"Perhaps," said Maximilian.
Axis leaned against the balustrading, folded his arms, and looked at Maximilian. "What now? What do you want me to do about Armat?"
Maximilian looked out over Armat's encampment, thinking. "We have the advantage," he said after a moment or two. "Armat cannot enter Elcho Falling, and his siege engines can do little damage to the citadel. We have the advantage of a flighted army as well as a horsed one. Elcho Falling will never run short of food, or supplies. A siege will do little to damage us, save force us to rely on our own skills for entertainment."
"And the One?" said Axis.
"I want to wait for Isaiah," said Maximilian. "How long before he can join us?"
"He'll never get through Armat," said Axis. "He has a quarter of the men of Kezial and Armat combined."
"If Kezial and Armat combine," Maximilian said.
"You are relying a great deal on the hope that the Isembaardians will shatter due to their internal rivalries," Axis said quietly.
"I am relying on history," Maximilian said, a little sharply. "Axis, can you contact Isaiah through StarHeaven again? Find out where he is, how long it will take him to reach Elcho Falling. Also station members of the Strike Force as well as Lealfast down south. I want to know if, when, something follows Isaiah through the Salamaan Pass."
At that moment the wind caught at Ishbel's hair, and she lifted her hand to brush it out of her eyes.
Axis went cold at the sight of the ring on her finger, and he looked back at Maximilian.
"I pray to the stars you know what you are doing," Axis said, then turned on his heel and walked away.
"Axis!" Maximilian said.
Axis came to a halt, but did not turn around.
"A word, if you please," Maximilian said, catching the eye of the others present and tilting his head.
A moment later the balcony was deserted save for Maximilian, Ishbel, and Axis.
"I know what I do," Maximilian said, and Axis turned round.
"What is worth risking--" he began.
"It is worth everything," Maximilian said, "but yes, I agree it is a risk."
"And you agreed?" Axis said to Ishbel.
She gave a small smile. "Not at first, but Maxel was very persuasive."
"This," Maximilian said, lifting Ishbel's hand so that the ring glinted in the sun, "is what the One did not want me to do. Yes, it binds him to Elcho Falling. I believe what Isaiah says about the curse. I believe in its reality. The One is bound to Elcho Falling. Elcho Falling will grant him entry the moment he walks up to its front archway. But...somewhere in all of this is something that the One fears greatly: Ishbel and I, united in marriage."
Maximilian told Axis what he'd told Ishbel the night before: that he believed the One had carefully staged Isaiah's miraculous achievement in getting the message to Maximilian in time to prevent the ring going on Ishbel's finger.
"And yet you have no idea how to prevent the One becoming Lord of Elcho Falling," Axis said. "If he takes this citadel, if he takes you, then--"
"Then I need to do all I can to prevent it," Maximilian said. "Axis, I think the answer to all this lies back in Isembaard. It lies somewhere close to DarkGlass Mountain itself. I need to talk to Isaiah, very badly, because I think he has the key. I need, like Ishbel, to finish my training within the Twisted Tower. I--"
"Ishbel is learning the Twisted Tower?" Axis said.
"She is not who we need to fear," Maximilian said, "no matter what you have been told."
Axis shook his head, looking away for a few minutes as he thought.
"I'll say it again, Maxel," he said eventually, "I pray to the stars you know what you are doing."
"Are you still with me, Axis?"
Axis again gave a small shake of his head. "You don't make it easy for me."
Maximilian smiled. "But..."
"But I suppose someone has to look after you."
"Thank you, Axis," Ishbel said softly.
CHAPTER TWO
Elcho Falling
Axis spent the day with his commanders, organizing the defenses of Elcho Falling as best he could, and gathering as much information as possible about Armat's force.
"But Maximilian said that Armat's forces could not enter Elcho Falling," Inardle said to him at one point after he'd spent an hour with her, BroadWing and Eleanon discussing flighted tactics against the Isembaardian army.
"Perhaps," Axis said, "and perhaps not. I need to plan for the eventuality."
They were sitting in their apartments eating a light lunch. Inardle poured a glass of weak ale and slid it across the table toward Axis. "None of your winged command will prove useful if the Isembaardians get inside Elcho Falling."
Axis sighed, turning the glass in idle circles on the tabletop. "I know. I want to talk to Georgdi, Egalion, and Ezekiel this afternoon about stationing men on the lower reaches of Elcho Falling. If Armat's men did get inside, we'd still have the advantage."
He stopped, his eyes still on the glass as he kept turning it.
"But..." said Inardle.
"But," said Axis, "Armat has so many men. He'd lose thousands, but Armat can afford to do that." Again he paused, still watching the glass. "And he has Lister. Maximilian hasn't considered him. Lister knows Elcho Falling, and knows too many of its secrets."
He raised his eyes, looking at Inardle. "What do you think of him, Inardle? How much does he know?"
"Too much, Axis. Too much."
"There is always a traitor somewhere, Inardle. It is always the way."
She froze, but Axis appeared to have made the remark without any underlying meaning, and so she nodded and changed the subject.
Eleanon moved deep within Elcho Falling. The citadel extended far underground, and he spiraled down stairwells for what seemed like hours until he could go no further.
The levels above had mainly been storerooms, but here, at the very core of the citadel, was nothing but a bare and somewhat dusty space with a smooth rock floor that extended so deep into shadows that Eleanon could not see any end to it.
He stood, turning every so often so he could stare into a different part of this cold, lonely chamber, scrying out with his power to see if there was anyone else in the area.
He did not use the power of the Star Dance, but that of the Magi, which Eleanon thought only Maximilian might recognize, and likely not even he.
He was safe enough for the moment.
There was no one else here.
Eleanon's chest rose in a long, deep breath, then he held out his hands before him and muttered an incantation.
The air shifted above his hands, and then appeared the dark corkscrewed spire that Eleanon, Bingaleal, and Inardle had originally used to contact the One many weeks previously.
It was a dark, twisted thing of great power--the most powerful of the spires that the ancient Lealfast had created with the aid of the Magi.
Eleanon held it for a long moment, then he set it down in the center of the rock floor, turned his back, and left.
"Axis! Axis!"
He woke grudgingly, tired after a long day spent organizing and worrying.
"Axis!"
He rolled over, unwilling to wake up.
Then he felt Inardle put her mouth right against his ear. "Someone is inside Elcho Falling," she hissed, and Axis almost knocked her over as he sprang upright.
"How do you know?" he said.
"I have felt the movement in the Star Dance," she said, "and in the eddying of the air as it flows up through Elcho Falling. There is an intrusion in the vaulted chambers that lead from the entrance arch, moving toward the great stairwell."
Axis was by now half dressed and pulling on his boots. "Wake Egalion, and BroadWing, and--"
She was already gone, and Axis didn't bother with his shirt, grabbing his sword belt and buckling it about his hips.
"Shit," he muttered as he ran for the door.
Axis almost slid down one of the final curves of the staircase as
it wound to an end in the series of vaulted chambers that ran back from the entrance arch. He took several more steps down, then slowed, uncertain.
Everything appeared as it should. There was a pair of the Emerald Guard, standing sentry at one of the curves where Egalion had stationed them. Axis glanced up, seeing sentries further up the staircase and standing on internal balconies that overlooked the great stairwell.
They were watchful, but relaxed, and not a little curious as to why a half-unclothed Axis was sliding down the staircase in a state close to panic.
"StarMan?" one of the sentries near him said.
"There is something wrong," Axis said. "You can't feel it?"
The two sentries just down from him exchanged a glance, then shook their heads. "All is quiet, StarMan,"
one of them said.
"There is something wrong," Axis said, walking down the stairs more carefully now. He passed the two sentries, then glanced behind him as he heard more steps.
Egalion, and forty or fifty of the Emerald Guard, dressed and weaponed as if they'd been standing ready.
Axis looked back down the stairs. The hairs on the back of his neck were rising. Something was wrong, but he couldn't see anything, or otherwise recognize what it might be.
He stepped down a little further.
And, suddenly, there was a disturbance in the air before him.
Ravenna stepped out of the air, and behind her too many Isembaardian soldiers to count.
Stars! Axis thought, taking several steps back up the staircase as he turned to shout orders to Egalion.
"Wait," said Ravenna, "we have not come to fight or to harm."
Axis turned around. He didn't say anything, just looked at the soldiers that kept materializing out of the air. Ravenna's trick.
But how had she got them inside the entrance arch?
"Is Maximilian about?" Ravenna said.
"Yes," said a voice, "Maximilian is about."
Axis glanced over his shoulder. Maximilian was stepping past Egalion.
"What do you here, Ravenna?" he said as he came to stand beside Axis.
"Come to talk to you," said Ravenna, "and to demonstrate this." She turned a little, just enough to indicate the mass of soldiers behind her.
Axis glanced between Maximilian and Ravenna. Both appeared very calm, but he thought he could see traces of tension about Maximilian's eyes.
So much for Elcho Falling not allowing Armat's army entrance, Axis thought. If this was the point Ravenna had come to make, then she had made it very well indeed. He caught Egalion's eye, and the man gave a slight nod and began to make his way up the stairwell to get reinforcements.
"How are you, Maxel?" Ravenna said, folding her hands in front of her stomach. She looked very calm and very certain of herself, and the way she'd folded her hands before her tightened the fabric of her gown over her belly, emphasizing her pregnancy.
"You have not come this way and in this manner," Maximilian said, "to exchange banalities. What do you want, Ravenna?"
"You have seen how easily I gained entry," said Ravenna. "This time I brought a thousand men. Next time I might bring one hundred thousand. Have I made my point sufficiently?"
"Very efficiently," said Maximilian. "What have you come to say to me, Ravenna?"
"We need to talk, Maxel. We need to parley. Armat and I are prepared to offer you...a compromise, if you like."
"Say it here."
"No. I want to speak to you alone. Just you and me, Maxel, as once it was."
"It was never just you and me," Maximilian said.
"Then it should have been," she said, very quietly. "Come speak with me privately, Maxel. Please. Hear what I have to say." She paused. "Maxel, we need to talk about our child, and I will not do that with all these swords surrounding us."
"You were the one to bring the swords, Ravenna."
"Maxel, please." She hesitated. "Do not cast me off discourteously. Do not make me beg."
Something in Maximilian's face altered at that last. "Where do you want to meet, Ravenna?"
"Maxel--" Axis said, but Maximilian put a hand on his shoulder.
"It is all right, Axis," he murmured. Then, in a louder voice, "Ravenna?"
"Meet me in the Land of Dreams," Ravenna said. "You are skilled enough to find the way, and you know it will be safe there for both of us. Meet me in the Land of Dreams, tomorrow night."
Then, before Maximilian could answer, she turned around, and all the soldiers with her, and walked down the stairwell and back into the vaulted chamber.
"Follow them, and make sure they depart," Axis said to the sentries.
Then he looked to Maximilian. "How did they get in, Maxel?"
"The baby," Maximilian said. "Elcho Falling recognized the baby."
"As your child?"
"As the heir to Elcho Falling," Maximilian said.
"You can't do it."
Axis was with Maximilian, Ishbel, Egalion, and Garth in a chamber high in Elcho Falling.
"Maxel," Axis said, "you can't do it. It is too dangerous."
"She won't hurt me," Maximilian said.
Axis looked at Garth.
"I don't think she will, either," Garth said. "Ravenna has done many things I can't condone, but she would never stoop to harming Maxel."
"For all the stars' sakes," Axis said, "she allied herself with Armat! She was prepared to threaten you tonight with invasion! She killed her own mother! What won't she stoop to?"
"I agree with Axis," Ishbel said. "You can't trust her, Maxel. She wants Elcho Falling for herself and her child."
"If Ravenna wanted Elcho Falling for herself and her child," Maximilian said, "then she wouldn't be parleying. She would have simply led Armat and his two-hundred-thousand-odd men inside the arch this night and most of us would be dead by now. Axis, did you have defenses in place to repel that kind of intrusion?"
Axis shook his head. "Defenses would have been in place by tomorrow night, but even then..."
Maximilian grunted. "She could have had us all," he said, "but she didn't take the opportunity. She wants to talk, and I think I should hear what she has to say. For all I know she wants to negotiate with me against Armat."
"Maxel," Axis, Ishbel, and Egalion said as one.
Maximilian waved a hand, dismissing their objections.
"You should have known Elcho Falling would recognize the child," Axis said quietly.
"I had not thought," Maximilian said.
"Don't go," Ishbel said.
"I must," he said.
CHAPTER THREE
Land of Dreams and Elcho Falling
Ravenna?"
Maximilian moved through the Land of Dreams carefully. He walked down a damp gravel path. To either side of him were mist-shrouded marshes, studded with gray-green trees draped in moss that reached twiggy fingers through the tendrils of mist to tweak at Maximilian's hair as he passed.
"Ravenna?"
He wondered if the Lord of Dreams was about, but he couldn't sense him. No doubt he'd want to avoid Ravenna.
"Ravenna."
She appeared ten or so paces before him on the path, emerging slowly from the mist as if she glided on ice.
"Maxel." She halted, and Maximilian thought she looked weary and low of spirit.
"What do you want of me, Ravenna?"
"You must know. I want you to acknowledge this baby as your heir. No, wait, please. Let me finish. This is your son, Maxel. Your heir. Elcho Falling knows it, why can't you acknowledge it?"
He didn't answer her.
She sighed, moving her shoulders as if trying to loosen them from tension. "Maxel, the only dispute between us is Ishbel. I have said enough to you that you know how I feel. Ishbel will murder you and this land. And know you know why. Isaiah has sent word to you that--"
"You know that?"
"Yes. Lister could overhear the communication between Axis and StarHeaven."
Maximilian's face tightened, and he looked away from her.
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Ravenna took a half step toward him. "Ishbel will murder this land if you put that ring on her--"
"Ishbel won't, you fool! It is the One who carries destruction at his heels!"
"I know you love her, Maxel, but you need to rid yourself of Ishbel in order to save Elcho Falling, and to save the land. You can allow neither to fall to the bleakness that approaches."
"Ravenna, all you want is power, and you use any argument you can to seize it."
"It is not power, my love, but you that I want. I love you, I am here, ready at your hand, for whatever you want. I have waged war for you, Maxel. All for you. Do not cast me off again."
"I am tired of this, Ravenna. Too tired. If there is nothing else you want save but to slander Ishbel, then go."
"Do not put the ring to her finger, Maxel. Your very life depends on that."
"It is too late, Ravenna. I slid that ring to her finger the night before last."
Ravenna went white, her gray eyes glistening madly. "No! Tell me you did not--"
"I have made my choice, my lady. Ishbel is my choice, and my wife. I choose her before you, and in defiance of the One."
"No!"
"Too late," said a new voice, and Armat stepped out of the mist at the side of the path, and, as Maximilian started back in alarm, brought down his sword in a murderous arc, slicing Maximilian open from chest to groin.
There was a sudden, horrifying spurt of blood, and then Maximilian vanished from the Land of Dreams.
Armat rested the sword on the ground, staring at the pool of blood on the pathway.
"I needed a second stroke," he said.
"It does not matter," Ravenna said, her voice and face wooden. "That was a death blow. If not in the first instant, within the next ten minutes."
Then she turned and walked back down the path, leaving Armat leaning on his sword, staring at the blood soaking into the gravel.
Axis was sitting in a chair in one of the bedchambers that ran off the main command chamber. He watched Maximilian insensible in his own chair partway across the room. Ishbel sat close to him; Egalion and Garth stood further back in the chamber.
Everyone's eyes were on Maximilian.