"And now it is up to you to prevent it."

Halloran relaxed easily in the sun-drenched yard outside Lotil's house, the wound in his ribs almost fully healed. Below, he could see the slow recovery of Palul as villagers demolished blackened buildings and cleaned away the debris of disaster.

Up on the mountainside, he felt a growing unease about his detachment from the brutal scene in the valley. The lack of activity had begun to grate on him, especially during hours like these when Erixitl labored down in Palul with her neighbors.

He wondered about the legion's fate in Nexal. Word of Cordell's entrance into the city had returned to Palul several days earlier, but no further news had followed.

A woman moved through a field where the Nexalans and Kultakans had clashed. She selected the ears of a mayz that had survived, loading them into a basket on her hip. Men wove new roofs of thatch over some of the lesser-damaged buildings.

Behind him, Lotil hummed in the house. Hal pictured him at his featherloom, dextrously tucking bits of plumage into a mesh of fine cotton, creating pictures of brilliance and splendor. Blind though he was, the old man somehow observed the labor of his craft with keen precision. Apparently he could feel the difference between feathers of different hues.

In the past days, he had seen, from his vantage on the ridge, the pastoral strength of these people. The pyramid stood in disuse. The priests had all been slain in the battle, and without clerical exhortations to faith, people had turned to more pressing concerns.

Hal shuddered as he thought of the dark side of this culture, at the placid resolution with which the folk accepted the bloody hunger of their gods. But he knew of Qotal, too. He knew that these people had not always practiced their gory rituals. Perhaps the day would come when they would no longer do so.

And in his reflections, the hours passed. He saw the graves outside of Palul, and he pictured the legion encamped in Nexal. Amid the wonder and the horror, what catastrophe might ensue? Whatever the fate, he felt that the culture around him deserved better than to be plundered for its gold.

Erixitl returned at sunset. Hal noticed her extreme agitation as soon as she came around the bend in the trail below the house.

"What is it?" He ran to meet her.

"They've taken Naltecona captive!" she gasped, breathless from a hurried climb.

"The legion? Where?"

"In Nexal, the sacred plaza. It was true, what we heard about Naltecona giving Cordell the palace of Axalt. Now Cordell has brought the counselor to the palace and holds him among the legion!" They moved into the house, and Erix looked wildly, in panic, from her husband to her father.

"Why are you so frightened, child?" asked Lotil.

"The shadows! As soon as I heard the news, everything became dark! I could barely see to climb the hill, as if it were the middle of a cloudy night." She took a deep breath, trying to calm down.

"I had a dream, Father, the first time I saw this spreading darkness. It was the night the macaw led us to water in the desert," she told them. The words poured forth, and the men could sense her relief as she unburdened herself of the tale.

"I saw the end of the True World in this dream. It began beneath the glow of a full moon, in Nexal. Naltecona was slain by the strangers – atop a building I didn't know then, but I recognized it when we reached the city. It is Axalt's palace!"

"But surely the warriors have attacked," declared Halloran. "The city must be torn by battle!"

"It sounds very strange" Erixitl admitted. "But there is no fighting. Slaves take food to the legion every day, and Naltecona himself appears – from the palace, from the roof – to discuss his contentment. He claims that he is there of his own free will."

"Perhaps he is," said Hal skeptically.

"Even if he is, the danger is still terrible. And in my dream, his death was only the beginning. The devastation that followed spread like nightfall, as if the world itself was destroyed!"

"If you see this, then it can come to pass," said Lotil, "for you are one whom the favor of Qotal has granted special knowledge."

"What do you mean?" asked Erixitl.

Lotil smiled. "Look at your cloak, the one from the featherworker in Nexal. What do you note about it?"

Erix removed the garment and spread it on her lap. Halloran, too, leaned over to look at it closely. "It's even more beautiful than I remembered," she said. She ran her fingers along the brilliant plumage, tracing strands of red, green, white, and blue. Each color formed a long, narrow plume, which overlaid others of the same and different colors.

The whole cloak, unfolded, covered a fan-shaped area some five feet long by an equal width at its full extent. It was several inches thick, with a light, airy mass that nonetheless seemed well-padded.

But Erix was busy following the strands of color together, toward the apex of the cape. Each quill joined its neighbors into a single plume, and these plumes merged again higher up on the cloak. At the top, she noticed as she carefully ran her fingers along the cloak, all of the feathers merged into one strong, supple stem.

"It's a single, giant feather!" she said, astonished. "But from what?"

"What indeed?" asked Lotil, his face creaking into an amused grin.

"What do you mean?" interrupted Hal. "So it's a single feather. So what?"

"The Cloak of One Plume is the gift of Qotal himself, the second harbinger of his return. I have known since you returned to me," said Lotil softly.

"His gift, like the return of the couatl, is his mark upon you. You are his chosen one. Keep this cloak safe, my dearest. There will be a time when it shall give you the blessing of Qotal."

"But chosen for what?" Erix snapped, frightened. "What do you mean? Why do I have this cloak? Just to see disaster before us?"

"Perhaps it has been given that you can do something to avoid that disaster," suggested Lotil quietly.

"But what? How can I?"

"Maybe we can do something!" Hal pressed his fists against his forehead, seeing Erixitl's agony, her absolute conviction that she had foreseen catastrophe. He thought for a moment, seeking some sort of a plan, and then spoke impulsively.

"You said that, under the glow of a full moon, Naltecona was killed by the legion atop the palace of Axalt. Well, what if he never goes to the roof? What if he's out of the palace altogether?"

Halloran quickly warmed to his topic, yet he needed to convince himself that his idea was not mere madness. "Perhaps we can rescue Naltecona, and get him to safety. If we can find Poshtli and get his help, we just might have a chance."

"But how? Break into the palace, through the legion's guards?" Erixitl's initial look of hope fell as she considered the obstacles.

"Didn't Poshtli tell us something about secret passages in those palaces? Remember, when we first got to Nexal. Maybe he knows where some of them are!"

Erixitl wondered at the thought, surprised as Lotil spoke. "Go to the door, daughter, Tell me where the moon is now."

"It's low in the east."

"Some time past sunset, correct? I feel the evening chill."

"Yes."

"Well, then," said the featherworker, turning his wrinkled face from Erixitl to Halloran and back again. "It would seem that you have about three days until it is full."

The priests dragged the Kultakan warrior forward, and Shatil saw that the victim was merely a strapping youth, too inexperienced to avoid capture by the retreating Nexalans at Palul. The sun touched the horizon as the scarred, gaunt clerics stretched him across the altar. Shatil's knife fell once, and then he raised the youth's heart to the great warrior statue of Zaltec.