They took over two hours to reach the Ice Fortress, and they made their final approach through the huge shadow that it spread across the snow plain. It was the shadow, Axis thought, that gave away the prism’s true nature. The prism might rise true and beautiful to the sun, but in reality it spread a shadow as dark as a raven’s wing over the land. Pristine on the outside, inside beat a heart of darkness.
As they stood close to the ice walls Axis made one final attempt to persuade the two men to wait for him outside. But both were resolute.
“Treachery lurks within,” Arne said.
Erode just shook his head, incapable of speech now.
And so Axis nodded. Inside lay their certain death, he was sure of that, but every man deserves to choose the way he dies, and these two had made plain their choice time and time again.
“Let’s go,” Axis said, and felt a nervous thrill at the thought that, finally, he was to meet his half-brother.
Prophecy.
They entered via a small doorway set in the southern face of the fortress. It was opened and unguarded, and Axis could feel Gorgrael’s presence strongly now. It lurked like a foul smell -that was the only way Axis could describe it to himself and, looking at the expression on Brode’s face, he knew that the Avar man reacted similarly to Gorgrael’s taint.
Arne drew his sword and pushed past Axis; his face was calm, his manner intent. Arne had no doubts about his mission and never thought about whether or not his actions might be foolhardy.
Axis followed, Erode limping determinedly in the rear.
The interior of the prism was a maze. Ice tunnels led up and down and sideways at crazy angles. Steps ended in glassy walls and rose from ceilings. Time and time again they had to retrace their steps as they found themselves in empty chambers and meaningless cul-de-sacs.
Time lost all meaning.
It had been late afternoon when they entered the prism, but the light inside never changed as the hours passed. It shone patiently through the walls, rippled off ice surfaces, scattered along floors and ceilings. It was impossible to tell time except by their own sense of fatigue, and that was no longer reliable.
Erode clutched at his chest, his eyes sunken and grey, and scrambled along as best he could behind the crimson figure ahead of him, and the darker, sterner figure ahead of that. Everything seemed wrong, out of kilter in this abominable construction. He could feel the crazy mind that had constructed it, feel its hatred and its need.
And he could feel its Avar blood, feel its resemblance to himself. Erode had embraced the Avar creed of non-violence his entire life, had believed utterly in it, but now he could see what a sham it was. The Avar were people of innate violence. It might not express itself in physical acts, but in attitude and in way of life. In the violent test the Banes administered to the children of promise; in the tempers and angers that flared to the surface at the slightest provocation; in Barsarbe’s reaction to and spite towards Azhure.
In Gorgrael.
He was a child of the Avar almost more than a child of the Icarii. It was his Avar blood that had nurtured so much of his hate, and it was his Avar blood that had created the Destroyer. His Icarii blood may have given him the means to access the power to achieve his ends, but it was his Avar blood that had created the need to destroy in the first instance.
Erode moaned and grabbed at the smooth ice wall for support. But his hand slipped down its surface, and he found himself on his knees in the corridor, Axis and Arne already almost out of sight.
A hand grabbed his hair from behind, and Erode felt the prick of a blade in his back.
“Axis,” he whispered and, amazingly, Axis heard.
He spun about, his cloak swirling, his sword gleaming in his hand. The light from the ice caught at its blade, and it glittered cheerily, scenting its prey.
Behind him, Axis saw Erode on his knees in the corridor, an expression of utter despair on his face, and Timozel holding him by the hair and by the point of his blade.
Timozel had changed. No longer the carefree boy or the handsome man, his face was grey, and almost as shrunken as Brode’s. All trace of good looks had gone. His hair was plastered to his skull by a thin layer of ice. His eyes, once deep blue, were now only rimmed with blue – the rest of his irises were stark white. His teeth were bared in what Axis first thought was a grimace of pain, then realised was a smile.
Axis heard Arne move behind him. “Stay,” he ordered. “Timozel is mine,” and the sword trembled in his hand.
“Give me your cloak,” Arne said, and Axis spared a moment to loosen the ties at his throat and let Arne draw the cloak off his shoulders. Underneath the golden tunic glowed as bright as the first day Axis had unfolded it before Azhure in Talon Spike.
As he felt the cloak lift off his shoulders there was nothing for Axis but he and Timozel. Even Erode, poor Erode, dying on the point of Timozel’s sword, was almost irrelevant. Axis had waited a long time for this. So had Timozel.
“I couldn’t have planned it better,” the Traitor snarled, “than to come across you sneaking into my master’s house in your gilded finery. He thinks to dispose of you himself, but I have planned this all my life, and I am not to be denied now.”
Axis stepped slowly towards him, Jorge’s sword weaving gently before him. “Why, Timozel?”
Timozel leaned his head back and roared with laughter, but the moment that Axis took a quick step forward Timozel closed his mouth with a snap and took a firmer grip on Brode’s hair.
The Avar man cried out as he felt the point of Timozel’s sword slide a finger-width into his flesh.
“Why, Axis? Because even as a toddler I could feel my mother’s adoring eyes on you, feel her hot breath as she watched you at sword play in the courtyard.” “Embeth loved your father.”
“Liar! Embeth loved no-one but you! She betrayed my father with you! When, Axis? When was the first time? When you were eleven and newly arrived in her house? Or did you manage to leave her unsullied until you were thirteen? Fourteen?”
“I never cuckolded Ganelon, Timozel. If your mother and I were lovers, then it was only after your father’s death. I respected and loved your father.”
But nothing Axis said made a difference to Timozel. All his life he had bottled up his resentment of Axis, of his ability, of his leadership. If only Axis hadn’t been there then Timozel would have been the one to shine. Timozel would have been BattleAxe.
“You never gave me the recognition and responsibility I deserved, Axis. I would have died a lowly horse soldier had I remained under your command.”
Axis laughed, and his laughter was every bit as harsh as Timozel’s had been. “As it is, Timozel, you will die a reviled Traitor under the command of a piece of corruption that should never have been birthed.”
Timozel’s mouth curled back in a snarl, although no sound left his lips. Erode shifted slightly in his grasp, and Timozel blinked and looked down, as if he had forgotten the Avar man was there.
Axis took advantage of Timozel’s momentary distraction to leap.
Timozel reacted instantly, instinctively. He thrust his sword at Axis…straight through Brode’s body.
The man gave a great shudder, but his lips smiled as he died, and Axis, even caught in his desperate struggle with Timozel, saw shaded forest paths reflected momentarily in Brode’s eyes. It distracted him long enough for Timozel to pull his sword free and throw the corpse to one side.
Timozel screamed in pure exultation, flattening himself against the wall to avoid Axis’ sword thrust, lunging himself the
moment the danger had whistled past. This was his chance to show who was the better, who should have had command in the first instance.
Axis spun gracefully on one foot and parried Timozel’s thrust. “I remember once,” he whispered, his face close to Timozel’s for an instant, “as I lay in bed with your mother …”
Timozel howled in fury, and came at Axis with a flurry of blows and strokes that would have decapitated a lesser opponent.
“… her body entwined as one with mine…so warm …”
Timozel grunted, his face enraged, his eyes bulging.
“. . . how we talked of you . . .”
“Liar!” Timozel raged, and turned his head just before Axis’ sword would have sliced off his ear.
“… and I thought, ‘how would I ever tell Embeth’…”