The smokeless fire cast a warm glow against the shiny walls of the grotto. Halloran emerged from the clear pool, his skin raw from scrubbing. Corporal still swam joyfully in the shallow stream, while Storm grazed on a profusion of tall grass.
Hal discarded the root Erix had provided him, an herb that had frothed with the water to form something she called 'soap.' It had proven so effective that Hal now felt uncomfortably clean.
He slipped into his leather jerkin and woolen leggings with some relief, ignoring Erix's wrinkled nose. They both relaxed now, comfortable and reasonably safe for the moment, in any event. Hal had located this steep-sided rocky niche, only a few hundred paces from shore but masked by verdant growth on all sides.
"We will find you a mantle," she said. "Clean and cool. You will like it."
Hal grunted noncommittally. In fact, he immediately noticed the itching of his present rough fabric against his skin. Pools of sticky sweat formed quickly where the heavy leather padding clung tightly to his body. But the bath had been grueling enough. Helm's curses if he would allow anything else.
"Here. I have food." Erix handed him a flat object, which he recognized as a mayzcake. The islanders had introduced the legion to this nourishing staple, the mainstay of the Maztican diet.
"Thanks." Hal bit into the cake, and suddenly tears sprang from his eyes and his mouth blazed with fire. Desperately he swallowed the food and gulped many mouthfuls of water. "What's — what's in this?" he gasped.
"This? Just beans. Oh, and a little pepper. Do you like it?" She smiled curiously.
"It's… splendid," he whispered, quickly cooling his gullet with more water. Even the water only seemed to spread the fire around, like oil thrown upon a blaze.
Still, rations were rations, and these were the only rations available. He tried smaller bites and slowly came to appreciate the sharp, distinctive flavor. His eyes watered freely and sweat burst from the pores on his skin, but he noted with surprise that, in this tropical heat, the spicy food actually made his body feel cooler — on the outside, at any rate.
"Tell me about your land," he prodded as they finished eating. "That city, Ulatos… is that your home?"
"No. I come from far away, near the Heart of the True World."
"The True World?"
"Maztica. The whole known world. Maztica's greatest nation is Nexal, for the Nexalans have conquered many of the other tribes. Kultaka is another strong land, enemy of Nexal. Here we are in Payit, the land farthest removed from Nexal. Payit is the only land that is not an enemy of Nexal, but it is not a conquest either. The Payit are too far away for the Nexalans to worry much about them."
"But what of the bloody priests, such as the one that killed Martine?"
Erix sighed. "The followers of Zaltec, such as that priest, are far more numerous among the Nexala and Kultaka than among the Payit. But always we can find worshipers of Qotal, such as good Kachin. He was the patriarch, the highest of high priests, of the temple in Ulatos." She turned to him, suddenly curious. "You said that your own people attacked you. Why?"
Hal told the tale of his arrest and escape, and as he spoke, the events seemed like distant history, a story that had happened to someone else. The whole fabric of his life had been shattered, and yet he felt like the same person now as when he had served Cordell's legion.
Yet as he sensed the impact of what had happened, he began to realize that Cordell, Alvarro, Bishou Domincus — none of them would be content to let him escape. They would come after him with all the powers at their disposal, and Hal knew these to be considerable. In that same instant, he made another decision.
"When I spoke to you of staying with me, I forgot… that is, you can't," he began, awkwardly. He forced the words out. "You can't come with me. I can't be around you!"
"Why?" Erix demanded.
"It's not safe. The legion is sure to chase me, and they'll probably find me. You would… well, you'd get in the way if I had to fight," he lied.
Erix leaped to her feet. "And just what will you do? Do you think, with your hairy monsters and your metal shirt, you can go where you please in Maztica? Do what you will?
"No, Captain Halloran. You will be killed, and your heart will be fed to Zaltec or Tezca. Only with me do you have a chance to stay alive. And don't worry… if something attacks you, I won't get in the way."
Halloran blinked in surprise at her outburst. He hadn't intended to offend her. Couldn't she see that he only wanted her safety? That no place in Maztica was likely to be as unsafe as by his side?
"You don't understand!" he blurted. He wanted to explain to her his terrible guilt over Martine's death. She had to see that he could not be responsible for another such violent fate! But even as the reasons, the explanations, whirled through his mind, he began to feel that perhaps he didn't understand things fully either.
"I'm not a slave!" Erix declared forcefully. "And I will not be dismissed like some bothersome child!"
She took several steps away from him and then looked back, her eyes softening. Some of the tension left her body. "You are a brave man, Captain — especially so, that you would send me to safety even though it would leave you helpless in my country.
"But you need me," she finished, sitting again beside their small fire. "You have saved my life when I would have given it up. That is a debt I will not easily ignore."
He looked at her in gratitude, realizing how very fearful he had been about her departure. "You're right. I need your help to survive. And I'm grateful that you're offering it." He shook his head, angry at himself. "I'm sorry about what I said. I don't believe for a minute that you'd get in the way. But you must listen to me. There could be great danger, terrifying attacks that you cannot imagine. If something strange happens, I want you to get away from me quickly. Do you understand?"
She nodded at him, still glaring. He was certain that she understood, but quite uncertain that she would obey.
With a sigh of resignation, Hal adjusted his backpack, currently employed as a pillow. "What's this?" he wondered aloud.
He examined the leather satchel, particularly the bottom, where he thought it had been reinforced. He realized instead that something flat and solid had been inserted into a secret compartment there.
After a moment, he found a concealed flap and pulled it upward, revealing a leather-bound tome wrapped in a black ribbon. Pulling the heavy book out, he gasped in astonishment.
"What is that? Is it good?" asked Erix, puzzled by the look of mingled wonder and fear on Hal's face.
"No… not good. I don't know how bad." He looked directly into Erix's eyes. "It appears that I have inadvertently stolen the spellbook of the wizard, Darien." He explained the significance of the find, knowing that this tome held a copy of each magical spell in Darien's arsenal.
"Of course, they aren't useful to anyone except a trained magic-user. You can go mad trying to read a spell that is beyond your abilities. More than likely, it just won't make any sense."
Yet as he spoke, the smooth leather cover seemed to beckon invitingly from his lap. His eyes wandered downward, intrigued and tantalized. He held the book, shut, for a long time, eventually noticing that Erix had dropped off to sleep.
How much do I remember? he mused, over and over. Finally he flipped the book open to its first page.
A searing flash burned his eyes, and he slammed the cover shut, blinking. Yet within the brief instant of that flash, he had recognized symbols, words of arcane power.
Carefully he opened the book again. This time the flash was not so bright. He forced his eyes to remain fixed on the page and was elated as he identified the enchantment.
A sleep spell! This was one he had once known.
Could he learn it again? Carefully he scrutinized the symbols. Some of them became clear to him, but others seemed to waver on the page, just beyond the reach of his understanding. His head began to throb, but still he studied.
Finally it was sheer fatigue, and not magic, that caused his hea
d to drop back and his eyes to close.
Halloran dreamed of Arquiuius. The old wizard counseled him on his magic missile spell, cuffing his ears when he mispronounced a syllable or let his attention wander. In the dream, he studied the spell and attempted it dozens of times, always failing in one crucial aspect or another.
Then suddenly he got it right, firing the enchantment off in a sparkling trail. He leaped up, thrilled with the success, but his tutor passed it off with a gruff "That is acceptable." Immediately Arquiuius gave him another task, the learning of the light spell. He labored over the new incantation, trying to cast it again and again, but he could not capture the rhythms of the enchantment.
Arquiuius left him and went to sleep. Still the youthful Halloran practiced, and still he failed. Tears of frustration rolled down his cheeks, but no one offered sympathy. Again he studied, his eyes straining under weak candlelight to read figures that seemed to slip elusively across the page.
Over and over and over he tried the spell, and each time his task grew more difficult. But always he went back to it, and now, finally, he felt that he was getting close. He was almost there!
He shouted a word, something from his distant past, and suddenly sat upright in fright. Instantly the inside of the grotto blossomed with cool, white light, harshly gleaming against the dark night above.
Did I do that? was Hal's first thought. Then he heard the howling.
"If the white men want the gold of this house, let them come and take it themselves! Now leave me!" Gultec growled at the plump nobleman, a nephew of Caxal's. The little fellow squealed in terror and fled down the street as the Jaguar Knight angrily slammed the gate.
For some time, Gultec brooded in the garden before the House of Jaguars. Several of the younger warriors crouched listlessly in their chambers, while others wandered aimlessly among the flowers and ponds. Most of the rooms were empty now, their former occupants lying on the field beyond the city.
Why was I spared? Why, when so many young knights, so many fathers and brothers, so many with so much to live for, perished? Why was I, who have nothing, spared?
Gultec pulled his flint dagger from his belt and cut long slashes in his forearms. He watched the blood drip to the ground, but his act of penance brought no healing to his spirit.
He stood and stretched, catlike, looking at the House of Jaguars wistfully. This elegant mansion, home for members of his order who had no wives, no families, had sheltered him for more years than he cared to remember. Always it had been a symbol of the invincible might, the unassailable pride of his order.
Now that might had been broken on the field of battle. The pride lay in shambles across the treasure-littered plaza of Ulatos, where the nobles of the city hastened to do the bidding of their new masters.
Once again came the banging at the gate, and this time Gultec recognized the voice of the Revered Counselor.
"Open up, Gultec!" groaned Caxal. "I've got to talk to you!"
Angrily the warrior threw open the portal. He looked with scorn at his chieftain as Caxal stumbled inside. The man's expression was tearful, his position cowed.
"Gultec, you must give up the gold in the house! The foreigners demand it! You have much gold; you will make them very happy. They feed on the yellow metal and need it to live!"
"Let them come and take it, then. Let me die a warrior's death facing them!"
Caxal looked at the Jaguar Knight with compassion. "This I would tell them, but they will not come after you only. They will raze the city if we do not yield our gold!"
Gultec wanted to shout at him, even to attack him. Some part of the Jaguar's pride desperately needed to blame the counselor. If only Gultec could have deployed the army in the forest, as he had desired.
But in his heart, Gultec knew that his own tactic, while it might have saved more warriors, would not have held the strangers out of Ulatos. Ulatos had been doomed, and it was Caxal's destiny to preside over the first city of Maztica to fall to the invaders. For the first time, he felt a measure of pity for this pathetic chief.
"They will come tomorrow to search the houses," urged Caxal. "Think of the children, Gultec!"
The Jaguar Knight tried to think of the children. He tried to think about anything, but all he saw was a black void. His life was behind him. He had failed at his destiny. Now there was nothing.
"My house is your house," he said softly. He walked away from Caxal, seeking the darkest corner of the garden. Here he squatted and faced the wall as the gold from the House of Jaguars was taken to the plaza.
Gultec watched the young Jaguars meander dejectedly from the house. One by one, they carried golden ornaments up the street to the House of the captain-general, as Caxal's palace was now called. They went to answer their new lord's command.
None of them spoke. Never had Gultec imagined a scene of such tragedy, such utter humiliation. Every Jaguar stood ready to accept death upon the battlefield or honorable capture and sacrifice upon an enemy's altar.
But the warriors now entered the palace and did not emerge. They remained there, prisoners of the invader, Cordell. The captain-general had loudly proclaimed that sacrifice was now forbidden, and none knew why he gathered the warriors to himself.
Gultec could not make himself rise. He sat in the garden until night fell, and then waited throughout the long hours of darkness for the soldiers to come and take him. When he resisted, they would kill him.
Inside the warrior, a great, caged feline paced angrily back and forth, growling and snarling at the confining bars. But outwardly Gultec showed no expression, moved no muscle for the many hours of night. The pacing became a restless obsession, though still with no outward display.
And with the passing of hours, he knew that even his enemies had forgotten him. His destiny had been destroyed on the battlefield, crushed by the might of his enemy. Now that enemy would not even grant him the dignity of a warrior's death.
His life finished, Gultec rose and left the garden under the rosy glow of dawn. He did not turn toward the palace. Instead, he went south, out of the city and through the cleared fringe of fields. At full daylight, he reached the jungle's edge.
Now a great spotted cat sprang into the middle branches of the trees, above the choking growth along the ground. Supple muscles rippled under the smooth pelt, and bright yellow eyes probed the greenery for the sight of game. The great cat was hungry.
And Gultec was free.
Footprints marched steadily down the beach, appearing one after another to mark the track of the invisible stalker. Helmstooth, Halloran's silver longsword, swung about three feet above the ground, just as if a human warrior held the weapon at the ready. Like the needle of a compass, it swung tentatively for a bit, then quickly steadied in the direction of its quarry.
The stalker possessed inhuman patience and tenacity. It could only be drawn to a physical world such as this one by the command of a powerful wizard. The stalker was compelled by the summoning spell to perform the task assigned, and so it searched for the man named Halloran. Not until it found him and completed the command would it be free of the wizard's will.
It had searched the battlefield of Ulatos for hours before finally locating the spoor. The man had mounted a horse, and the steed had thwarted the stalker's previous efforts at detection.
But now it followed that horse along the beach, and the footprints and sword made steady progress. Suddenly they stopped as the stalker sought a spoor invisible and undetectable to mortal senses.
Then the footprints turned from the beach and entered the jungle. Leaves rustled, as if to mark the passage of a short burst of wind, and soon the sword danced toward the entrance of a rocky grotto. Within, it sensed the dying coals of a fire.
And its quarry.
Cordell pried the gold nugget from the belly of the delicately carved turquoise statue. He freed the metal and let the statue drop and smash on the hard stone of the plaza. Placing the heavy nugget between two of his molars, he grinned as the pliab
le metal conformed slightly to the pressure of his bite.
Though the time was past midnight, great bonfires lit the plaza and the men of the legion showed no weariness as they watched more and more gold brought before them. Like Cordell, they tore the golden elements from artwork, compressed wiry statues into compact lumps of metal, and pulled the feathers and shells from delicate pictures embroidered with gold.
Long into the night, the captain-general toiled at his enjoyable task, until finally fatigue claimed him. He would meet with the assessor in the morning, and for once he looked forward to the meeting.
Halloran sat up in alarm, his magical dream forgotten even though the soft light still washed through the grotto. Corporal stood nearby, growling softly. The legionnaire listened to the distant howling, carried by the night breeze, and the sound sent an uncontrolled shiver down his spine.
"Erix?" he called softly. "Wake up."
She sat up quickly, and he sensed that she had already been awake for a little while. "Do you recognize that sound?" he asked.
"No…" She looked at him, and he had never seen her so frightened. "Is that more of your monsters?"
He shook his head and cast a glance at Corporal. "Greyhounds don't bay when they follow a trail. When they do bark, it doesn't sound anything like that." The musical, mournful cry again ululated through the night, still distant but intensely menacing.
"But you made this light, did you not?"
"Yes… that's one of the magic spells I told you about. I don't know if I could do it again. I was having a dream, and when I woke I cast it."
Erix looked around, her expression a mixture of fear and wonder. The cool white light filled the narrow niche, reflecting softly off the rocky walls. They had slept comfortably in the sheltered grotto, Hal wrapped in the blanket and Erix in her plain cotton mantle. But now neither of them wanted to rest.
The howling came again, noticeably nearer. Hal recalled the various powers and enchantments available to the Bishou or Darien, wondering if this might be the work of one of the spellcasters. "I think we'd better move on," he suggested. Erix was already up, rolling her mantle into a tight bundle.
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