Tokol gasped and stepped suddenly backward. Cordell looked up to see Darien. The elven mage had appeared on the ridge beside them. She was completely muffled in her robe today, for the sun was very bright.
"I have seen the village," she explained. "Actually, it is more like a city by the standards of Faerun. It seems to have nearly a thousand houses in the community itself, and many more spread across the surrounding hills and valley"
"Any activity there?"
"Yes. In fact, they seem to be preparing a feast. The women were placing flowers and feathered blankets all around their square. My guess is that they are preparing to welcome us."
The news was eminently pleasing to Cordell. "Perhaps we won't have to fight a battle at every stop after all," he observed. "If they're planning a feast, let's not keep them waiting."
"No! I don't want to talk to the invaders!" Erix tried to keep her voice down, but she couldn't hide her tension.
"You have to. It's important, more important than you can imagine," argued Shatil. The two of them stood in the small yard before their father's house. Lotil was inside, working at his loom.
"You are the only one here who can understand them!" persisted her brother.
Erix avoided looking over her shoulder at the town. In her vision, it had grown darker every day, every time she looked at it. Now all she saw of the great plaza in Palul was a black void, shadows impenetrable but terribly ominous.
But when her eyes fell on the looming ridgetop behind her father's house, she saw another view she found unsettling. Not because of any dark shadows she saw there, but because of the memories of her last climb up to the top, when she had been snatched into slavery by a Jaguar Knight. In the days she had been home, she had not been able to bring herself to climb that ridge.
Shatil turned away in frustration. His sister's resistance to his suggestion surprised him. In view of her reluctance, he had decided not to tell her of the true purpose behind the feast. Not knowing how she would react, if he told her the truth, he ran the risk of causing her complete refusal.
"You have told me of the battle at Ulatos," said Shatil, trying a different approach. "Perhaps if you are there to speak with the strangers, to reason with them, such an outcome can be avoided."
"How could I do this?" she demanded. But that argument of her brother's had struck home. Perhaps there was nothing she could do — a glance at the plaza showed the darkness as thick as ever — but she was indeed the only one in Palul who had any chance of talking with the strangers.
"Come to the village in the morning," Shatil urged. "Our scouts have told us that the hairy men camp just to the east tonight. "They will reach Palul by midday — for the feast! Please, you must be there, too!"
Erixitl remembered her vision the night they found the pool in the desert. The image of Nexal in ruins came back to her now as freshly as when she awakened from the nightmare. But she had seen no indication of disaster in Palul. Perhaps her presence could in fact prove beneficial.
"All right. I will come and see if they will talk."
"You are doing the right thing," said Shatif, embracing her. "I must go back down to the temple for the evening rites. I will stay there tonight and see you when you arrive."
Shatil hastened down the mountain, and Erix watched him go. It seemed that her brother's black robe became a blur with the darkness below, and soon he disappeared from sight. Finally she recognized the shadows of sunset growing around her and turned toward the house, grateful that darkness would bring a respite from her own personal shades.
"What is wrong, my daughter?" inquired Lotil as she entered.
"I'm fearful of what will happen, tomorrow and beyond," Erix admitted. She told him of Shatil's request for the morrow.
"But, Father, you must promise me something," she continued. '"Tomorrow, do not come to the village. Stay here and wait for me to come to you in the evening."
"What's this?" objected the old man, sitting taller at his featherloom. "My daughter gives me orders?"
"Please, Father. It's very important!"
"You can see things, my daughter, can you not?" asked her father suddenly. "Tell me, Erixitl, can you see tomorrow?" He fixed his sightless eyes upon her face, and Erix felt as if he could see to the depths of her soul. She squirmed uncomfortably.
Erixitl had told her father nothing of the dark images she saw. She knew that the tale of darkness, with its suggestion of impending doom, would weigh heavily upon him as well as her. Better, she thought, to bear her load in silence.
But somehow he knew, and this knowledge was a great and sudden relief to Erix. All at once, in a torrent of words, she told him of the shadows she had seen across Nexal, and of the greater darkness that lay on the town of Palul.
"This is the working of the gods, child," Lotil said finally, holding her hands as she sat beside him. "And in this you see the balance of all things. My sight has been taken from me, but your eyes have been opened in a way that few ever know. You have been granted a window to look into the future. And through that window, perhaps you will see enough to work important changes. Your brother is right, Erixitl. It is important that you go to the town tomorrow.
"Just as my loss is not so bad a thing as you might think — I have heard bird songs I never imagined before, and it is as though my nostrils have opened to a whole world of new scents — so is your gift, in some ways, a curse.
"But you can speak to these strangers. Perhaps more important, you can understand them. This gift from the couatl can be a burden, but there is certain to be a reason it was given to you. You must not be afraid to face your destiny.
"Bear it well, Erixitl, daughter of Lotil. Bear it well and make me proud.
"And, yes," the old man concluded. "I shall do as you request and stay home tomorrow."
The Golden Legion marched into Palul in perfect order, the beat of drums setting the cadence for the marching men-at-arms. A great throng of people had gathered at the outskirts of town. The Mazticans stood at both sides of the column and watched and wondered as the strange procession passed.
Erix stood in the square, with Shatil, Zilti, and some eminent Eagle and Jaguar Knights who had arrived from Nexal to greet the strangers. She wore the bright feathered cloak from the market, and its brilliant colors complemented her dusky skin and long, black hair. The legionnaires who marched past stared, captivated by her beauty. Standing with the village luminaries, Erix didn't realize that they stared at her.
Together they greeted the legionnaires as more and more of the men entered the plaza. The square was all in natural light, and Erix felt tremendous relief that, for now at least, the shadows were absent.
The riders, all forty of them, followed the first company of footmen. They wheeled and bucked their horses, frightening, amazing, and thrilling the Mazticans with the show. The greyhounds growled and snapped, sending the watchers reeling back.
The leader of the horsemen pranced up to the group gathered around Erix, whereupon the mount did a tight, circling whirl. The black streamers on the man's helmet floated into a ring around him as a murmur of approval arose from the watching villagers.
Suddenly those streamers brought a jolt of recognition to Erix. She studied the rider and knew with a certainty that this was the same man.
Her mind flashed to the battlefield at Ulatos, with dead and dying Mazticans everywhere. The legion's riders thundered at will about the field, trampling, stabbing, slashing their way through the enemy wherever the Payit tried to stand. This one, with the black streamers, saw her and raced forward. She had stood still, expecting to die, and then Halloran had appeared to save her life.