"Certainly not. That is a fool's task – at least, a task for fools other than myself." The members chuckled politely. They come closer, Cordell chortled inwardly.

"I ask you, Council of Amn, to fund me on an ocean voyage to Kara-Tur! I intend to sail to the west to reach the East!"

Two council members snorted in amusement, one shook his head, and three others remained immobile. Cordell turned to these unmoving ones and pressed on.

"Astrologers and sages have long said such a voyage is possible. Provide me with a dozen sturdy ships, provisions, and trading goods. My ships will carry the pick of the legion. With the support of your offices, I could take to sea in six months, before the first snows."

"But where… how would you sail?" The deep-voiced merchant prince, the one who had greeted Cordell upon his entrance, seemed intrigued.

"West. Actually, slightly south by west. Our Bishou has consulted Helm, patron god of the legion. Also we have sought the advice of the greatest sages on the coast, have conferred with wizards from Waterdeep to Calimport!

"The auguries are splendid. One strident symbol rides above all, in every vision. With each word from our god, the Bishou sees this promise. It dominates the seeking spells of the wizards, provides the theme underlying the speculations of the sages.

"It is an image so strong that we cannot but believe it lies before us on this quest.

"That image, good council members, is gold."

I have them.

"It is settled, then." The old cleric looked approvingly past Huakal to the prize of the past few hours of haggling. Erixitl stood motionless before his gaze, frightened and mystified by the proceedings.

In the months since her struggle with Callatl, little had changed in Erix's life. The young man had slowly recovered, though his voice had been permanently garbled by the girl's blow to his throat. Even worse, Erix's blow to his groin had destroyed his ability to father children. But throughout his son's long and agonized recovery, Huakal had been curiously distant… until this morning.

Then he had summoned her to meet this man, this white-robed cleric of Qotal. Huakal and Kachin, the cleric, spoke at some length in the language of the Payit. She understood little of the conversation between the two men, but she had noticed the cleric paying close attention to her. Now they switched tongues to Kultakan.

"A chest of cocoa, ten mantles, and two quills of gold dust, then. The girl is yours." Huakal nodded with finality.

Erix's heart sank. She had been sold! Then she thought a moment about the fee that had just been detailed. A man could buy a dozen able-bodied workers for that price!

Huakal turned to Erix, his voice firm. "This is Kachin. He is your new owner. He will be taking you to Payit." She looked at him with her proud, wide eyes, disturbing him. She has never acted like a slave! Huakal thought. She doesn't know what it is to be a slave! But those eyes…

The Kultakan noble walked brusquely past the girl, and she wondered if she saw tears in his eyes.

For a moment, she felt a sincere impulse to embrace him, to thank him or comfort him or say farewell. But even more quickly a sense of panic and foreboding flooded her, and she silently cursed Huakal for sending her away.

True, many nobles would have had her sacrificed without a second thought after such a fight as she had won. Callatl's scars would never heal. She had, in fact, expected, and prepared, to die.

But Huakal had spared her, selling her now instead for some absurd price to a cleric from the far fringes of Maztica. She knew little of Payit, other than that it was a land of jungles, swamps, poisonous serpents, and near-savage people.

The strange cleric's odd speech patterns and unusual dress also puzzled and frightened her. He wore a simple white cotton mantle, unadorned. He wore no feathers nor gold nor stones. His skin was very dark, his hair gray and long and tied in a single knot. His face, while creased with many wrinkles, was round and quick to smile. He moved his short, somewhat rotund form easily for an obviously old man.

Unlike the other clerics she had known, worshipers of Zaltec or his hungry offspring, this priest was obviously well fed. The only recognizable thing about him was the pendant of the Plumed One hanging about his neck, marking him as a cleric of Qotal. Perhaps the Feathered God did not require his devotees to fast as frequently as did those who worshiped Zaltec and the younger gods.

The faith of Qotal was not so widely spread as that of the warlike Zaltec, or the essential Calor and Tezca with their life-giving rain and sun. Still, Erix knew her father had revered Qotal, though this had been a private matter with him. Huakal, too, had maintained a shrine to the Plumed One. Huakal's son, like her own brother, had chosen to worship Zaltec instead of the gentle god of their fathers.

But Erix had learned to fear clerics, for they too often had but one use for a slave. And now she had been sold to a cleric who would take her to the distant shores of the True World, who for some mysterious purpose had paid an exorbitant sum for her.

She saw Huakal standing before her. Vaguely she noticed his eyes lingering on her token before he raised them to look at her face. As a woman of Maztica, she should have lowered her gaze then, but she did not, instead meeting her former master's gaze with her own penetrating dark eyes.

"You are a rare treasure, Erixitl." Huakal's voice came to her, seemingly from a great distance. The noble had indeed succumbed to emotion, and he made no effort to hide his tears as he spoke. "You are a child of grim destiny. My line has ended with Callatl, and now you are swept away. You shall go to Payit, and the land will not be the same for your being there.

"May the gods be kind to you."

From the Chronicle of the Waning.

May the wisdom of the Feathered One shine across the True World!

Now, just as swans take to the air, I see the strangers spread their wings and put to sea. But these creatures that glide ever closer to Maztica are more hawks than swans.

They come with powers beyond my understanding, devices and tools the likes of which I have never seen. I cannot imagine the uses of many of the things I am given the vision to observe. But most frightening of all my auguries is not the tools, nor the powers of these strangers.

It is the men themselves.

I sense – even across worlds of distance – that these men are somehow different. Their god is a fierce lord, perhaps more than the equal of the younger gods of Maztica. They are drawn by things, compelled by forces that I cannot comprehend. Visions of metal and stones move them with a power that leaves me mystified and awed.

I only know that they terrify me!