by Sara Douglas
One of them nodded at the table, which was covered at one end with the detritus of Lister's earlier meal.
"We've come for the leavings, Lord Lister," the Skraeling said, his voice more hissed whisper than spoken word.
"Take them," said Lister. "Did the kitchen hand out the scraps to your comrades earlier?"
"Yes," said another of the Skraelings. "Thank you. Lard and blood. Tasty."
"Tasty, tasty," whispered the other two.
Lister nodded at the table, and the three Skraelings crept forward, gathering plates into their awkward hands, licking each one clean as they picked them up. Then, silver orbs glancing at Lister, they crept back through the door, closing it behind them.
"Damned creatures," Lister muttered. He loathed them, but for the moment it was better to be their friend than their enemy.
Like his ally, Water, who stood watch over the ancient evil far to the south, Lister stood watch over the tens of thousands of Skraelings who gathered in the frozen hills about Crowhurst. He knew that Kanubai whispered to them from deep within his abyss, and that Kanubai was the Skraelings' only true lord. But Lister had wormed his serpentine way into the Skraelings' affections by feeding them scraps and leavings in order that he might live beside them, and watch their every move.
They were loathsome companions, but for the moment Lister must make do.
And at least they were not his only companions. Another footfall sounded at the door, and Lister looked up, smiling in genuine warmth as the winged woman entered.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Royal Palace, Ruen, Escator
Maximilian lay in bed alone, wide awake, staring at the ceiling.
StarWeb had left an hour or more ago.
Since he'd returned from the gloam mines, Maximilian had taken a variety of lovers. He had spent his youth and early manhood trapped in the mines, and once free he did not hesitate to enjoy the comfort and excitement of a woman in his bed.
But they never stayed the night.
One of Maximilian's first lovers had been an accommodating lady of court. She was a sweet woman, and had taken it upon herself to teach Maximilian the skills that by rights he should have learned many years earlier. She had slept through the night at his side one time only (and that many months into their relationship), and in the morning had turned to him and said:
I think that the darkness is your true lover, Maximilian. I think you brought it with you out of the Veins.
Perhaps you should wive the darkness, and not any flesh-and-blood woman.
That had stung Maximilian badly, and he'd never invited her back into his bedroom.
Now he lay on the bed, twisting the Persimius ring on his left hand over and over, thinking not so much about Ishbel, but about his parents. His father and mother had loved each other dearly, and their marriage had been strong.
But they had had separate bedrooms, and Maximilian suspected that his mother spent only a handful of entire nights with his father, and those, perhaps, only at the very beginning of their marriage.
Generally, she had preferred to sleep elsewhere than at her beloved husband's side.
Maximilian's lover had been wrong. It was not the Veins that had imbued Maximilian with his darkness,
but something far older, and deeply embedded within the Persimius blood.
Maximilian sighed, finally admitting he could not sleep. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He looked at his desk for a long time, then rose and walked over, lighting a lamp and scattering the documents regarding Ishbel Brunelle across the desktop with his fingers.
He paused as the folded map slid into view.
"By the gods, Vorstus," Maximilian muttered, "my life would be so much simpler without you."
Then he picked up the map and unfolded it.
At first glance the map was innocuous, showing the Central Kingdoms and the Outlands. Maximilian traced a finger over the Outlands, looking for Serpent's Nest. He knew it was a mountain, and had supposed it was one of the summits within the Sky Peaks, which ran down the western border of the Outlands.
He frowned as his initial scan of the map failed to reveal Ishbel's home.
Then, increasingly irritated, he looked farther afield, and finally spotted Serpent's Nest on the very eastern seaboard of the Outlands.
Maximilian dropped the map and stepped back from the desk, staring at the desktop as if it contained the most vile of monsters.
Serpent's Nest was what he knew as the Mountain at the Edge of the World.
It took Maximilian some minutes to bring his breathing back under control and to still his racing thoughts.
A coincidence, nothing more, surely. The Mountain at the Edge of the World must have been abandoned for thousands of years, it was not so strange that some others may have taken occasion to inhabit it.
But to be inhabited by an order devoted to a serpent god?
Maxel? said the Persimius ring. Maxel? What is the matter?
"Nothing," Maximilian said automatically, still staring at the desk.
Is it about Ishbel? said the ring.
"No," Maximilian responded, but wondered what it meant that this bride was coming to him from within the Mountain at the Edge of the World, now associated with a serpent.
No, no, surely not...
Maximilian turned on his heel and walked to one side of his bedchamber, which was clear of furniture.
He stood, looking at the floor, then he leaned down.
As his hand approached the floorboards, a trapdoor materialized. Maximilian hesitated, then grabbed the iron pull ring and hauled the door open.
The Persimius Chamber lay directly under Maximilian's bedchamber. He rarely came here: several times when he was a boy and his father had been inducting him into the mysteries of the Persimius family; once,
six months after he'd been restored to the throne and he'd felt he needed to check to ensure that all was still safe after seventeen years (Vorstus had told him Cavor had not been informed about the chamber);
and once about a year ago, when some marriage negotiations had looked as though they might actually mature into fruition, and Maximilian had come to look at the mate to the ring he wore on his left hand that any wife of his would wear.
No one else ever came here. Only the king, his heir, and the abbot of the Order of Persimius knew of its existence.
The Persimius Chamber was oval in shape and relatively small. It contained two chest-high marble columns, each at opposing ends of the oval. Each column held a cushion, and each cushion cradled an object.
Maximilian walked first to the column at the western end of the oval chamber. It held an emerald and ruby ring, worn by the wives of the Persimius king.
My lover, said Maximilian's ring, and Maximilian sighed, part in irritation and part in resignation, and,
taking off his ring, laid it beside the emerald and ruby ring so they could chat for a while.
The Whispering Rings they were called, but only someone of Persimius blood could ever hear them,
which Maximilian supposed was a good thing, as he knew his own cursed ring tended to mutter the most uncomplimentary things at the worst of moments.
What it had murmured about StarWeb tonight, just as Maximilian and StarWeb's lovemaking peaked,
had very nearly distracted Maximilian completely.
He looked at the rings, tuning out their whispering as he thought.
Ishbel came to him from the Mountain at the Edge of the World now called Serpent's Nest. What did that mean? Coincidence? Or something deeper? Darker?
Maximilian knew the ancient legend of Kanubai, and he knew also, from his father's teachings, that Light often assumed the shape of the serpent, just as Water sometimes assumed the shape of the frog. He hadn't immediately connected the name of Serpent's Nest with Light, simply because then he had not realized that Serpent's Nest was the ancient Mountain at the Edge of the World.
The ancient home of the Lord of Elcho Falling, who ha
d once allied himself with Light and Water in the battle to imprison Kanubai.
Finally, unable to ignore it any longer, Maximilian turned and looked at the other column.
Its velvet cushion held an object so ancient, and so cursed, that Maximilian felt slightly ill even looking at it.
It was the crown, simply made of three thick entwined golden bands, of a kingdom and a responsibility so ancient that its name had been forgotten by all living people, and which had never been recorded in any history book.
Living darkness writhed among the golden bands.
Very slowly, every step hesitant, Maximilian walked over to it. He had never touched it, and hoped he never had to. His father had never touched it, nor his father before him.
If ever Maximilian had to lift that crown to his head, then it meant that the end of the world had risen, and was walking the land.
To Maximilian's profound relief, the crown looked just as it had every other time Maximilian had studied it. The darkness (that same darkness which writhed through the Persimius blood) lived, yes, but it did not seem aware, or awake. It merely waited, as it had been waiting for thousands of years.
Maximilian allowed himself a sigh of relief, his shoulders finally relaxing.
Perhaps Ishbel's connection with the Mountain at the Edge of the World and its current association with a serpent was coincidence merely. He should not worry.
But he should, perhaps, be highly careful.
Maximilian turned his back on the crown, and collected his ring, preparatory to leaving the chamber.
But just before he climbed back into his bedchamber, Maximilian turned and looked once more at the dark crown. He frowned, something stirring in his mind.
Cavor had never been inducted into the mystery of this chamber.
Why not? Everyone had believed Maximilian dead, so why hadn't Cavor been inducted into this mystery?
Maximilian stood there a long time, the rings silent, before he turned abruptly on his heel and left the chamber.
And the crown of Elcho Falling.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Serpent's Nest, and the Palace at Ruen
Ishbel sat in her bare chamber, staring unseeing at her hands clasped in her lap.
Tomorrow she was to leave for Margalit. The early negotiations with Maximilian had been successful. He was willing to consider the offer of the "ward" of the Coil--Ishbel's mouth curled slightly in a smile--as a wife. She'd entertained doubts that Maximilian would even come this far, but he had, and so now she must leave.
Maximilian was sending a deputation to Margalit to meet with Ishbel and to hash out more detailed negotiations. The negotiations could still break down--Ishbel could almost smell the wariness in Maximilian's initial interest--but they could just as easily progress further, and Ishbel needed to ready herself to commit to marriage.
Ishbel had indeed largely resigned herself to marriage with Maximilian. She still had no idea why the Great Serpent thought such a union would help avert the threatening disaster, but she would do as he (and as this curious frog god) wished. Ishbel had spent the last few weeks discovering all she could about her potential husband, but that was little enough. There had been more details about his harrowing seventeen years spent as a prisoner in the gloam mines, some interesting tales about how he'd been released and how he had defeated Cavor in battle, but very little information about the man himself.
Ishbel discovered that Maximilian was respected across the Central Kingdoms, that he had a good relationship with the kings of Pelemere and Kyros, and that his small kingdom of Escator was, indeed,
crippled by debt. Ishbel had decided that Maximilian was likely harmless enough, and that his worst fault (apart from some as-yet-undiscovered socially embarrassing habit) was likely to be a mild dreariness engendered by his long imprisonment.
He certainly had done nothing to set the world afire since his restoration to the throne of Escator.
Ishbel had also steeled herself to accept the sexual intimacy of the marriage. She would endure, if that was what the Great Serpent needed of her.
Additionally, she would endure the necessity of deferring to her husband. She, the archpriestess of the Coil, who had hitherto bowed only before gods.
What Ishbel feared most was the actual leaving of Serpent's Nest. It had been her only home, her entire world, for most of her life. The mountain was her safety and her comfort, and it shielded her from the horror of the world beyond.
For an instant a memory resurfaced of her mother's whispering corpse, and Ishbel jerked a little, fighting to keep it at bay.
She was not looking forward at all to her journey to Margalit. Ishbel would be traveling only with a company of guardsmen from Margalit itself. No one from the Coil would be accompanying her. Ishbel understood the necessity for this. She needed to distance herself from them and become the Lady Ishbel Brunelle rather than the archpriestess of the Coil, and Ishbel could not do that if any of the Coil or their servants traveled with her.
There came a knock at her door, and Aziel entered. He came over to Ishbel and sat down beside her on the bed. Wordlessly he picked up her hand, kissed it, then kissed the side of her forehead.
"You will come back," he said softly, and Ishbel blinked away her tears, and nodded.
She would return.
Since the night he'd looked at the map, Maximilian had either avoided Vorstus, or had avoided speaking to him alone. Maximilian simply did not want to give Vorstus the satisfaction of a reaction.
It irritated Maximilian that Vorstus had not simply come to him and said, "Maxel, an offer of a bride comes out of the Mountain at the Edge of the World. A woman associated with a serpent god, no less.
What do you think about that, then?"
Instead, Vorstus had decided to play games.
It took Vorstus eight days before he knocked one evening at the door to Maximilian's bedchamber as Maximilian was preparing for evening court.
Maximilian waved away the servants, then indicated Vorstus should take a chair. "What can I do for you,
Vorstus? You are normally cloistered in your library at this time of night."
"What did you think of Serpent's Nest, Maxel?"
Maximilian tugged at the cuffs of his linen shirt, making sure they sat comfortably under his heavy velvet overjacket. "I'd wondered why you did not come to me directly, Vorstus, instead of cloaking this offer in mystery. You know more than you are saying. What?"
"All I know is what I have told you. No one was more shocked than I when I saw that Serpent's Nest is what was anciently called the Mountain at the Edge of the World."
Maximilian shot him a deeply cynical look. As abbot of the Order of Persimius, Vorstus was privy to almost all of its secrets.
"All I know is what I have told you," Vorstus repeated quietly.
"How coincidental that the Mountain at the Edge of the World is now dedicated to a serpent god."
"Perhaps just a coincidence."
Maximilian stopped fiddling with his attire and looked at Vorstus directly. "Is Elcho Falling stirring,
Vorstus?"
"I don't know, Maxel."
"I am sick of hearing your `I don't knows'!"
"I--"
"Listen to me, Vorstus. I know that you were instrumental in aiding my escape from the Veins, and for that you know I am grateful. But I am not going to spend my life mired in debt to you, nor am I going to put up with you stepping coyly about something that has the power to destroy this entire world. Gods!
Have I not had enough darkness in my life? Or do the gods demand something else from me besides losing seventeen years, seventeen years, Vorstus, to those damned, damned gloam mines? Have I not suffered enough?"
"If Elcho Falling is waking, Maximilian Persimius, then you must do what needs to be done."
The patronizing idiot, Maximilian thought. "Ah, get out of here, Vorstus."
Maximilian waited until Vorstus had his hand on the door handle before speaking again.
/> "One more thing, Vorstus. You know of the Persimius Chamber?"
Vorstus gave a wary nod.
"You know what it contains?"
Another wary nod.
"But you never took Cavor there. You never inducted him into the deeper mysteries of the Persimius throne."
Vorstus now gave a very reluctant single shake of his head, and Maximilian could see that his hand had grown white-knuckled about the door handle.
"I was standing in the Persimius Chamber the other night, Vorstus, and a strange unsettling thought occurred to me. Here you are, Abbot of the Order of Persimius, and the only one apart from the king and his heir who knows what truly underpins the Persimius throne. But for seventeen years, when everyone save Cavor thought me dead, you never once took the opportunity of inducting Cavor into the mysteries? Should you not have done that? I can perhaps understand you waiting a year or so, hoping for a miracle, but seventeen?"
"I always had faith that you--"
"You knew, for those entire seventeen years, Vorstus, that I was alive. That is the only reason you did not induct Cavor into the mysteries. You knew I was coming back."
"I--"
"Get out, Vorstus. Get out!"
When the door had closed behind him, Maximilian walked to a mirror and stood before it, seeing not a reflection of himself, but of the bleakness that had consumed him within the Veins.
"You knew where I was," Maximilian whispered, "and you left me there for seventeen years."
Much later that night, still unsettled and unable to turn his mind away from Elcho Falling, Maximilian sat in his darkened bedchamber, rested his head against the high back of the chair, and closed his eyes.
As he had visited the Persimius Chamber on a previous night, so now Maximilian visited another of the mysteries his father had taught him.
The Twisted Tower.
The crown of Elcho Falling carried with it many responsibilities, many duties, and a great depth of dark,
writhing mystery. Each king of Escator, and his heir, had to learn it all in case they one day had to assume once more the crown of Elcho Falling.
