Oh stars, Inardle thought. “No. How do you know Isaiah? What are you doing here?”
Briefly Hereward told Inardle of how she’d escaped Aqhat with her comrades, how she’d watched them being murdered by the Skraelings (which made Inardle wince), met with Isaiah on the banks of the River Lhyl, and their subsequent history.
“You are not an Icarii, are you?” Hereward said as she concluded.
“No,” Inardle said, by this time sitting on the spare bed and wishing beyond anything she had never entered this tent. She wasn’t surprised Isaiah had put guards on this woman. “I am a Lealfast. A race from the north.” She couldn’t be bothered with the long explanation. “I am tired,” she said, lifting her legs onto the bed and lying down on her side, wrapping her wings over her body like a blanket. “I think I will sleep now.”
And get up before dawn and beg Isaiah for a different berth for the next night. Or just drift the air in invisible form. Anything but another meeting with Hereward.
“If you see Isaiah tomorrow,” Hereward said, “can you please ask if . . . if .”
Her eyes suddenly filled with tears, and Inardle was irritated to feel some sympathy for her.
“Of course,” Inardle said, and closed her eyes.
She heard Hereward sigh, then the sound of her lying down as well, and Inardle relaxed. Praise the gods, the woman was going to go to sleep.
Inardle breathed in deeply and regularly, calming herself, putting the day’s events behind her. She drifted into sleep and broken dreams of drowning in poisonous waters, until she woke abruptly at the sound of Hereward drawing in a shocked, terrified breath, then of scrabbling about on her bed as if she were trying to back away from something.
Gods . . .
Inardle opened her eyes reluctantly, then jerked into full wakefulness.
Ozll was standing just inside the tent flap.
“How did you get past the guards?” Inardle said, sitting up warily. She glanced at Hereward.
The woman was now out of bed and crouched terrified in the back corner of the tent. Given what Hereward had told her earlier of her experiences with Skraelings, Inardle wasn’t surprised.
“I drifted,” Ozll said enigmatically, and Inardle didn’t push any further on the issue.
Ozll stood there, his large clawed hands clasped before him, looking uncomfortable.
“What do you want?” Inardle said.
“To talk.”
“To me?”
“Of course,” said Ozll, looking surprised. “Who else?”
“Not Hereward?”
Ozll’s face creased even deeper in confusion, and Inardle nodded to Hereward crouched and trembling at the back of the tent.
“No,” said Ozll. “Why her? I want to talk to you.”
Well, thought Inardle, he hasn’t come to chat to the One, then. “What do you want?”
“We are torn,” Ozll said. “We thought to ask your advice.”
“You must really be torn,” Inardle said, “if you have come to me.”
“You are not as hateful as Eleanon or Bingaleal,” Ozll said.
“Bingaleal is dead.”
Ozll’s face creased in a huge smile. “Really?”
“Really.” Inardle thought there was something odd, different, about Ozll’s face — besides the smile. She narrowed her eyes, trying to work it out.
Ah . . . his eyes were now slightly less perpendicular than they had once been. The top one appeared to have shifted slightly toward the centre of his face.
“Is Isaiah trying to trick us?” Ozll said.
“No,” Inardle said, “I don’t think so. I think he feels enormous guilt at leaving you for so long. Leaving you to create the havoc you have. He feels for all those you murdered.”
“Is that the only reason he feels guilt?”
Inardle shook her head slowly. “He feels it for you, too. That he forgot you. I don’t think he meant to. He just . . . got caught up in other things.”
“What do you think of the River Angels?” Ozll said, and Inardle wondered where all this was going.
“That they were very beautiful and very powerful,” Inardle said, “and incredibly vile for what they did.”
Ozll nodded, deep in thought. Then he sighed. “Thank you,” he said to Inardle. His eyes slipped over to Hereward and he snarled, exposing all his terrifying teeth.
Hereward shrieked, Ozll grinned, and then he was gone.
“Go back to sleep,” Inardle said to Hereward. “He won’t come back.”
“What was he doing here?” Hereward said, still not rising from her defensive crouch.
“He wanted to ask advice on a deal Isaiah had offered the Skraelings earlier this evening.”
“But why ask you?” Hereward said, finally starting to unwind herself.
“Because I am half Skraeling,” Inardle said and, not able to resist, bared her teeth at Hereward herself.
Chapter 25
The Outlands
They met at noon the next day. Isaiah, Axis and Inardle walked out once more to meet the Skraelings. Again they walked into a cleared circle in the heart of the Skraeling mass where, as before, Ozll, Mallx, and Pannh awaited them.
No one sat this time.
Ozll stepped forward from his two companions, and Inardle noticed that now the more regular alignment of his eyes was far more noticeable. She looked at Mallx and Pannh.
The same thing was happening to them.
“Have you made your decision?” Isaiah asked Ozll.
“Yes,” the Skraeling replied. “We choose the third option. Give us the power so that we may return to River Angels as we wish.”
Isaiah’s mouth curved in a very small smile. “There is no magical enchantment or spell, Ozll. No giving of ‘power’. It is just a piece of advice, but it does come with one or two cautions.”
Ozll frowned. “Advice? Traps?”
“Pieces of advice only, my friend. When you want to return to River Angels, then you must seek a large body of inland water. Not the ocean, but a large body of water bounded by land.”
The Skraelings hissed.
“You are creatures of water,” Isaiah said. “You will need to confront your fear of it one day.”
“Well, then,” Ozll said. “What do we do once we find our large body of water?”
“Then, as one — you must not do this individually — step into the water, as one, mind you . . . and you drown yourselves.”
The Skraelings erupted. The entire mass seethed forward, clawed hands grabbing, jaws salivating, throats shrieking.
Axis caught hold of Inardle, pulling her against him, reaching for the sword at his hip, but Isaiah stood his ground.
“It is no trick,” he said. “In order to return to River Angels you must drown yourselves. You must pass through death, via water, then you will return in your true form. It was why I made you loathe water, so that you would not return to your true form by accident.”
The circle had now contracted about Isaiah, Axis and Inardle until its inner edge was no more than an arm’s length from them.
“Isaiah!” Axis hissed.
Be still, Isaiah said to him. We will be safe.
“It is no trick,” Isaiah said, slowly and deliberately, holding Ozll’s furious stare.
“He just wants to murder us en masse!” Pannh said. “We are not that stupid!”
“If I wanted to destroy you I would only need to lift this finger,” Isaiah held up the middle finger of his right hand, “and it would be done. I wouldn’t bother trying to persuade you to drown. I don’t have the time to waste on such entertainment.”
Ozll stared at Isaiah. “I don’t believe you,” he said, but his voice was unsure and he shuffled his feet.
“You wanted control, yourself,” Isaiah said. “Now you have it. It isn’t easy, but then you chose the least easy of all the options.”
“Maybe we’d prefer option two, after all,” Mallx said. “You change us, here and now.”
“Too late,” Isaiah said. “You have made your choice.”
He paused, looking about the close circle of still hissing and muttering Skraelings, catching every silvery-orbed eye he could. “I am telling you the truth. You now have the knowledge to return yourselves to River Angel form if you so desire. But it will be your choice on the where and the when, and I am going to emphasise again what I said — you need to do this en masse. As a group you must step into the water. Otherwise it will fail and you will all just die.”
“We will all just die anyway,” a Skraeling muttered behind them.
Axis stepped forward. “Look at me,” he said. “I have been through death and back again. You can do it, too. It takes courage and resolve, but you can do it. And think what will happen if you do,” he said. He dropped his voice a little, emphasising each of his following words carefully. “And if you do discover courage and resolve within you, then look at what you might become.”
Axis lifted a hand, indicating Inardle. “But you will become more than her. Far more. More beautiful, more powerful. Nothing that splendid comes easy. I had to fight for everything I became. So will you. Have the courage to accept the future you have always wanted. You will need no power to lust after, for you will have power. You will need no lord to cower before, for you will be lords yourselves. No one will ever again regard you with revulsion.”
He paused. “Not even me. Not even the Icarii. You will be princes within the circle of princes.”
The Skraeling were quite silent, staring entranced at Axis.
“Go and take your future,” Axis said. “Go.”
“We can be princes?” one of the Skraelings asked.
“Every last one of you,” Axis said. “Envied, by all creation.” He hoped he wasn’t overdoing it. Flattery was going to be the only thing that would get the three of them out alive.
“Princes .” Ozll murmured, and suddenly his right eye shot all the way over to the right side of his face so that, once more, his two eyes sat evenly settled in his face.
Ozll nodded. “We will take it, Isaiah.” He waved a clawed hand, and the horde of Skraelings began to shuffle back, opening up the circle and the avenue back to safety.
Isaiah nodded at the Skraeling, then he turned and walked away, Axis and Inardle following.
None among the three dared breathe in case the Skraelings changed their minds.
When they were halfway down the avenue, Ozll called to them.
“Wait!”
They stopped, turning about slowly.
Ozll hurried up to them. “I will give you something in return,” he said, “for the choice you gave us.”
Isaiah raised an eyebrow.
“The One resides now in someone else,” Ozll said.
“Who?” Isaiah said.
“We are not certain,” said Ozll. “It was why we did not attack you instantly. We were scared the One might be within your number and we might eat him by mistake. But that woman you brought before us. He is not in her, and we doubt he resides anywhere within your army, for we should have felt him by now.”
“And yet, knowing this, you did not attack,” Isaiah said.
Ozll shrugged.
Isaiah smiled, happy with the choices that had been made here today. “Do you know where the One might be?”
“No true idea,” said Ozll, “but we suspect Elcho Falling. If not with you, then where else?”
“Then I shall hurry to Elcho Falling and discover for myself,” Isaiah said. He turned to go, but Ozll again called to him.
“Isaiah!” Ozll held out one of his great misshapen hands pleadingly. “Where is the nearest large body of water?”
By the gods, Axis thought, they’re actually going to do it!
Isaiah held Ozll’s gaze a moment. “Elcho Falling,” he said. “The lake that surrounds Elcho Falling.”
Then he, Axis and Inardle turned once more and walked back to the Isembaardian camp.
The next day, when Isaiah rose and instructed the soldiers to break camp to ride once more for Elcho Falling, it was to discover that the entire horde of Skraelings had vanished.
Every last one of them.
Chapter 26
Isembaard
Maximilian and his small party made good time in their journey east. The horses were a true boon, indeed, and everyone gave silent thanks for their appearance.
One day, when Maximilian estimated they were two or three days away from Hairekeep, the horse carrying Doyle, who was riding out front, shied so badly it almost threw the man.
Doyle brought the horse under control quickly, then shouted back to the others to keep their mounts under tight rein.
“Look!” he cried, pointing to the patch of sandy ground just to the north of the road.
“Merciful heavens,” Maximilian murmured as he drew in his horse behind Doyle’s.
The soil to the northern side of the road was very sandy, with little vegetation. Now, as they all sat their nervous horses and looked, the sand rose up in the shape of a series of hands, all stretching eastward. The hands alternately beckoned to the group of watchers, then pointed eastward.
“They are telling us to hurry,” Ishbel said.
“Aye,” Maximilian said, then he gave a small jump and pointed to a different patch of ground. “Look there!”
Just in front of the hands, and a little further along the road, a series of footsteps appeared in the soil, rushing eastward.
“Hurry, hurry,” Maximilian said.
“They must be tormented, indeed,” Serge said, “to have managed this.”
Maximilian looked at Avaldamon. “Avaldamon? You look worried.”
“I don’t know,” Avaldamon said. “I don’t like it.”
“You think it is the One?” Ishbel said.
“I don’t know,” Avaldamon said once more. “It . . . it reminds me of something Boaz told me about the land when the creature called Nzame ruled over the glass pyramid. Nzame turned the land to stone with countless tiny pyramids, all with a single eye in each face, dotted about. This is different, but it just made me recall that.”
“We shall be careful, then,” Maximilian said.
Avaldamon hesitated, but then spoke the thought that had been worrying him for many days . . . ever since Ishbel and Maximilian had told him about Josia’s plan to save the people trapped inside Hairekeep. “How much do you trust Josia, Maxel? Ishbel?”
“With our lives,” Ishbel answered for them both. “He has been through a nightmare of an existence, Avaldamon. He is for us. He has no reason to harm us.”
Maybe no, maybe yes, Avaldamon thought, but he nodded to Ishbel and Maximilian. “We shall be careful,” he said, and with that they resumed their journey east, the hands and running footsteps urging them to hurry.
Part Three
Chapter 1
Elcho Falling
Kezial stomped his feet as he marched through his encampment. Eleanon had insisted Kezial’s army camp on the north side of the lake which surrounded Elcho Falling.
Eleanon said it would be better. Give the Isembaardians more space.
Kezial knew differently. What it meant was that the Lealfast Nation encampment — that which had once been Armat’s encampment — sat between Kezial’s group and any possible route that Isaiah and his army, approaching from the south, might take. There was little chance Kezial could renege on his alliance with Eleanon and, in the middle of the night, decamp to join with Isaiah. The route to the west was blocked by the turbulent open channel to the sea and the citadel of Elcho Falling itself; the route south was blocked by the lake; the route to the east by the Lealfast themselves.
So Kezial and his men idled in their camp, doing little but keeping themselves fit through weapons practice and spending the rest of their days and half their nights staring at the citadel in the middle of the lake and wondering when, or if, they were ever going to see the inside of it.
Kezial had had enough. He’d been demanding to see Eleanon these p
ast few days and only now had the summons come.
Kezial was thinking very seriously that Isaiah would perhaps have been the better option.
Even Maximilian.
But extricating himself from this alliance was going to be . . . tricky. In fact, it was likely to be quite murderous. The Lealfast outnumbered Kezial’s men, had the not inconsiderable advantages of magic, invisibility and flight, and were hot-tempered and unpredictable to boot.
Kezial felt trapped and he didn’t like it.
Eleanon had a tent in the middle of the Lealfast encampment and that was where Kezial expected to meet him. Instead, however, one of Eleanon’s sub-commanders directed Kezial to a relatively isolated spot on the shore of the turquoise lake.
There Kezial found Eleanon, sitting on a barrel of wine, contemplating Elcho Falling rising in the centre of the lake.
Eleanon looked up at Kezial’s approach, smiled, and indicated another barrel set to one side. “Sit yourself down, Kezial.”
Kezial sat, cleared his throat, and opened his mouth to speak.
“You are feeling restless,” Eleanon said, forestalling Kezial. “You feel yourself trapped, you’re thinking that Isaiah might be the better option, but you are unsure of how to ally yourself with him without being slaughtered by my command.” His smile broadened into the false and insincere. “Am I right?”
Kezial wondered what to say.
“Yes, I am right,” Eleanon said. “I do not blame you, for I doubt I would be thinking any differently were I in your position. Your options are, after all, fairly limited. Kezial, my friend, we have not had much chance to talk since your arrival. Since intuiting your concerns and restlessness, I have decided to share with you some of my plans.”
How magnanimous of him, Kezial thought.
“What do you know of Elcho Falling?” Eleanon said.
Kezial blinked, a little surprised by the question. “Little save that it is a powerful citadel, magical, that many lust after it. You, Maximilian, Isaiah, this One of whom I’ve heard spoken, the girl Ravenna who aided us against Maximilian. Doubtless many others.”