"Why?" demanded Shatil, threatening.

"They go – they go to rescue Naltecona!" cried the slave.

Shatil lowered his hand and turned toward the door. "You have done well, slave. Zaltec is pleased to leave you with your life."

But Chantil was not listening. Weeping, she crawled to the body of her friend as the priest of Zaltec disappeared into the darkness.

Gultec learned to fly, in the bodies of hawk and parrot and hummingbird. He swam as a fish. He climbed trees in the form of the howling monkey that commanded the jungle heights of Far Payit. And still he learned from Zochimaloc, studying the ways of the past and future course of the stars.

But now, too, he began to teach. Knowing of the coming of war, he tried to train the men of Tulom-Itzi as warriors. This task he immediately found to be impossible, for these folk were raised with none of the military traditions that played so strong a role in most of the nations of the True World.

The men of Tulom-Itzi thought it foolish to dress in gaudy colors to terrify their foe, and they lacked the individual skill with the maca that would allow them to stand and face even one rank of an enemy's army.

The one weapon they had mastered was the bow, and here Gultec found that the men of Tulom-Itzi excelled. Their weapons, made from hard jungle limbs, stretched taut only under a very powerful pull. Their arrows flew swift and true, and the heads – of sharks' teeth or clamshell – were every bit as hard as, and even sharper than, tips of obudian.

So Gultec adapted his tactics of war to the warriors of Tulom-Itzi. He taught them to skulk through the jungle, to strike from a distance, to retire at the approach of the enemy. In this way, he hoped that they might survive an engagement with an army of Payits or, perhaps, Nexalans. He knew that they could never stand against the foreigners of the Golden Legion. Zochimaloc, unfortunately, could provide him no information on the type of enemy they would have to fight.

As the moon crept toward fullness, Gultec drove himself and his warriors with savage intensity. Tulom-Itzi, with its vast area sprawling through many miles of jungle and clearing, he decided, was indefensible. He formed a plan: If attackers came against the city, the people would melt into the jungle, living there and harassing the enemy.

But all the while he felt a sense of wasted effort. He grew more and more certain that Far Payit, on the distant fringe of the True World, would not be the scene of a cataclysmic war. Finally this certainty led him to decision, and he sought Zochimaloc in the observatory, under the growing light of the moon.

"Teacher," he began, speaking boldly to his wizened mentor, "you have given me knowledge of things I never imagined, provided me judgment I have never possessed. You have told me that this is because Tulom-Itzi needs me to ready your city and land for war."

Zochimaloc nodded, unsmiling. His eyes were soft.

"In using this judgment, I have decided that I must leave Far Payit, leave these lands and learn more about the nature of the threat you perceive."

Now the teacher's head bobbed in a slow, sympathetic nod.

"I will endeavor to return when I am needed, for the learning you have given me is a debt that I can only begin to repay. But until then, I must travel elsewhere to seek the future."

"Where will you go?" asked Zochimaloc finally. Gultec noticed that his teacher showed not the slightest bit of surprise.

"You have given me the powers to fly across the land. I shall go everywhere, until I find that which I need to know."

Zochimaloc smiled gently. "I have given you precious little, my proud jaguar. All I have done is to help you open doors to powers you have always possessed. But let me give you one last thing before you depart: advice."

The old man chuckled grimly. "Do not try to go everywhere, for that will lead you nowhere. Instead, know that, if you wish to save a life, you must save the heart." Zochimaloc sighed and pressed a hand to the warrior's shoulder.

"And the Heart of the True World is Nexal."

From the chronicles of Colon:

In amusement for the massive vanities of men.

And even the Ancient Ones, the drow elves who live for centuries and consider themselves as gods, even they are caught up in the disaster of their own arrogance.

They believe that the cult of the Viperhand is their tool, used to subvert the humans of Maztica to their own path. Even Zaltec, in the minds of the drow, has been reduced to a plaything and servant.

They forget their own god, Lolth; and the spider queen does not take such neglect kindly. They insult Zaltec with their disdain for his might, while all the while they feed his hunger by pouring hearts into the Darkfyre.

One day, and it will come soon, the gods will grow tired of their pompous vanity. Then they – we all – will have to pay.

"Yes, there is a chance we can do it – a slim chance, but I agree that we must try!" Poshtli grimly clapped his fist into the palm of his other hand. Erix and Halloran, visible for these past few hours, nodded in relief.

The noble warrior had been stunned to speechlessness when they had called to him, invisible, from before his throne. At first, Poshtli had bristled in superstitious fear, but when they touched him, he became convinced of their presence. In any event, the effect of the potion had dissipated shortly after they had begun to speak.

Poshtli showed no surprise at Erixitl's tale of her dreams, and the premonition about Naltecona perishing below the full moon. He agreed that the counselor should be spirited out of Axalt's palace immediately. They had less than twenty-four hours before the rising of the full moon.

"Do you speak directly with Naltecona in his quarters?" asked Halloran. "Can we get to him that way?"

Poshtli shook his head. "I see him alone, but we are always guarded. We could not effect an escape that way."

Halloran's heart fell. They had achieved one objective in reaching Poshtli, but that was only useful if they could proceed to the Revered Counselor himself. "You told us, long ago, about secret passages designed by the rulers and hidden in their palaces. Is there any way you could find these – perhaps use them to get to Naltecona?"

"That might be possible," Poshtli agreed. "It is traditional practice for the Revered Counselors to conceal escape routes in their palaces, and a route of exit could certainly be used to gain entrance as well."

"Are there others in the palace of Axalt?" asked Halloran, growing hopeful again.

"I do not know for certain, but I would suspect that they exist," Poshtli replied. "The problem will be to locate them. I will visit Naltecona's Lord Architect. He lives here in the palace. He would know about the secrets of this palace, and perhaps the palace of Axalt as well."

They heard a deep rumbling, a powerful throbbing in the air that they could feel in the pits of their stomachs. In moments, the vibration reached the ground, and for several seconds the floor trembled.

All three of them looked at each other in shock. Poshtli, the first to recover, shook his head grimly. "The volcano, Zatal, growls. Wait here, in my private chamber." Their friend ushered them into a smaller gallery leading off one side of the throne room. "I'll see if the Lord Architect can help"

Then, with a swish of the curtain, he was gone.

Shatil hurried to the temple building in the sacred plaza. The bulk of the Great Pyramid towered above him, dark now, hours after sunset. The moon, one night short of full, illuminated the vast square with its thousands of restless warriors. He entered the stone structure, descending through the doorway into the dank coolness of the temple proper. Jaguars skulked in the shadows, and the red brazier cast its glow across the statue of the warrior god Zaltec.