“It is the interior of the Dark Spire,” Ravenna said, guessing.
“Very good! I knew you were going to be useful. I was, for instance, greatly inquisitive regarding that baby which so consumed your mind as you pattered about the Dark Spire on your business.”
Ravenna instantly tried to empty her mind of all thought.
“Too late,” the One whispered. Then, in a louder voice: “You are Eleanon’s plaything, yes?”
“Yes,” Ravenna grated.
“Not any more,” the One said.
StarDancer lay in his cot and screamed. He rarely cried, let alone screamed, but right now he wanted his parents as fast as they could possibly reach him. The Icarii woman who had been watching him stood by his cot, not knowing what to do. Her first instinct had been to hold StarDancer, but the boy had only screamed the louder when she’d tried to pick him up.
StarDrifter and Salome rushed into the chamber, convinced their son was being murdered, or was caught in a fatal brainstorm. But the instant they entered the chamber StarDancer quietened, the only sign of his recent distress the trail of tears on his downy cheeks.
“What happened?” StarDrifter said to the Icarii woman, FlightMeadow.
“I don’t know!” FlightMeadow said. “StarDancer was sleeping peacefully, then he just began to scream. I tried to pick him up. But .”
By now Salome had her son in her arms and both she and her husband regarded FlightMeadow with cool, accusing eyes.
“I didn’t .” FlightMeadow said, drifting to a halt at their regard. Damn it, why did StarDancer have to do this when she was minding him?
“Perhaps you could leave us alone with our son,” StarDrifter said, and FlightMeadow gave a curt nod and left, vowing not to volunteer for babysitting again.
“StarDancer?” StarDrifter said.
I had a dream, StarDancer spoke into his parents’ minds.
“Everyone dreams, sweetheart,” Salome said, stroking her son’s cheek. “They are but dreams, releases of our nervous energy, nothing more. You must not be afraid.”
This was more than a dream, StarDancer said.
“Tell us,” StarDrifter said, sitting down on the bed, slowly rocking StarDancer to and fro.
I dreamed of the mighty universe, StarDancer said. I dreamed of its vast emptiness.
“The voids between the stars,” his father said, “nothing more.”
I dreamed of a threatening presence moving through the void as a man would climb a rope.
“Just a dream,” Salome said.
It was real.
Salome and StarDrifter shared an indulgent smile.
He was coming here. A frightening man. I dreamed of him before.
“Just a dr—” Salome started to say again.
It was real! StarDancer cried. Not a dream!
“Perhaps you dreamed of WolfStar,” StarDrifter said. “WolfStar was an ancient ancestor of ours. He jumped into the Star Gate — you remember me telling you of this — and wandered through the spaces of the stars for millennia. Eventually he returned, evil creature that he was, and created havoc within our family and Tencendor.”
StarDancer was silent as he considered this. Whoever it was, he said eventually, he is here now. Within Elcho Falling.
“Don’t worry, my sweetheart,” Salome said, taking her son from StarDrifter and rocking him gently in her arms. “We have you safe.”
Just a dream, she mouthed over StarDancer’s head to StarDrifter, and again they shared an indulgent smile.
Chapter 22
Isembaard
Maximilian and his party had been pushing hard for the Isembaardian east coast. They’d travelled all day and well into each night, stopping only for a brief meal from their dwindling supplies and a few hours’ sleep before rising before dawn the next day. All of them were close to exhaustion, crabby, hungry and a little anxious about what might await them on the coast. What if no one from Elcho Falling had managed to send a vessel south? What if there was a vessel, but it was under the control of someone antagonistic? Maximilian had heard nothing from the north for a long time and no way of knowing what had played out at Elcho Falling. Were former allies now enemies? And where were the Skraelings? Had some of them come back, hoping for a quick seaside snack?
The disappearance of the rat and the Book of the Soulenai had not worried them overmuch. The book had clearly nothing more for them, as also the rat, and Maximilian and Ishbel decided both had vanished until they were needed again.
But everything else . . . Hairekeep had taught everyone to be careful. The One was finally gone; or so they thought. Maximilian, while optimistic the Twisted Tower was now drifting further and further from their world, was not prepared to depend on that belief totally.
The One had surprised them before.
Maximilian held up his hand, stopping his companions.
They had entered Isembaard’s only eastern port earlier. The small town — little more than a village — was completely deserted. No people, no dogs, no rats.
The Skraelings had been active here.
They had been walking through the abandoned town, looking down every side street and alley, keeping alert for any danger. Now, as they reached the single pier and the crescent of fine sand that defined the beach, Maximilian stopped them, nodding to the middle of the pier.
There sat a man before a metal circular bowl in which smouldered a small fire. He appeared to be toasting a fish over the coals.
“I’ll go ahead,” Maximilian murmured.
“We’ll come with you,” Ishbel and Serge said at the same time, while Doyle nodded his general agreeance with the statement.
“I should —” Maximilian said.
“We’ll come with you,” Ishbel said, “and don’t argue the point, Maxel. We’re all too tired for it.”
Maximilian thought about sighing, but he was too fatigued even to do that, let alone fight with Ishbel. “We’ll need to be careful,” he said.
“Do you sense anything wrong?” Serge said.
“Apart from the fact I can’t see a bloody ship anywhere?” Maximilian said. “No. I sense nothing wrong. Come on, then. Let’s get this over and done with.”
They walked forward, and as their boots struck the timber decking of the pier, the man half turned and saw them.
He did not appear worried, or even particularly surprised, to see the four people walking up the pier toward him. He carefully balanced the stick holding the fish on the side of the brazier, then rose, wiping his hands down his leather trousers.
He was a tall, lean man, dark haired and with the weather-beaten, stubbled face of an experienced seaman. His eyes were bright brown specks almost completely lost behind wrinkles and wreaths of skin, and his teeth were startlingly white and strong when he smiled as the four neared.
“You’re the ride, then,” he said.
“The ride?” Maximilian said, feeling stupid in his weariness.
“The passengers I was sent to pick up,” the man said.
“We were expecting a ship,” Ishbel said.
The man looked at her. “And I was expecting a little courtesy, perhaps.”
“I apologise,” Ishbel said. “My name is Ishbel Persimius, and this is my husband, Maximilian. Our two companions are Doyle and Serge.”
The man nodded at each in turn. “I am Abe Wayward,” he said. “Who do you think sent me to wait for you?”
For a moment Maximilian could make no sense of the question, then he realised Abe was testing them. Maximilian managed a moment of inner humour, thinking that here he’d been, scrying out everything he could about this man, and yet here Abe was, testing them.
“It would have been either Axis SunSoar,” said Maximilian, “or Georgdi, the Outlander general. The message would have originated from Elcho Falling, what you would have known as Serpent’s Nest before .”
“Before everything went awry,” Abe said, and nodded. “Good enough. Georgdi it was. Sit down and we can have a meal of cara
wait fish before we go. Tide won’t be right for sailing until this evening, anyway.”
“You have a boat?” Ishbel said, hoping her question didn’t sound as desperate as she felt, or that Abe once more decided she was being impolite.
Abe nodded over the side of the pier. “Right there.”
As one the four stepped up to the side of the pier and looked down. Far below, tied to the carbuncled piles of the structure, was a small sailing vessel little bigger than a rowing boat.
None of them knew what to say.
Abe chuckled at the looks on their faces. “The Outlanders are not known for their great fleet, my friends. We have a few fishing boats, but that’s it. For everything else seaworthy, we depend on what the Vilanders supply us. They’re the sailing nation, not us. Georgdi should have asked the Vilanders to send one of their cargo cobs to fetch you, eh? You could all have had individual cabins with velvet curtains, then.”
“It looks an honest boat,” Maximilian said, not knowing what to say.
Now Abe’s chuckle turned into a hearty laugh. “And to think you’re going to have to sit in it all the way north toward Margalit . . . or is it Elcho Falling you want to reach?”
“Elcho Falling,” Maximilian said.
“Elcho Falling, then,” Abe said. “Well, she’s surely an honest boat, and keeled and rigged for speed. If the weather gets rough, then there’ll be enough hands on deck to bail her out. Difficult when I’m on my own. And look on the bright side . . . it’s not too far to lean over the side when you decide you’re going to lose your breakfast.”
“We are grateful for any ride,” Maximilian said, “for we are heartily sick of using our feet. Sitting down on the journey sounds like heaven to me. Thank you, Abe Wayward. We shall be glad and grateful to accept your aid.”
Maximilian stepped forward and offered Abe his hand.
Ishbel, Serge and Doyle all watched, their eyes sharp.
Abe didn’t miss their scrutiny. He smiled once again, and grasped Maximilian’s hand. “Do I pass?” he said.
Maximilian gripped the seaman’s hand, holding it for a long moment, staring the man in the eyes.
Then he nodded. “You pass, my friend. I apologise for my suspicion. We have had trials on our journey to meet you.”
“Then we shall have much conversation on the way north,” Abe said, “between bouts of bailing.”
Chapter 23
The Ice Hex
Axis dragged Inardle’s bloodied corpse through the snow of Eleanon’s ice hex. He had his arms wrapped under hers, clutched across her ruined chest, her body held awkwardly to one side as he tried to avoid her dragging wings.
She was almost rock solid both with rigor mortis and with the ice which had formed about her body. Only his Icarii strength meant Axis could keep dragging her like this — even the strongest human would have collapsed many hours ago.
Axis stared straight ahead, thinking of nothing more than placing one foot before the other, and thus dragging his burden just that bit further forward. He thought he was retracing the same path he’d taken to reach the icy recreation of Carlon, but he wasn’t sure. He didn’t really care if he wasn’t. If he was wrong it meant that he would die cursed inside this hex, but Axis felt that his own heart had gone, along with Inardle’s, and right now death felt like a perfectly viable, even preferable, option.
Axis had decided he was very tired of life and of all the horrors it put in his path.
He struggled onward, every muscle in his body screaming in agony, his breath frosting out of his mouth and rasping in his throat, icicles forming in his hair and hanging from his eyebrows and in his re-growing beard.
Inardle was icy cold in his arms. The blood from the wound in her chest had frozen all over her body . . . save in that small area where her body touched Axis’ hip. There the constant friction of living flesh against corpse had melted the blood, and Axis could feel it squishing underneath his clothes and trickling slowly down his leg into his boot where it froze all over again, sending splinters of ice into his flesh with every step.
He badly wanted this nightmare to be over.
Axis stopped, eventually, worn almost to complete exhaustion. He stood, his chest heaving, staring ahead, his arms slipping on Inardle’s body. He sobbed, fighting to keep hold of her, knowing that if he allowed her to slip into the snow he’d never find the strength to lift her and continue on his way.
It was so silent in this hex. The fog clung to him; he could barely see three paces ahead. If he held his breath, if only for the brief moment he was able, there was utter silence all about him, mocking him.
What if he couldn’t find his way out? What if Eleanon was somewhere, right now, laughing at Axis’ pain?
It was that thought that galvanised Axis back into movement.
By the stars, Eleanon was going to die for the pain he had caused. Axis felt the beginnings of a deep, cold anger, the kind that never faded, just grew and grew until eventually it needed to be assuaged in the only way possible — a death. Either Axis’, or the one on which the anger focussed.
“I’ll kill him for you,” Axis whispered, managing to heft Inardle’s corpse a little more securely in his arms, and taking a step forward.
“I’ll kill him for you.”
Another step forward.
“I’ll kill him for you.”
Another step.
Time passed.
Inardle was now a solid block of ice, and Axis’ own arms had been so frozen into that ice that he no longer had to spend any strength holding her, just in dragging himself along, and therefore her. Axis had not rested. There was no way he could sit or lie, for to do so would be to kill himself. He had to keep taking step after step, and feeling muscles tear in his chest and shoulders and back every time he did so.
Even his mantra of “I’ll kill him for you,” had disintegrated into a harsh gargle with each step.
Axis now existed on pure anger and some vague memory of what it meant to cling to life.
And so he took one step, and then another, and then, by some miracle, yet another.
Time passed.
Axis was now barely alive himself. His head and shoulders were almost covered in ice, and his upper body had now been completely absorbed into the ice that encased Inardle.
He could barely breathe.
He knew that he would die within the next few minutes.
Three more steps.
Maybe four.
Then he would allow death to claim him, too.
On the third step Axis and Inardle fell right through the icy path and into deep water.
The water was, in fact, very cold, but to Axis it felt like it boiled against his skin, scalding his flesh. He tried to drag in a breath to scream, but the ice constricting his chest wouldn’t allow him to do it.
He tried to struggle, but his arms were caught in ice, and he couldn’t do that, either.
Oh stars! Stars! He was going to drown!
Still bound to the ice-encased Inardle, Axis began to sink deeper and deeper, dragged ever lower by her weight, water filling his mouth and throat, and he choked, the movement in his chest causing him agonising pain.
He fought desperately, and suddenly he felt the ice about his chest and arms loosen and then crack, and then the ice gave way entirely and he flailed about as the burden of Inardle sank into the depths beneath him and he fought for the surface.
His head broke the surface and he heaved in lungfuls of air. His entire body screamed in pain, but he didn’t care, he could breathe, he could breathe .
Axis blinked, his vision blurring and then clearing.
He was floating near the reed banks in the channel that connected Elcho Falling’s lake with the sea. Axis turned in the water.
Yes, there was Elcho Falling, glorious in the sunlight.
Axis turned on his back and floated, glorying in the pain as both sun and water massaged away the ice and stiffness from his limbs and body.
There was a
sudden rush of bubbles to one side, and the water erupted as Inardle’s corpse broke the surface.
It had defrosted and the water about her was stained with blood and clots from the gaping cavity in her chest.
Inardle.
Axis paddled over to her, once more grasping her under the arms and rolling over on his back so that he supported her body and exposed it to the sky and sunlight, her wings limp and heavy and trailing to either side of Axis’ body.
He shook his head, clearing his vision of the final few droplets of water, then he looked up into the blue, empty sky.
“Do it!“ Axis screamed. “Do it now!“
For a moment, nothing.
There was a flash high in the sky, and then a black spot, plummeting downward.
Do it! Axis screamed in his mind. Do it!
The black spot fell closer and closer, moving so fast that its form blurred.
It was only just before it hit that Axis could clearly see what it was.
The eagle, bearing Inardle’s heart in its talons.
The next instant Axis’ world erupted into a cascade of bubbles and boiling water as the eagle’s impact, carrying almost more magic than Axis could bear, drove himself and Inardle deep into the water.
Chapter 24
Elcho Falling
Ravenna drifted to and from the Dark Spire, midwiving the last of the horrible thing’s eggs, and trying very hard not to think about what the One demanded she do for him. She had thought Eleanon a vile taskmaster, but the One . . . Ravenna spent her time wishing she were anywhere but here.
The Land of Dreams, back in the arms of the Lord of Dreams, Drava.
Back in the marshes, in her mother’s house.
Ravenna wondered if Drava ever thought of her, or if he remembered her.
She wondered if her mother’s house in the marshes had fallen into disrepair and disappeared into the marsh.
But why wonder now, when all this was denied her forever? She had chosen a bad path in life, and it had led her to the very gates of Hell itself.
Elcho Falling was crowded with soldiers and with many different races. Icarii, Isembaardian, Escatorian, Outlander. All of them hurried and scurried everywhere and their leaders spent much of their time studying, and worrying over, the Dark Spire.
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