"She may be all right! It doesn't do any good to start turning against our own, especially when we don't know what's happened!" Cordell struggled to stay cool.

"You don't, perhaps," groaned the cleric, nearly sobbing, "but I do! Terror has struck. My daughter suffers at the hands of evil! I know this. I can feel it!"

"Perhaps we should get back aboard the ships," urged the assessor of Amn. Kardann had grown increasingly nervous as the Bishou's distress became more obvious. Now Cordell looked at him with ill-concealed scorn.

"If there is a danger, it is certain to be a threat the legion can face. If you wish, you may reembark now. My men are staying ashore."

"Yes, perhaps that would be wise," the assessor agreed, nodding, completely missing the barbed tone of the commander's voice. "I shall oversee matters on the ships!" The pudgy accountant turned toward shore, eagerly seeking a longboat to haul him out to the Falcon.

"I'll send more parties up the bluff," said Cordell. By now, scouts had discovered three broad stairways climbing the escarpment. Only the central one, the one passing between the two monstrous faces, showed signs of regular use.

"May Helm grant that we are not too late!" groaned the Bishou.

Spirali moved when darkness once again cloaked the world, but the Ancient One traveled in ways unknown to the rest of Maztica. His journey began in the Highcave, on the peak above Nexal.

He spoke a single word, and then he was in Ulatos, chief city of the Payit. The Ancient One arrived in the courtyard of Zaltec's temple, though none could see him in the darkness. Spirali's black cloak, soft, dark boots, and cloaking hood all made him a part of the night.

A single young apprentice stood beside the temple gates. Spirali sensed at once that the place was otherwise empty. The Ancient One stalked toward the apprentice, though the youth did not see him until he spoke.

"I seek Mixtal, High Priest of Ulatos."

The youth's jaw dropped, and he stepped backward in terror. He could see a dim, dark shape before him, and he heard a voice of unquestionable strength. The apprentice stammered awkwardly, struggling to speak.

"The c-coasi… they went this morning. They saw the strangers come…" *The fellow ran out of words, and only then did he notice that the dark stranger had already disappeared.

"Hey, Captain, maybe this one can tell us something!" Grabert, the ranger, still leading, turned back to Daggrande with a struggling form clasped in his brawny arms.

The dwarf saw a young woman, a black-haired, copper-skinned beauty who kicked and scratched in a vain effort to escape the ranger's grasp. The man winced once as the girl landed a sharp kick, but he simply clasped her more tightly as one of the crossbowmen seized and held her feet.

Daggrande grunted, studying the girl, or woman… he was not sure which. Her smooth-skinned face and slender form bespoke late adolescence, but something in the girl's glaring eyes, in the firm set of her mouth, made the dwarf suspect her to be an adult.

In return, Erixitl studied these strange men who had taken her, new captors now after her one brief day of freedom. All of these strangers had hair growing out of their faces. Their skin was a sickly pale color. She especially recoiled from some of their unnatural eyes, watery blue orbs that seemed more properly the eyes of fish than men.

Some of the men were very short, she noticed, though this did not make them seem any less fearsome. If anything, the bushy facial fur and gnarled limbs of these smaller strangers made them even more ferocious-looking than their human-sized comrades. She remembered tales of the Hairy Men of the Desert, who supposedly dwelt in the arid reaches south of Kultaka and Nexal. Legends said those folk were short, broad of shoulder, and bowed of leg. Such a description matched the shorter warriors among the strangers as well.

"Well, I don't think she's the one who did the killing and capturing," speculated Daggrande. "But I don't think it would be smart to let her go until we find out a little more about what's going on."

The dwarf nodded to a couple of the crossbowmen. "Tie her up and bring her along. And be quick about it! We're moving on."

Erix couldn't understand the harsh, barking speech of the strangers, but their intentions became clear enough as the hempen rope curled around her wrists. Her struggles in the arms of these burly humans were as a child wriggling in the grasp of its mother. Soon she was bound as tightly as before, though the strangers did not gag or blindfold her.

In the meantime, the swordsman at the point of the column had pushed forward several steps and now crept slowly backward.

"Captain, look at this!" he called, with a new sense of urgency.

Erix knew he had seen the pyramid and its scene of gory sacrifice.

From the chronicle of Colon:

Serving as always the resplendent glory in the memory of the Golden God.

I watch the young Lord Poshtli as he leaves the city by the south causeway. He departs Nexal alone, but this in no way diminishes the grandeur of his mission.

Poshtli carries a pair of spears, an obsidian-edged maca, his bow, a quiver of arrows, and a waterskin. He will shun the lands of Kultaka and Pezelac. Instead, he will strike out over the House of Tezca, the great desert that marks the True World's southern extent.

He still wears the mantle and helm of the Eagle Knight, but he will not make this quest by wing. Instead, he laces his high sandals tight and marches toward lands as barren as any nightmarish pestilence of the gods. His goal is the truth and nothing less – a quest that might keep a man searching for a very long time.

But Poshtli has dreamed of the Sunstone. Such a dream must provide a nicker of hope, for it shows the presence, however faint, and the will of the Plumed One. And, too, this vision was given to him by the couatl, the feathered snake who is the voice of Qotal himself.

So I will chose to believe that, perhaps, Poshtli may find his truth in the great silver wheel of the Sunstone.

Halloran watched the spearmen descend from the pyramid, attracted by the chattering of the bird near the base of the structure. The creature suddenly flew off into the jungle, and the leading warrior, the one who wore the spotted hide, gestured toward his comrades above. Two of them roughly urged Halloran down the stairs. The legionnaire staggered desperately but managed to retain his footing.

Soon he reached the bottom, and here all of the warriors and most of the priests gathered together. Hal sensed confusion and indecision. He looked around and, when he could not spot the high priest, he assumed that savage cleric remained atop the pyramid.

An abrupt cry of pain exploded from a warrior who suddenly collapsed on the ground. Several more cried out or gasped in sharp agony. In moments, a half-dozen spearmen writhed or lay still on the ground beside the pyramid.

To the natives, it appeared that these men had suffered some sudden, invisible, and hence supernatural disaster. Halloran, however, saw the short silvery shafts of crossbow bolts jutting from the flesh of the wounded men.

Immediately the captain ducked, breaking the hold of his captors. Dropping to the ground, he twisted desperately away and rolled to the side.

Another volley of steel death flashed from the brush, claiming more victims among the panicky spearmen. The bolts were small, but not invisible, and by now some of the natives understood the nature of the attack. These few raised their javelins, casting blindly at the brush or holding their weapons at the ready while they sought targets.