Ironhelm

IN THE HANDS OF THE GODS

Erixitl gasped in sympathetic pain. She watched the strange girl die, slain in her own place on the altar of Zaltec. Suppressing a moan, she rolled back into the concealment of her leafy shelter.

She had followed Mixtal and his prisoners toward the pyramid, to the very scene of her escape. Now sunset found her at the edge of the clearing surrounding the pyramid, with a clear view of the priests and the altar at the edge of the structure's upper platform.

She sneaked another look and saw the girl's body removed from the altar, thrown unceremoniously beside it. Mixtal placed the heart, now still and lifeless, into the mouth of Zaltec on the statue beside the altar.

Erix heard a rustle beside her and was not surprised when Chitikas slithered around the trunk of a low bush. The serpent glided to her side, remaining concealed from the pyramid.

"You caused her to die!" she accused. The downy snake gazed at her, his yellow eyes unblinking. "Why did you do that?"

"The man," whispered Chitikas in his soft voice. "You must go to him, save him."

"I told you, no!" Erix shook her head angrily, wondering again why she had followed the priests and prisoners to the pyramid when all she wanted was escape. "How could I help him, when he is in the hands of the Bloody One?"

"Pluma — feathermagic," suggested Chitikas, with the barest flicker of his tongue. "He is held by the priest. You can break the spell."

"No!" She turned away from the snake, and her eye involuntarily sought the spotted snakeskin thong that restrained Halloran's arms. She touched the feathered ring at her neck, remembering, when Mixtal tried to capture her in the temple courtyard, how its burst of magic had sent that same snakeskin bond tumbling to her feet.

Twilight began to settle in the clearing. Erix saw Mixtal regarding the silver-chested man. The priest started toward the stranger and then stopped, indecisive. A Jaguar Knight stepped in before the priest, and she saw the pair gesture angrily at each other.

"Why are you doing this?" Erix turned toward Chitikas again, accusing him with her voice. "Why did you save me? Why did you cost that girl her life?"

"You should understand," replied the serpent, his own tone vaguely accusing. "You have been sheltered and protected by the benign power of the Plumed One for all of your life. It is time you began repaying the debt!"

"Sheltered? Protected?" Erix's voice came out a low hiss. "I was captured as a small girl, sold into slavery! I was attacked by my owner's son, sold again, kidnapped, and very nearly sacrificed! What kind of shelter and protection are you talking about?"

"You are alive, are you not?"

"How do I owe that life to Qotal? Explain that if you can." She tempered her anger slightly, wondering what Chitikas was trying to tell her.

"I saw you once before, protected you then. Perhaps you will recall?" The snake flickered his tail slightly across her vision, a familiar gesture. Suddenly she made the connection.

"My last day in Palul… I was tending my father's snares! On the far side of the ridge, I saw something, and I followed it. That was you!"

Chitikas nodded smugly, then ducked as she tried to strike the snake in the face.

"You lured me away from the trail… right into the arms of that Jaguar Knight! I might still be free, might have grown up in my own home, if it hadn't been for you!" Her muscles tensed as she prepared to flee. Something in his eyes, a faint appeal perhaps, held her in place.

"Lured you I did," admitted the serpent, without a trace of remorse. "But you would not have grown up there. Indeed, you would not have been alive for many more days."

"What — what do you mean?" For some reason, Erix did not doubt the truth of Chitikas's words.

"You are a child of destiny, Erixitl, though you may be the last to know it. The priests of Zaltec and their masters, the Ancient Ones, fear you. They planned to claim you from your father's home for sacrifice, and it was only your disappearance that saved you."

Erix sagged backward, staring at the serpent in shock. Chitikas nodded. "Your ten years in Kultaka were relatively safe, until the Ancient Ones learned of your presence there. Once again they tried to kill you, but you proved stronger than they anticipated. If that attempt had succeeded, we would have been helpless to save you.

"But it failed, and the attempt — the talonmagic of the sending — warned your owner of the threat to your life. He decided that you would be safest among a people who exalted Qotal over Zaltec, and thus he arranged for you to come to Payit."

Erix shook her head slowly, not so much in disbelief as in wonder. Huakal, acting to save her by selling her to Kachin? Yet she knew in her heart that this was the truth.

"Why am I so important? Why do the Ancient Ones fear me?"

Chitikas waved his head impatiently. "I do not know."

But Erix wasn't listening. Another question had been nagging at her mind, and now she put it into words. "Why do you want to thwart the will of Zaltec? Who are you?"

The feathered serpent bowed his head humbly. "I am Chitikas, and I serve the Plumed God, the one true god of Maztica. I have aided you because in thwarting the will of Zaltec, he of the Bloody Hand, I further the will of Qotal."

"Qotal! Qotal!" The harsh words came from a tree above them, and Erix looked upward, into the glittering eyes of the bright macaw that had accompanied Chitikas before. The bird's voice was loud, and Erix suddenly felt very vulnerable in her scant concealment near the pyramid.

"Qotal, the true god!" squawked the bird. "Zaltec the pretender, the buffoon!"

Erix cringed, noticing the priests and warriors atop the pyramid looking in their direction. Several warriors stepped off the platform, starting down the steep stairway on the structure's side.

"Perhaps I can deter them," whispered the serpent conspiratorially. "But remember, you must rescue the man!"

Erix didn't take the time to object, though to her, the issue remained far from settled. Chitikas disappeared suddenly, too quickly for physical movement. With a startled gasp, Erix reached out and felt the creature's downy tail slipping away, even though she could see nothing. The snake had become invisible!

She wanted to flee, but she feared that the noise of flight would only give her position away. Instead, she watched the warriors descend the temple. The priests, the Jaguar Knight, and many other warriors, together with the prisoner, remained atop the pyramid.

"False god! Zaltec is the god of gutter snakes and filth!" squawked the bird, not very helpfully.

Suddenly one of the warriors tripped on an unseen object. He tumbled down the side of the steep pyramid, cracking his skull on a step far below the top. His limp form continued to bounce and tumble to the bottom, where it lay still.

The other warriors reacted immediately, leaping and tumbling down the steep sides of the pyramid. They reached the lifeless body of their comrade and then looked around suspiciously. They showed no inclination to move away from the pyramid.

The stranger remained carefully guarded by several strong warriors, still at the top. A minute passed, and Chitikas did not return. Darkness had settled further, though the sky still glowed with the fading sunset.

Swiftly and silently, Erix turned and melted into the jungle, intending to be very far away by morning. Pushing quickly through the fronds, she turned back toward the trail.

She parted the huge leaves and stepped through. Before she could scream or react, two powerful arms reached forward and seized her.

Halloran stood numbly, looking from the savage warriors to the fanatical priests. He could not bear to look at Martine's lifeless, bloodless body. Nor could he stand the sight of the bestial statue, with its gaping mouth. The last memory of the sacrifice had been the priest's throwing the cool, still heart into that savage maw.

Despite his averted eyes, the image of that snarling face, vaguely human but combining elements of serpent and lion as well, remained embedded in his brain. It symbolized to him ultimate barbarism, the callous murder of innocents to feed the insatiable appetite of a monstrous god.

Martine! Why couldn't they have taken me instead?

All of his annoyance with the woman had vanished at the moment of their capture. Now he groaned under a sense of all-encompassing failure and sorrow.

His hatred burned with white-hot fury, but he could not break away from the snakeskin rope that bound him. He hated these savage warriors. He hated this hot, primitive land. And mostly he hated the ash-streaked, scarred priest who had performed this abominable rite. Halloran fixed his cold eyes on that priest, and the man flinched and finally turned away.

The priest had argued at some length with the warrior in the spotted skin, and Hal sensed that his own fate had been the topic. Apparently the warrior had prevailed, for the priest made no move toward him. In fact, the legionnaire almost hoped that he would be selected for sacrifice. In the guilt of his massive failure, he did not feel that he deserved to live after Martine had been so brutally killed. For some moments, he considered hurling himself off the edge of the steep-sided pyramid, the ultimate self-punishment for the ultimate failure.

But somewhere deep within himself, Halloran's warrior's heart burned with the need for vengeance. Without life, there could be no vengeance, and so he would have to live.

At least, he would have to live long enough to kill.

"Muster the legion!" cried Bishou Domincus. "Disaster threatens!"

"Quiet, man!" urged Cordell, as gently as possible. "We don't know for certain yet just what's wrong." The two men, together with Darien and Kardann, stood with a panting swordsman beside the legion's camp on the wooded shoreline. "There was no sign of Halloran or the Bishou's daughter?"

"No, sir," gasped the man. He had just descended the tall stairway from the bluff top, racing to report to the captain-general. "We found four men, all dead — along with quite a few of the natives."

"Helm's curses on his head, on his soul!" cried the Bishou, waving his fist in the direction where Halloran had last been seen.

"She may be all right! It doesn't do any good to start turning against our own, especially when we don't know what's happened!" Cordell struggled to stay cool.

"You don't, perhaps," groaned the cleric, nearly sobbing, "but I do! Terror has struck. My daughter suffers at the hands of evil! I know this. I can feel it!"

"Perhaps we should get back aboard the ships," urged the assessor of Amn. Kardann had grown increasingly nervous as the Bishou's distress became more obvious. Now Cordell looked at him with ill-concealed scorn.

"If there is a danger, it is certain to be a threat the legion can face. If you wish, you may reembark now. My men are staying ashore."

"Yes, perhaps that would be wise," the assessor agreed, nodding, completely missing the barbed tone of the commander's voice. "I shall oversee matters on the ships!" The pudgy accountant turned toward shore, eagerly seeking a longboat to haul him out to the Falcon.

"I'll send more parties up the bluff," said Cordell. By now, scouts had discovered three broad stairways climbing the escarpment. Only the central one, the one passing between the two monstrous faces, showed signs of regular use.

"May Helm grant that we are not too late!" groaned the Bishou.

Spirali moved when darkness once again cloaked the world, but the Ancient One traveled in ways unknown to the rest of Maztica. His journey began in the Highcave, on the peak above Nexal.

He spoke a single word, and then he was in Ulatos, chief city of the Payit. The Ancient One arrived in the courtyard of Zaltec's temple, though none could see him in the darkness. Spirali's black cloak, soft, dark boots, and cloaking hood all made him a part of the night.

A single young apprentice stood beside the temple gates. Spirali sensed at once that the place was otherwise empty. The Ancient One stalked toward the apprentice, though the youth did not see him until he spoke.

"I seek Mixtal, High Priest of Ulatos."

The youth's jaw dropped, and he stepped backward in terror. He could see a dim, dark shape before him, and he heard a voice of unquestionable strength. The apprentice stammered awkwardly, struggling to speak.

"The c-coasi… they went this morning. They saw the strangers come…" *The fellow ran out of words, and only then did he notice that the dark stranger had already disappeared.

"Hey, Captain, maybe this one can tell us something!" Grabert, the ranger, still leading, turned back to Daggrande with a struggling form clasped in his brawny arms.

The dwarf saw a young woman, a black-haired, copper-skinned beauty who kicked and scratched in a vain effort to escape the ranger's grasp. The man winced once as the girl landed a sharp kick, but he simply clasped her more tightly as one of the crossbowmen seized and held her feet.

Daggrande grunted, studying the girl, or woman… he was not sure which. Her smooth-skinned face and slender form bespoke late adolescence, but something in the girl's glaring eyes, in the firm set of her mouth, made the dwarf suspect her to be an adult.

In return, Erixitl studied these strange men who had taken her, new captors now after her one brief day of freedom. All of these strangers had hair growing out of their faces. Their skin was a sickly pale color. She especially recoiled from some of their unnatural eyes, watery blue orbs that seemed more properly the eyes of fish than men.

Some of the men were very short, she noticed, though this did not make them seem any less fearsome. If anything, the bushy facial fur and gnarled limbs of these smaller strangers made them even more ferocious-looking than their human-sized comrades. She remembered tales of the Hairy Men of the Desert, who supposedly dwelt in the arid reaches south of Kultaka and Nexal. Legends said those folk were short, broad of shoulder, and bowed of leg. Such a description matched the shorter warriors among the strangers as well.

"Well, I don't think she's the one who did the killing and capturing," speculated Daggrande. "But I don't think it would be smart to let her go until we find out a little more about what's going on."

The dwarf nodded to a couple of the crossbowmen. "Tie her up and bring her along. And be quick about it! We're moving on."

Erix couldn't understand the harsh, barking speech of the strangers, but their intentions became clear enough as the hempen rope curled around her wrists. Her struggles in the arms of these burly humans were as a child wriggling in the grasp of its mother. Soon she was bound as tightly as before, though the strangers did not gag or blindfold her.

In the meantime, the swordsman at the point of the column had pushed forward several steps and now crept slowly backward.

"Captain, look at this!" he called, with a new sense of urgency.

Erix knew he had seen the pyramid and its scene of gory sacrifice.

From the chronicle of Colon:

Serving as always the resplendent glory in the memory of the Golden God.

I watch the young Lord Poshtli as he leaves the city by the south causeway. He departs Nexal alone, but this in no way diminishes the grandeur of his mission.

Poshtli carries a pair of spears, an obsidian-edged maca, his bow, a quiver of arrows, and a waterskin. He will shun the lands of Kultaka and Pezelac. Instead, he will strike out over the House of Tezca, the great desert that marks the True World's southern extent.

He still wears the mantle and helm of the Eagle Knight, but he will not make this quest by wing. Instead, he laces his high sandals tight and marches toward lands as barren as any nightmarish pestilence of the gods. His goal is the truth and nothing less — a quest that might keep a man searching for a very long time.

But Poshtli has dreamed of the Sunstone. Such a dream must provide a nicker of hope, for it shows the presence, however faint, and the will of the Plumed One. And, too, this vision was given to him by the couatl, the feathered snake who is the voice of Qotal himself.

So I will chose to believe that, perhaps, Poshtli may find his truth in the great silver wheel of the Sunstone.