Feathered Dragon - Douglas Niles [104]
It was during a period of brief, fitful sleep that Darien’s hatred began to reform into vengeance.
She twisted and groaned, spitting and clawing reflexively, at a picture that formed in her mind. Dim memories awakened within her, memories from another life, another body. She recalled images of the Golden Legion, of its first landing on the shores of Maztica… of two great faces, carved in stone, which stared out to sea as if they awaited her arrival. She saw the image of a place by the coast where a great battle would rage, with hatred and killing aplenty.
She saw the image of Erixitl, her beauty a taunt, a spiteful affront to the bloated form of the drider. And as she thought, as her mind created vivid pictures, the black essence of foulness crept through her being. Power collected in her bloated abdomen, and the might of her malevolence began to take form in the world.
Around the vivid picture of the human woman, Darien saw a dancing, swaying framework of images that melted indistinctly together. Then slowly this framework took on a more solid definition.
Now she recognized the bobbing, swaying head of a snake, its mouth gaping slightly to reveal curved, venomous fangs. She saw the sinuous form of a crocodile twisting around the other images, and then she sensed long, hooked talons reaching toward the picture of the woman Erixitl.
Darien could not know it, but a new god was working his power within the female form of the drider. The power of that warlike deity rose and spread through the corrupted body. More and more images bombarded her, images of hishna, the magic of talon and fang and venom. Soon this power would explode. The precise time she could not
know.
But of the place, she could be certain: the low pyramid, high on the coastal bluff; the great faces carved into the face of that bluff; even the sheltered lagoon within its encircling wreath of coral. She knew, and they would go there.
Darien would lead her driders to Twin Visages.
They pressed ahead with renewed determination and drive, pausing to rest even less than before. Darien thrilled to the quarry before her, often throwing back her head to laugh out loud, a shrill screech of horrible triumph that put the jungle birds to flight and sent monkeys whooping away through the trees.
She stopped occasionally, when the images assaulted her mind, and slowly the power of hishna grew within her. Then she would scramble through the brush, seeking, and after a few moments of search, she would emerge with a snake, or a lizard, or, once, even a jaguar cub. With relish, she put the creatures to death, and each of them nourished her growing power of talonmagic.
Ever northward they went, toward the headlands of the Payit country, east of the city of Ulatos, Darien moved straight toward the great sculpted cliff, not out of any sense of immortal destiny but simply because this was where her hunger directed her. And all the while, black and murky, the power of hishna swelled within her. Fertilized by the fuel of her hatred, the seed of talonmagic coalesced, gathered from the talismans she collected in the forest. Slowly, gradually, the power became a driving source of energy, a self sustaining explosion that could not be contained.
When the driders paused, near collapse from exhaustion Darien sat in a meditative trance. She took no sleep, instead picturing the fire of light before her. Her mind reeled with enchantments, fragments of forgotten spells, supplications to dark deities.
Sweat poured from her pale face, across her breasts and stomach to trickle onto the hard shell of her spider body. Her eyes tightly closed, she imagined the light she saw. Powers coalesced within her.
Finally the seed of hatred bore fruit. A black fog of festering evil gathered in Darien’s soul, clamoring for release. Hishna seethed upward and away, breaking free of the bonds of her body. Slowly, inexorably, the power grew within her and began to escape.
As she started to move again, the effluence of her might drifted ahead of her through the jungle, like an invisible toxin carried by