Ironhelm - Douglas Niles [3]
But no blow fell. Instead, her father replied softly, his voice regretful. "And so you will, my daughter. Now, desist in this unseemly pleading."
"Very well." Somehow she kept her voice from trembling. She turned and started for the twisting path leading past the house and sharply up the mountainside.
"Wait!" the featherworker called to his daughter, perhaps in guilt. Or, perhaps, because a frightening premonition showed him the life path awaiting this proud, strong girl. He pulled her to him in a firm hug.
"Soon, Erixitl, I will take you myself. On the sunniest, the clearest of days! We will see the great pyramid, all the temples around the grand square, and the lakes themselves-a turquoise blue that will bring tears to your eyes!"
"And the Temple of Zaltec? Will we see that?"
The man's face clouded briefly at the thought of that bloodstained altar, but he masked his feelings. "Yes, my daughter, even the Temple of Zaltec. We shall see all of Nexal from the mountainside of Cordotl."
Erix sniffled quietly, feeling a little better. She returned her father's hug, and then turned toward the narrow path. "I will see to the snares."
"Erixitl." She turned in surprise as her father called again. He took something from his pouch. "I have been waiting to give you this. Perhaps this is a good time."
She stepped forward and saw that it was a small token, made from tufts of golden and emerald downfeathers around a smooth turquoise stone. The stone rested in a small ring of jade and dangled from a leather thong. The blue and green stones gleamed, but it was the feathers that gave the pendant its true beauty. Soft and fragile, they seemed to hold the token motionless, weightless, as if it floated easily in the air. Erix scarcely dared to breathe, it was so entrancingly beautiful.
"It carries the memory of our ancestors and an earlier time of greatness," explained the featherworker. "Gold and green are the sacred colors of Qotal. The turquoise shows you his eye, watchful and benign, the color of the sky."
"Thank you, Father! It's beautiful!" Erix's heart thrilled at the delicate workmanship, the brilliant colors. She did not understand his words about the god, Qotal, for to Erix, gods were gods. But she sensed a beauty and peace within the token that differed significantly from the colorful but violent rituals of Zaltec.
"I will cherish it forever!" She embraced her father impulsively, and his own arms held her tightly for several moments.
"I hope so," said the featherworker, a trifle wistfully. He was a man of considerable talent and skill. He had created magical fans for the High Counselor of Palul, and his goods had been carried to the market in Nexal, where he had been told they commanded a fine price. Now he looked at the small medallion in his daughter's hands, and he concluded with conviction, "I hope you cherish it, for I can give you nothing greater."
Erix turned toward her chore with energy. The path she started up made the trail to her house seem like a broad avenue. Now she ascended a steep mountainside covered with verdant growth. She grasped vines and roots with her hands, climbing like a monkey, and soon gained five hundred feet. At last she reached the crest of the brush-covered ridge behind her family's home.
Here she paused, still breathing easily. She looked across the broad vista below her, green slopes falling thousands of feet to the bottom. Flat green fields of mayz lined the valley floor like a lush carpet, and indeed such it was: a carpet of food. The vale curved away to her right, and beyond it she could see another broad mountain, blue in the haze of distance.
Cordotl. The trading town that stood at the foot of that mountain, she knew, offered a clear vista of the broad valley of Nexal and its gleaming lakes. How clearly she imagined the jewel shining from the center of those lakes, the city of