seems. Perhaps tales of my attractions have spread.”
“It is suspicious, Maxel.”
“Yes. Perhaps.”
StarWeb sighed. Maximilian was in one of his uncommunicative moods.
“What was she like, StarWeb?”
“Lovely, if you like the sharp-edged kind.”
Now Maximilian smiled far more genuinely. “I like you.”
“Ha. Well, she is lovely, but curiously gauche. She is uncomfortable among people,
constantly watching others as if she needs prompts on what to say and do. I think she has been
hidden among the Coil for too long. God knows what they taught her, but social skills must not have been high on their list. Maximilian, if she is to be your queen, then she shall need some
hasty lessons in the arts of conversation and etiquette once she reaches Ruen.”
StarWeb paused, thinking. “She is not comfortable to be around, and I think that is
mainly because she is desperately uncomfortable around others.”
“I was not the world”s best conversationalist when first I stepped forth from the Veins
either, StarWeb.”
“You are curiously defensive of a woman you have never met, Maxel.”
Maximilian opened his mouth, then shut it again, and contented himself with a small
shrug in answer.
StarWeb rose, weariness evident in her every movement. “I am going to take some rest,
Maxel. Perhaps we can meet later?”
“Yes. Perhaps.”
StarWeb looked at Maximilian a long moment, wondering why he”d decided to leave
Ruen for Pelemere before hearing from her, then decided she was too tired and Maximilian was
too uncommunicative to justify the question.
She turned and left the chamber without another word.
Maximilian did not move for an hour or more, leaning against the window frame,
thinking.
He was not foolish enough to think that a bride sent to him from the heart of the
Mountain at the Edge of the World from an order devoted to the Great Serpent was mere
coincidence, but he had convinced himself that the only reason Light, in his guise as a serpent,
had sent her was that he”d decided the Persimius line needed new, stronger blood.
Or that perhaps Maximilian was doing so badly at finding a bride on his own, when an
heir was so badly needed, that he”d sent one himself.
Elcho Falling was not stirring. Maximilian was sure of it. He”d spent the night before he
left Ruen standing in front of the crown, trying to see any chance, any sign of life.
But the crown of Elcho Falling was as it had been for millennia. Absolutely quiet.
Besides, there was no crisis, no desperation, no reason to think Elcho Falling was needed.
He need not worry.
He need not fret about the emptiness of the Twisted Tower. That would be for one of his
descendants to worry about, perhaps, but not he.
Maximilian took a deep breath, consciously relaxing his shoulders as he exhaled. He had
brought the emerald and ruby ring with him. He knew that he and Ishbel would marry. They
would live calm, settled lives, gradually building a marriage, and having many children.
All would be well.
Of course it will, said his ring. Naturally. Just like your youth and early manhood was
calm and settled and happy.
Irritated, Maximilian pulled the ring from his finger and slipped it into the pocket of his
outer robe.
CHAPTER TEN
Hairekeep, Tyranny of Isembaard
Ba”al”uz faced a long and arduous journey north into the Northern Kingdoms. The
northern dependencies of the Tyranny of Isembaard themselves could be difficult at this time of
the year, while the FarReach Mountains beyond were not well known for their winter bonhomie.
Nonetheless, Ba”al”uz was looking forward to the experience. As much as he loved DarkGlass
Mountain and Kanubai”s whisperings, there was also knowledge to be gained and trouble to be
caused in the Northern Kingdoms, and Ba”al”uz couldn”t wait for either.
Isaiah and Lister might well think Ba”al”uz was laying the ground for their invasion, but
in reality Ba”al”uz meant to prepare the ground for Kanubai.
But all that lay in the delectable future. For now Ba”al”uz was merely glad to remove
himself from his brother”s company. Ah, that Isaiah! Strutting about wrapped in his muscles and
jewels and black, black braids, thinking himself lord of all, sneering behind Ba”al”uz” back.
Ba”al”uz could not wait to see Isaiah ground into the soil under Kanubai”s heel.
Isaiah had always been irritating, but Ba”al”uz had discovered new depths of loathing and
resentment toward his brother at the arrival of Axis SunSoar.
Axis” arrival dismayed Ba”al”uz, because, first and most important, Ba”al”uz had no idea
how Isaiah had managed it. Isaiah was a tyrant, and he was a warrior, but surely he had not the
skills or powers of a priest.
Yet no one but a priest, or the most remarkable of magicians, could have pulled Axis
SunSoar from the Otherworld into this one.
Isaiah should not have been able to do it.
The fact that he had appalled Ba”al”uz, because it meant that Isaiah was harboring secrets
from him, and secretive power.
Axis” arrival dismayed Ba”al”uz for a second reason—it meant that Isaiah meant to
replace Ba”al”uz as his most intimate advisor.
Ba”al”uz loathed his younger, prettier brother, and the only thing that had made their
close relationship bearable was the fact that Isaiah needed Ba”al”uz as his advisor and weapon
within the volatile politics of Isaiah”s court.
Now Isaiah had Axis and Ba”al”uz” jealousy and bitterness festered deeper with the
passing of each hour.
Now he would do anything to ensure Isaiah”s downfall.
With Kanubai”s aid and the power of DarkGlass Mountain, then who knew? With Isaiah
dead, then who knew…?
The tyrant throne would be empty, and who better to sit it, eh, than Kanubai”s best and
most loyal friend?
Five days after his conversation with Isaiah and Axis, Ba”al”uz set out for his adventure
in the kingdoms beyond the FarReach Mountains. He did not travel alone—Ba”al”uz had no
intention of warding off brigands by himself, or of cooking his own lonely roadside meals—but
with an escort of eight men, all of whom he had handpicked from the shadowy underworlds of
Isembaard”s cities. Ba”al”uz trusted them completely, for he had purchased their souls with
bribes and obscene gifts many years ago. They were his factors, his apprentices in the arts and
crafts of deception and treachery.
Ba”al”uz would have need of them in his journey. He called them his Eight, and he
regarded them with an almost brotherly affection.
From the palace of Aqhat, Ba”al”uz and the Eight took a riverboat north and then east
along the mighty Lhyl. They stopped each night, either at a riverside village or town, to
commandeer the best accommodation and food possible, or to make their own encampment on
the fertile floodplains of the river, setting up tents and comfortable beds, and roasting river
lizards on spits beside cheerful campfires. There, at night, Ba”al”uz would entertain the Eight
with twisted tales that sprang from the whispers in his mind.
Within days the Eight were more devoted to Ba”al”uz than ever. Their journey might be
dangerous, and deceitful in the extreme, but the rewards at its successful conclusion
were…entrancing.
The journey along the Lhyl was deceptively pleasant; Ba”al”uz knew that conditions
would deteriorate from the moment they left the river. Normally, if he took the river journey
north and then east with Isaiah to Isembaard”s capital, Sakkuth, they would disembark where the
Lhyl turned north once more so they could continue the journey to the city on horseback.
Ba”al”uz liked Sakkuth. The city was a viciously immoral place and seethed with opportunity for
such as Ba”al”uz. Indeed, he had found five of his Eight within its depraved depths. But on this
journey Ba”al”uz embarked into the unknown, for he did not leave the river and ride east for
Sakkuth at all, but continued on the river, drawing ever closer to the FarReach Mountains.
This far north the river journey was no longer pleasant. In its lower reaches the Lhyl was
a broad, serene waterway, but close to its source the river narrowed and became an ever more
unruly traveling companion. The travelers swapped their initial broad-beamed riverboat for a
narrow and much smaller vessel, which depended on both sail and the raw brute force of rowers
to enable them to continue against the current. There was little room, with both travelers and
rowers crammed onto benches, and Ba”al”uz had to put up with the indignity of having the
stench and grunting of the rowers in his face twelve hours a day.
It was a relief finally to disembark, pay the riverboat captain, and continue their journey
by horseback.
After almost three weeks on the river, Ba”al”uz and his companions were now in the very
north of the En-Dor Dependency, itself the northernmost of the Tyranny”s dependencies.
Directly north rose the foothills of the FarReach Mountains, and beyond them the soaring pink
and cream sandstone snow-tipped peaks of the mountains themselves. Ba”al”uz faced many days
on horseback across a dry and barren landscape to reach Hairekeep, Isaiah”s northernmost