Axis could hear a faint murmur coming from it, as if hundreds of people waited inside. “Inardle —” he began.
“Too late, now,” she said, and walked inside.
Axis hesitated a moment, then he, too, stepped inside.
And back into nightmare.
It was almost precisely as he remembered from that long ago night.
The Chamber of the Moons was the main audience chamber of the royal palace of Carlon. It was a huge circular room with an outer rim of alabaster columns supporting a soaring domed roof enamelled in a gorgeous deep blue. Gold and silver representations of the moon in the various phases of its monthly cycle floated amid myriad bejewelled stars across the enamelled dome. The floor was an equally spectacular affair of a deep emerald-green marble shot through with veins of gold. Even here, even in this construction of ice, the colours shone pure and unadulterated.
It was a spectacular chamber.
Axis lowered his eyes from the dome to the hundreds of shadowy people lurking behind the columns. They were not real, just shapes drifting and whispering among themselves.
Then he looked to the dais. When Axis had been a young man, BattleAxe of the Seneschal, this had been the domain of King Priam, Axis’ uncle. Then, after Priam’s murder, Borneheld had taken it as his own.
Now Borneheld sat the throne in the centre of the dais again, staring at Axis.
Inardle stood slightly to one side of the dais, facing Borneheld, but for the moment Axis barely noticed her.
His entire attention was centred on Borneheld.
Who could have imagined that Eleanon’s power could have constructed such a remarkable likeness?
Borneheld grunted, lifting a leg over one arm of the throne and slouching comfortably. “Likeness? Not at all, brother. It is I in truth and actuality and flesh. Borneheld. You thought you’d killed me, but here I am again. Aren’t you glad to see me?”
Axis just stared.
“You could come back from the Otherworld, brother,” Borneheld said. “Why not I?”
He stood, then, a hulking muscular man, dark to Axis’ fairness, bulky to Axis’ leanness. They had shared a mother, but it had been their different fathers who had contributed most to each man’s being.
There was a flutter at the door and both men looked.
The eagle sat atop one of the doors and as they watched it flew high into the dome, settling on a rafter close to one wall.
There it began to preen at its feathers, disinterested in the reunion below.
“Ah,” said Borneheld, “the eagle. How I remember that.” He took a step forward, all menace and triumph. “But what use shall it be for you tonight, Axis? I have no heart left!”
Borneheld took hold of his gem-laden jerkin, ripping it apart, and Axis took a half step back in horror.
Borneheld had no chest — only an empty cavity that showed his spine and ribs.
And no heart.
Borneheld began to laugh. “I have no heart left, Axis. How do you think to murder me this time?”
Axis went cold. This was Eleanon’s trap.
Borneheld, unintentionally giving Axis time to think, had turned to Inardle. “Oh,” he said, “she’s so beautiful. Far more so than Faraday, don’t you think, Axis? Special. Magical. I am going to enjoy her . . . although I’ll need to beat the magical out of her.”
He looked back at Axis, sly and vicious. “I used to try and beat the magical out of Faraday. Did you know that Axis? It didn’t work, of course, but it kept her quiet, and that was all I needed from her. Silence. And compliance.”
Axis knew Borneheld was trying to goad him, so he ignored his brother and instead walked a little closer to Inardle, holding out his hand. “Inardle, come away with me. Don’t stay here with —”
“Don’t touch her,” Borneheld said, stepping between Inardle and Axis. “If you want her, you’ll have to fight for her.” Again that sly, vicious smile. “Just as we did half a century ago. Old times, eh?”
He laughed, and Axis gazed at Inardle.
She avoided his eyes, looking miserable and trapped.
Just as Faraday had so often looked.
“Prophecy binds her, Axis,” Borneheld said, “just as it did Faraday. Prophecy is a terrible thing to try and break.”
Now Axis stared at Borneheld, aghast. For some unknown reason what Borneheld had said struck a chord deep inside Axis, and in a blinding moment of revelation he knew how he could break the hex, what Eleanon’s trickery demanded he do, but . . . oh stars . . . oh stars . . . no wonder Eleanon thought he had Axis trapped.
And thank each and every last one of the gods he’d brought the eagle.
“Then let Prophecy work itself out once more,” Axis said, and he drew his sword with a harsh rasp of steel.
Time passed, and its passage was marked only by the ringing of steel through the Chamber of the Moons. Axis and Borneheld fought as they had fifty years earlier, evenly matched with skill and strength. Occasionally one would misstep and slip, and the other would lunge for the kill, only to have the one who had misstepped rebalance at the last moment and counter the assault. They moved about the central floor space of the Chamber of the Moons in a slow, measured dance of steel and hatred, boots sliding across the green marble, swords arcing and flashing in the light of the ice lamps, the shadowy watchers swaying to and fro as the combatants swayed to and fro, the murmur of their voices rising and falling as a distant surf in the background.
Every so often Borneheld’s jerkin would gape open, and his empty chest cavity yawned mockingly before Axis.
Hours passed, and the lamps burned low. Both men fought with weariness now. They dripped with sweat, their movements, once so lithe, now leaden and fatigued. Both had been nicked numerous times, and blood glistened jewel-like among their clothes and the droplets of sweat glistening on their faces and arms.
At no point did either man drop his eyes from the other. They had waited through death for this chance to yet again work out their resentments and hatreds. The woman and the hex were mere excuses. In reality, each hated the other so much they would willingly have fought this duel over the rights to a blade of grass.
After hours of fighting Axis could barely stand, and knew he’d have to finish this soon. He’d managed to drive Borneheld back toward the dais, where Inardle sat on its lower step, dispirited and uninterested in the battle waged before her.
Then, just before they reached the dais, the eagle, far above and still intent in its preening, discovered a particularly disarranged bundle of feathers on its chest and it attacked them in a bout of irritated housekeeping. It tore out a small, downy feather, spitting it from its beak, then bent back to the task at hand.
The feather fell softly through the air. It floated this way and that, now rising, now falling, now wafting this way, now that. But always it drifted lower and lower until it began to jerk and sway as it was caught by the laboured breathing of the combatants just below it.
It almost lodged in Axis’ hair and Axis flicked his head, irritated by the feathery touch along his forehead, distracted enough that he only just managed to parry a blow close to his chest.
The feather, dislodged from Axis’ hair, spiralled upward a hand’s-breadth or two, then, caught in a downward movement of air, sank toward the floor. Borneheld had not noticed it and Axis had forgotten it as the brothers began a particularly bitter exchange, fighting so close that they traded blows virtually on the hilts of their swords, taking the strain on their wrists, both their faces reddened and damp from effort and weariness and determination and hate.
The feather settled on the marble floor.
Axis suddenly lunged forward. Momentarily surprised, and caught slightly off-guard, Borneheld took a single step backward and . . . lost his balance as his boot heel slipped on the feather.
It was all Axis needed. As Borneheld swayed, a look of almost comical surprise on his face, Axis hooked his own foot about the inside of Borneheld’s knee and pulled his leg out fro
m under him.
Borneheld crashed to the floor, the sword slipping from his grasp and Axis kicked it across the Chamber. Fear twisting his face, Borneheld scrabbled backward, seeking space in which to rise. He risked a glance behind him —
There Faraday had once struggled, held firm in the grip of Jorge.
Now Inardle sat, not two paces away, staring at Axis as if with a horrid fascination.
They always looked at Axis before they looked at him.
Borneheld tried to shuffle away as Axis placed his booted foot squarely in the centre of Borneheld’s empty chest, raising his sword. But, instead of bringing the blade down to sever the arteries of Borneheld’s neck, Axis twisted the sword in his hand and struck Borneheld a stunning blow to his skull with its haft, leaving the man writhing weakly, semi-conscious. Then Axis threw the sword away.
Inardle looked at Axis, bewildered. Why did he not finish Borneheld off with a quick, clean blow?
Axis raised his face and stared at her, and it was the most devastating look Inardle could ever remember seeing in anyone’s face.
“I’m so sorry, Inardle,” Axis whispered, then he stepped forward, taking the knife from where it had rested all this time in his boot, and dealt her a sharp blow to the side of her head.
Inardle slumped to the floor, semi-conscious and writhing very slightly as Borneheld did a few paces away.
Axis felt sick, but he knew he had to do this, as quickly as possible, before his courage failed him. He sank to his knees, straddling Inardle, and hauling her roughly so she lay on her back under him.
She raised one hand weakly in protest but, still struggling for consciousness, let it drop back to the marble floor.
I’m sorry, Axis said to her, over and over. I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry ,,,
He ripped open her robe, exposing her breasts, then, crying out in horror, he plunged the knife into the skin and flesh atop Inardle’s sternum and hauled it downward, opening up her chest.
Blood spurted everywhere.
Oh stars, oh stars ,..
Then Axis took the haft of the knife in both hands and, before he could even think about what he was doing, slammed the blade into Inardle’s sternum, twisting it so the bone cracked in two.
Axis tossed away the knife and then, before going any further, made the mistake of looking into Inardle’s face.
It would haunt him the rest of his life. She stared at him in pain and horror, which was what he had expected, but also with the dismay of someone who has been betrayed so deeply that their minds simply cannot encompass the depth of that betrayal. She looked at him in question and pain and love and supplication, as if hoping that somehow he could explain away with a smile and a joke what he was doing.
Axis? Her lips formed the word, but could not speak it, and Axis sobbed, dragging his eyes away from hers. He looked back to the nightmarish mess of her chest, at the blood pumping forth so that his lower body, and almost her entire torso and much of her wings, were soaked in it, then he dug his fingers between the cracked sternum and with one huge effort tore her ribcage apart.
The sound of the splintering bones in the chamber was shocking, and Axis gagged, so sickened and horrified at what he was doing that he thought he could not bear to continue.
But he had to . . . he had to . . . he could not stop now.
His arms bloodied to the elbow, his shirt soaked in Inardle’s blood, Axis dug both hands into her chest and wrapped them about her frantically beating heart .
Then he tore it out, spraying blood over an area five paces in diameter.
“ Take it!“ he screamed to the eagle. ” Take the damned thing now!“
And with all his strength, Axis tossed Inardle’s beating heart high into the air.
The eagle launched itself from its perch, its scream merging with Axis’ now wordless shrieking, and plummeted downward, seizing the heart in its talons.
Axis screamed again. Go! Go!
There was a blinding flash of light and suddenly both eagle and heart had vanished.
Axis forced himself to look downward.
Inardle, unbelievably, still had a single breath of life left in her. She stared at Axis, managed to half raise a hand.
I wish . . . she mouthed, and then she was gone.
Axis stared, his breath heaving in and out of his chest, his mind barely working.
Oh gods ,.. what had he done? What had he done?
There was a slight scuffle of noise behind him, and Borneheld grabbed at one of Axis’ ankles.
“Gotcha!” he crowed.
Axis reacted instinctively and with all the hatred for his brother and his grief for Inardle combined. He whipped about and struck Borneheld a massive blow across his face. Borneheld’s grip on his ankle loosened and Axis rose to his feet and kicked his brother in the face, maddened with grief and despair, and loosing all of that grief and despair on Borneheld.
He paused, his breath heaving in and out of his chest, then Axis kicked Borneheld again, and then again, and then yet again, until all sound in that death chamber was only the sound of a boot thudding into splintered bone and flesh, over and over, and the sound of a man’s heartbroken sobbing.
Chapter 21
Elcho Falling
An infinity of time had passed, and yet almost none at all. The One felt as if he had spent millennia crawling, hand over hand, along the cord which connected him to the Dark Spire, but he was aware also that very little time had passed in Elcho Falling’s world.
No matter. Just so long as he achieved his goal.
As the One drew near to the Dark Spire he became more cautious. He wrapped his presence in subterfuge and mystery, that none might detect him, and at the same time sent his presence and power crawling ahead along the cord into the Dark Spire to prepare the way . . . to prepare his hidey hole. It wouldn’t last long, not beyond the return of the Lord of Elcho Falling who could surely sense his presence, but until then the One thought he could remain undetected.
Unless that baby realised his presence.
The One put hand over hand, pulling himself ever closer to the Dark Spire.
Ravenna was aware that somehow the Dark Spire was changing. Each time she went back to it for another egg she could feel something different about the spire, something darker, something more secretive. She felt a growing power within the spire, but assumed that was because it was gathering itself for the moment it had birthed its last egg and could grow into its full potential.
One afternoon, when she trudged down the stairs to the basement chambers of Elcho Falling to attend the spire, her mind was everywhere but on her task. Despite the fact she found it distasteful — and she hated the fact she had no choice in the matter — Ravenna had become so used to her chore of removing the eggs from the spire and placing them about Elcho Falling she now conducted the business in a mild daze, her thoughts elsewhere.
Today she was thinking about the baby that lived higher in the citadel. She had managed a few hours the previous day to creep about Elcho Falling and discover who it was.
StarDrifter and Salome’s son. He was a powerful boy, and handsome, but Ravenna envied Salome simply for being able to love her son without the burden of curses. StarDancer, the baby, would grow happy and healthy into his full heritage.
Not so Ravenna’s son.
Ravenna had not entered StarDrifter and Salome’s chamber. She remained in the corridor, leaning against the wall of the chamber, sensing the presence of the child within. She would have stayed there for hours, save that StarDancer had realised her presence and Ravenna had hurried away, fearing he would say something to his parents.
Apparently he hadn’t, for she remained undiscovered.
That brief time spent huddled against the wall whetted Ravenna’s curiosity about StarDancer. So powerful, so keen. What must it be like to have a child of so much ability and potential? Could her son be as powerful if he had the chance to grow into his full potential?
StarDancer consumed her mind as sh
e approached the spire. She was concentrating entirely on him and paying her routine business with the spire no mind at all. Ravenna wandered about the spire, her mind alerting her to the moment of arrival at the source of another egg and she leaned down to the spire without thought of what she was doing.
As her two hands came close to the side wall of the spire, two green glass hands reached out and grabbed her wrists, and before she had time to draw a shocked breath Ravenna found herself in the ground floor of Elcho Falling only to realise an instant later that it was a corrupted version.
Elcho Falling’s ground floor columned chamber was full of colour and majesty, but this chamber was grey and black hued and its columns were stunted and askew. There was no sense of magic here, either, only an emptiness and a sense of waiting.
And something else.
Another presence.
At first Ravenna thought it was Eleanon, but she quickly realised that this presence was vastly more powerful. She turned about, staring, her heart thudding in her chest as she saw that in the distance, beyond five or six rows of columns, the chamber disintegrated into black nothingness.
“Infinity.”
The word whispered out to her, and Ravenna spun around, trying to locate the person who had spoken.
“Who’s there?” she managed, her voice dry with fear.
“Do you not recognise this place?” the voice said.
Ravenna swallowed, still turning, if more slowly, her eyes darting everywhere.
This unknown stranger was so powerful . . . so dangerous.
“Who are you?” she said, glad her voice was a little stronger now.
“An old friend,” said the voice, and from behind one of the columns stepped a man made entirely of green glass. In the centre of his chest revolved a golden pyramid.
Ravenna froze. The One. She had never seen him before, but this could be nobody else.
“Hello, Ravenna,” the One said softly. He came to a halt a few paces away from her, smiling a little as she tensed. “You are being very brave. Tell me, do you not recognise this place?”
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