Sara Douglass – The Serpent Bride – DarkGlass Mountain Book 1

Now he looked back at Axis. “Yet you say she is destined for Isaiah.”

Axis hesitated to speak, wondering what he could say, then realized he had been handed a

god-given opportunity to see just what Isaiah”s subjects thought of their tyrant.

“You know what Isaiah is like,” he said, with his own half shrug.

Zeboath gave a soft snort. “He is what Aqhat and his childhood has made him,” he said.

“He is better than his father.”

“In what way?”

Now Zeboath looked at Axis curiously. “You”re not from this land, are you? You speak

the language well, but too precisely, and with a strange intonation.”

“I come originally from the lost land of Tencendor,” Axis said, “now earning my keep as

a mercenary for Isaiah.”

“And as his spy?”

“No. Whatever you say is safe. I ask questions only to sate my own curiosity.”

“Perhaps. Well, Isaiah”s father, Turmebt, was…” Zeboath sighed. “A man not given to

understanding and tolerance. A man who was given to indulging his tastes, however repulsive

they might be. Isembaard would have celebrated his death, save that people were terrified even

of his ghost. Isaiah was like him when he was a young man, so reports have it, but then he

changed, for which most of Isembaard is thankful.”

“Oh? Changed? When, and how?”

“I live a long way from Aqhat, Axis, and I do not know the precise how. But it was

within the first two or three years of Isaiah ascending the throne. Sometime after, or perhaps

even during, his campaign against the Eastern Independencies.”

That campaign again. Axis was more consumed by curiosity than ever, and wondered if

he would one day become close enough to Isaiah to ask him about that campaign.

“Isaiah is not now the man his father once was,” Zeboath finished.

“Indeed, that is warm praise for Isaiah.”

“Aye, I suppose it is. I do not think people particularly like Isaiah, but they do not yet

hate him, either. He has to prove himself.”

“He has yet to conquer.”

“If you say so,” Zeboath said. Then, before Axis could query him on that comment, the

physician went on. “You look exhausted, Axis. Go to bed. You can do no more for the lady

tonight. I know I need my bed. Good night.”

Rather than go to his room, Axis slouched down into a chair by Ishbel”s bed, watching

her for perhaps a half hour, and trying to go to sleep. But, even though he was desperately tired,

it eluded him, and eventually Axis sighed and moved to drag his pack from where Insharah had

left it, meaning to examine the rose pyramid.

He found it soon enough, wrapped in some oilcloth and stuffed into the center of the pack

where it would be most protected, and he drew out the bundle and sat back down in the chair.

He”d never handled the one that Isaiah had, and was curious as to what—

The instant his flesh touched the cool glass Axis gave a startled gasp, almost dropping the

pyramid.

Stars, no! Surely not!

Trembling so badly he had to bite his lip and force his hands to move, Axis wrapped both

palms about the rose pyramid.

It touched the Star Dance.

It touched the Star Dance.

Axis could barely breathe. His chest had constricted so much it hurt.

The Star Dance was filtering into his body via the pyramid.

Not much, a tiny amount, but…oh, stars, stars!

Far to the north, Eleanon stood by the open window of the main chamber of Crowhurst.

Lister and Inardle had gone to bed hours ago, but Eleanon was enjoying standing in the frigid

draft of air, watching it turn into ice as it passed across his body, and looking out over the frozen landscapes.

Suddenly his head whipped about and he stared at the spire—as he called the

pyramid—sitting on a table to one side of the room.

Instantly he strode toward the table.

Axis sat in his chair, his entire body crouched over the pyramid. It had Enchanter power

in it, but somehow different. It was Icarii-made, but yet different.

And it touched the Star Dance!

Almost panicked, Axis tried to remember the simplest enchantment he could. Perhaps

something for warmth, this chamber was so damned cold, something to—

The pyramid glowed, and Axis had the sense of someone standing deep within it, but just

out of sight.

Eleanon had both hands wrapped about the pyramid, and held it against his chest so that

whoever had Ba”al”uz” pyramid (and it wasn”t Ba”al”uz, never that) could not see him.

It was Axis. The StarMan. Eleanon could feel it, throbbing through the pyramid.

And Axis had just felt the Star Dance through it.

So, Axis, Eleanon thought. Finally we touch.

“Axis StarMan,” he murmured. “My apologies…”

Then his hand tightened about the pyramid.

Axis cried out. Not in pain, but in loss. The pyramid in his hands had suddenly flared

with an intense rose color—and then it had dulled into complete lifelessness, losing whatever

color it had ever contained, to become a dull, pale gray.

All sense of the Star Dance had vanished.

Axis gripped the pyramid, willing it back to life, but nothing happened. The object he

held in his hands was now as lifeless as if someone had closed the door on its power. He did not

know quite what had happened, but he felt that someone had cut the flow of power to the

pyramid the instant they realized Axis was using it.

Axis lowered his head over the pyramid and wept. Partly in loss, for to have lost even

such a faint touch of the Star Dance was almost impossible to bear, but also in sheer joy.

It was possible to touch the Star Dance again. It was. This was an object of great Icarii (or

Icarii-like) power, woven with enchantment that was foreign to Axis, but only barely so.

Wherever Lister had got these pyramids from, it had not been from Dark-Glass

Mountain.

The Star Dance was accessible again.

Axis was so focused on the glass pyramid and his own discovery that he did not realize

Ishbel”s eyes had opened briefly and had watched him.

When Ishbel woke it was well past dawn. The room was bright, and she had trouble

focusing. For some time shapes in the room blurred in and out of focus, and when finally she did

manage to bring her vision back under control, it was to see Axis SunSoar, sitting in a chair at

some distance from her bed, watching her.

“Your fever has broken,” he said. “Zeboath—the physician—came in not an hour ago. He

said you were out of any immediate danger.”

Ishbel did not directly respond, still a little disoriented. She lay quietly for a few minutes,

looking at Axis, wondering about him. When he”d introduced himself yesterday (was it

yesterday, or had she slept for weeks?) she had assumed that he could not possibly be the Axis

SunSoar of legend, but now she was not so sure. He looked very much like the descriptions she”d

heard of the Icarii StarMan: he had a tall lean grace, even slouched in the chair; wheat-colored

hair pulled back into a tail at the nape of his neck; a clipped beard; and faded blue eyes. But it

was his still watchfulness, and the aura of experience that hung about him, which made Ishbel

revise her earlier conclusion. This was a man who had seen empires tumble and fall, who had

caused their destruction, and who now tolerated her quiet regard with an infinite patience born,

she thought, from a lifetime enduring cataclysmic events.

But mostly Ishbel reconsidered her original assessment because she was a priestess

trained in the art and the world of gods, and this man stank of god power, even though he made

every attempt to subdue it.

“Where am I?” Ishbel said finally.

“In a town called Torinox. I had to bring you here because—”

“Torinox? But what land, Axis? The men who took me told me nothing. I have no idea

where I am.”

“My apologies. We are in the northern reaches of a great empire called the Tyranny of

Isembaard. Have you heard of it?”

Ishbel gave a weak nod. “It is to the south of my homeland. By the gods, Axis, I am so

far from home.”

“Maximilian will be searching for you.” Maximilian will tear apart the earth to find you.

“I doubt it.”

She saw Axis raise his brows at the bitterness in her voice.

“He thinks me responsible for a trail of death across the Central Kingdoms,” she said,

“and one of the Icarii who died yesterday—it was yesterday?”

Axis gave a nod.

“One of the Icarii who died, StarWeb, was his lover. He will blame me for her death as

well.”

Now Axis” eyes livened with interest. “Maximilian Persimius kept an Icarii lover?”

“Yes.”

“Yet he cannot have found you too unattractive, Ishbel. You”re some five months gone