Ironhelm - Douglas Niles [75]
"I will return soon," Darien said softly. No one saw her gesture or heard the words to any spell. But all of those gathered saw her disappear from sight, instantly invisible. They knew she went to observe the legion's newest enemies.
Halforan felt the ground drop away, and then a ring of swirling color surrounded him. His hands flailed madly, seeking a handhold as he fell. He felt the squirming body of the young woman beside him. A tugging at his waist told him that Daggrande, too, held on.
Dimly he realized that he wasn't really falling. He felt weightless, but there was no rush of wind, no sense of motion. He tried to look around, but all he saw was the ring of color, expanding into an all-encompassing kaleidoscope.
And then solid ground once again materialized under his feet. The colors faded to a milky glow, and he saw that he had somehow arrived inside a stone building. The native girl had clung to his arm during the mystifying journey, but now she pushed away from him and stared, panic-stricken, around the chamber.
They occupied a circular room, perhaps ten paces across, with walls made of carved stone blocks. An opening on one side displayed a series of stone stairs leading upward into darkness. Above and beyond the opening, the faint twinkling of starlight illuminated the night sky.
"Helm's curses on this sorcery!" Daggrande had fallen upon landing and now sputtered angrily as he climbed to his feet. His hands clenched his bloody axe menacingly.
Hal saw the fourth person, the older man in the white robe who had tried to seize the girl. He alone seemed calm. Indeed, Hal watched in amazement as he knelt and bowed toward an image at one side of the room, opposite the doorway. The man's long gray hair, tied in a single knot, fell to the floor as he bowed.
"Qotal!" gasped the girl, stepping away from the image.
Erixitl, too, recognized the image of the god, with its fanged jaws and encircling mane of feathers. She saw with sudden and startling clarity the truth of what Chitikas had spoken of earlier: that the faith of Qotal had lurked in the background of her entire life. Both her father and the Kultaka noble Huakal had worshiped the Feathered One, albeit quietly and privately. Kachin, cleric of Qotal, had purchased her for an exorbitant price in the name of that temple. She was the object of great attention from Chitikas, a feathered snake made almost in the image of the Plumed Serpent form of the god.
She looked with new eyes at the benign cleric, saw him regarding her with an expression of cherubic innocence. His face, lined with wrinkles as it was, beamed with a quiet smile for Erixitl alone.
Many questions suddenly rose within her. Why did the gods place such value on her life… or her death? What had compelled the followers of Qotal to manipulate her across the breadth of the True World? Tb make her a slave? Or a priestess?
And now Chitikas had brought her to this shrine, the sacred place dedicated to Qotal, at the close of this tumultuous day.
She looked at the fanged, grinning stone image of the Plumed God, and then at the serpentine form of Chitikas, covered as he was in downy feathers, and she wondered.
Halloran faced the garish stone image carved into the wall of the round chamber. He saw the face of a serpent, with gaping jaws and a wide mane surrounding the head. The mane, Hal saw after a moment, depicted a wide collar of feathers.
Suddenly he looked upward, wondering at the pale glow. He saw the long snake's body whirling through the air, beating its brilliant wings easily. The snake's body itself was the source of the illumination! His sword hand started upward with a will of its own until he forced himself to lower the blade. He felt certain that nothing good could come of attacking this glowing serpent, at least not yet.
"Who are you?" he demanded. "What do you want?" As soon as he challenged the thing, it slowly settled to the floor, resting on its long tail while most of the body floated gracefully before him.
"Better to ask