“My warriors are emplaced upon the ridge. If they come, we will meet them. With the favor of the gods, we will throw them back.” Chical reported to the captain-general, but he did not bow.
“Good,” Cordell replied. The line of defenders was ready, straddling the route between the monsters and the Nexalans in the valley At night they were most vulnerable, and this was when he most feared an attack. They could only wait for an attack, or dawn, whichever came first.
“With the favor of the gods…” he repeated after Chical and Grimes had left. Could they ask for that much anymore?
The eagle perched on the platform atop the pyramid. His bright eyes glittered as he looked at the humans and the dwarf who climbed to meet him. The companions gasped for air under the strain of the long climb, while the drop to the highest terrace of the pyramid fell dizzyingly away below. Each flight of stairs was successively steeper than the last until here, near the summit, they placed their hands on steps that seemed mere inches from their faces as they carefully scaled the last stone stairway.
“We have come, Lord Poshtli,” said Erix quietly as they finally reached the summit. “You have called us and we have come.”
The eagle cocked its head to the side, and it seemed to Halloran as ii” the bird understood her words perfectly. He remembered the noble warrior who had been his friend, and he wondered how this bird could be that man. Yet he never questioned the fact that this was Poshtli.
The top of the pyramid formed a broad square plaza, perhaps fifty paces on a side. The temple building itself occupied most of the square, though a wide shelf passed around the building on all four sides. Though the wall had appeared featureless from the distance, now they could see that intricate carvings of snakes, birds, and jaguars covered the sides of the temple building. The creatures, carved in detailed relief, had been left unpainted.
The huge door yawned before them, larger now even than it had seemed from the ground below. It loomed a good thirty feet high and nearly that wide.
But their sense of proportion vanished entirely as they stepped through the door. They entered a monstrously huge chamber, with floor and walls of stone and a roof of thatch supported by the longest tree trunks they had ever seen. A dim glow lighted the temple interior, though no source of light was visible.
It took only an instant to realize that the building, on the inside, was a far larger structure than it was on the outside.
“This is truly a place of the gods!” whispered Jhatli, staling around in open-mouthed awe. The cleric Coton stepped lightly past them and turned to the companions. His face bore an impish, almost childlike smile.
The carvings on the outer walls continued within, extending across the high walls. A pattern of inlaid stones, depicting butterflies, fish, and hummingbirds in square relief covered the entire floor.
The eagle stepped through the door behind them and then, with a beat of powerful wings, took flight. Poshtli soared into the air and then coasted in gentle circles, high above the floor.
At the center of the vast chamber stood a clean white block of stone. No one had to tell Halloran that this was an altar dedicated to Maztican gods, though he felt a sense of relief at its pristine cleanliness. It was unmarred by the sinister, rust-colored stains that so often designated these sacred altars as the feeding plates of the bloodthirsty deities.
“What do we do now?” asked Hal, with a look at his wife.
“I know,” she said. “I don’t know how, but 1 know!’
Erixitl, with Hal at her side, advanced slowly toward the center of the huge chamber, reaching it after a hundred steps. There she removed her cloak and placed it on the altar. Then the pair hurried back to join the others just inside the door.
“What was that all about?” Daggrande wondered aloud, but he lapsed into silence when Erix ignored him. Instead, he, like the others, focused on the center of the room.
The shade of sunset spread across the entire valley floor around them, but the top of the pyramid towered high enough to linger in the last rays of daylight. Straight to the west now, the sun’s illumination spilled directly through the western door, spreading across the temple floor and flickering across the Cloak-of-One-Plume.
For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then the cloak, laid carefully across the altar, started to shimmer. Us colors whirled and shifted, spreading like a rainbow across the
room-many rainbows, actually spreading outward from the altar of the gods.
Slowly majestically a dim outline took shape there. They saw its huge size first, then the serpentine shape of a sinuous body. Next they saw dimly a pair of monstrously massive wings, beating slowly but not stirring the air.
Coton and Lotil threw themselves face-first on the floor. After a second, Jhatli did the same. Halloran and Daggrande stared, awestruck, while Erixitl slowly stepped forward. After a second, Halloran stumbled to her side, taking her arm. He could feel her trembling, but her advance did not slow.
Gradually over a period of many minutes, a massive? shape appeared, squatting above the Cloak-of-One- Plume. The serpentine image was clear yet insubstantial, as if a stone thrown at it would pass right through. A mane of bright feathers encircled its neck, brighter than a hundred rainbows. Deep, glistening eyes, golden and wise, looked down upon them. Its legs curved beneath it, tipped by swordlike talons. Even through the faintness of the image, the brilliant hues of the creature’s feathered coal shone with unearthly brilliance.
Halloran had no doubt that they stood now in the presence of the Plumed One, the god Qotal himself. Yet it was a presence that was not fully there.
When the spoke, his voice was surprisingly gentle, yet it possessed a deep resonance that belied his vaporous appearance.
“You have done well, Daughter of the Plume,” he said.
“I have done what I had no choice but to do,” Erixitl replied simply.
“Yours is a faith that is all the stronger for its doubts. It is proper that you were chosen. And even now, I know, you have questions. You wonder why I come now, after disaster has swept the land? Why have I delayed so long?”
Erixitl, mute, nodded. She stood facing the huge image, her body tense but her courage unwavering. Hal remained at her side, trying to overcome his own sense of awe.
“Centuries ago I turned my back on my people in anger as they took up the cult of blood and killing.” The dragon’s
voice was soothing and laced with sadness. His body remained insubstantial, yet it seemed to grow more solid with each minute. The rays of the setting sun shone full upon the cloak now, and it created a dazzling nest of colors below the great serpent.
“As years passed-decades and centuries of years-my anger faded, and I saw the foolishness with which I had acted. I resolved to return to Maztica, to right the wrongs that now scarred my land.
“ But when 1 tried to enter the True World, 1 found that the cult of killing held me at bay. My brother Zaltec had grown so powerful, and his followers sated his gory appetite so well, that I lacked the power to overcome him.
“Then came this event you humans call the Night of Wailing. This cataclysm smote the followers of Zaltec as well as my own, In that chaos, his own power was weakened- weakened just enough that, with the aid of a human of strong faith, I might be able to return to the world that is my
true home.
“You opened that passage for me by your act of faith, when you placed the Cloak-of-One-Plume in this sacred place-a place so holy it is one of but two such in all Maztica. Now I am coming.”
Qotal’s voice grew strong, a ringing challenge. “And when I am here, I will face the evil one and again I will smite him atop my pyramid.”
“He comes here?” Erixitl asked in shock. “Zaltec comes here?”
As she completed the words, a great shadow fell across the doorway blocking out the sunset. They turned in shock to see two massive pillars of stone, where before had been open sky The great monoliths moved, then bent to reveal the torso of a looming giant of stone. It stepped quickly through the huge door. Once inside the temple, it stood upright again. Its rock-hard eyes fixed the with their impassive glance, even as the giant’s legs cast the
