by Troy Denning
Tavis dragged himself up the great stairs as though he were climbing a cliff, his lungs burning with exertion and his muscles aching with fatigue. The stones jumped beneath his body as the titan pounded down the shattered colonnade to meet him. The scout tried to climb faster, but his aged body simply would not move as quickly as he wanted to. His liver-spotted skin had turned slightly translucent with his last use of the cleaving power, and he did not know whether to attribute his quivering muscles to his racing age or to the general weakness he had suffered since Wynn Castle. It did not matter; the battle would be over soon enough, and as long as he had the axe, Lanaxis could not harm him.
When Tavis clambered atop the last stair, he found himself staring at the titan’s ancient knee. He raised Sky Cleaver to attack. Lanaxis backed out of range, stepping over a toppled pillar as thick as Tavis was tall.
“You have done well, but Sky Cleaver is not for mortals,” the titan rumbled. “I shall take my father’s axe.”
“Never!” Tavis could not tell whether concern for Brianna or love of Sky Cleaver inspired his anger, but at least he was sure of its target. “I am the One Wielder!”
Tavis charged, leaping onto a column pedestal and from there to the toppled pillar over which Lanaxis had retreated. This time, the titan did not withdraw. He lowered his hand and called to Sky Cleaver in the same ancient language that Basil had taught Tavis.
“In the name of Skoraeus Stonebones, Your Maker-”
Tavis felt Sky Cleaver’s handle slipping. “No!” The One Wielder’s fury became a fiery red curtain, so brilliant and hot he could barely see. He began his own chant. “In the name of Skoraeus Stonebones-”
“-O Sky Cleaver-” boomed Lanaxis.
So fierce was the titan’s angry voice that it knocked Tavis backward off the pillar. He felt a cold surge rise from the axe’s handle, then landed on his feet amidst the jumbled rubble. Sky Cleaver slipped another inch through his fingers.
“-Your Maker-!” Tavis yelled, but he could tell that his voice was no match-and never would be-for the titan’s.
“-do I summon you into the service-”
Tavis grasped the shaft with all his strength and leapt toward the titan. “Cleave!”
“-of my hand,” Lanaxis finished.
A fiery surge of pain shot through the One Wielder’s body, then he felt himself being pulled through the air as Sky Cleaver answered the titan’s call.
Tavis held on to the axe’s ivory handle with all his strength. He slammed into Lanaxis’s palm, and the titan’s fingers closed to crush him. Another wave of cold energy surged from the axe handle. The scout found himself falling, holding on to Sky Cleaver by no more than its pommel.
It was enough. The blade bit Lanaxis’s leg above the knee, then sliced through the great limb as cleanly as it had cleaved Othea Tor. A thundering cry of pain pealed across the steam-shrouded skies, then Tavis dropped, once more cushioned by Sky Cleaver’s defenses, onto the bloody, rubble-strewn floor.
Lanaxis tumbled from the portico and slammed into the shattered ground below. The entire building bucked beneath the force of his fall, bringing the remains of the colonnade tumbling down about Tavis’s head. Another cold surge rose from Sky Cleaver’s shaft. Two pillars smashed down beside the One Wielder, then a section of entablature landed across them. Tavis found himself buried in a sheltering cave of rubble, sitting in a pond of the titan’s hot blood.
The portico continued to shake and tremble for several moments, until at last all of the massive debris had finally fallen. Even before the quake subsided, Tavis was already working to dig his way out, pushing cornices and capitals away as fast as his exhausted body would allow. He had no idea how old he had grown in the past few moments, but the wheezing that he heard in his ears did not sound as if it came from the chest of a young firbolg.
At last, Tavis reached the surface and clambered over the rubble to the front of the portico. To his surprise, he did not find Lanaxis waiting to attack, or even lying helpless at the foot of the palace stairs. Instead, a river of blood led across the broken plain to the single boulder that was all that remained of Othea Tor. There was no sign of the titan himself, but Basil and Galgadayle were kneeling atop the stone, staring down at its purple shadow with their faces twisted into expressions of utter astonishment.
17
Bleak Palace
The battle roar continued to ring in Brianna’s ears long after the portico had come crashing down, so she did not hear the scuttling boots until the walker had already crossed most of the fume-choked antechamber. The steps were ponderous and slow, not loud enough to be the titan’s, but too heavy to be man or ’kin.
Brianna slipped off the plinth where she had been sitting and rushed to place herself between the entrance and Kaedlaw, who remained wailing upon the floor. She did not try to take her child into her arms. It would have been easier to grab a cloud. No matter how closely she approached before kneeling beside her son, the queen always found herself beyond arm’s length. She removed Hiatea’s talisman from her neck and pulled a sliver of broken mirror from her cloak pocket, determined that if she could not touch the child, neither would anyone else.
While the battle raged outside, Brianna had stayed in the throne hall with Kaedlaw, so she could only guess who, or what, was coming after her son now. By the sound of his shuffling gait, he was large, patient, and either wounded or exhausted-possibly both. He also had to be someone of incredible power; no one else could have survived the harrowing battle that had shaken Bleak Palace for the last ten minutes. The queen half-expected to see a god’s avatar stepping out of the fumes to claim her son.
It hardly mattered to Brianna. She would attack, and without fear. The queen had long since worried herself into such an emotional frenzy that she could no longer feel anything except a seething, mindless anger: at Lanaxis for leaving her unable to defend her child, at Tavis for failing to stop the titan at Wynn Castle, and, most of all, at herself for drinking a spy’s drug and allowing an ettin to get a child on her. Whoever was coming did not realize it, but he was doing her a favor. She would fight him to the end. She could no longer bear to watch her child suffer, and death was the only escape left to either of them.
A large, stooped shape shambled into the smoky doorway, the silhouette of a great axe clutched in his hands. Brianna silently called upon her goddess’s magic and felt the talisman growing warm. When she uttered her spell incantation, the sliver vanished. A silvery light flashed from her hand and bounced off the throne room walls, returning in the form of a thousand long, gleaming needles. The queen pointed at the gray figure, and the silvery darts hissed toward him in a deadly stream.
A weary groan rose from the newcomer’s throat. The torrent of needles suddenly parted and tinkled off the floor around him, changing into harmless sparkles of light. Brianna cursed and reached for her knife.
“Brianna?”
The voice was a reasonable imitation of Tavis’s, save that it quivered like an old man’s and was far too deep. She hurled her dagger at the doorway. The weapon flew as level and true as any throwing blade, for she had enchanted it with a feather from the shadowroc’s wing.
Again, the stranger groaned. The knife veered off course and shattered against an unseen pillar. The fellow let the axe head drop to the floor, and he leaned on the heft.
“Stop that.” He sounded even older than before. “I can’t stand more of this.”
Brianna pulled a ball of candle wax from her pocket. “Imposter!”
“That was Julien, not me.” The stranger shuffled into the hall, moving with the weary steps of an old man. “And what he did doesn’t matter. Remember what I said when he claimed to have gotten a child on you? It’s still true today: ‘I believe you. I always have.’ ”
Brianna returned the wax ball to her pocket. “Tavis? It’s really you?”
“None other,” replied the ancient voice. “I’m sorry I took so long, milady.”
The newcomer-Tavis-stepp
ed out of the smoke, revealing a beardless, elderly firbolg who would have stood as tall as a small hill giant, if not for the hunch in his back. His hair had turned as silver as a coin, a blue haze hung over the pupils of his ice-colored eyes, and his wrinkled skin was so thin and translucent that Brianna could see through it to the stringy muscles beneath. In his liver-spotted hands, he held a huge axe with an obsidian head and a wondrously decorated ivory shaft.
Tavis squinted around the room for a moment, then finally seemed to find Brianna. He smiled. “I hope you can do something about my eyes.” He shuffled toward her. “Fighting Lanaxis is hard enough when I can see.”
“Tavis!” Brianna screamed again. She couldn’t quite believe he had really come, or comprehend what she was seeing. “Has it really been so long? How can it have taken you a lifetime to find me? Kaedlaw has aged only a month!”
The high scout glanced down at himself, then chuckled grimly, almost madly. “It has been a lifetime-but not the way you mean. My age is Sky Cleaver’s doing.”
Tavis raised the great axe in his hands, and a wave of heated nausea rushed over Brianna. She had experienced such feelings before. They were premonitions sent by her goddess to warn her of some terrible danger, but the sensations had never been this strong.
The queen backed away. “Don’t come any closer.”
The high scout frowned, but stopped. “What’s wrong?”
“You tell me,” Brianna said. “Put that axe down.”
Tavis’s eyes narrowed. “What for?” He did not lower the weapon. “It’s mine. I won’t let you steal it.”
Brianna slipped her hand into her pocket and rolled the wax between her fingers, suspecting it would do her no good even if she had to use it.
“You don’t sound like Tavis Burdun,” she said. “The lord high scout would never disobey his queen’s order.”
An angry light flashed in Tavis’s eyes. “As you command, milady.” He laboriously stooped down to place the axe at his feet. “But I must warn you, Sky Cleaver’s hold on me is great. If you try to steal it, I-”
“Steal it!” Brianna scoffed. She was beginning to understand her premonitions of danger. It was not her husband that was dangerous, but the weapon’s hold over him. “What would I want with an axe so large I could not pick it up?”
Tavis’s gaze remained suspicious for only a moment, then he blushed in shame. “Forgive me, Brianna. It seems my heart is not as pure as yours.”
Brianna shook her head, relieved. “We both know that can’t be. It’s just that I’m more accustomed to dark temptations.”
The queen had almost decided it was safe to embrace her husband when she heard the distant clamor of more ’kin clambering across the rubble-strewn portico. She positioned herself between her wailing son and the doorway, clutching her goddess’s talisman in one hand and dipping the other into her cloak pocket.
“Valorous Hiatea-”
“There’s no need for that.” Tavis raised a silencing hand. “That would be Basil and Galgadayle. They won’t harm Kaedlaw.”
“How can you say that?” Brianna demanded. “Galgadayle wants him dead!”
“Perhaps, but he’s pledged not to kill the child himself.”
“What? He would never make such a pledge, unless you…” A chill crept down Brianna’s spine. “And what did you promise, Tavis?”
“We can decide what to do about Kaedlaw’s destiny later, after we’ve had time to think,” the high scout replied, in the same breath both answering and avoiding the queen’s question. “At the moment, we’d better prepare ourselves. I only wounded Lanaxis, and twilight is not so far away.”
The slap, slap of Basil’s flat feet rang off the walls of the antechamber, with the thud of Galgadayle’s boots close behind. Tavis’s baggy eyes grew narrow and wary, and he stooped over to retrieve Sky Cleaver. An instant later, the two ’kin raced into the throne room. They appeared as battered and exhausted as the high scout, if much younger.
Basil threw his arms wide and rushed Brianna. “Majesty, you’re well!”
The queen started to back away, saying, “Stay where you-”
Basil gathered her up and embraced her for a long moment. Finally, he seemed to hear Kaedlaw’s wail and put her down, then knelt beside the child. His heavy lips cracked a delicate grin, and his ice-crusted eyebrows slowly formed an awestruck arch.
“What a handsome child!” he exclaimed. “He looks just like his father!”
Brianna felt someone peering over her shoulder and glanced back to find Galgadayle standing behind her. Though the seer remained silent, the disdainful sneer beneath his beard made it clear that he wondered which father Basil meant. The queen found the differing reactions of the two ’kin surprising. Kaedlaw might look as handsome as Tavis one moment and as sinister as the ettin the next, but she had never seen both faces at the same time.
Basil turned to the queen. “Far be it from me to criticize, but I thought only verbeegs let crying infants lie. Don’t human mothers comfort their children?”
“Don’t you think I’ve tried?” Brianna was filled with such a sense of shame that she could barely whisper the admission. She knew that the affliction was no fault of hers, but that did not prevent her from feeling like a failure. “I can’t do it.”
“You don’t have to keep him quiet,” Galgadayle said. “I doubt Lanaxis can hear him anyway. But we really must hurry if we are to leave this place.”
Brianna whirled on the seer, her frustration and fear pouring from her mouth in a tempest of angry words. “Why, so Tavis can commit your murder for you?”
The queen had no defense left except her rage. Her magic would not work against her husband, and she could not best a trio of giant-kin-even ’kin as old as these three-with her bare hands.
She cast an accusatory glare at Tavis. “If you have come to keep your vow, do it now, Husband!”
Tavis’s cloudy eyes turned as soft as water. “I have come to keep my vow,” he allowed. “But not by killing you or Kaedlaw.”
“Tavis, must I remind you of our agreement?” Galgadayle demanded. “You promised-”
“I know what I promised!” The high scout’s head swiveled toward the seer, anger flashing like lightning behind his cloudy eyes. When Galgadayle voiced no more objections, Tavis exhaled slowly, then stepped over to Brianna. “Milady, do you trust me?”
Brianna started to ask what he meant, but then she heard Avner’s voice ringing inside her head: Tavis will see what you see… It’s your only hope.’ The young scout had spoken those words less than a day before his death, but the queen seemed to hear him now more clearly than ever. Whatever her husband intended to do, it would be the right thing. It simply was not in his nature to do anything else.
Brianna nodded. “Yes, Tavis. I trust you completely.”
The high scout stroked her cheek with a huge, wrinkled finger, then stepped around her and knelt beside Kaedlaw. He scooped the child up in his palm and studied him for a moment, a broad smile creeping across his cracked lips.
Kaedlaw’s wails began to subside, and Tavis said, “You’re right, Basil. He is handsome-and he has my eyes.”
Galgadayle brushed past Brianna to peer at the infant “I don’t see that, not at all,” the seer said. “To me, he’s as ugly as a troll. Use the axe.”
Now that Kaedlaw was growing quiet, his face had once again assumed a handsome and loving aspect in Brianna’s eyes. Her deepest instincts urged her to leap forward and snatch her child from Tavis’s palm. She desperately wanted to know the truth about her son and just as desperately wanted to remain ignorant. It was the conflict between those two emotions more than her willpower that kept her standing fast as her husband covered her helpless child with the flat of Sky Cleaver’s obsidian blade.
Tavis spoke a word in the same ancient tongue the titan used to cast spells. He grimaced with pain, and the last of the color faded from his pale skin. Even his muscles turned partially translucent, so that beneath the stringy cords
of sinew, Brianna could see the yellow outlines of bone and the more nebulous shapes of internal organs.
Kaedlaw’s growls gave way to a muffled chortling.
The high scout took Sky Cleaver’s blade away. In his palm lay a rather plain-looking baby, neither as handsome as Tavis, nor as hideous as the ettin. The infant had a rather cherubic face with pudgy jowls, rosy cheeks, and twinkling eyes as gray as steel. Brianna could see her husband’s influence in the child’s straight nose and even features, while the ettin’s could be seen in the cleft chin and dark, curly hair.
“He’s not handsome any more!” Basil gasped. “He just looks normal!”
Tavis’s smile broadened. “He’s always looked that way,” he said. “But we couldn’t see it.”
Galgadayle frowned. “What? I know what I saw before. It was as plain-”
“Of course it was!” interrupted Basil, growing more excited by the moment. “Kaedlaw is no different than any child. We see in him what we expect to see-isn’t that what the axe showed you?”
“More or less,” Tavis answered. “Like any child, Kaedlaw has the capacity for both good and evil. How we rear him will decide which comes to dominate.”
“That is the more,” said Galgadayle. “What is the less?”
Tavis cast an uneasy glance at Brianna, and the queen felt a cold dread seeping into her heart. She began to fear that Galgadayle’s prophecy had been right, after all. Whether Kaedlaw grew up good or evil, he would lead the giants against the rest of the northlands.
When her husband still did not speak, Brianna said, “Tell me.”
