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will serve You. Aid us now against Your enemy!"
The green and blue lightning crackled and it
seemed to Ronin that Ek's desperate cry was
successful for surely now the skull's attack grew
fiercer and he grew stronger with each new thrust
of his blurred blade so that Ronin was forced back
along the stone step. Back and back under the
murderous assault, dizzying him, impossible to
stop. The skull loomed out of the mother of pearl
night, the rapier on a deadly trajectory that
nothing could stop.
A calling, distant, sparked in his mind as the
rapier came on, a comforting sound like the gentle
chatter of a great rainfall and he felt a trembling
in the core of his being. Inside him, red and yellow
lightning-like bolts of thought, currents of energy
multiplying through him in geometric progression.
He attempted no parry.
The rapier rushed at his heart.
But merely, dreamlike, lifting his long sword
obliquely, higher, higher still, until, with a
harmonious sigh like the profoundest of musical
chords, echoing away and away into the infinitude
of the heavens, it reached the proper angle.
The blade seemed to ripple in pleasure as the
first rays of the leading edge of the rising red sun
shot along its length, running like molten metal.
Ronin felt the vibrations of energy and his entire
being seemed to expand with strength.
The long beautiful blade swam with pink and an
intense bolt of light exploded from its tip, an
extension of the solar engine filling the eastern
horizon, lancing out along the line of the blade,
striking the skull at the juncture of his throat.
"Oh!"
Such a small, pathetic sound, coming from the
lips of a god, lost now on the rising wind from the
east. The mask ballooned out grotesquely,
shattered like a glass goblet, and Xib's acephalous
body went heavily down the immense steps of the
structure, tumbling, tumbling, in a swirl of scarlet
and gray.
While Ronin, alight with power, vaulted to the
eighth level, rolling, hurtling upward again to
stand, at last, on the ninth step, the summit of the
Sacred Pyramid of Tzcatlipoca.
Ek towered before him, his ebon robes filmy and
ethereal,
70 Eric ~ Lustbader
billowing about his lean body. He threw a crescent
of flat stone at Ronin and it struck his sword so
that it spun from his grasp, clanging against the
stones of the pyramid's summit.
But Ronin, lunging to his right, scooped up the
huge brass brazier, burning brightly, lifting it from
its base and flinging it in a hail of blue flame and
red coals into Ek's face.
With a peculiar dry popping, the face fired.
Ronin ran for his sword, sheathed it, and
turning, beheld not the burning form of Ek but
something else.
The body swayed as if, weightless, it was caught
in the wind's gusting crosscurrents.
Ronin stared.
From the blackened, smoking pit between the
wide shoulders, there came a gnashing as of huge
jaws working convulsively. A weird, unhuman cry
billowed out into night's swift close and the very
air about the tall form wavered and shuddered so
that, for an instant, Ronin could not clearly see
what was occurring.
The air cleared. And Ek was gone.
Reunited, the four brothers from the Old Time
had become the one: Xaman Balam, the Hand of
dark Tzcatlipoca, forger of the Sundering,
instigator of the rewritten Book of Balam,
minister of the night.
Born in the west, where ever there was
darkness, his robes were a black so deep that they
absorbed light and his huge head, which crowned
his wide, powerful shoulders, was the atavistic
visage of the Chacmool, icon of his Master: red,
ebon-spotted, pointed yellow fangs bristling from
his avenging muzzle, his round yellow and black
eyes fierce, unblinking.
And Ronin, with the groundswell of energy still
coursing within him, yet knew that he could not
hope to do battle with this nightmare god and
emerge victorious. The power which confronted
him now was awesome, his body shaking with the
pulsing of its emanations.
For here stood death and now life was beyond
all imagining.
Xaman Balam's great animal jaws hinged open
and sound emerged that no mortal was ever
meant to hear. It tore at his eardrums like flint
knives.
Thus the last great god of Xich Chih spoke and
Ronin shuddered, weak before the first
intimations of a power beyond understanding and,
as Xaman Balam strode toward
DAI-SAN 71
him he drew his sword, preparing to fight, looking
inward, setting his soul for death's dark journey.
And Xaman Balam came on, his arms jerking
upward, the talons at the tips of his fingers curling
into the palms. Ronin gripped his useless sword
more tightly, tensing his muscles for one last
impotent blow, raising the blade.
But the god had halted and it took Ronin
several moments to realize that the god had
abandoned his attack and was, in fact, in the act of
supplication.
Ronin turned to face the rising sun.
-It was the brightest of lights, coming from the
east, as if a piece of the sun itself had broken
away. Writhing in the air, it bloomed as it
approached with incredible velocity.
Rippling.
And Ronin saw now that it was a great serpent,
covered in enormous feathers of every color in
existence. It headed directly for the summit of the
sacred Pyramid of Tzcatlipoca. Xaman Balam
stood immobile as if mortally stricken.
And from just below them, Ronin heard a voice:
"Oh Xaman Balam, here is our end! Atsbilan's
return has brought his Father back, just as the
Long Count foretold!" It was Kin Coba her face
filled with awe and pain, pale and beautiful and
hideous.
"Kukulkan is come again to Xich Chih! We are
destroyed!"
The great serpent's head, so like the broken
stone carvings surmounting the lintels of the small
temple with its headless statue, lowered above
Xaman Balam, the enormous body in constant
motion. The fluttering of its plumes were like a
whirlwind.
And now its rippling coils lowered and wrapped
the dark god in Heir feathered embrace,
squeezing, squeezing, until the huge, fierce jaws
gnashed and the Chacmool head arched back in
agony and me feet were lifted from the cool stone
of its beloved pyramid.
Xaman Balam cried out, a piercing howl that
rent me skies.
Still KukuLkan drew his coils ever tighter above
me terrifying figure.
Then Kukulkan spoke:
"Sheatme your sword, my son."
Ronin obeyed and, at the same instant he lifted
forth his Makkon gauntlet, his hand outstretched,
palm upward, as if in friendship.
72 Eric ~ Lustbader
It filled with ruby light, building, building,
until the color was so deep that he could not
look into its depth.
Only then did the light leap from his
extended finger tips, splashing like acid into the
round eyes of the Chacmoolheaded god.
Heatflash.
Awator
BLUE White. Blue. Gray-white, mottled. A
rushing in his ears; cool air against his body; a
balm to his aches and lacerations.
Weightless.
His eyes closing in weariness. Mind floating.
His hands gripped the soft, trembling plumes.
A vast fluttering. Fans of Tencho, so far away. A
great rippling.
His eyes opened by force of will. Day. Because
it was still light. Time enough to sleep when
darkness falls.
He stretched, peering downward. A break in
the cloud layer, marble parting. Far, far below
him the flat sea arced away from him, following
the curvature of the world. The hot sun's reflected
light, chopped up into pin points of dazzling
whiteness, dancing along its surface, caused him [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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