"And we are to play the games."
Eleanon laughed. "Of course! We shall be the ones to deliver Elcho Falling, and Maximilian, and Axis and all the cursed Icarii to the One, earning for ourselves, in the doing, a home and a future."
Inardle stayed for a long time after Eleanon had left, staring out over the ocean, wondering where she could go from here.
There didn't seem a single safe place left for her.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Serpent's Nest
Is everyone out?" Maximilian asked Axis as they stood in the inner courtyard.
"Yes, the last horseman left an hour ago."
"Everyone has taken possessions? Everything they need?"
"Yes, but we could not take much in the way of stores."
"No matter. Elcho Falling will provide."
Axis shifted on his feet. He held the reins of his horse, and his unease communicated itself to the stallion, which began to toss its head and pull on the reins.
"Armat is not far distant," Axis said. "Perhaps six hours. Eight at the most. Maximilian, we are vulnerable outside the mountain. We--"
"Cannot stay inside it, Axis. Where are the mounted men positioned?"
"About a mile back down the road."
"The Icarii, the Strike Force, and the Lealfast?"
"On the ground, slightly to the north of the mounted men. Maxel, they do not like to be kept to the ground. I would like at least a few scouts in the air with Armat this close."
"The air will be too dangerous for them. They stay on the ground. Make sure they understand this, Axis."
Axis nodded. "Georgdi is moving in with his twenty thousand, Maxel. The last I heard he was an hour away."
Maximilian smiled. "Then he will be here for the entertainment. Twenty thousand, eh? The man is a miracle."
Axis let his shoulders loosen a little. Maximilian was obviously relaxed--in fact, this was the most unconcerned Axis thought he'd ever seen him.
"How do you feel?" Axis asked. "The rise of Elcho Falling was something you tried to deny for a long time, and it will be a terrible burden, yet you seem so..."
"At peace with myself, Axis, finally. When I first realized that I would be the one to raise Elcho Falling...it was a bleak moment. I did not think I could manage it, or be able to wear the crown without failing."
"But now?"
"But now...now with Josia's aid I have virtually rebuilt the Twisted Tower, and together with Ishbel--"
"Ishbel? Maxel, you know you can't--"
"Axis, listen to me. I will do what I need to in order to ensure the survival of Elcho Falling and of the land. You can advise me, but in the end it is I who will wear the crown of Elcho Falling, and you will need to abide by my decisions." He gave a small smile to take some of the sting out of his tone and words. "I spent seventeen years crawling about in the blackness, Axis. I have learned some devious means to achieve the end I want."
Axis regarded him a long moment, then he finally gave a nod. "Have you told Ishbel what Isaiah has said?"
"No, and I ask that you don't, either. Ever since she was first named as my bride, she has had, at various times, the entire world set against her. She needs what friends and friendship she can, Axis. I don't want her to know Isaiah's words. Not just yet. She deserves a little peace herself. Don't upset it for her."
That was a clear warning, Axis thought, and some of his unease returned. What was Maximilian planning to do?
"We cannot spend the day chatting," Maximilian said, his smile widening just a little, "however pleasant that may be. Ride out to my army, Axis, and station yourself at its head. Ishbel and I will be with you within the hour."
He opened the door to the Reading Room and walked inside. Ishbel was standing in its center, and she gave him a small smile as he entered.
She looked lovely, dressed in a gown of soft, clinging fabric that shimmered turquoise and ivory and silver. Her hair had been loosely dressed with a web of pearls and diamonds wound through its waves.
Maximilian walked over, took her hand, and kissed it. "I asked you to dress as a queen," he said softly, "and you have given me instead the moon and stars."
She laughed. "All this courtly speak, Maxel! Is this what I must listen to henceforth?"
"I can assure you, my lady," Maximilian said very softly, his eyes holding hers, "that I will find much better uses for my mouth later tonight."
She flushed, and he grinned and let her hand go. "Are we ready to raise Elcho Falling, my lady?"
"Aye," she said. "Shall I start the cleansing?"
He nodded, and Ishbel looked about, taking a deep breath. "It seems so strange, this mountain so empty of everything but you and me. I can feel its sadness, and yet..."
"You can feel it waiting."
She nodded, then bent down and picked up a bundle of dried sage-bush twigs. "Wait by the door," she said, and Maximilian moved out of her way.
Ishbel lit one end of the bundle of twigs. Once it was smoking well, she began a slow, complex dance that started in the center of the Reading Room and gradually wound its way through the entire space. As she danced--very slow, very elegant--she moved the bundle of smoking twigs out at arm's length, raised it up to shoulder height, then slowly downward in an arc until she almost swept the floor with its burning embers, and then up again.
Maximilian leaned against the door frame, watching her. Ishbel was unwinding the memory and influence of the Coil from the mountain, and when she was done here, she would do the same dance at the main doors that led into the mountain, and then again at the front gates in order to remove the memory and presence of anyone who had entered the mountain since the last time a Lord of Elcho Falling had set foot within.
Maximilian thought he could stand here and watch Ishbel forever. She was so absorbed in what she did that she looked as if she had entirely forgotten his presence.
You have a somewhat unexpected offer of a bride, Vorstus had said to him so long ago, but there is a complication. She is offered to you by the Coil within Serpent's Nest.
Ishbel was now dancing in the far quadrant of the room, the smoke drifting up from the smoldering twigs to writhe about the domed ceiling. Now and again she scraped the burning ends of the twigs against both floor and wall, leaving curious scorch marks where they had trailed.
The Lady Ishbel is not as virtuous as you had hoped, Maxel, Garth had said to him.
She will bring you nothing but sorrow, Maxel, Ravenna had said.
And, so recently, both Isaiah and Axis warning him against her.
What is it, Maximilian thought, watching Ishbel as she drew closer to him, that makes people fear you so?
He was going to start something today that might well see the destruction of his world. And, once started, he could not walk away from it. It would be a stormy path indeed for the next year, but Maximilian hoped that he and Ishbel would weather it.
If not...
He was her only ally, Maximilian realized. He needed to be her rock, or else she could not endure what awaited them.
Ishbel came to a halt in front of him. Her eyes were downcast to the bundle of twigs she held in her hand, and for a moment she stayed entirely still.
Then with her free hand she plucked one twig from the bundle and cast it into the center of the Reading Room.
Instantly the walls and floor began to smolder.
Maximilian straightened hastily as the door frame grew warm.
"We need to leave, Maxel," Ishbel said.
Ishbel repeated the same dance by the main doors and then by the front gates. At the doors, as she finished her dance, she tossed in a single smoldering twig, and instantly all the corridors and passages leading back into the mountain began to burn.
As she finished the dance at the front gates, Ishbel tossed the remaining bundle of twigs forward and high into the air, throwing them through the gates so that they scattered far and wide as they fell.
Smoke and tongues of flame began to rise and flicker from every
crevice in the mountain.
"Come build me a bed for our marriage tonight," Ishbel said, looking at Maximilian with such directness and intensity that he would, at her word, have utterly abandoned any attempt to raise Elcho Falling to take her there in the dust before the burning mountain.
"The flames are reflected in your eyes," he said.
"As they are in yours."
"Do you have the crown and the goblet?"
"Do you doubt me? Come, my lord, build me a chamber for our marriage."
He gave a small smile, and held out his hand, and together they walked down the road, the burning mountain at their backs, to where Axis and Maximilian's army waited.
Far distant, many hours' ride away, Ravenna pulled her horse to a halt and stared at the mountain on the horizon.
Smoke was rising from its peak and, as she looked, flickering lights, flames, began to work their way up the rocky face of the mountain toward its peak.
"What is happening?" she asked Lister as he reined in his horse beside hers.
"It is beginning," he said. "Maximilian is raising Elcho Falling."
CHAPTER TWELVE
Elcho Falling
Axis sat his horse, staring beyond Maximilian and Ishbel to the mountain. It was burning as fiercely as if it had been made of wood.
"What a wonderful beacon for Armat."
Axis glanced to his left to where Georgdi sat his horse. He'd arrived at the head of his twenty thousand only half an hour before, just as the first wisps of smoke had started to appear about Serpent's Nest. He looked tired, but otherwise well, and his eyes gleamed mischievously. He said he'd seen the smoke from Armat's campfires the previous night and had marched through the night himself to ensure he got here in time.
There had been barely enough time to get Georgdi's men into position, and to tell him what news there was, before Maximilian and Ishbel had started on their way down the road.
Axis glanced about him to make sure that everyone else was in position. Maximilian had asked that Axis, Inardle, StarDrifter, Georgdi, Egalion, and Ezekiel all be positioned at the front of the ranks.
"What's he going to do?" said Georgdi as Maximilian and Ishbel drew close.
"I have no idea at all," Axis said, his eyes fixed on Maximilian's and Ishbel's conjoined hands.
Maximilian saw Georgdi sitting just behind Axis, and gave him a nod. Words could come later. He and Ishbel came to a halt some ten paces before Axis, who was at the head of the group of commanders.
Behind the commanders ranged Maximilian's army: Escatorians, Isembaardians, Icarii, and Lealfast, all standing in ordered rank and slightly distanced each from the other.
"Ishbel," Maximilian murmured, and she nodded, stepping away from him to one side.
"Axis," Maximilian said, walking closer to him. "Your sword, if you will."
Axis unsheathed it and handed it to Maximilian hilt first. Maximilian nodded his thanks, walked back ten paces to where he had originally halted, looked briefly at the burning mountain, then used the sword to draw three intersecting circles, large enough that he could stand in their center without touching any of the circles. He dug them deep into the ground, so that each circle became almost a mini-trench half a finger deep.
Then he walked back up the road three or four paces, and drew a straight, deep line back down to the intersecting circles.
"Your sword," he said, handing it back to Axis, who took and sheathed it wordlessly.
Maximilian walked toward Ishbel.
"My lady," he said softly.
Ishbel took a deep breath.
"First," she said, "a gift from the past that we may together weld a future."
Axis frowned at her phraseology, and hoped it was merely metaphorical.
Ishbel went down on one knee on the dusty road as she spoke, holding out her cupped hands.
Axis gasped, as did everyone else who could see.
As Ishbel bowed her head before Maximilian, the Goblet of the Frogs had appeared within her cupped hands.
"I had a vision of presenting you this goblet, my lord," Ishbel murmured, only for Maximilian's ears, "that night we first lay together."
He took the goblet from her, running his fingers over her hands as he did so, then held it up so that it caught the flickering light of the flames.
It flashed emerald and amber, and the frogs about its sides capered and leaped.
"It is an object of great magic," Maximilian said, then turned back to the waiting commanders.
He went to StarDrifter first. "Talon," he said, "may I have a feather from your wing?"
StarDrifter's eyes widened a little, but he gave a nod. "You may have a feather from my wing, my lord,"
he said.
Maxel reached out one hand and ran his fingers gently over the curve of one of StarDrifter's folded wings. When he withdrew it, he held a white and gold feather between two of his fingers.
Maximilian dropped it into the goblet, resting his hand over the mouth of the goblet for a moment, head bowed.
Then he moved to Ezekiel, sitting his horse just to one side of StarDrifter. "General," Maximilian said, "I
see you wear a chain-mail tunic made of the finest rings of steel. May I have one of those rings?"
Ezekiel bowed his head. "Of course, my lord," and Maximilian reached out and ran his fingers over the skirt of the tunic as it lay over Ezekiel's thigh, and, as he withdrew the hand, a steel ring glinted between two of his fingers.
Maximilian dropped that into the goblet as well, resting his hand atop it a moment as he concentrated, then moved on.
From Egalion, Maximilian took a thread of his emerald tunic, and from Georgdi, a hair from his horse's mane. Each of these went, in turn, into the Goblet of the Frogs.
Then Maximilian came to where Inardle sat her horse, to Axis' right.
"I want nothing from you, Inardle," Maximilian said, "save your passion."
And with that he ran his fingers lightly down the wrist of Inardle's left hand where it rested on her leg, and then over the back of her hand and down her fingers.
She drew in a sharp breath, and frost rose where Maximilian had run his fingers.
Maximilian sent Axis an amused glance, then scooped up the frost on the tip of a finger and flicked it into the goblet.
"Thank you, my lady," Maximilian murmured to the now somewhat flushed Inardle once he had pressed his hand over the mouth of the goblet.
Then he turned to Axis. "From you, StarMan," he said, "I require something a little different. A snatch of Song, if you please. Something that relates specifically to the Star Dance."
Axis frowned, then a fragment of music filled the air. Maxel raised a hand, sweeping it through the air between them, clenching the music in his fist, and depositing it into the goblet.
"What was that song, Axis?" he asked.
"The Song of the Star Gate," Axis said. "We would sing it to teach Icarii children the wonders of the Star Gate and of the Star Dance which filtered through the gate."
"Thank you," Maximilian said, then turned away before a clearly perplexed Axis could ask anything of him.
He walked back to the three intertwined circles and stood in their center, placing the goblet carefully in front of his feet. He raised his head and looked for a long moment at the burning mountain rearing high above them, then turned his head and addressed the assembled mass behind him. His voice was low, but very clear, and it carried to every last soldier or birdman and woman.
"What happens next," Maximilian said, "may appear to be catastrophic, but it will not harm you. Nothing that happens will harm you. Be still, and assured. Ishbel," he said, now looking to where she stood to one side and in front of him, "the crown of Elcho Falling, if you please."
She took a deep breath, then crossed her hands over her chest, bowing her head and closing her eyes.
When she lifted her head, and lifted her hands outward, they held a great writhing mass of darkness.
The crown of Elcho Falling, the t
hree entwined bands of gold almost utterly hidden.
Maximilian reached out his hands, hesitated, then gripped the crown.
Instantly, cracks fissured up the mountain from its base, allowing great gouts of smoke and flame to spurt into the air.
"Stars!" Axis muttered, wishing that Maximilian had asked him to position the army even further back.
He looked at those around him. Most people were staring at the mountain, their faces reflecting varying degrees of concern or fear.
Axis looked back to Maximilian.
Maximilian now held the crown before him, just in front of his face. He took a deep breath, then blew, and all the darkness about the crown was carried away, dissipating into the air as it went.
Now Maximilian held the crown in all its glorious simplicity. He raised it above his head...then let it drop.
The movement was so unexpected that Axis jumped. He expected the crown to hit Maximilian's head and bounce off into the dust, but instead it fell onto the top of Maximilian's head...then appeared to expand so that it slid down over his head, then expanded more to slide over his shoulders, then down his body, his legs, and expanded just enough that it fell into the three circles of intertwined trenches at his feet, filling them completely.
Now Maximilian stood in the center of three entwined circles of gold. He reached down for the goblet, lifted it up to chest height, and tipped it over the straight line that connected to the gold circles.
Emerald water poured forth, then fizzled into the dirt trench.
For a moment, nothing, then something in the distance made Axis look up, and he gave a cry of fear, echoing the cries about him.
Behind the burning mountain, the Infinity Sea had risen in a towering wave, higher even than the mountain, and was crashing down toward them with a roar that became deafening as it neared.
Behind him, Axis heard men and horses panic.
Before him, he saw Maximilian put an arm about Ishbel as she stepped into the circle.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Elcho Falling
The next instant Axis felt himself enveloped in a great wash of water. He felt as if he were tumbling over and over, and as if huge boulders--the remnants of Serpent's Nest--tumbled beside him, and yet he was also aware that he was not actually moving. He could feel his horse tight and tense beneath him, panicked but too terrified to move, and if he turned his head he could see the water so far above his head that the light was only a tiny emerald circle far above, and he could feel the mass of rock and debris grinding through the water...and yet...
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