Ironhelm - Douglas Niles [24]
Unlike the other clerics she had known, worshipers of Zaltec or his hungry offspring, this priest was obviously well fed. The only recognizable thing about him was the pendant of the Plumed One hanging about his neck, marking him as a cleric of Qotal. Perhaps the Feathered God did not require his devotees to fast as frequently as did those who worshiped Zaltec and the younger gods.
The faith of Qotal was not so widely spread as that of the warlike Zaltec, or the essential Calor and Tezca with their life-giving rain and sun. Still, Erix knew her father had revered Qotal, though this had been a private matter with him. Huakal, too, had maintained a shrine to the Plumed One. Huakal's son, like her own brother, had chosen to worship Zaltec instead of the gentle god of their fathers.
But Erix had learned to fear clerics, for they too often had but one use for a slave. And now she had been sold to a cleric who would take her to the distant shores of the True World, who for some mysterious purpose had paid an exorbitant sum for her.
She saw Huakal standing before her. Vaguely she noticed his eyes lingering on her token before he raised them to look at her face. As a woman of Maztica, she should have lowered her gaze then, but she did not, instead meeting her former master's gaze with her own penetrating dark eyes.
"You are a rare treasure, Erixitl." Huakal's voice came to her, seemingly from a great distance. The noble had indeed succumbed to emotion, and he made no effort to hide his tears as he spoke. "You are a child of grim destiny. My line has ended with Callatl, and now you are swept away. You shall go to Payit, and the land will not be the same for your being there.
"May the gods be kind to you."
From the Chronicle of the Waning.
May the wisdom of the Feathered One shine across the True World!
Now, just as swans take to the air, I see the strangers spread their wings and put to sea. But these creatures that glide ever closer to Maztica are more hawks than swans.
They come with powers beyond my understanding, devices and tools the likes of which I have never seen. I cannot imagine the uses of many of the things I am given the vision to observe. But most frightening of all my auguries is not the tools, nor the powers of these strangers.
It is the men themselves.
I sense-even across worlds of distance-(hat these men are somehow different. Their god is a fierce lord, perhaps more than the equal of the younger gods of Maztica. They are drawn by things, compelled by forces that I cannot comprehend. Visions of metal and stones move them with a power that leaves me mystified and awed.
I only know that they terrify me!
JOURNEY
Everywhere the city of Murann, the main seaport of Amn, smelted of fish. From its plastered villas and elegant gardens to its teeming slums and bustling mercantile districts, the penetrating, oily odor intruded throughout each building, penetrating walls and floors and every fiber of clothing.
But nowhere was the smell so strong as at the shore of the harbor itself, where Halloran now found himself laboring under the blaze of a hot afternoon sun. The waterfront bustled with activity-the cries of animals, the creaking of cranes and timbers, and the shouts of men. A pounding din arose behind him, where one of the greatest shipyards of the Sword Coast churned out vessel after vessel-heavy galleys for war or trade; stocky, seaworthy caravels; or large carracks, with their towering rear decks.
It was one of the latter, a short, blunt-bowed vessel with three tall masts and the characteristic raised deck at her stern, that stood at the dockside by the young cavalryman. Like the other carracks and caravels, Osprey carried no oars, depending upon the rigging of her sails to maneuver with or against the wind. Stores of salt pork and bacon had been stored belowdecks, and Ha! now watched a group of stevedores roll huge Kegs of water over the ship's aft gangplank.
Suddenly an anxious whinny pulled his attention to the