“The mayhem destroyed all the work Ishbel and I had done on cataloguing the items in the Twisted Tower,” he said. “We’ll need to start all over again.”
“I’m sorry, Maxel,” Isaiah said.
Maximilian gave a little shrug of his shoulders, accepting the apology. They were standing on the largest landing of the main staircase, backs against a wall as scores of people hurried past carting bedding and clothes to windows and balconies to be draped out in the open air. Ropes had been strung between many of the balconies to hang sheets and blankets. Maximilian thought that from a distance Elcho Falling must look like a laundress’ tower.
“Can it happen again?” Axis said. “I mean, can Eleanon now direct anything we do outside of Elcho Falling, inside Elcho Falling. If I direct a soldier to shoot an arrow at a passing Lealfast, will Elcho Falling then be filled with thousands of arrows bouncing about?”
Maximilian gave a small shake of his head. “I talked to Elcho Falling before I came down here, worried about the same thing. Apparently what Eleanon did was take the enchantment of the mayhem and reflect it inside via the Dark Spire. Neither Elcho Falling nor myself believe that an ordinary occurrence — a non-magical occurrence — can be reflected the same way. But it does dampen your use of the Star Dance, Axis, as it does whatever you can summon, Isaiah. Be careful.”
Georgdi approached them, climbing the stairs. “The lower chambers have been drained of their water,” he said. “The Dark Spire . . . you need to see the Dark Spire, Maximilian.”
Maximilian began the walk down the stairs.
Axis could barely believe it. Maximilian had told them that eventually the Dark Spire would recreate Elcho Falling within itself, but this .
Since the mayhem the spire had grown, pushing through three more levels (and into the chamber that had held the pool leading to the tunnel to the lake); detritus from the broken floors lay scattered about the chambers the spire had grown through, making walking difficult. But, more than its growth, it was the change in the spire’s appearance that shocked everyone.
It was developing balconies and windows.
As yet these were mere bumps and depressions in the outer skin of the spire, but their overall pattern clearly revealed what one day they would become.
“Worse news,” said StarDrifter, coming down the stairs behind them. “The Lealfast have returned.”
Axis and Isaiah stood on one of the eastern balconies, looking out to where the Lealfast had recommenced their slow flying in of boulders to dam off the lake about Elcho Falling. Maximilian had returned to his eyrie, to Ishbel and their task of finding a way to remember all the objects in the Twisted Tower, and StarDrifter and Georgdi were occupied inside, supervising repairs. Axis had warned StarDrifter about using the Star Dance, and asked him to spread the word among the remaining Enchanters.
Stars . . . ’remaining Enchanters’. At this rate StarDrifter would be Talon of nothing but memories.
“Have you heard any word from Inardle?” Isaiah said.
“No.”
“I wish I knew what was happening with those damn Skraelings,” Isaiah said. “They have the power to completely destroy us if they decide to combine with their old allies the Lealfast and attack.”
“She will contact us as soon as she can,” Axis said.
“We don’t even know if she escaped,” Isaiah said.
Axis repressed a sigh. “If she escaped, and once she has news, then she will contact us as soon as she can.”
They watched for a few more minutes as two more pairs of Lealfast flew in and dropped their boulders into the channel. Axis and Isaiah could make out the shadows of the submerged boulders now — they were only just under the surface. In only a few hours the lake would be dammed completely.
“Why do they want that ribbon of land surrounding Elcho Falling’s lake?” Axis muttered. “For what purpose are they going to use it?”
“Well, I, for one, have had enough of this standing about uselessly,” Isaiah said. He stepped to the door leading inside Elcho Falling and shouted for a couple of bowmen.
“Stars, Isaiah,” Axis said as two Isembaardian bowmen hurried out onto the balcony. “Be careful.”
“Maximilian said this would not harm us,” Isaiah said, and Axis wondered if Maximilian had any idea, really. He wanted to ask Isaiah to wait a few minutes just to warn the people inside Elcho Falling, but Isaiah was not in any mood to wait.
“Shoot those two Lealfast,” Isaiah said to the bowmen, indicating a pair of Lealfast flying in with a boulder in a sling between them. “Can your arrows reach that distance?”
“Easily, Excellency,” said one of the men, and without further hesitation they raised their bows, fitted their arrows, and let fly.
The arrows flew straight and true, arching high over the lake before beginning their descent toward the Lealfast.
“They are flying true!” Isaiah said, but, no sooner were the words out of his mouth than the waters of the lake erupted and twin black tendrils reached into the sky, snatching the arrows as they fell and bearing them back underwater.
The four men on the balcony stood in silence, shocked.
“A volley,” Isaiah snapped. “Shoot a volley.”
The bowmen again raised their bows and, their movements honed by years of practice, shot a volley of arrows into the air toward the Lealfast. These — because of the speed at which they were delivered, as many as six per breath between the two men — were not so accurately aimed, yet nonetheless they flew toward the Lealfast.
A score of black tendrils erupted from the lake, snatching the arrows from the sky.
“Shetzah!” Isaiah cursed.
The Lealfast continued to drop the boulders. They had not once glanced toward the arrows.
Chapter 10
The Outlands
The Skraelings hovered, partway between full reality and their dream state.
Their meeting with Inardle had confused and upset them. They had almost agreed among themselves that they would become River Angels, that they did have the courage to step into the water and drown, but Inardle’s news . . . that she had killed . . . had deeply upset the Skraelings.
At some point in both their physical and mental journey from who they had been toward who they might be, the Skraelings had developed a deep antipathy to killing. They had spent their entire lives killing; their culture and very sense of self worth had been largely based on slaughter, yet now . . . now the idea that they might lay hand to another and tear them apart, caused the Skraelings to feel deep abhorrence.
As they sat, considering, they were unaware that their talons were receding, and their over-sized jaws finally shrinking to normal size, and their teeth turning from fangs to grinding molars.
Isaiah the Water God had set them on a course that, whether or not it ended in their becoming River Angels, would change their lives forever.
Knowledge of their beginnings and contemplation of their own nature had done within a few short weeks what no army had ever been able to do in decades of trying: destroyed forever the threat of the Skraeling.
“What do we want to do?” Ozll asked into this grey sea of contemplation. “Who do we want to be?”
“Not a River Angel if the first thing Inardle did in her new form was to embark on murder,” said Mallx.
“But the life of the River Angel is so compelling,” the female Graq said. “It calls to me. It runs in my blood.”
Ozll nodded, and there was a murmur of assent among the great herd.
“But —” Mallx said.
“I know,” Ozll interrupted. “We all sway toward the life of the River Angel, but we wonder if it might be viler than our current incarnation.”
He paused. “I have an idea, strange as it may be to you.”
“I think I know what it might be,” Graq murmured, and Ozll looked at her, and nodded.
Chapter 11
Elcho Falling
Eleanon stood in the pre-dawn, looking at Elcho Fal
ling glimmer in the last light of the full moon.
A week, no more, and it would be his.
Seven days.
“The magic is all worked?” Falayal said quietly at Eleanon’s side.
Eleanon gave a terse nod.
“And the One? He absolutely is vanished? You are certain?”
“The Twisted Tower now drifts many lifetimes away from this world,” Eleanon said. “The One is,” his mouth lifted slightly at the pun, “quite out of the equation now, Falayal. Is everyone ready?”
“Yes,” Falayal said, “and anxious and excited all at the same time. You are sure this will —”
“It will work!” Eleanon said fiercely. He took a calming breath. “Everyone knows what to do?”
“Yes. When will we start?”
“In an hour. When the light is good. If anyone trips over a shadowed pebble then the day’s work is lost. Falayal . . . I need a little peace and quiet. I need to touch the Dark Spire.”
Falayal bent his head in respect, moving away into the dim light. Eleanon stood a few minutes longer, staring at Elcho Falling, waiting for Falayal to make his way back to the nearest Lealfast camp, then he took a deep breath, then another, then closed his eyes.
Friend, he called, and the Dark Spire responded.
An hour after dawn the Lealfast moved. They gathered first in massive groups in a clear space just beyond each of their twelve encampments. Everyone save the infirm, the youngest children, and the disabled. They did not speak; they kept their eyes downcast; they seemed unaware of each other.
Eleanon stood on a small rise to the north, perhaps fifty paces away. Once all the Lealfast had gathered into twelve huge groups, and were still, Eleanon raised his hands, paused, then gave a resounding clap.
The Lealfast began to move, very slowly, but with precision and purpose. Long lines of Lealfast wound out of the twelve groups, some moving in lines westward about the lake, some in lines going eastward. As they moved, Eleanon kept up a slow, rhythmic clapping, and all the Lealfast moved in time to his beat.
As they marched, they kept their eyes turned downward.
Line after line emerged from the twelve camps until, well over an hour later, the lake was encircled by twelve concentric lines of Lealfast, alternate lines moving in different directions.
As soon as the lines had formed, Eleanon stopped his clapping, and the lines fell still.
“What are they doing?” Axis said, keeping his voice muted for no reason that he knew of, save that this was, at the every least, an awe-inspiring sight. Now he could see why the Lealfast had needed the shoreline kept clear, and why they’d needed to dam the channel.
Eleanon had wanted to complete the circle.
The dam had been finished off with soil and trampled reeds, and the reed beds to either side had been beaten down to create a solid surface.
Isaiah didn’t answer. He took a step forward on the balcony (they watched from the north face of Elcho Falling this morning), put his hands on the railings and narrowed his eyes.
“Isaiah?” Axis said.
One of Isaiah’s hands came up briefly. Wait.
Axis looked back to the circles of stationary Lealfast, then past them to where Eleanon stood on his rise.
As if he knew Axis had shifted his regard to him, Eleanon raised his hands again, and recommenced his clapping.
Now it was a slow, powerful beat. On the fifth clap, the rings of Lealfast moved, instantaneously, and all in step. Each circle moved forward, each alternate circle moving in a different direction. They marched, not as an army, but with a slight spring in each step, so their feet slapped down absolutely in time with Eleanon’s clapping.
“Shetzah,” Isaiah murmured.
Axis thought that Isaiah spent way too much time muttering curses these days and little enough time on explanations.
“Isaiah?” he said, his voice edged with frustration.
All the circles were moving, springing up and down in perfect time with Eleanon’s slow, heavy clapping.
“Look at the lake!” Isaiah said.
Axis looked. The surface of the lake rippled with thousands of tiny wavelets, emanating in perfect circles from the shoreline and running toward Elcho Falling.
Then Isaiah grabbed Axis’ hand and rammed it down on the balcony railing. “Feel!”
The railing vibrated under Axis’ hand with tremors perfectly attuned to the marching dance of the Lealfast and Eleanon’s hands.
Axis raised his eyes and stared at Isaiah.
“When I led an army,” Isaiah said, his voice low and intent, “my army never marched over a bridge. They walked, all discordant. They did not march, on my orders. Did you ever march a large cohort of men over a bridge, Axis StarMan?”
“No,” Axis said, feeling sick to his stomach.
“No,” Isaiah echoed. “No. Never. Army commanders know how dangerous it is to march men in rhythm over a bridge because of the risk the rhythm will set up a fatal reverberation through the bridge and bring it down.”
Axis pulled his hand away from under Isaiah’s. “What can we do?”
“We meet in the command chamber, with Georgdi and Insharah and StarDrifter, and we stay there until we have a solution!”
Ishbel and Maximilian stood at the edge of their eyrie, looking down.
Like Isaiah, they well understood the significance of what Eleanon attempted.
“We’re going to have to leave Isaiah and Axis to try and do what they can,” Maximilian said. “We still have so many levels to work through.”
Ishbel laid a hand on his arm. “Then we’d best get to work,” she said.
Maximilian gave her a faint smile. They’d worked through the night redrawing designs and diagrams, remembering the levels they’d already been through. It had been easier and quicker this time and currently there were diagrams for fully one-third of the Twisted Tower, but there was a long way to go.
“Indeed,” he said, and together they turned away from the view and went back to their work.
The Lealfast continued their slow marching dance about Elcho Falling. Everyone in the citadel could feel it — a slight tremor under their feet or hands. It was only the slightest of tremors, yet still it unnerved everyone in the building.
Isaiah and Axis met with StarDrifter, Georgdi and Insharah in the command chamber. None of them sat. None wanted to sit and feel the floor and chairs vibrate. Instead, they all remained on their feet, moving restlessly about the chamber, trying, uselessly, to escape the sensation felt through their feet.
“We need to do something!” StarDrifter said.
“What?” Axis said. “Send out the army? They’d be slaughtered as they issued down the causeway, and Maximilian does not want to risk a transference. Should we rain arrows down on the Lealfast? We tried that, and look what happened. Send in the Strike Force? Oh wait, the Strike Force is useless.”
“Axis .” Georgdi murmured.
“Well, you tell me what we can do!” Axis shouted, frustrated beyond measure. Oh stars, to be on horseback and riding the plains, not stuck in this tower of death!
“How long will it take?” Insharah said to Isaiah, and it took Isaiah a moment to realise what he meant.
“To destroy Elcho Falling?” he said. “Not in a day, nor in several days. But a week or more of this . . . and, I wager, with an escalation as that week progresses? Any building will have cracked and fallen to its destruction by then. With Elcho Falling, I just don’t know.”
“We need to inform Maximilian about this,” StarDrifter said.
“Maxel will be well enough aware of it,” Axis said. “He knows. He and Ishbel have their own concerns. We need to deal with this.”
He turned to Isaiah. “Isaiah . . . we can discuss trying to physically stop the Lealfast. Would a counter-rhythm help? The danger is that a regular, rhythmic beat will shudder Elcho Falling apart . . . but what if it was arrhythmic? Can we turn it from a regular beat to a discordant one?”
Isaiah star
ed at Axis. “By the gods, Axis, you may have some —”
He was interrupted by StarHeaven, who was in such a rush she almost stumbled in the door.
“Isaiah, Axis,” she said. “Come see. Now . . . please.”
They hurried out of the chamber after StarHeaven. She led them down two flights of stairs, then into a chamber that backed onto the external wall of Elcho Falling.
“Look,” StarHeaven said, pointing at a spot on a wall clear of any furniture.
There was a dark splotch on the wall from where lines of fracture radiated outward.
With every succeeding tremor, so the fracture lines spread a little further.
Axis stared, then hurried to a nearby window, hanging out to inspect the exterior wall.
“They’ve gone right through,” he said. The outer wall was sheer water here, but the fracture lines manifested themselves as bloodied lines in the water.
“It is one of Ravenna’s ‘eggs’,” Isaiah said. “Georgdi, Insharah — organise your men. I want an inspection of every wall in this citadel.”
As they hurried away, Isaiah turned to Axis. “Are you certain Maximilian wants Ravenna kept alive?” Isaiah said. “Because if I had the option of laying my hands on her right now, I would tear the traitorous bitch from limb to limb.”
Three hours later Isaiah and Axis had the results of Georgdi’s and Insharah’s search.
There were almost one hundred and fifty “eggs” embedded in the walls, all in the lower third of the citadel where the walls of water merged into the walls of crystal, and all were breeding fracture lines.
The Lealfast continued their slow, rhythmic circling of Elcho Falling until dusk when, the moment Eleanon stopped beating his hands, they too stopped, broke out of their lines, and walked wearily back to their camps for a good evening meal and a night’s rest.
Chapter 12
Elcho Falling
Maximilian and Ishbel sat sifting through the floor by floor plans of the Twisted Tower. They had stayed up all night, save for two brief rests, and were now exhausted, but they had only five more levels to go.