Halloran lashed his backpack, blanket, and other supplies to Storm while Erix quickly splashed some water on herself. She joined him beside the horse as he was examining something from his pack.
"What is that? Water?" Erix asked, seeing a large vial in Hal's hand. He held two smaller bottles in his other hand.
"No. They're magic potions of some kind. I took them when I escaped from the ship. I don't know why I did. Magic gives me the willies."
Erix's brows knitted. "What do they do?"
The howling echoed again, still distant. Corporal paced nervously while Hal thought about his answer.
"I don't know for sure. You drink them, and something magic happens. The labels explain it all, I'm sure, but I've never seen writing like this."
"Perhaps you should throw them away," urged the woman quietly. "We don't need them, and what if they're dangerous?"
"Oh, I don't know," Halloran said airily. "They might come in handy." He set the two small bottles back in the pack and unstoppered the large one. Squinting into the bottle first, he raised it and took a short sip.
"Halloran!"
When Erix screamed, Hal quickly dropped the bottle and spat. He fumbled to push the cork back in, wondering why he couldn't see the bottle. Come to think of it, he couldn't see his hands, either. He was invisible!
"Halloran? Where are you?" Erix whirled around, panicking.
"It's — it's all right. I'm right here." Already his form began to grow visible, and in moments, he looked normal again. "This is a potion of invisibility! I didn't take enough to do more than fade for a second, but if we need to, we can drink a dose and disappear!"
"Forever?" Erix was clearly dubious.
"No… for an hour or two, I suppose. I know they're only temporary, but I haven't had much experience with potions." He reached for one of the small bottles.
"Wait!" urged Erix. "It does seem that they may be useful, but let's leave the others for a later time. We should be moving on now."
The howling abruptly faded, changing in pitch and volume. They could still hear it, but it did not seem so imminent.
Corporal suddenly growled and sprang to his feet. A gust of wind swirled through the grotto, rippling the stream water and rustling the grass along the bank. Hal looked up but saw nothing, even though light still washed their camp. Once more the howling echoed in the distance. Then Corporal barked loudly.
The sound saved Halloran's life. He whirled to look behind him just in time to see a silver sword driving toward his throat. Twisting away, he leaped to his feet. A sudden wind blazed the dull coals of the fire back to light, and Hal gaped in astonishment at his attacker.
Or rather, his lack of an attacker. The silver sword danced in the air, apparently animated by itself. His astonishment grew as he saw the weapon clearly.
"That's Helmstooth — my own sword!" he cried. The blade, given to him by Cordell himself, had been taken away when he was arrested. Now, as if under its own power, it was attacking him!
As the weapon darted forward again, he saw splashes in the shallow water below it, marking the passage of invisible feet. He snatched the sword he had claimed from Alvarro from the nearby saddle and parried the attacker's next blow.
But the enchanted sword flickered back and forth too quickly for Hal's eye, and the legionnaire stumbled backward to avoid another deadly thrust. His shock turned to fear as he realized that this inanimate attacker could kill him. He tumbled backward through shallow water, and something splashed after him.
Corporal leaped at the attacker, snarling and biting at the air. The greyhound twisted in the water as a sudden gust of wind whipped up froth. A column of swirling air suddenly lifted the dog and hurled him to the shore.
Halloran darted at the invisible shape, hacking back and forth, trying to knock Helmstooth to the ground. The whirlwind turned back, and spray flew in a howling column, blinding Hal. The force of the air buffeted him backward, and he sprawled on the shore.
The once placid grotto became a cage to him now, the limestone walls barring him from maneuver… or flight. The rocky barriers formed a deadly arena, where life would be the winner's prize.
Halloran scrambled desperately to his feet as Helmstooth came at him again. Diving away, he once again tumbled headlong in his desperate attempt to evade death. The sword chopped at the ground behind him, and he rolled away, bumping his shoulder on a sharp object.
The sword lifted above him, ready for the kill, when something thumped into the invisible figure and knocked it aside. Hal saw Erix holding a sizable log, originally intended for their fire. But the whirlwind shape came swirling back, and Halloran knew they could not best it with physical attacks.
The sharp object jabbed at him again as he struggled to his feet, and he realized that he had fallen onto his backpack. The top of one of the small potion bottles was barely visible, jutting from the side pocket. It had been that bottleneck that had poked him.
Erix swung again, knocking the invisible sword-thing backward, but then the wind swirled around her, smashing her to the ground. Hal's throat tightened with a cold terror that dwarfed his earlier fear. Then the sword turned back toward him. It was not interested in killing Erixitl of Maztica.
Desperately Hal pulled the little bottle from the pack. I hope this does more than make me invisible. Popping the cork, he threw back the bottle and gulped its entire contents in one swallow. In the next instant, he raised his sword and parried another slashing blow.
Once again the swirling wind raced through the camp. Spray blinded Hal, and he braced himself for the crushing force that had twice knocked him over. Closing his eyes against the stinging needles of water and dirt, he leaned into the wind and struggled to keep his balance.
But the wind did not swirl so forcefully this time, at least, not against his whole body. He felt it pounding his belly and his legs, then just his legs. He opened his eyes as the spray fell into mist and the wind jerked, annoyingly but not dangerously, at his calves.
He looked down at the fire, down at Erix, saw the starlit horizon stretching for miles around the grotto… around the grotto! Even the twenty-foot high walls that had concealed their camp now looked like a trench around him. I'm a giant! he suddenly realized. For a moment, he reeled with vertigo, so dizzying was the sensation.
But his feet had grown proportionately, and his balance remained steady. He crouched lightly, dropping into the trenchlike grotto, every bit as nimble as he had ever been.
Halloran saw the silver sword slash in for another attack, and he kicked the irritating thing away. Slowly he grasped the significance of the potion: It had increased him to a height of perhaps thirty feet. His weapons and clothing had grown right along with him!
Erix sat, awestruck, gaping up at him. The invisible stalker whirled in again, and Hal raised one huge foot, stepping down hard on the struggling form. His massive weight pressed the thing into the water.
A froth of bubbles exploded around his giant foot, but he could feel the substance of the monster still wriggling beneath the pressing weight. For several minutes, he stood still, and slowly the struggles faded. Finally bubbles burst from the water all around his foot, as if a great air sack had burst.
Feeling nothing resisting him now, he reached down and plucked Helmstooth from the bottom of the stream. Holding the sword like a toothpick, he looked around for any sign of the attacker, but once again the night was silent.
Erix stammered something unintelligible, and once again he looked at her horrorstruck face.
"Don't worry," he soothed, his voice like the rumbling of thunder. "It won't last long."
At least, that's what he hoped.
"Up here, inside the mountain," explained Luskag, barely breaking a sweat. "That's where we'll find the Sunstone."
Poshtli gasped an inarticulate reply. The combination of the steep climb and the high altitude made it virtually impossible for him to move, much less speak. Nevertheless, he followed the desert dwarf in their slow, steady
ascent.
Clad only in sandals and loincloths, they made the grueling climb under the blazing light of the morning sun. The climb was not treacherous, just a steady, long uphill grind in an atmosphere that offered precious little air to breathe.
The mountain spread across a vast area of desert, rising from a tumult of lesser peaks to dominate the skyline in all directions. Dirty white snowfields, streaked with mud from melting, adorned the heights of the cone-shaped peak, and finally the climbers neared this region.
"The mountain was born at the time of the Rockfire," explained Luskag when they both paused to catch their breath.
"You've talked about that before," noted Poshtli, between gasps. "What's the Rockfire?"
Luskag looked at him in surprise. "I thought surely the tale was known to all. The Rockfire marks the birth of the desert dwarves, but the death of all of our kindred dwarves."
Poshtli looked at him in puzzlement, and Luskag continued. "The time was many generations ago, by dwarven reckoning — that means even more, measured in human generations — though no one knows exactly. The dwarves were locked in conflict with their archenemies, the drow elves… the dark elves.
"It was a conflict that wracked the far corners of the world, for the underearth at that time was linked by tunnels and caverns, such that a dwarf could cross under the great ocean, past the vast snow realms of the north and south, anywhere he wanted, without poking his head above the earth.
"And this region was the domain of many peoples — dwarves and dark elves, of course, but also the deep gnomes, the mind flayers, and many others. But none were as evil, as calculating, as the drow.
"The drow maintained a magical focus, deep under the earth, that they called the Darkfyre. Into this, they fed the bodies of their slain enemies, and the Darkfyre grew in power. Finally it overwhelmed those who fed it and grew of its own will into a great force, of cataclysmic destruction — the Rockfire.
"It consumed the world of the underground, destroying most of it. Mountains such as this were born in the fire, while whole cities and nations of the underdark were demolished." Luskag paused, and Poshtli sensed the pain of the tale, a pain that appeared as fresh as if the disaster had occurred only yesterday.
"The dwarven race was annihilated, except for a few small tribes, such as my ancestors. And even they found that life underground was no longer possible, for the hallowed caverns of antiquity, those that survived the fire, became caldrons of poison gas or pools of hot, molten rock. So the dwarves came to the surface, and now we live our lives in shallow caves, very near the baking heat of the sun. Now we dwarves, here in the House of Tezca, are the last survivors of a proud and noble race.
"But one good thing, too, came from the Rockfire. That was the complete destruction of the drow. At least now we live in peace, unthreatened by their evil machinations."
Poshtli lowered his eyes in respect for his companion's pain. He wondered at the power that could destroy a whole people, a whole nation. The dry wind swirled around him, and he felt a sudden chill.
Luskag's pride was evident as he raised his bald head and looked across the House of Tezca. The barren, hot desert became muted with distance, when viewed from this lofty vantage. The reds and browns and yellows flowed together in soft shades. The harsh and jagged skyline became a thing of beauty — distant, aloof, and unassailable.
"And the Sunstone… that, too, was born of the Rock-fire?" asked Poshtli, with a glance toward the summit.
Luskag nodded and climbed to his feet. "And we'd best get moving if you would consult the stone today. The sun will be high in the sky shortly, and we must reach the top before then."
Poshtli grunted acquiescence and stood stiffly. They had climbed most of the way up the mountain, but the last bit was the steepest, strewn with loose rock and dirty patches of snow. His mind became a haze of fatigue. Sweat dripped into his eyes, blurring his vision. They had brought no water. Luskag had informed him that the body and soul must be bared by the climb. One who sought the insight of the Sunstone must be pure and show his devotion by such abstinence.
Finally they crested the summit, and Poshtli saw that they stood upon the rim of a vast volcanic caldera. Through his fatigue, he looked down into the yawning crater and gasped with amazement at the sight of the Sunstone. His body tingled, his mind came sharply alert. This is a place of the gods! he realized in awe.
A great disk of silver lay flat in the crater, like a lake of molten metal. The inside of the caldera was dry and lifeless, a baked surface of black rock. But the disk, nearly the size of the great plaza of Nexal, seemed to gleam with a life of its own.
Poshtli could not have torn his eyes away even if he had wanted to. He squatted on his haunches, spellbound. He sensed Luskag sitting beside him, also facing the inside of the mountain.
Slowly, majestically, the sun crested the opposite side of the crater. Higher it climbed, warming them with its heat, but never did their eyes waver from the silver disk. Poshtli saw the metal begin to move, starting to swirl slowly in a great circle.
Faster and faster the metal whirled, and more magnificent, more enthralling grew the spell. The Eagle Warrior and the desert dwarf did not move, did not twitch a muscle or blink.
Finally the sun reached high across the mountain. Its light struck the disk in a scorching reflection, pouring brilliance in its concentrated beams.
Poshtli felt the force wash over him, almost knocking him backward. Grimly he fixed his gaze against the glare, feeling his body grow warm, then hot. His vision had suddenly become a white nothingness, but then a hole opened in the vast blank. In the very center of his vision, the hole grew, until he could see through it, into a region of clear blue sky. He looked through the hole in his vision and saw buzzards circling, wheeling downward, away from him.
Poshtli forgot his pain, forgot the heat. He dove with the buzzards, which had now become eagles. Soaring, he remembered sensations of flight, but never had they created such joy.
With sudden, sickening abruptness, he flew with the eagles over a vast black wasteland. Through the ashes, he could see the outlines of canals, a tumbled mound that might have been a pyramid, the swamps that outlined what once had been lakes.
Nexal! He cried for the city, his voice a harsh wail. This was truly Nexal that stood below him, but a Nexal of death and disaster. There were no people here, but strange, frightening things wandered among the muck and ruin: creatures of grotesque appearance, malformed shapes, and bestial, hateful eyes.
Poshtli still looked through the hole in his vision, though now he tried to look away — but he could not. He thought the sight would drive him mad. Despair threatened to burst his heart.
Then he saw, before him, a woman of indescribable beauty. She stood among the blackened ruins, and the darkness fell back from her. Where it recoiled, the city did not reappear, but at least the land emerged, green and whole again.
Poshtli's avian form reeled under the brutal assault of the vision. He twisted and squirmed in the air as if he would escape the horror below it, but it seemed that everywhere he turned he faced new scenes of devastation.
Then he saw jungle below him, broken by patches of savannah. The sun appeared in his vision, rising directly above an overgrown pyramid. Poshtli's vision fell toward the pyramid, and here he saw a strange sight, a beautiful woman, fighting desperately for her life. He saw a pack of coyotes snapping at her legs.
Beside her stood one he recognized as a white man from across the sea. He, too, fought the coyotes. Poshtli saw that the attackers were small, shaggy creatures of several colors — pale yellow, brown, and black.
The next thing he knew was Luskag's hand on his shoulder, shaking him. He sat up and blinked, unable to remove the glaring yellow spot from his vision — the spot where the hole had been. Dimly he realized that it was night.
"Come," said Luskag. Poshtli saw that the dwarf, too, blinked often. "Were the gods kind to you?"
"They were," Poshtli said softly. "I know now
what to do."
Kardann, the assessor, reported to Cordell at noon. The captain-general kept the bookkeeper waiting outside the grand house while he dressed. Kardann fidgeted nervously on a stone bench in the courtyard, taking little note of his surroundings in the spacious palace that had once been Caxal's.
The house was huge, with an enclosed garden and bathing pool. Beyond this open area, whitewashed walls enclosed the high, airy rooms of the huge flat-roofed building. While most of the buildings in Ulatos seemed to be of wood or thatch, this one was made of stone.
Cordell soon emerged from his apartments to meet the Council of Six's representative.
"Of course, I worked under execrable conditions," began Kardann. "It's not like weighing nice minted coins. My estimate includes an error factor of plus or minus ten percent."
His apology out of the way, Kardann beamed. "My preliminary assessment, however, yields the pleasant sum of one million, one hundred thousand pieces of gold, once forging and minting have been accomplished. The gold seems to be of genuinely high purity, though my assumptions have been cautious there as well."
Cordell whistled softly. "That is splendid news, sir. Simply splendid!"
Kardann lowered his head modestly and then cleared his throat, looking hesitantly back at the captain-general. "May I ask, Your Excellency, whether you now plan to embark for home?"
Cordell looked at the man in astonishment. "Of course not. We have barely scratched the surface of this land!"
"Begging the general's pardon," wheezed Kardann, "but some of the men have been talking about the distances, and our small numbers. Surely it would be wise to return to Amn for additional provisions and reinforcements?"
And perhaps another assessor, you filthy coward? Cordell looked at the man with barely concealed scorn. "You had best set aside any thoughts of returning to Amn, my good bookkeeper." His voice took on its customary edge of firmness, the tone of a captain's captain. "Double-check your figures. And strive for a little more accuracy this time, if you please."
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