The hanging wall, Lot No. 859″s only hope for salvation.
She dropped the pick and looked upward, spreading her arms in supplication, baring her
breasts to the inevitable rockfall, praying for the oblivion of death.
Beside her the men in her gang screamed, trying to scramble away.
Lot No. 859 knew it was too late.
In a breath the hanging wall collapsed. Rock fragments struck Lot No. 859, throwing her
down to the gloam-covered floor of the tunnel, half burying her and wrapping her in thick, tarry,
choking dust.
Lot No. 859 opened her mouth, sucking in the dust, praying that her lungs would drown
in it, soon, please, gods, soon…this was her only hope, her only escape…
Pain exploded in her left hip, and she cried out, trying to wrench herself away, her hand
fumbling down to feel what had happened.
It was the pick blade of the man next to her, hammered into her hip during his dying
moments.
And worse, over the next terrible minutes, the knowledge that while everyone else in her
team had been crushed or smothered into death by the rockfall and its dust, she was still alive,
the Veins still had her, and there would never be an escape for her, not into death, not anywhere.
Ishbel woke out of the vision suddenly, gasping for air, bathed in cold sweat, absolutely
terrified. For a moment she was completely disoriented, thinking that Maximilian”s body next to
her was that of the man who had died chained to her left ankle and that the darkness about her
was that of the gloam mines. Only very gradually did she calm, and realize that the darkness was
that of natural night, and that Maximilian”s body was warm and alive.
She breathed in deeply, regaining her composure, grateful that her sudden waking had not
disturbed Maximilian.
By the Great Serpent, Maxel had endured seventeen years of that?
What had struck her was his absolute hopelessness, and a despair so deep he had
convinced himself that there was no world beyond that of the hanging wall, because to admit that
would have been to go insane. She knew with absolute certainty that if she unwound the memories behind each of the scars on his body she would experience much the same thing.
How could anyone survive that and come out from it with as much compassion as
Maxel?
“Oh, Maxel,” she whispered. Seventeen years? “Maxel…”
She wrapped herself tightly about his body, wishing she could somehow comfort him.
She ran her hands over his body again, with more pressure this time, deliberately meaning to
awake and arouse him.
He moved slightly, then rolled into her arms, still more asleep than awake.
“Wake up, Maxel,” she whispered into his ear, kissing his neck and then his collarbone,
making him moan. “Wake up. There is a world beyond the hanging wall, and here it is, in my
arms and in my mouth, and in my breasts and my belly. Here it is, here it is…”
To the south of them, on the main road between Pelemere and Kyros, Ba”al”uz led the
Eight to the west. Despite the cold and snow, and the subsequent difficulty of travel, Ba”al”uz
was in a high good humor. He knew that Maximilian and Ishbel had fled Pelemere, but he was
content with that.
Ba”al”uz knew where they were going.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Road from Pelemere to Kyros, the Central Kingdoms
The snowstorm that enveloped Pelemere and the surrounding countryside during the
week that Maximilian and Ishbel escaped the city was winter”s final blow. Two days after they
had arrived at the woodsman”s hut, Maximilian and Ishbel woke to find the sun shining and the
snow melting.
Maximilian was anxious to leave. He would have preferred that the weather stay bad for a
few weeks to come so that he and his retinue could more easily make their escape from Sirus
(undoubtedly furious, and who would have sent soldiers to look for them), but they would make
do with the sunshine. He roused Ishbel, fed her a hasty breakfast, then saddled the horse and
mounted up, Ishbel behind him, heading west through the trees.
Maximilian left several gold coins for the woodsmen who used this hut to pay for his use
of their stores and firewood.
Within two hours of their leaving, members of the Emerald Guard began to appear from
the shadows of the forest, each one nodding silently to Maximilian before pulling their horse in
behind his. Just after noon, Garth and Lixel joined them, exchanging a few words of greeting
with Maximilian, and then, in midafternoon, Egalion and the final half dozen of the Emerald
Guard fell in with the column.
Ishbel never heard an explanation as to where they”d been, but from the cold-pinched
faces of Garth and Lixel, she thought they”d not had the same level of comfort that the
woodsman”s hut had provided her and Maximilian.
Thus began their hard ride home for Escator.
Escator was a long way distant, many weeks travel, and Maximilian wanted to get home
as soon as he could. What Ishbel had said about the Lord of Elcho Falling had shocked him to
the core. Since his vision he”d only slowly been coming to terms with the idea that Elcho Falling
might be waking…and then to have Ishbel reveal to him how much she hated the Lord of Elcho
Falling, how she believed that he would bring nothing but ruin and destruction to her life, to the
entire world…
That had not been the kind of secret he”d hoped she would reveal.
Despite Maximilian”s wish to travel fast, he was constrained by his concern for Ishbel
and her baby, and did not push as hard as he truly wanted. For the next two weeks they traveled
by night rather than during the day, Maximilian”s sense for the darkness leading them through
the countryside, enabling them to avoid roads and mainly use backcountry sheep and goat tracks.
One day, when they were resting and sat relatively apart from the others within their
train, Maximilian dared ask Ishbel about the Twisted Tower.
If Elcho Falling was waking, then he needed, somehow, to rebuild what had been lost.
“Ishbel,” he said as lightly as he could, wondering if this topic would terrify her as much
as mention of the rings had, “have you ever heard of the Twisted Tower?”
Ishbel had no reaction save a mild puzzlement. “No. What is it, Maxel?”
“The Twisted Tower? Oh, a place where memories are stored.” Of he who you hate so
much, Ishbel. “Has there never been any stories in your family, or even within the Coil, of a
tower filled with objects?”
“No.”
“You don”t ever dream of a tower with—”
“No. Maxel, what is this?”
“Nothing,” he said, and sighed, and leaned back against a tree, pretending to fall into
sleep.
Here he was, the poor fool who fate had decided would shoulder the responsibilities of
Elcho Falling, whose wife had declared she had nothing but hatred for him, and to cap it all off,
much of the lore needed to raise Elcho Falling had been lost. How could one man”s life be
dogged by such ill luck?
Ishbel spent the traveling time seated behind Maximilian. She wasn”t a particularly good
rider herself (she had not left Serpent”s Nest for twenty years, and learning the skills of a
horsewoman had been a low priority), and when Maximilian had insisted she continue to ride
with him, Ishbel hadn”t objected. She enjoyed the warmth and companionship of his closeness.
She felt markedly more relaxed around him after their talk in the woodsman”s hut.
Relieved. She had shared the burden of the whispers she”d heard as a child, and, after an initial
misapprehension, Maximilian had understood. He would not force her to wear the ring, and he
had allowed her the option of leaving him after a year. Ishbel wondered if those words had been
placed in his mouth by the Great Serpent, for the serpent had told her that she would only be
gone from Serpent”s Nest a year, two at the most.
A year with Maximilian would be no trial. Ishbel had thoroughly resented the idea of
being sent in marriage to this man, but now she found her heart beating a little faster when he
looked up and smiled at her, and she enjoyed watching him move about their campsites when
they rested. He was very quiet since leaving the woodsman”s hut, and Ishbel thought it the
product of his concerns for their safety. When they camped, Ishbel made sure she and
Maximilian lay some way from the others, and she encouraged him to make love to her, finding
herself more willing to be the one to initiate such intimacy.
There was another thing that increased her good spirits. Ishbel realized that her growing
closeness to Maximilian irritated Garth. She”d heard enough from Maximilian to know that
Garth had been Maximilian”s closest companion until his marriage to her. Ishbel derived some