Feathered Dragon - Douglas Niles [137]
But the cleric clung to her even as he died, and as the blood of pluma and hishna mingled and flowed onto the top of the pyramid, the power of the gods waned.
Qotal’s jaws emitted a short gasp of smoke, but already the dragon had begun to fade from sight. The stone behemoth of Zaltec, meanwhile, staggered weakly backward. Then it teetered once and crashed to the ground with thunderous force, shattering into so many lifeless boulders.
By the time the dust had settled, Qotal could no longer be seen.
* * * * *
Tokol joined Cordell and the defenders of Helmsport on the field before the fort. Together they watched the beasts of the Viperhand withdraw from the field, disappearing into the jungle.
“Did our arrival scare them away?” the Kultakan war chief wondered.
“Perhaps,” replied the captain-general. “Or perhaps it was
something else. All of the urge to fight seemed to leave! them.”
“Let’s hope the urge is gone for good,” growled Daggrande, with a scowl at the retreating foe.
“Chical tells me there’s no sign of the colossus, either;’ added Cordell.
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,