“We think so,” said Isaiah. “We think—”
“Who else?” said Ishbel.
“You have been in the pyramid, Ishbel,” Maximilian said. “Do you truly think it capable
of taking Kanubai?”
She looked at him without hesitation, or embarrassment. “Yes. It hates, Maxel, and that
hate is a powerful force.”
Again Maximilian contemplated her. Ishbel conversed easily with him, and he found that
remarkable after the way he had treated her the previous night. He had been sure that she”d be
awkward and embarrassed, and he had spent much of the time before this meeting trying to think
of ways to put her at ease. Now all those strategies were very obviously redundant.
“The glass pyramid is a dangerous enemy,” Ishbel continued. She glanced at Isaiah.
“When Isaiah and I entered it…oh, I can”t explain it, but it was almost as if the pyramid lived. It could reach out its walls and touch us. Kanubai might have been powerful, but was he powerful
enough to best what he thought was an ally?” she concluded with an expressive shrug.
Maximilian gave her another nod, then looked at Isaiah. “No one knows DarkGlass
Mountain as well as you,” he said. “Talk to me. What is it capable of? What will it do?”
Isaiah sighed, rubbing at his eyes and using the movement to buy time to think. What was
the glass pyramid capable of?
“It is hugely powerful,” he said finally, “and hugely angry, as Ishbel said. That anger and
hate stem from its ancient past, when one of the Magi, Boaz, Ishbel”s ancestor and the nephew of
the then Lord of Elcho Falling, caused it to be dismantled. I think, although I have no way of
truly knowing, that it wants vengeance.”
“Against whom?” said Maximilian.
“Anyone who stands in its way,” Isaiah said, “but more particularly, against Boaz and
Tirzah, who tried to destroy it, and so against all their descendants. Ishbel definitely, but also
you, Maximilian, as you are of the same bloodlines and you are powerful enough to threaten it. It
may have also inherited Kanubai”s feud with Elcho Falling. I don”t know. I just…I just don”t
think it is going to sit there and glow in the sun cheerfully. I think it will act. I think it has acted.”
He paused, the fingers of one hand tapping slowly on the tabletop. “I think that the glass
pyramid is the greater danger. Kanubai was known. The pyramid is utterly unknown. Not even
the Magi completely understood it or its powers.”
“So even though Kanubai may be dead I cannot go back to Escator, curl up in my bed,
pull the covers over my head, and dream of happy hunting parties in the forests north of Ruen?”
Maximilian said with a wry twist of his mouth.
Isaiah smiled. “No, Maxel. You cannot. There are still great trials ahead of us. None of us
can afford to relax.”
“And so what are you going to do about this?” said Georgdi. The Outlander general
looked tense and frustrated. “My homeland has been invaded, and currently all you seem to
propose is that your million soldiers and settlers just mill about in confusion. You don”t even
have any true or tight control over them! I—”
“I have in no manner proposed we do nothing,” Maximilian snapped. “I am here to
consult and to decide, not to dither.”
Georgdi shot him a look, but said nothing.
“The world is torn apart, Maxel,” Malat said. “If you want to ask for the loyalty of every
man and woman north of the FarReach Mountains, then you shall need to stitch it back together again. Otherwise no one will fight for you.”
“Malat makes a strong point,” Axis said. “I talked to some of the Isembaardian soldiers
today, and there is great restlessness. They may have owed Isaiah their loyalty, but they do not
know you, Maxel. Moreover, they are terrified of what happens to their families in Isembaard.
Rumors fly, and men talk of aiding their families by themselves if you cannot do it for them.”
“And the generals?” Maximilian said.
“Quiet,” said Axis. “I have seen Ezekiel, and the others rest in their tents. I will talk with
them in the morning…but they will take instant advantage of any discontent within the army. We
need to decide what to do with them.”
Maximilian grunted. “Isaiah,” he said, “do you know where Lister is?”
“I believe he is moving north from the FarReach Mountains,” Isaiah said. “He will want
to join you at Elcho Falling.”
“What he wants is immaterial,” said Maximilian, “particularly with what has happened
over the past day. What are these glass pyramids, or spires, that you have used? Axis has told me
of them. Do you have one with you?”
“In my pack,” said Isaiah. “Not with me here.”
“Fetch it, if you will,” Maximilian said, and Isaiah rose and left the tent.
“Axis,” Maximilian said, “what do you know of Lister? What did you learn about him
while you lived and traveled with Isaiah?”
It was not Axis who answered, but StarDrifter. “If I may,” he said, seeking permission
from both Axis and Maximilian to speak, and at their nods continued. “Of Lister I know little,
but Axis and I know something of the force that travels with him.”
“Force?” Maximilian said. “I thought he traveled with the Skraelings.”
“He did,” StarDrifter said, “but also traveling with him, and still with him I assume, is a
great force of winged people.”
StarDrifter told the group around the table about the ancient history of the Icarii in
Tencendor: how, when many generations ago they had escaped from persecution into the
Icescarp Alps, a group of Icarii had continued traveling north into the frozen wastes.
“We thought them to have died,” said StarDrifter, “but now Axis and I believe that they
survived. They must have traveled deep into the frozen wastes and there, so we think, although
we cannot explain why they did this, they interbred with the Skraelings to create a new race.
They call themselves the Lealfast, and they command great magic through the Star Dance.”
“I believed the Star Dance had been destroyed,” said Maximilian.
“So did I,” said StarDrifter, “but the glass pyramids that Isaiah and Lister use for
communication were made by the Lealfast, and they tap into the power of the Star Dance,
although anyone who commands power can use them. I don”t know how, but the Lealfast still
use the Star Dance.”
“One of them flew down to Aqhat,” said Axis, “to stage an attempted assassination of
Isaiah in order to encourage his push north. He escaped before my eyes, using powerful
enchantment. If the rest of the Lealfast command such power, then they may be powerful allies.”
“Or powerful enemies,” said Maximilian.
Isaiah reentered the tent at that moment, and sat down at the table. In one hand he held a
glass spire, about the height of a man”s hand, which pulsated with a rosy light. He placed it on
the table, then gave it a gentle shove, sending it sliding down the table to Maximilian.
Every eye at the table followed its passage.
Maximilian stopped the spire with one hand. He studied it briefly, then picked it up.
“It is a thing of great beauty,” he said softly. Then he lifted his eyes and looked again at
Isaiah. “How does it work?”
“You cannot use it?” Isaiah said, his tone a little challenging.
Maximilian held Isaiah”s gaze for a long moment, then looked back to the spire in his
hand.
Everyone at the table watched him, and for several heartbeats nothing happened.
Then, suddenly, the glass glowed through the gaps of Maximilian”s fingers. First pink,
then red, then it flared suddenly into a deep gold before muting back to a soft yellow. The ascetic
face of a middle-aged man appeared in its depths, his thin mouth curved in a slight smile.
“Lister,” said Maximilian softly. “Well met, at last.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Northern Borders of the FarReach Mountains, and the Sky Peaks Pass
Lister stared into his glass pyramid at the face of the man who looked out at him.
“My Lord of Elcho Falling,” he said, and made a slight bow.
About him snowflakes fell from the sky, twisting lazily in myriad fantastic patterns. As
each one hit the ground, it transformed into a birdman or birdwoman, their features and the line
of their wings rimed with frost.
The Lealfast.
They gathered about the black-clad Lister in a circle, intensely watchful, their forms
gradually solidifying. Three of them—Eleanon, Bingaleal, and Inardle—stood at Lister”s
shoulder, exchanging unreadable glances before they looked into the glass spire that Lister held.
“You have been a great trouble to my life,” Maximilian said to Lister, “for I am led to
believe that you were the one to orchestrate my seventeen years spent in the Veins.”
“The path to greatness must necessarily be strewn with obstacles that—”
“Don”t feed me such banalities, Lister. I am not in the mood for it this day.” The focus of