A weary party approached along the shore, and they hurried over to greet Poshtli, Halloran, and Jhatli. Erixitl, carrying the baby, rode in a makeshift travois pulled by her husband.
“The gods are gone-back to their own immortal planes,” Halloran told them quietly. “They have left the world to us.”
“lb make of it what we will,” said Poshtli, with a meaningful look at Cordell.
“What’s that’” wondered Daggrande, pointing to a scroll of painted symbols that Halloran carried.
“Coton’s chronicles. He painted the tale of our adventures on these scrolls. They tell a good part of the history of the True World.”
“A history that changes by the hour,” Cordell added in a rare thoughtful moment Then he shook his head quickly, as if forcing his mind back to the present. He looked at Halloran. “The first ships sail for Amn in a few days. You’ve earned passage, should you desire it.”
The weary swordsman looked at his former commander and shook his head. “My home is here now, in Maztica. It may be that I’ll return to the Sword Coast, sometime, for a visit. But for now, I-we-won’t be going anywhere.”
Epilogue
A wind sweeps in from the Trackless Sea, blowing from the east and carrying with it an unstoppable force. It whips the waves and hurls breakers against the shore.
The wind sweeps up the bluff of Twin Visages, abandoned now, its surrounding jungle torn by fissures and chasms, the trees splintered and trampled. The pyramid still stands, and the two faces still stare outward from the bluff into the teeth of the wind, but the sea before them remains empty for now.
Next the wind swirls and soars on to Ulatos, which has burgeoned into a bustling trade city, combining with the harbor of Helmsport to become the main port of call along the entire coast of the True World. From Ulatos, treasures beyond gold-treasures such as rich cocoa and lush may a- are carried to the east. And other cargoes- horses, steel, wagons, livestock, and more-arrive here from the Sword Coast and make their way across Maztica.
Westward with the wind, now, to Kultaka. The city has lost its traditional enemy, for Nexal is an empire no more. But instead, the Kultakans stand at the border of a hellish land, and so their warlike vigilance remains undying.
Then the wind swirls past the volcanoes of Zatal and Popol, touching only briefly the still smoldering valley of Nexal. It is as if the air here is an affront to this wind from the sea, and so it quickly soars upward and past the valley, leaving it as a stinking ruin, lair of many thousands of monstrous inhabitants. Somewhere, of course, beneath the muck and the ruin, an empire’s ransom in gold lies buried. And so it shall remain, if it is up to the wind.
Now the wind whistles to the south, along freshly ripening fields of mayz, down fertile valleys where once barren desert had lain. The wind follows these valleys to the rapidly growing city of Tukan, where the ways of the True World remain, but not untouched by the arrival of the foreigners. The gods of sacrifice are gone, banished by men who claim the world for themselves.
Here, in this strong city, a man and a woman come to live, and between them bring the strongest things of each of their worlds. Their child-soon, their children-grows and flourishes, and their home knows love and peace.
And the wind, as if satisfied, turns gently back to the sea.
