How much do I remember? he mused, over and over. Finally he flipped the book open to its first page.
A searing flash burned his eyes, and he slammed the cover shut, blinking. Yet within the brief instant of that flash, he had recognized symbols, words of arcane power.
Carefully he opened the book again. This time the flash was not so bright. He forced his eyes to remain fixed on the page and was elated as he identified the enchantment.
A sleep spell! This was one he had once known.
Could he learn it again? Carefully he scrutinized the symbols. Some of them became clear to him, but others seemed to waver on the page, just beyond the reach of his understanding. His head began to throb, but still he studied.
Finally it was sheer fatigue, and not magic, that caused his head to drop back and his eyes to close.
Halloran dreamed of Arquiuius. The old wizard counseled him on his magic missile spell, cuffing his ears when he mispronounced a syllable or let his attention wander. In the dream, he studied the spell and attempted it dozens of times, always failing in one crucial aspect or another.
Then suddenly he got it right, firing the enchantment off in a sparkling trail. He leaped up, thrilled with the success, but his tutor passed it off with a gruff "That is acceptable." Immediately Arquiuius gave him another task, the learning of the light spell. He labored over the new incantation, trying to cast it again and again, but he could not capture the rhythms of the enchantment.
Arquiuius left him and went to sleep. Still the youthful Halloran practiced, and still he failed. Tears of frustration rolled down his cheeks, but no one offered sympathy. Again he studied, his eyes straining under weak candlelight to read figures that seemed to slip elusively across the page.
Over and over and over he tried the spell, and each time his task grew more difficult. But always he went back to it, and now, finally, he felt that he was getting close. He was almost there!
He shouted a word, something from his distant past, and suddenly sat upright in fright. Instantly the inside of the grotto blossomed with cool, white light, harshly gleaming against the dark night above.
Did I do that? was Hal's first thought. Then he heard the howling.
"If the white men want the gold of this house, let them come and take it themselves! Now leave me!" Gultec growled at the plump nobleman, a nephew of Caxal's. The little fellow squealed in terror and fled down the street as the Jaguar Knight angrily slammed the gate.
For some time, Gultec brooded in the garden before the House of Jaguars. Several of the younger warriors crouched listlessly in their chambers, while others wandered aimlessly among the flowers and ponds. Most of the rooms were empty now, their former occupants lying on the field beyond the city.
Why was I spared? Why, when so many young knights, so many fathers and brothers, so many with so much to live for, perished? Why was I, who have nothing, spared?
Gultec pulled his flint dagger from his belt and cut long slashes in his forearms. He watched the blood drip to the ground, but his act of penance brought no healing to his spirit.
He stood and stretched, catlike, looking at the House of Jaguars wistfully. This elegant mansion, home for members of his order who had no wives, no families, had sheltered him for more years than he cared to remember. Always it had been a symbol of the invincible might, the unassailable pride of his order.
Now that might had been broken on the field of battle. The pride lay in shambles across the treasure-littered plaza of Ulatos, where the nobles of the city hastened to do the bidding of their new masters.
Once again came the banging at the gate, and this time Gultec recognized the voice of the Revered Counselor.
"Open up, Gultec!" groaned Caxal. "I've got to talk to you!"
Angrily the warrior threw open the portal. He looked with scorn at his chieftain as Caxal stumbled inside. The man's expression was tearful, his position cowed.
"Gultec, you must give up the gold in the house! The foreigners demand it! You have much gold; you will make them very happy. They feed on the yellow metal and need it to live!"
"Let them come and take it, then. Let me die a warrior's death facing them!"
Caxal looked at the Jaguar Knight with compassion. "This I would tell them, but they will not come after you only. They will raze the city if we do not yield our gold!"
Gultec wanted to shout at him, even to attack him. Some part of the Jaguar's pride desperately needed to blame the counselor. If only Gultec could have deployed the army in the forest, as he had desired.
But in his heart, Gultec knew that his own tactic, while it might have saved more warriors, would not have held the strangers out of Ulatos. Ulatos had been doomed, and it was Caxal's destiny to preside over the first city of Maztica to fall to the invaders. For the first time, he felt a measure of pity for this pathetic chief.
"They will come tomorrow to search the houses," urged Caxal. "Think of the children, Gultec!"
The Jaguar Knight tried to think of the children. He tried to think about anything, but all he saw was a black void. His life was behind him. He had failed at his destiny. Now there was nothing.
"My house is your house," he said softly. He walked away from Caxal, seeking the darkest corner of the garden. Here he squatted and faced the wall as the gold from the House of Jaguars was taken to the plaza.
Gultec watched the young Jaguars meander dejectedly from the house. One by one, they carried golden ornaments up the street to the House of the captain-general, as Caxal's palace was now called. They went to answer their new lord's command.
None of them spoke. Never had Gultec imagined a scene of such tragedy, such utter humiliation. Every Jaguar stood ready to accept death upon the battlefield or honorable capture and sacrifice upon an enemy's altar.
But the warriors now entered the palace and did not emerge. They remained there, prisoners of the invader, Cordell. The captain-general had loudly proclaimed that sacrifice was now forbidden, and none knew why he gathered the warriors to himself.
Gultec could not make himself rise. He sat in the garden until night fell, and then waited throughout the long hours of darkness for the soldiers to come and take him. When he resisted, they would kill him.
Inside the warrior, a great, caged feline paced angrily back and forth, growling and snarling at the confining bars. But outwardly Gultec showed no expression, moved no muscle for the many hours of night. The pacing became a restless obsession, though still with no outward display.
And with the passing of hours, he knew that even his enemies had forgotten him. His destiny had been destroyed on the battlefield, crushed by the might of his enemy. Now that enemy would not even grant him the dignity of a warrior's death.
His life finished, Gultec rose and left the garden under the rosy glow of dawn. He did not turn toward the palace. Instead, he went south, out of the city and through the cleared fringe of fields. At full daylight, he reached the jungle's edge.
Now a great spotted cat sprang into the middle branches of the trees, above the choking growth along the ground. Supple muscles rippled under the smooth pelt, and bright yellow eyes probed the greenery for the sight of game. The great cat was hungry.
And Gultec was free.
Footprints marched steadily down the beach, appearing one after another to mark the track of the invisible stalker. Helmstooth, Halloran's silver longsword, swung about three feet above the ground, just as if a human warrior held the weapon at the ready. Like the needle of a compass, it swung tentatively for a bit, then quickly steadied in the direction of its quarry.
The stalker possessed inhuman patience and tenacity. It could only be drawn to a physical world such as this one by the command of a powerful wizard. The stalker was compelled by the summoning spell to perform the task assigned, and so it searched for the man named Halloran. Not until it found him and completed the command would it be free of the wizard's will.