Egalion and Garth were laughing.
"It is good to see you as well," Garth said, more than a little relieved at Maximilian's obvious joy. He had not been entirely sure of his reception. When Maximilian had left Escator to rescue Ishbel so long ago, they had not parted on the best of terms.
He took a moment to study Maximilian. The man looked overjoyed to see them, but Garth could see lines of strain and sadness about his eyes and mouth.
And this army ahead of them! What was Maximilian doing with such an army? It stretched into tomorrow's sunrise, so far as Garth could see.
"Escator escaped virtually unscathed," Egalion said. "Lixel is still in charge, and enjoying his duties as king too much, I think. Serge and Doyle? Are they are still with you? Are they well?"
"Yes," Maximilian said. "Serge and Doyle are with me, and are well, and will no doubt relish the chance to tell their comrades of their adventures these past months." He sobered. "As do I. There are...many things of which I need to tell you."
Just then there came the sound of a horse approaching, and Garth looked up.
It was Ishbel, looking wary at the approaching reunion.
"And I see you found your wife," Garth said, softly. He thought she looked very different than when he had first met her at Pelemere. She looked more open, stronger, far more confident.
And mildly unhappy at seeing Garth again.
Maximilian glanced behind him. "Yes. I found Ishbel." He paused. "As I said, there is much I have to tell you. You didn't see Malat and his men on your way? You didn't talk to them?"
"We saw Malat briefly," said Egalion. "He told us only that you were ahead and that you headed for Serpent's Nest. When we pressed him for more, he said it was your story to tell."
"He wanted to ride for Kyros as fast as he could," Garth said. "We told him that it had been attacked by the Skraelings, but had not suffered too much damage as they'd seethed south before they'd had time to get their claws too deep into the city. Malat's wife and children are well."
"Thank the gods," Maximilian muttered.
Ishbel had drawn her horse to a halt two paces away, and she dipped her head at Egalion and Garth.
"Well met again," she said. "I am happy to see you."
"Not too happy, I think," said Garth, "and for that I must apologize...ah, there I go again, Ishbel, I am always apologizing to you!"
He injected as much lightness and humor into his voice as he could, and was rewarded with a slight thawing in Ishbel's manner to the extent that they almost managed to share a smile.
But then she glanced behind Garth and Egalion to where the Emerald Guard waited, and her face shut down.
"Maxel," she said, very softly, "see who rides with your men."
Maximilian had his hand on Garth's shoulder as he looked back into the column of men, and Garth felt it suddenly tighten.
"Lister and Vorstus," Maximilian said, looking at the two men who sat horses four or five paces away.
"You've finally managed to find me."
"They joined us two days ago," Egalion said. He was looking at Maximilian, clearly worried by the barely concealed hostility in Maximilian's face and voice. "Vorstus said you'd know who Lister was. He said that--"
"You never asked Vorstus for an explanation as to why he'd deserted Ruen?" Maximilian asked Egalion.
Egalion looked uncomfortable. "I didn't have any reason to distrust him, Maximilian."
"Lister and, to a slightly lesser extent, Vorstus," said Maximilian, "are the two men primarily responsible for most of the ills of my life. If you want to know who truly imprisoned me in the Veins, and then kept me there for seventeen years, then look no further than those two. They suggested the entire idea to Cavor, and kept me there until it suited them to `rescue' me. If you want to know who destroyed Ishbel's life as a child, then look no further than those two. They took two lives and ruined them in order to further their own ambitions."
Egalion and Garth were now staring at him with their mouths agape.
"Vorstus?" said Garth. "Vorstus was responsible for your horror in the Veins?" He couldn't understand it...Vorstus had been the one who had set Garth on the path to being able to release Maximilian.
"Vorstus is far more than the amiable Abbot of Persimius he appears to be," Maximilian said.
"Vorstus," said the man himself, "has only ever been concerned for your welfare, Maximilian."
Maximilian took two strides toward the two mounted men. "And now I suppose I should be pleased that you have finally found me."
"We can help you, Maximilian," Lister said. "Try to believe that."
Maximilian stared at him a long, silent moment. "Frankly, that is something I find rather hard to believe."
He switched his gaze to Vorstus. "Tell me, Vorstus, do you have something of mine in your pack?"
Vorstus reached behind him and untied a satchel from the back of his saddle. He held it out to Maximilian. "Your crown, my Lord of Elcho Falling."
Elcho Falling? Garth thought.
Maximilian turned his head very slightly. "Ishbel? Will you take that for me, and keep it safe?"
She looked puzzled, but did as Maximilian asked, pushing her horse forward and taking the satchel from Vorstus.
"Well met, my lady," Vorstus murmured.
Ishbel ignored him, looking instead at Lister, the man who for most of her life she had worshipped as the Great Serpent.
"How dare you think yourself worthy of continued breath," she said, "when you have destroyed so many lives?"
Then she turned her horse and rode away.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Isembaard
Isaiah lay on the ground, barely conscious, his head ringing with the force of the blow.
"That was for all the people you left behind," Hereward said. "If my point hasn't quite been made, I
don't mind hitting you again."
Isaiah managed to raise a hand to ward her off. It trembled badly, and that made him furious.
"Did you think I wanted to leave everyone behind?" he said, trying to sit up, only to slump to the ground again as he almost blacked out with the movement. He fought unconsciousness, and only barely won.
"Did you think I wanted to leave a single person behind? I had no way to get everyone out. All I could do was to evacuate as many people as--"
She hit him again, this time with her open hand. Isaiah's head snapped back, and his neck cracked, but at least this time he didn't end up in the dust.
"Have I made my point sufficiently now?" Hereward said.
Isaiah opened his mouth to hiss at her that he was doing all he could, had done all he could, then thought better of it. Gods, the woman was mad.
"Yes," he said.
She sank down into the dirt beside him, crossing her legs, arranging her skirts modestly, and laying the book in her lap. Isaiah peered at it, sure he would see his blood smeared across it--the woman might have been thin, but she was well muscled--but the leather cover was unmarked.
Isaiah very carefully managed to sit upright without having to lean on one or both of his hands, and tried to regain control of the situation. "Why are you here?" he said. "Why--"
"Why am I here, Excellency?" Her voice cracked with sarcasm on that last word. "Oh, the small matter of Aqhat being overrun with horror. The desire to escape. The desire to live. The desire to--"
"Hereward, please, I am truly sorry for what has happened and, yes, I bear responsibility for every person who was lost. I cannot even begin to imagine the nightmare that you, as everyone left behind, has had to endure. How is it you have ended here, on this deserted stretch of the Lhyl? And how is it that the Skraelings leave you be?"
Isaiah watched the emotion play over Hereward's face, and knew she was battling the desire to berate him yet more. But she didn't, and for that Isaiah was grateful. Very slowly, and with a fair degree of prompting, Hereward told of her escape from Aqhat on the riverboat, and of the subsequent slaughter of her companions when the river turn
ed to glass and the Skraelings surged onto the vessel.
She paused at that point, and Isaiah saw in her eyes and across her face a partial reflection of the terror, the horror, that she must have endured.
"I knew I was dead," she said, clutching the book in her lap with white-knuckled hands. "There was nowhere for me to run. I had backed up against the bulkhead, and in my terror dislodged this book from a shelf above me."
She glanced at it. "I had never seen it there previously."
Hereward looked at Isaiah. "The book knocked me to the deck...and when I managed to regain my senses I saw the Skraelings standing about me in a semicircle, pointing at the book and whispering, `A
nasty, nasty.' Then they turned and filed out. They haven't bothered me since."
"A `nasty, nasty'? Hereward, can I see the book?"
Hereward's hands tightened on the book, and Isaiah could see she struggled with herself. Finally, after a long moment, she lifted it and gave it to him.
He knew as soon as he took it in his hands that it was an object of great power, and he knew as soon as he opened the leather binding and looked at the chapter page what it was.
It was the Book of the Soulenai, lost now for many hundreds of years.
Lost, or merely biding its time?
"What is it, Isaiah?"
"This book...I know of it. It is many thousands of years old, and originally came from the north...from a place called Elcho Falling. It came to this land in the possession of a man called Avaldamon, who passed it to his son, Boaz, and his wife, Tirzah. The woman who came to Aqhat, my new wife, Ishbel...you remember her?"
"Yes."
"Ishbel is the descendant of Boaz and Tirzah."
"The book is mine, now."
Isaiah gave her a gentle smile. "The book is its own, and chooses who it stays with. For the moment, yes, it has chosen you."
He ran his fingers down the list of chapter titles.
The One walks north.
Prepare for confrontation.
Isaiah and Hereward meet with the glass man.
Feed the pretty kitten.
Those four chapter titles were repeated down the page. The first three Isaiah could understand, but...feed the pretty kitten?
He closed the book and handed it back to Hereward. "A visitor comes, Hereward. I fear he may not be very pleasant."
"A visitor?"
The One. Isaiah knew instinctively who that must be.
"The pyramid walks north, Hereward. It wants to talk with me. It wants me. I'm sorry, my dear, but I
think your life is about to get immeasurably worse, and that is, again, all my fault."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
On the Road to Serpent's Nest
Ishbel sat in her blue tent, staring at the satchel which lay unopened on the camp table before her. To one side a brazier glowed, warming the interior of the tent, while the remains of a meal lay on another small table. Ishbel had not joined Maximilian, Egalion, and Garth this evening. Maximilian had a great deal to tell them, and she had thought it best she not be there.
Why had Maximilian given her the crown of Elcho Falling?
Ishbel had turned and ridden away from Lister as soon as she'd insulted him. Partly this was because she simply could not bear to stay in the company of the man who had cold-bloodedly caused her and Maximilian so much misery, partly it was to escape an already uncomfortable meeting, and partly because Ishbel could not trust herself to remain in the man's company without causing him some bodily harm.
How could she have devoted twenty years of her life to him?
She took a deep breath, staring at the satchel as she tried to distract herself from Lister. She had not touched it other than to drop it on the table on her return. Hours had passed as she ate, bathed, dressed in her nightclothes, and then brushed out her long blond hair--listening as Maximilian and the Emerald Guard arrived back in camp, and half hoping that Maximilian would drop by to see his crown--but now she could not put the moment off any longer.
The satchel throbbed at her.
Indeed, the crown had been whispering to her from the moment she took the satchel from Vorstus.
Ishbel supposed she had grown up a little, because the crown's whispering had not bothered her to anywhere near the same extent as she'd been bothered by Maximilian's whispering rings. She'd managed to put its voice and words out of her mind, aware of its whispering, but not disturbed by it.
But now there were no more delaying tactics available to her. Ishbel took a deep breath and slid the satchel close. She undid the straps and folded back the leather flap. Then she took an even deeper breath, slid in her hand, and grasped the crown of Elcho Falling.
She froze, staring down at the satchel and her wrist as it vanished under the flap.
The crown was alive.
It was all Ishbel could do to keep her hand on its cool metal.
Ishbel, the crown of Elcho Falling said, do you remember what Isaiah said to you when first you met?
"No," Ishbel muttered.
He said that you were the priestess of the Lord of Elcho Falling. That is why Maximilian gave me to you to keep for the moment.
"Oh," Ishbel said, as she realized the meaning of what Isaiah had said to her, and the reason Maximilian had wanted her to have the crown.
"You should be the one to crown him," said a voice behind her, and Ishbel whipped about, pulling her hand from the satchel.
Lister stood there.
Ishbel stared at him, for the moment so angry at his intrusion that she could find nothing to say.
He gave a little smile. "May I sit?"
"No."
"Once you were pleased to see me. You hung off my every word."
"You deceived me. You murdered my family in order to manipulate me into what you wanted. Had you never thought to merely ask, Lister?"
"Don't be so angry, Ishbel. I did what was needed, and I can still aid and advise you. Besides, do not forget that you owe all your power to me--"
No, the crown said, and Ishbel understood that Lister could not hear it. You have far more power than what he gave you. Far more. The blood of Elcho Falling runs in your veins, and he envies it.
Then it hissed, again inaudible to Lister, and Ishbel involuntarily gave a small smile.
Lister mistook the reason for her smile. He relaxed, and reached for the back of a wooden chair, meaning to lift it close and sit down. "It is all behind us now, Ishbel. Between us, you and I can make of Maximilian what we need--"
"Get out."
Lister froze in the act of sitting. "Ishbel--"
"Get out. You are nothing to me now, Lister. Meaningless. I suspect you are now very meaningless to Maximilian and to Elcho Falling as well. Go. Find some other poor soul to manipulate if you must, but leave us alone."
"You will need me, Ishbel. Both you and Maximilian."
"I can't imagine the circumstances under which either of us would voluntarily call for your aid, Lister. You have delivered the crown. I'm sure Maximilian is grateful. Now...just go."
Lister stared at her for a long moment, then he turned on his heel and left.
Ishbel closed her eyes and forced the muscles of her shoulders and neck to relax. The very sight of him made her feel nauseated.
All the people who had suffered and died due to his meddling.
And why? Would Maximilian have been any less the man he was now for not having spent seventeen years existing in hell? Would she have been any less the woman had she been allowed to grow within her loving family instead of living among their corpses?
Who was the greater fool? Lister for his meddling, or herself for perhaps alienating a man, a god, who could aid Maximilian?
"Maxel," Ishbel murmured, rolling her head a little to stretch her neck and shoulders, "I hope I haven't ruined this for you, too."
Then she opened her eyes and looked at the satchel. Slowly, but now without any hesitation, she slid her hand in once more, took hold of the crown of Elcho Falling, an
d drew it forth.
For a long minute Ishbel held it in her hands, then she placed it atop the satchel on the table.
Ishbel knew its shape and proportions from holding it in her hands: three heavy rolled bands, probably of gold from the occasional glimpse she caught of them, twisted around each other to create a simple yet elegant crown. But she could barely see the golden bands. The entire crown was almost completely obscured by a roiling cloud of darkness.
"Why are you so dark?" she said. "Why the gloom?"
"Perhaps it sees you for what you are," said another voice behind her.
Oh, for all the gods' sakes! Ishbel turned about on her chair, hardly able to believe the fact of another intruder.
Ravenna stood in the center of the tent, very dark, very still.
"Ishbel," Ravenna said, "do you not know how dangerous you are to Maximilian? Can you not see how--"
"Get out," Ishbel said.
"Leave him," Ravenna said. "Let him live."
Ishbel rose from her chair and walked up to Ravenna. "Do you have nothing better to do than rail against me?"
"You will destroy him."
Ishbel's hand twitched, and she kept it by her side only with the greatest effort. "I must be a terrible threat to you, Ravenna. You hated me from the first moment you heard my name, I think."
To Ishbel's surprise, Ravenna's eyes gleamed with tears. "You think this is about you, Ishbel? Only incidentally. All I want is Maximilian's happiness and success. But you stand in the way. Step aside, Ishbel."
"If you cared this much then you should have stayed at Maximilian's side, Ravenna. Not abandoned him the moment you thought you'd found someone a little more powerful. What a mistake Drava was, eh?"
"You think you love Maximilian, Ishbel, but you will inevitably betray him, and Elcho Falling, and this land besides."
"And this you have seen."
"And this I have seen."
"You are truly tedious," Ishbel said. "Get out."
This time Ravenna went.
"Ravenna."
She turned about. A man approached her through the night.