This had been his vision of Nexal. The darkness, the monsters, the destruction. He saw the doom of the great city, and from his serene avian detachment, he realized that the city had not been destroyed by the war waged between men.
The city died because the gods tore it apart.
The cocoon of pluma carried Hal and Erix inexorably over the dying city, settling slowly toward the earth. They saw a block of houses below them topple forward, falling into a widening canal to sink from sight in black, boiling water. A huge crevasse opened in another area, emitting a steaming column of hot gas. Dozens died before they could escape the explosive effect.
To all the death and destruction below them, the pair in their magical globe remained strangely detached. Perhaps it was because the real extent of the suffering would have driven them mad had they even begun to comprehend the true magnitude of the disaster.
They drifted like a bubble on a light breeze, falling gently toward the dark, choppy surface of a lake. A teeming crowd swarmed below them, people clamoring for safety, trapped between the brackish, marshy waters and the dying city. They saw the horrifying approach of a bestial army, the monsters of the Viperhand.
Halloran clung to Erix, wondering what would happen when their cocoon of protection struck the water. Would they sink? Would the water boil around them?
But as the Cloak of One Plume touched the tops of the waves, the water suddenly ceased its thrashing. Hal and Erix settled onto a solid surface, rough and uneven but unquestionably firm.
"Ice!" Hal exclaimed as the cloak collapsed around them. "The lake's frozen solid!"
Erixitl looked at him with that same dazed expression. "The coming of Summer Ice," she whispered. "The third sign of the return of Qotal."
At the shore, pressed by the horde, the humans started out onto the ice. Many slipped on the treacherous footing. Each one who stood helped another next to him, and slowly, lurchingly, the refugees started across the lake. Legionnaires helped Nexalans, the old helped the young, and in a slow, creeping mass, thousands of people started across to safety.
Erixitl turned to the heavens, suddenly looking at the ruinous convulsions. "The return of Qotal?" she demanded of the skies. "This is the sign? The destruction of a city – the deaths of thousands of people? What kind of a god are you to torture us so?"
The rain ceased suddenly, and they saw people struggling across the lake, with howling, snapping monsters close behind them. Screams of panic and despair arose from the mass of miserable humanity as they desperately strived to reach safety.
"I ask you, Qotal," Erixitl shouted, still looking up, "what is your purpose? Is this how you prepare for your return?"
Her rage blistered the air, and Hal stared at her in awe.
"Hear me, Plumed One! We do not need – we do not want your return! You have forsaken us too long. Now stay away forever!"
Suddenly Erix started to weep and would have fallen if Hal hadn't caught her.
The monsters lunged onto the ice after the fleeing survivors. Mistrustful of the slick surface, they slipped and fell. Ores growled and snapped, while the heavier ogres felt the ice cracking underfoot and hastily retreated. Snarling, the beasts watched the humans flee the ruins of their city. They followed too slowly to catch them.
The distance between the pursued and the pursuers lengthened, until finally the humans reached the far snore. There they streamed away from the valley, to seek shelter in the mountains, the forests, or even the desert.
Behind them, the ice began to break apart. Many ores fell through and were drowned in the lake. Those who fell in shallows scrambled back to the shore of the ruined city. There they stood, waving fists at their escaping quarry. Finally they turned and disappeared into the smoking ruins around them.
A pale gray dawn illuminated the miserable masses huddled along the fringe of the valley. No human lived, any longer, in the city. Those who had not escaped had died in the convulsions, or beneath the talons and fangs of the ravenous beasts of the Viperhand.
Rivers of lava still spilled down the slopes of Zatal, sending hissing columns of steam exploding upward when they contacted the lake waters. The steamy clouds of mist spread like a gray fog, masking visibility, covering despair.
"Perhaps it's a blessing, the clouds and the haze," said Erix quietly. She and Hal sat beneath a withered cedar tree, not far from the lake. "They cannot see what they leave behind."
Halloran looked at the people, thousands of them, slowly trudging away from the lake, upward and out of the doomed valley of Nexal. A few ragged bands of legionnaires stumbled among them, but no one showed any heart for further battle.
"Where will they go? Where is there to go?" he wondered aloud. He knew from their own travels that parched desert lay to the south and west, and yet this direction had been the only escape from the city.
"I don't know. Into the House of Tezca, perhaps, to starve or die of thirst." Even the contemplation of this inevitable tragedy, it seemed, could bring Erix no further pain, so shattered was her heart and spirit.
"What about Poshtli?" Hal asked hesitantly. "He must have died on the mountain."
"No!" she replied, somehow finding strength in her voice. "That I cannot believe!"
Halloran looked at her in wonder, and then sighed. He wouldn't argue with her, but quietly and privately he grieved for his friend.
"Erixitl? You are Erixitl of Palul?" The soft voice behind them pulled their attention swiftly around. They rose to their feet in alarm at the sight of the tall Jaguar Knight who stood there.
"What do you want?" Hal demanded harshly.
"Forgive me," replied the warrior, speaking calmly through the open jaws of his helmet. "I am Gultec."
"I remember you," said Erix. Once this knight had helped place her across a sacrificial altar, but strangely now she felt no fear. "What is it?"
"We must gather these people and lead them," said the knight. "They will listen to you. And I know where there is food and water in the desert. Come with me, and I will show you the path to safety."
They looked at him in surprise for a moment. He waited patiently. Finally he turned, and Halloran and Erixitl started after Gultec as the Jaguar Knight headed toward the rim of the valley.
EPILOGUE
Deep below the bowels of the seething volcano, the surviving Ancient Ones waited out the storm. And while they waited, tormented by hatred and rage, they planned their vengeance – a vengeance that would wrack the world for long ages, until the last of them had outlived their shame and their failure.
The conclave no longer consisted of the sleek, handsome figures of the dark elves. Instead, those who lived now turned in revulsion from each other, but everywhere they looked, their eyes were confronted by the inescapable repulsiveness of their new appearance.
The driders huddled in misery, terrified of the trembling mountain but still mighty, still full of rage. Now the spidery forms began to move, creeping from the tunnels of lava and smoke and ash toward the smoldering surface of the world above. Each of them walked upon eight fur-covered legs. A bloated, heavy abdomen suspended from the torso of each, and only the upper body bore a superficial resemblance to the elves they once had been.
One of these, the one that led the way back to the world, had a spider body of purest white, like a bleached insect that had never known the light of the sun.