Viperhand - Douglas Niles [86]
A woman moved through a field where the Nexalans and Kultakans had clashed. She selected the ears of a mayz that had survived, loading them into a basket on her hip. Men wove new roofs of thatch over some of the lesser-damaged buildings.
Behind him, Lotil hummed in the house. Hal pictured him at his featherloom, dextrously tucking bits of plumage into a mesh of fine cotton, creating pictures of brilliance and splendor. Blind though he was, the old man somehow observed the labor of his craft with keen precision. Apparently he could feel the difference between feathers of different hues.
In the past days, he had seen, from his vantage on the ridge, the pastoral strength of these people. The pyramid stood in disuse. The priests had all been slain in the battle, and without clerical exhortations to faith, people had turned to more pressing concerns.
Hal shuddered as he thought of the dark side of this culture, at the placid resolution with which the folk accepted the bloody hunger of their gods. But he knew of Qotal, too. He knew that these people had not always practiced their gory rituals. Perhaps the day would come when they would no longer do so.
And in his reflections, the hours passed. He saw the graves outside of Palul, and he pictured the legion encamped in Nexal. Amid the wonder and the horror, what catastrophe might ensue? Whatever the fate, he felt that the culture around him deserved better than to be plundered for its gold.
Erixitl returned at sunset. Hal noticed her extreme agitation as soon as she came around the bend in the trail below the house.
"What is it?" He ran to meet her.
"They've taken Naltecona captive!" she gasped, breathless from a hurried climb.
"The legion? Where?"
"In Nexal, the sacred plaza. It was true, what we heard about Naltecona giving Cordell the palace of Axalt. Now Cordell has brought the counselor to the palace and holds him among the legion!" They moved into the house, and Erix looked wildly, in panic, from her husband to her father.
"Why are you so frightened, child?" asked Lotil.
"The shadows! As soon as I heard the news, everything became dark! I could barely see to climb the hill, as if it were the middle of a cloudy night." She took a deep breath, trying to calm down.
"I had a dream, Father, the first time I saw this spreading darkness. It was the night the macaw led us to water in the desert," she told them. The words poured forth, and the men could sense her relief as she unburdened herself of the tale.
"I saw the end of the True World in this dream. It began beneath the glow of a full moon, in Nexal. Naltecona was slain by the strangers-atop a building I didn't know then, but I recognized it when we reached the city. It is Axalt's palace!"
"But surely the warriors have attacked," declared Halloran. "The city must be torn by battle!"
"It sounds very strange" Erixitl admitted. "But there is no fighting. Slaves take food to the legion every day, and Naltecona himself appears-from the palace, from the roof-to discuss his contentment. He claims that he is there of his own free will."
"Perhaps he is," said Hal skeptically.
"Even if he is, the danger is still terrible. And in my dream, his death was only the beginning. The devastation that followed spread like nightfall, as if the world itself was destroyed!"
"If you see this, then it can come to pass," said Lotil, "for you are one whom the favor of Qotal has granted special knowledge."
"What do you mean?" asked Erixitl.
Lotil smiled. "Look at your cloak, the one from the featherworker in Nexal. What do you note about it?"
Erix removed the garment and spread it on her lap. Hal-loran, too, leaned over to look at it closely. "It's even more beautiful than I remembered," she said. She ran her fingers along the brilliant plumage, tracing strands of red, green, white, and blue. Each color formed a long, narrow plume, which overlaid others of the same and different colors.
The whole cloak, unfolded, covered a fan-shaped area