prime plane. This presence manifested itself in the stone statue that now towered over ruined Nexal. His most faithful followers, those who had taken the vow of the Viperhand, he had bound to him forever by transforming their very bodies into creatures of death and war.

Qotal, the, was a powerful deity who had been driven from Maztica by the growth of his brother Zaltec’s power. Serene and aloof, he remained distant from the world of humans, worshiped by some few of them, forgotten or ignored by most. But the Night of Wailing had created a crack in the barrier formed by Zaltec’s faithful. Now Qotal moved toward the world, and people terrified by the specter of Zaltec’s destruction cried and pleaded for his return.

Helm, the god of the legionnaires, had been all but driven from Maztica by the brute power of his foe. Though he had worshipers in Maztica among the legionnaires who survived, no cleric of that vigilant god remained to guide them. So they blundered blindly, while Helm’s power retreated across the sea, to the palaces and temples along the Sword Coast, at the heart of his faith. But the god viewed his withdrawal as a minor setback; someday soon, borne by the hearts and will of his followers, he would return.

Yet a fourth deity, a dark goddess of venomous evil, poured her power into the convulsion. She was Lolth, and her vengeance exploded first toward her servants, the drow elves.

But she did not slay the elves. Instead, she perverted their clean forms into beasts of chaos and corruption and allowed them to live and to suffer. Her vengeance would not end there-she would set her creatures, her driders, free upon the world, where they would wreak further havoc.

To do so, they would need tools. This need brought Lolth’s power once again to the world as she sought the proper materials to make tools for her driders. She probed the dark spaces, the smoldering caverns beneath the surface of the earth, in search of her goal.

Far from Nexal she found that which she needed, in the forms of insects-thousands of small, red ants. Her power entered the nest where the creatures huddled, dismayed by the chaos stirring the world above. The might of Lolth surrounded them and took them in her smoky grip.

The nest area expanded, growing quickly from a small den into a vast subterranean cavern. Rock melted away and dirt flowed like water, until a huge cavern gaped in the earth.

The ants, however, in their thousands, look no notice of the change. For they had grown along with the nest. They stared at each other, their multifaceted eyes glittering in the dim light. They huddled and twitched, all unknowing.

But now, each was more than six feet long.

From the chronicles of Coton:

Now the Waning is past, and I commence the tale of the Reawakening.

I depart Nexal on the Might of Wailing, as do so many others-all, in fact, who would live and remain human. But the force of the convulsion tears me from my people. While the mass of the Nexala flee southward, my own path compels me to the north and east.

My vow of silence, symbol of my pledge as patriarch of Qotal, entraps me, prevents me from speaking with those I see. At the same time, my white robe protects me. Now that Zaltec has shown himself, through the wracking of the True World, as the monster that he truly is. the worship of Qotal, the Plumed Father, flowers among the people again.

It is beyond the city where I receive the first sign of the Plumed Father’s blessing, in the form of a black, snorting beast.

This is not a beast of the Viperhand, transformed by the gods’ vengeance on this night of horror. Instead, it is a beast of the strangers, come with them to Maztica and now escaped and panicked. A beast such as the strangers call “horse.”

This one comes to me, in supplication it seems, and allows me to mount it. Thus borne, I ride, far faster than human feet could carry, toward the east.