Now, he understood spears and lances, but he underestimated the difference between them and the Roman pilum.
He laughed and caught the point deftly on his buckler. The bronze head penetrated and clung, the soft copper shank bent, the heavy shaft trailed on the ground and dragged his buckler low.
I leapt forward and stepped upon the shaft. He had one breath of time to realize that he was a dead man, before my shortsword beat down his defending seaxe and shore deep between neck and shoulder.
He fell. Myrdhinn was avenged!
At that instant, I felt myself seized from behind in an agonizing grip.
A Piasa raised me high above his head, and hanging there for an instant I saw Myrdhinn lying in a little open circle in the crowd.
He opened his eyes and caught my gaze, strangely and lovingly as a fond father might follow with his look a willful and erring son who had foolishly plunged himself into danger.
His lips moved. The grip relaxed and I was flung down. Surprisingly, I was not stunned by the impact. I scarcely felt the ground.
As with Antaeus, the earth seemed to give me superhuman strength. I knew that I was invincible! The Piasa snatched for me. I laughed at him, brushed his grip away like a feather. I seized him by the scaly throat and broke his neck like a bird’s.
Ah1 the multitude flung themselves upon the remaining Piasa, forcing them down, overwhelming them by sheer numbers.
I hurried to Myrdhinn and bent over him. I must have been a horrid sight, all dabbled with gore, my armor clawed away and my hands dripping red on his white robes, but he smiled faintly.
“I did it, Ventidius, for you. That time, it was sorcery! I gave you all my strength, that you might not die. I have loved you like a son—I never had a son— how could I let you die? God forgive me, I used sorcery again—”
“God will, Myrdhinn,” I said softly, but his eyes had closed and I do not know if he heard me or not.
I thought him sped. Then he spoke again, very low, and I bent to catch the words.
“So this is what was meant by the saying that I should find the Land of the Dead—beyond the sunset—at the end of the world. Come then, show me the way! Must I go alone?”
He stared about, but it was plain that he saw none of us.
Suddenly he sat upright and his face glowed with joy.
Out of the west came flying rapidly a great white bird such as I have never seen before. It approached, circled us thrice without alighting or giving voice, and flapped away again, speedily as it had come.
The aged body relaxed. I laid him down with care, and kneeling there, I buried my face in my hands, for I knew him gone at last.
Over me swept a dreary loneliness. I had lost a dear friend, a revered man whose wisdom had saved me often from my follies. At last, I realized that I had loved him like a parent, but it was too late—too late—I could not tell htm now.
Through tears, I saw those around me kneel in parting reverence, and very far away, a white bird flying on and on—into the western sky and far beyond.
So we buried his body, and over it we made a tes-selated pavement of colored pebbles, showing a picture of a man treading upon a snake, symbolic of his destruction of the Mian Empire, for his was the glory, seeing that without him all our efforts would have come to naught.
Above his grave we built a large mound, In the following days of our encampment there, but that night the Royanehs of Myrdhinn’s young nation demanded the persons of the few remaining Piasa left alive.
I shrugged as I turned away, and the cold-blooded scaly monsters gazed after me, staring with an unblinking fish-look.
What were their thoughts, I wonder, as they saw the people gathering brush and fixing stakes in the ground?
Fire was a mystery to them, strange, cruel water creatures. But they died by it and were long in so doing.
“Houp! Houp!” shouted the dancing warriors, mimicking their death croaks, prancing high, circling the flames.
“Houp! Houp!”
And there were no scalps to take, for nowhere upon their bodies was there any hair.
22 Twenty Tears Later
In the northwest, far from Aztlan, near the mountains which fence off the Edge of the World, there dwells today (twenty years after the death of Myrd-hinn) a miserable people called by their neighbors the Flatheads. If they be Mian refugees, I know not, for I have learned of them only by rumor, but their skulls are similarly shaped by binding against a board when the infant is very young.
And in the moorlands, every lonely wanderer got himself a wife, so that many a noble, gently reared Mian lady has drudged away her life in tanning hides, bearing burdens and savage children for a cruel spouse.
From some of these, we know that many perished wandering to the moors. A few may have got through to the Hot Lands of Atala, but most were scattered and slain by those I sent to guard their journey.
So perished the haughty and valiant Mian nation, and with them their far-flung Empire of the Mounds.
Back once more in the cliff dwellings, we have known peace. We led war into the swamps of the Piasa and well-nigh exterminated them.
Tolteca, south of us, is newly turbulent and the tune is coming when there must again be war.
In the north, I hear from Hayonwatha, who still lives, though all my British friends are dead from age or battle, that the nation of the Hodenosaunee is growing yet more powerful. My soldiers, or allies, hold all the forts that once represented the Mian frontier. The Chichamecans, too, are friendly.
Your legate, then, wherever he may land, oh my Emperor, will receive a welcome, for all expect the coming of white men again and the word is out everywhere to receive them kindly and in peace as sons of the Fair God, Quetzalcoatl, the man who spoke of peace, but could be stern in war to end it quickly.
Treat my son, Gwalchmai, Hawk of Battle as Myrdhinn once called his godson, kindly I beg. He will be unaccustomed to great cities, though he has read of them in Myrdhinn’s books and has learned, I fear, other more dangerous things. He has performed some peculiar feats that smack of sorcery to me.
Come, then, at once while I still live. I dream of Roman keels grating on the shingle of Alata. I long to hear the sounds of Roman trumpets. I have conquered a continent for Rome, but there is none that will hold it undivided after I am gone.
Already they forget the Christian prayer that Myrd-hinn taught his worshipers, forgetting the meanings of the words. My Azteca grow restless with liberty and long to wander.
Come before it is too late. Come and take your empire!
Vale.
Epilog
I laid down the ancient pages and turned to my veteran friend. “That is the end of the writing,” I said.
“But not the end of the story?”
“How can it be? Why wasn’t the message carried farther than Key West? What happened to the son of Ventidhis? How was the message lost?”
“I think I can guess. Do you know how Key West got its name?”
I shook my head.
“When the Spaniards discovered the island, it was covered with skeletons where a battle had been fought So many were there that they called it Cayo de los Huessos (Island of the Bones), which was Englished as Key West. Suppose that those bones were the remains of the ship’s crew, sent with the message, and killed by the Piasa who had been driven from the Florida swamps by Ventidius’ men!”
“Then that perhaps was the real end of the Piasa?”
He nodded.
“And the end of Kwalchmai, Ventidius’ only son?” I hazarded.
“I wonder,” thoughtfully said my veteran friend. “I wonder.
“After all, he was Merlin’s godson. If any came out of that battle alive, it must have been he. But that was a thousand years ago, and we shall probably never know.”
The End of Book 1
BOOK TWO
The Ship from Atlantis
1 Merlin's Godson
It was the Year of the Rabbit, in the chronology of Aztla
n, and the day-sign being fortunate a great festival was taking place a few miles above the spot where the Misconzebe, Grandfather of Rivers, mingles with the salt waters of the Gulf.
For a month the invited guests had been arriving at Fortress Tollan, which held the entrance to this broad highway to the north and the rich lands of Tlapallan. The reeds which gave that district its name were gone, trampled into the mud by thousands of feet or woven into temporary shelters by the visitors. The shore was lined with watercraft.
Hide bull-boats, birch-bark and elm canoes or those carved from a single log rocked at anchor or lay bottom up until they might be needed. Decorated in fanciful patterns, they lay in colorful rows near the crowded city of weik-waums, wickiups and tepees which had sprung up around the palisade spined, earthen walled fortress. Few of those who had come to this mightiest of peace councils gave the fleet more than a passing glance. The novelty was beyond.
Drawn up in the shallows, well fastened against the tugging current, lay what any Briton would have recognized as a Saxon pirate ship. In this Year of our Lord 616, they crowded the rivers and estuaries of Britain, but in Alata, (as North America was known at that time) there was only one. Built almost twenty years before of stout oak planks, caulked with pitch and bison hair, it had been well cared for awaiting this moment.
It was seventy-seven feet in length and clinker built. At the prow and stern the decks were raised. In between, considerably lower, was a partial main deck or fighting platform, but the rowers' pit was open to the weather. Here were rowing benches, fifteen to each side, with a gangway down the center. Rows of wooden shields, emblazoned with the totems of those young Aztecs who had been chosen to wield the carven oars, were fastened to the sides to protect them from arrows or waves.
It was a well found ship and it needed to be, for in it the son of the King of the World's Edge was to set forth eastward to discover the world. From the dragon's head with golden mane at the stem post, to the tail at the stern decorated with glittering mica plates, it blazed with color. The hull was striped with red and white, fox tails hung for standards and weather vanes and a burnished copper band encircled the single mast.
The oar holes were provided with shutters to keep out the sea when under sail, as were the tiny windows in the commander's cabin at the poop and the arsenal and stores hold just forward. To the crowd, which continually milled and shifted along the shore, the Feathered Serpent was a great wonder.
They were as motley in appearance as their dwellings and their canoes. Many tribes and nations were represented here upon this gala day. Yonder strode caciques of the Az-teca with saw edged, obsidian toothed swords hanging by their sides. Feather fringed shields adorned their arms and plumed helmets graced their heads. Among them walked scarred fighters from the western moorlands armed with stone knife and tomahawk, short horn bows upon their backs. Some of these wore bison headdresses; others wore warbon-nets betokening the taking of many coups.
Those who had come north from the great swamps bore blowpipes made of cane and carried slings and a pouch of stones, while the representatives from the Long House of the Five Nations looked with arrogance upon their smaller brothers in arms. These were tall men, distinguished by a single eagle feather fastened into a central roach of hair, and they had come far south from their homeland to attend the gathering. They were a fierce people, these Hodenosau-nee, but none wore war-paint for they had brought peace belts into the red land of Tlapallan where once they had marched under the battle standard of Merlin the Enchanter, to aid in the destruction of the hated Mian mound builders and their cruel empire.
Policing them all, the Dog Soldiers kept order in the camp, but there was little for them to do. It was a happy throng. There was laughing and feasting for all. There was smoking in council and storytelling for the old, using the universal sign language common to the many nations. The young men strove together. In competition they wrestled and leaped and threw the tomahawk, lance br atlatl dart. They bent the long bow at the archery butts, darted like fish through the river or hurled the racing canoes along its surface.
Many a maiden's dark eyes glistened with enjoyment and pride at the sight and many a moccasined foot would tread a new trail to a new home when the celebration was over. As ever, happiness was mingled with regret. Slim girls looked toward the high stepped mound near the river and sighed in vain desire, gazing upon the unattainable, and would not be consoled.
Here stood a strong young man whose brown hair and lighter skin set him apart from the others of his age. He was dressed much as they in doeskin loincloth, beaded headband, leggings arid moccasins, for the weather was warm and he had recently competed in the games. His face was serious, for this was the final day of the feastings and the important business of the meeting was at hand.
The chief priest of the War God stepped forward and intoned;
"Oh, Tlaloc, He Who Makes Things Sprout, and thou his wife, Foam on the Water, look favorably on the mission of this young man, the son of your brother Huitzilopoch-tli, the Raging and Terrible God!
"Huitzilopoehtli came among us when we were weak. We hid in the rocks like a rabbit. He gave us weapons, he taught us to walk in pride, he ended our fear. He created the nation of Aztlan. Behind him we marched upon our Mian oppressors. With the help of his brother god, Quetzalcoatl, Lord of the Wind, and our northern allies of the Hodenosau-nee, we killed the Mian Kukulcan and drove his people backtoAtala.
"Now Tlapallan is at peace as Quetzalcoatl would have wished, for he loved peace as lie was loved by us, though we are men of war. Today we are met in peace and there is no war anywhere in Alata. Our God and leader, Huit-zilopochtli, has called us together to do honor to his son, Gwalchmai, the Eagle, who sails upon the Great Waters in yonder serpent ship. He will take the tale of our battling and valor to his father's people.
"We ask you, Tlaloc, to grant his favor and fair winds, a swift passage across the seas and a swift return to us who wish he need not leave us for even a little while."
He raised his hands in blessing and bowed his head and stepped aside. Another man came forward. His polished steel armor glittered in the sun. He raised his copper brace-leted right arm in the Roman salute and although his hair was gray at the temples beneath his crested helmet, the strong muscles rippled under his bronzed skin. The crowd roared a greeting. He motioned for silence.
"This is my son and my messenger. His god-father was Quetzalcoatl, who is gone from us to the Land of the Dead, but who may yet return. Today we remember the Lord of the Wind and how his magic aided us all, both you of Alata and we Romans shipwrecked upon your shores. We knew him as a man of great knowledge. He was unafraid to do battle and unafraid to speak of mercy when battle was done. That others may know of his greatness, my wife and I send our only son back to Rome that he may carry the tale of his god-father's wisdom and bring other of our people here. Gold-Flower-of Day—"
A dainty woman came forward, smiling fondly upon her husband and son. She wore a beautiful cape of hummingbird's feathers over a hualpilli, or shift, of gauzy white cotton. Her black hair was glossy and long, coiled in the squash blossom fashion over and around each ear. On her wrists were bracelets of cowrie shells and around her neck hung a plaque of matched pearls. Her waist, still slim, was cinctured with a belt of coins which could not have been duplicated elsewhere in Alata. These were joined Roman denarü of silver and copper sesterces, linked together by gold. Divers had brought them up from the wrecked Prydwen, the warship of Arthur of Britain, in which Merlin Ambrosius had sailed across the Atlantic to find a new land. With him and his nine bards, Ventidius Varro, the centurion of the Sixth Legion, had also come to make himself a king and be worshipped as a god.
Gold-Flower-of-Day kissed her son and took the sword and belt which Ventidius removed and gave her. There were tears in her eyes as she buckled the belt upon her son, but they were tears of pride. She hugged him tightly once and released him. The crowd roared approbation and there was a great shaking of gourd rattles a
nd blowing of bone whistles.
Ventidius raised his hand again. She stepped back and the tumult stilled. He held up a bronze cylinder so all could see.
"In this is the record of all that has been done here. Our battles in Azatlan, the joining of the Onguy nations to form the Long House, our march on Miapan, our crushing of the Tlapallican armies, our destruction of the Mian Empire.
"I send it to my Tecutli, my Lord across the sea, who will be happy to know that brave men dwell here as there. That it may not fail to reach its destination, I now place it in the keeping of my son, who, with his companions, will by strength of arm and his god-father's wisdom see it safely there. May fair winds and calm waters aid him and bring him safely back."
He gave it into the young man's hand. Gwalchmai slipped it into his belt and the two men gripped each other's forearm and gazed deeply into one another's eyes. There was no other word spoken nor other leavetaking.
They slowly descended the steps of the teocalli and passed through the kneeling quiet crowd, followed by the priests. The thirty young Aztecan rowers who were to man the sweeps had already thrust the dragon ship a little way out from the shore. It was necessary for Gwalchmai to wade out thigh deep to embark.
He stood on the steersman's platform, with his hand on the whipstaff of the tiller as the ship swung out into the current. He looked back at his parents standing on the shore. They were as impassive as he, Roman pride match-ing Aztec dignity, but if hearts could weep unseen—there would have been tears.
Thirty oars dipped in salute to the temple. Up rose the heavy cotton sail called "The Cloak of the Wind" with its winged serpent in red and green, ramping ready to strike. As the wind took it, the oars lashed the water and the ship picked up a bone in its teeth and borne by the stream went down to meet the rollers of the Gulf.
Ventidius and his wife stood watching as the ship grew small in distance. There was no sound from the crowd. For once, even the children were quiet, sensing the moment. There was a fleck of color far away. Was it a glint of sunlight upon an oarblade or a gleam upon a wave? A seagull's veering wing as it plunged into the water or the flicker of the dragon's movable tongue? No one could be sure, but it was gone.
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