Viperhand - Douglas Niles [99]
Chantil nodded dumbly.
"And where is she now? Speak or die!"
The slave struggled to overcome her terror enough to speak. "Th-the palace-she has gone to-to see PoshUi!"
"Why?" demanded Shatil, threatening.
"They go-they go to rescue Naltecona!" cried the slave.
Shatil lowered his hand and turned toward the door. "You have done well, slave. Zaltec is pleased to leave you with your life."
But Chantil was not listening. Weeping, she crawled to the body of her friend as the priest of Zaltec disappeared into the darkness.
Gultec learned to fly, in the bodies of hawk and parrot and hummingbird. He swam as a fish. He climbed trees in the form of the howling monkey that commanded the jungle heights of Far Payit. And still he learned from Zochimaloc, studying the ways of the past and future course of the stars.
But now, too, he began to teach. Knowing of the coming of war, he tried to train the men of Tulom-Itzi as warriors. This task he immediately found to be impossible, for these folk were raised with none of the military traditions that played so strong a role in most of the nations of the True World.
The men of Tulom-Itzi thought it foolish to dress in gaudy colors to terrify their foe, and they lacked the individual skill with the maca that would allow them to stand and face even one rank of an enemy's army.
The one weapon they had mastered was the bow, and here Gultec found that the men of Tulom-Itzi excelled. Their weapons, made from hard jungle limbs, stretched taut only under a very powerful pull. Their arrows flew swift and true, and the heads-of sharks' teeth or clamshell-were every bit as hard as, and even sharper than, tips of obudian.
So Gultec adapted his tactics of war to the warriors of Tulom-Itzi. He taught them to skulk through the jungle, to strike from a distance, to retire at the approach of the enemy. In this way, he hoped that they might survive an engagement with an army of Payits or, perhaps, Nexalans. He knew that they could never stand against the foreigners of the Golden Legion. Zochimaloc, unfortunately, could provide him no information on the type of enemy they would have to fight.
As the moon crept toward fullness, Gultec drove himself and his warriors with savage intensity. Tulom-Itzi, with its vast area sprawling through many miles of jungle and clearing, he decided, was indefensible. He formed a plan: If attackers came against the city, the people would melt into the jungle, living there and harassing the enemy.
But all the while he felt a sense of wasted effort. He grew more and more certain that Far Payit, on the distant fringe of the True World, would not be the scene of a cataclysmic war. Finally this certainty led him to decision, and he sought Zochimaloc in the observatory, under the growing light of the moon.
"Teacher," he began, speaking boldly to his wizened mentor, "you have given me knowledge of things I never imagined, provided me judgment I have never possessed. You have told me that this is because TUlom-Itzi needs me to ready your city and land for war."
Zochimaloc nodded, unsmiling. His eyes were soft.
"In using this judgment, I have decided that I must leave Far Payit, leave these lands and learn more about the nature of the threat you perceive."
Now the teacher's head bobbed in a slow, sympathetic nod.
"I will endeavor to return when I am needed, for the learning you have given me is a debt that I can only begin to repay. But until then, I must travel elsewhere to seek the future."
"Where will you go?" asked Zochimaloc finally. Gultec noticed that his teacher showed not the slightest bit of surprise.
"You have given me the powers to fly across the land. I shall go everywhere, until I find that which I need to know."
Zochimaloc smiled gently. "I have given you precious little, my proud jaguar. All I have done is to help you open doors to powers you have always possessed. But let me give you one last thing before you depart: advice."
The old man chuckled grimly. "Do not try to go everywhere, for that will lead you nowhere.