forward, their eyes wide with anticipation.
The God Priest looked about at the crowd, a slight smile on his tired face, reveling in the
moment.
He took one of the two ladles his assistant held, paused, and then both he and the
assistant beat at the copper bowl with all their strength, dancing about the altar in a maddened
frenzy.
Josia couldn”t let go. He couldn”t die. All he wanted was to escape into death, even
though he knew the God Priest would then trap his soul, but he couldn”t let go.
His body was a mass of wounds. He had been beaten, tortured, agonized, teased,
tormented. Every moment he existed was now spent in an ocean of pain.
Josia could not let himself take that final step into death.
He wanted to weep, but there were no more tears left.
He wanted the God Priest and his assistant to cease their infernal din on the bowl for it
fractured his concentration, and if he wanted to die then he needed to concentrate or—
Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods!
The rat, driven into insanity by the noise and reverberation, desperate to escape, bit
deeply into his belly.
Josia found he had, indeed, enough voice and breath remaining to scream.
The God Priest continued his beating on the bowl, but now it was slightly less frenzied.
He had seen from Josia”s face the instant the rat had begun to chew into his belly—had
seen the incredulous horror fill the man”s eyes the moment before he had shrieked.
Then Josia convulsed.
The God Priest lowered the ladle, stepping away from the altar and indicated to his
assistant to do likewise.
He was amazed that Josia still had the strength to move so violently.
He would make the most powerful deity the Coroleans had ever seen.
The God Priest watched intently, knowing that Josia”s death was only heartbeats
away…needing not to miss the moment.
A movement under Josia”s rib cage caught the priest”s eye, and he held his breath.
The rat was almost at Josia’s heart…soon…soon…soon…
“Quick!” the God Priest hissed, and the assistant handed him a bronze statue, beautifully
carved in exquisite detail into the perfect likeness of the man now lying dying on the altar.
Soon…
Josia”s eyes remained wide open. He drew in a deep breath, readying for another shriek,
when suddenly everything stopped.
Everything about him stilled.
The God Priest”s own eyes widened; he held his breath, then he suddenly relaxed.
“Got you,” he said, smiling in relief, and cradled the bronze statue against his body.
Josia existed. It was cold and heartless where he was now, but at least there was no pain.
There was nothing, save his existence, and a sense of what lay in the world about him.
A man, reaching for the receptacle which held Josia trapped.
A title, to go with the man. The Duke of Sidon.
Cold. Everything about Josia was cold.
He wept.
Within the chamber deep in the heart of the Palace of the First in Coroleas, all eyes were
on the wondrous bronze deity that the God Priest now handed to the Duke of Sidon.
No one looked at the corpse lying on the altar, and thus no one saw the rat, wet with
blood and shaking with effort, crawl from the corpse”s mouth, drop from the altar, and scramble
away into a dark corner.
No one saw it again, not for a very, very long time.
[ Part One ]
CHAPTER ONE
The Sky Peaks Pass, and DarkGlass Mountain, Isembaard
Ishbel Brunelle Persimius sank to her knees in the snow, watching Maximilian Persimius,
the Lord of Elcho Falling, walk away from her into the night.
I’m so sorry, he said to her, over his shoulder. So sorry.
He vanished into the darkness, Ravenna at his side.
Very slowly Ishbel leaned over, her hands clutching into the snow, until her forehead
touched the ground”s icy surface. She stayed like that for four or five heartbeats, then her right
fist beat once against the snow, then again, and she swore, very softly but very fiercely.
Ishbel straightened, sitting back on her heels, staring into the night.
She was furious. She had been kneeling in the snow, forehead to ground, for only a short
space of time, but in that time she had journeyed from the absolute despair of Maximilian”s
rejection to a depth of rage that she”d never experienced previously.
Ishbel was not angry at Maximilian, nor even at Ravenna, but at herself. She could not
believe that she, Archpriestess of the Coil, wife of the Lord of Elcho Falling, lover of the Tyrant
of Isembaard, and a Persimius in her own right, had allowed herself to be outmaneuvered so
easily. She could not believe that she, Ishbel, had allowed herself to be beaten into the snow, and so humiliated.
Even Maximilian”s former lover, StarWeb, had not managed so easily what Ravenna had
just accomplished with a few powerful words.
I carry his child, Ishbel. His heir. Maximilian Persimius will cleave to me now.
While Ishbel”s current anger was directed at herself rather than at Ravenna, Ravenna had
managed to earn herself Ishbel”s enduring enmity—not merely for what Ravenna had said and
done, but for the satisfaction with which she had delivered her triumph.
Ravenna’s time would come.
Ishbel rose and brushed snow from her skirt and face with irritated, staccato movements.
“Am I such a naive girl to be rendered so easily the fool?” she muttered. “I cannot believe I
allowed Ravenna such an easy victory!”
Fool no longer, she thought, as she strode in the opposite direction from that which
Maximilian and Ravenna had taken.
Ravenna need expect no goodwill from me in the future, and no more easy victories.
As she walked, her back straight, a hard glint in her eyes, Ishbel whispered into the night.
“Madarin! Madarin! Madarin! ”
Madarin was the soldier Ishbel had healed of a twisted bowel on the way down from the
FarReach Mountains to Aqhat when Axis was escorting her to be Isaiah”s new wife. She had no
reason to believe that Madarin was still with that half of the enormous army which Isaiah had
now brought as far as the Sky Peaks Pass, but somehow she knew he was here.
“Madarin,” she whispered, every inch the priestess intent on her purpose. “Come, I have
need of you.”
Ten minutes later, as Ishbel stood shrouded by a line of dozing horses at the edge of the
huge camp, a man emerged out of the night.
Kanubai stood in the Infinity Chamber in the center of DarkGlass Mountain and exulted.
Far to the north the Lord of Elcho Falling vacillated, weak and indecisive, while here Kanubai
stood fully fleshed and powerful, and with an army of gray wraiths at his command.
Moreover, here Kanubai stood, fully fleshed from the flesh of the daughter of the Lord of
Elcho Falling himself and that would ensure Kanubai”s success.
There was nothing the Lord of Elcho Falling could do against him.
Kanubai smiled.
There were a dozen or so Skraelings within the chamber, all crouched in various postures
of servility and awe before their lord. They were loathsome creatures, but they would do.
Kanubai stretched his arms out and roared, knowing that roar would reverberate in the
ears of the Lord of Elcho Falling and terrify him.
As he did so, one of his hands glanced against the blackened ruins of the once-beautiful
golden glass of the Infinity Chamber.
And as his hand glanced against the ruined glass, so DarkGlass Mountain took him. More
to the point, it absorbed him.
The pyramid had been waiting a very long time for just this moment.
Ravenna glanced at Maximilian, walking by her side. His face was set into a rigid,
featureless expression which Ravenna knew meant he hid deep emotion.
She slid her arm through his, pulling their bodies together as they walked toward the tent
they shared with Venetia, Ravenna”s mother.
“I know it hurts,” she said, “but it was the right thing to do.”
Maximilian did not reply.
“Ishbel isn”t the right—”
“Leave it be, Ravenna, I beg you.”
Ravenna fell silent, torn between wanting to make certain that Maximilian understood the
tragedy that Ishbel could make of his life, and knowing that pushing the issue could just as easily
alienate him from herself.
His steps slowed, and Ravenna felt his body tense.
She panicked. “Maxel, it is done now. You can”t go back.”
Maximilian finally stopped, forcing Ravenna to halt as well. “I shouldn”t have turned my
back on her like that. Ever since her childhood, Ishbel has dreamed that eventually the Lord of
Elcho Falling would destroy her life, and now—”
“Maxel, she is the one who will destroy your life.”
Maximilian sighed, the reaction Ravenna dreaded the most. “I was too harsh, Ravenna.
Too cruel. Ishbel didn”t deserve what I just said to her.”
Ravenna grabbed at one of his hands, bringing it to her breast. “She is weak, Maxel.