eye confused and disoriented it. An ant struck in both eyes was quickly dispatched and devoured by its fellows.
The harassment claimed the lives of many brave archers, for always the ants rushed ahead to try to overtake the humans. One stumble in the dense underbrush was enough to cost a man his life, as the giant insects gave him no time to regain his feet. A side effect of the tactic, unnoticed at the time, was that the man-bugs accompanying the ants took to following toward the rear of their column. Though none had been slain by the missile fire, they valued their lives enough to take such precautionary measures.
Finally the archers fell back to Tulom-Itzi itself. They rapidly crossed the gardens and avenues, passing the pools and the fountains, the great pyramids and palaces, to melt into the jungle beyond.
Only when the last of his people, accompanied by Gultec himself, passed through the city did Zochimaloc leave his domed place of solitude. It was with a feeling of heartbreaking sorrow that he joined his pupil in flight, turning to the jungle as the ants claimed Tulom-Itzi.
“Where are the humans?” demanded Darien. spitting venomously in the height of her rage.
“Fled,” replied the faithful drider, Hittok. That creature had scuttled among the great edifices while the ants had ransacked the wooden houses and thatch huts. They had found much to eat, but nothing to kill.
“Filthy cowards! How can they leave us this treasure, offering it up without a fight?”
“Perhaps they fear us too much,” suggested the male.
“Indeed,” mused the white drider, her rage gradually matched by her curiosity.
Darien strode among the pyramids and great stone palaces, looking in wonder at this city in the jungle. Her eight legs carried her smoothly up the steep stairways, until at last she stood upon the platform of a high pyramid. She saw that the forest pressed close around this great open plaza of stone buildings. The wooden structures stood within the forest, and these were currently and systematically destroyed by her army.
The ants spread like a scourge from the city center, tearing the leaves from trees, trampling and devouring the mayz in the fields, and tearing the lush gardens into rubbish and rot. The stone buildings the ants plundered for food, but they left the structures intact.
“That domed place-what is it?” Darien wondered, pointing to the observatory on the low hill in the center of the city
“It was empty,” replied Hittok. “It has gaps in the roof-holes to let light in, 1 think, though they are oddly placed.”
“And the humans? You say that they have fled into the jungle?”
“Yes, mistress.”
For the first time since entering Tulom-Itzi, Darien smiled. She nodded her slender, milky-white head. “Very well.
When we have finished with their city, we shall pursue them. They cannot hope to long avoid my army.” “Indeed. We shall quickly overtake them.” And then-“ Darien concluded, her thin smile growing light and menacing, “then we shall kill them all.”
“The faces, Captain! The faces on the cliff!”
Don Vaez emerged from his cabin, trying to conceal his excitement from the crewmen who clamored for his attention. The leader of the expedition, always conscious of appearances, was determined to display no untoward sign of agitation.
Yet internally his heart pounded with the news. They had almost reached their goal! Pryat Devane had given him a good account of Cordell’s route, and he knew that this massive edifice had been his rival’s first landfall on the shores of Maztica itself.
Despite these preliminary reports, however, Don Vaez was not prepared for the awesome impact of the scene before him.
The cliff at the headlands of the Payit country loomed some five hundred feet in the air. The clear blue waters of a sheltered lagoon lay placid, protected by a coral reef encircling the shore. Beyond the water, a slim belt of white sand fringed the base of the cliff, backed by a strip of jungled greenery.
But over all, the two faces-Twin Visages, he had heard them called-stared ominously eastward. A male and a female, the faces were similar in aspect: oval-shaped, with thick lips, broad noses, and keen eyes that belied their sculpted origins as they seemed to stare into Don Vaez’s soul itself.
He shook his head, trying to break the thrall. “Pilot! Fetch me the charts!”
“Here they are, Captain.” Rodolfo, the grizzled navigator who had plotted their course across the Trackless Sea, offered several rolled sheets of parchment to Don Vaez.
The captain took them without a word but looked up as he unrolled them. He would need the navigator’s help in de-ciphering the rough charts, since map-reading had never been one of his strengths- And besides, these crude guides had only been prepared through distant and brief communication with the late Bishou Domincus. They were altogether lacking in crucial detail.
“Cordell sailed along this coastline,” offered Rodolfo, indicating the course with a blunt finger. “Until he discovered this city-the natives called it Ulatos.’”
“And that’s where he erected his fort?”
“Yes… at the anchorage near the city. It’s likely just an earthen redoubt, but the harbor there is supposed to be well protected. He called it Helmsport.’”
“Helmsport.” Don Vaez let the name roll off his tongue. “I like that. The name will stay. The fort, however,” he added with a grim chuckle, “is about to gain a new master.”
Barely pausing before the huge carvings in the cliff, the. twenty-five carracks of Don Vaez’s fleet set a new course due westward along the coast. All lookouts kept their eyes peeled for the first sign of Helmsport.
Erixitl grows in the fullness of her motherhood, as if her vitality increases in challenge to the bleakness that surrounds her. Halloran and Daggrande march like the soldiers that they are, while Jhatli struggles to emulate them. Lotil rides, and as he rides, his fingers work their pluma, his mesh showing a steadily growing splash of color.
And then one glorious morning we crest a low, rocky ridge and see the strip of blue beckoning us on the horizon. The Sea of Azul!
By nightfall of that day, we reach the shore. The desert dwarves shun the water, staying well back from the soft breakers. We humans, however, and the horse, and even the dwarf Daggrande enter the brine, soaking and splashing and playing like children. We relish the cool wash of the waves, though we take care not to drink.
But this is a splendid landmark. We have our bearings, and we know that the desert will soon fall behind us. Now our path will turn north, to follow the shore, and soon we will enter the lush realm of Far Pay it. Payit, and our goal of Twin Visages, lies beyond.
From the chronicles of Coton:
Emerging from the grasp of the desert, we finally reach the sea.
For weeks, the desert dwarves lead us eastward across the House of Tezca. The perils of the passage are many, bun the numbers of our escort hold the creatures of the deed desert-even the fire lizards-at bay. All of us become inured to the sun, browned by his rays and toughened by his heat.
Our only water comes from the sand mother, the plump cactus that these desert dwarves use so well. As to food. Qotal sustains us through the limited power* he has granted me, his faithful priest. We grow thin and lean, for the sustenance must feed many mouths.
11
