Late at night in this luxurious cabin, two figures lay in the great bed. Cordell snored deeply, while Darien lay wide awake, her pale eyes staring across the cabin, her elven senses seeing everything despite the pitch darkness.
A sense of danger gripped the elf woman, and she sat up in the bed. Something unseen warned her of attack, and she placed her feet on the floor. Her robe, with its many packets of spell components, hung beside her.
Suddenly a gust of wind rushed through the crack under the cabin door. Darien's keen vision, unnaturally sensitive to such conjured creatures as the invisible stalker, recognized the thing instantly. In the next moment, she perceived its intent.
The stalker reached out for her, a sudden gust of wind whirling in the cabin, extending invisible but powerful tendrils of air toward Darien. She sensed immediately that it wanted to kill her.
But Darien's spell was ready. She spat, her saliva flying toward the invisible attacker. " Dyss-ssymmi!" she cried, raising both hands before her face.
With a horrible sucking sound, the wind twisted into a vortex and whirled in an ever smaller cyclone in the center of the room. It writhed as it shrank and then puffed into nothingness. Her spell of dismissal, she knew, had sent it back to the plane of air.
Cordell had awakened at the sound of her spell, and now he stretched an arm around the elf woman, amazed and impressed by her calm demeanor.
"What was that?" he asked. He sat up in the bed, blinking. He had seen nothing of the attacker, though he had heard the wind.
"My stalker. It has failed to kill Halloran, thus it sought me out instead. It is a risk of the spell." Darien shrugged, the attack already forgotten except for its implications.
"And this means Halloran still lives. If he had perished from the poison, the stalker would not have come after me. It would simply have gone away."
Cordell flopped backward with a sigh. "Helm's damnation! That lad makes things very difficult."
Darien squinted in anger, an expression Cordell could not see. "Difficult, perhaps. But he will not escape!"
"What makes you so certain?"
"Where can he go? We have control of Ulatos, and through the city, we can keep tabs on the entire nation. Sooner or later, someone is bound to report him. He'll probably leave a whole wealth of stories behind everywhere he goes." Darien leaned over Cordell, gently pressing him back on the bed.
He grinned. "Come closer. I'd like to hear you scheme some more." And he pulled her down to him.
"There is no way that I can repay the kindness you have shown me. It has meant my life, and much more, to me." Poshtli bowed deeply to Luskag, blinking and finally looking to the side. The golden dot still burned before his eyes.
But the vision had been worth the price. If he could but complete the tasks before him, a city, a whole people, might be saved.
"You have been a worthy companion, Poshtli of Nexal," said Luskag sincerely. The dwarf mopped the sweat from the top of his bald head, then reached into a quiver slung at his belt.
"I would like you to take these on your journey," he said, offering Poshtli six slender arrows. The Eagle Knight took the gifts reverently, bowing deeply.
The arrows bore no marks to distinguish them, but each was perfectly straight, made from an exceptional reed. The heads were of shiny obsidian, deftly chipped from flawless rock. Tiny fluffs of feather marked the tail of each arrow, and though the feathers were small, it was here that Poshtli sensed the true strength of the gift.
The desert dwarf chieftain and a score of his dusty, suntanned warriors had gathered in the center of Sunhome to bid farewell to the stranger, one of only a handful of humans ever to have found Sunhome, according the Luskag. Many of them had come seeking the Sunstone, but only a few had departed alive.
The village itself was simply a circle of ground-level cave homes around the inside of a box canyon. A clearing in the center of the canyon floor had long ago been smoothed, and here Poshtli nodded to the others, then turned back to Luskag.
The Eagle Knight wore his full regalia, black-and-white-feathered cape and beaked helmet, with his bow and arrows, his spear, and his maca all suspended from his belt or harness.
Suddenly Poshtli whirled around in a circle. The desert dwarves scurried backward as he raised his arms, causing the feathered cape to swing in a wide circle. Then he squatted and beat his wings, falling several feet and then swooping above the ground.
The Eagle Knight enjoyed the stunned expressions on the faces of the dwarves. His wings beat steadily as his sleek form circled, climbing into the canyon above Sunhome. He cried a challenge and a farewell that echoed through the canyon long after he soared from sight. A cold mountain up-draft lifted him and carried him eastward.
Poshtli flew steadily toward the sunrise, as his vision had shown him.
Vast reaches of land passed below him, and desert slowly turned to savannah, then mountains, and finally jungle. The eagle subsisted upon the power of pluma, for Poshtli did not stop to eat nor to sleep, though the sun rose and set during his flight.
He flew on through the damp, heavy air above the jungles of Payit, and now his muscles thrummed with renewed energy. He sensed the goal of his flight in the distance. Somewhere ahead he would find the green pyramid.
Halloran and Erix pressed through the forest for a full day, gasping through hot, moist air and ignoring a surrounding swarm of biting insects. Occasionally they found a narrow trail and mounted Storm, while Corporal trotted ahead or behind. The dog panted constantly in the heat, and Hal began to wonder if the greyhound could keep up for long.
They tried to work their way inland as much as possible, avoiding human settlements. Hal felt that any pursuit by the legion would come along the shore, the only terrain suitable for horsemen over any stretch of distance. Indeed, sometimes he considered abandoning the loyal mare, but he always discarded the idea, hacking extra-hard at the ubiquitous vines to open a passage large enough for Storm.
Finally the long day came to an end, and they collapsed in exhaustion. They camped in a place indistinguishable from all the surrounding jungle, a space between two tree trunks, with the overhanging vines and drooping ferns hacked away. It was all Halloran could do to pull the saddle off Storm before collapsing on the ground. Corporal already snoozed, albeit with an occasional whimper or twitch.
They had not found fresh water all day, but Erix found several thick-stemmed plants. When cut, these yielded a precious trickle of water. After a minimal meal of beans and mayzcakes, Erix fell asleep.
Halloran once again pulled open Darien's spellbook and tried to force himself to concentrate on the pages. The words still seemed distant and indistinct. Though he had cast the magic missile spell against Alvarro, he found himself struggling and failing in his attempt to relearn it. The light spell was a little, but not much, more familiar. Finally he drifted off to sleep, with the spellbook resting across his body.
Near midnight, Corporal's whine awakened them both. The source of the dog's agitation was quickly audible, a sharp, ululating howling rose into the night and resounded through the forest like the voice of doom.