The Lealfast fighters.
Axis shivered.
Ishbel had returned to her place in the front ranks of the soldiers, and Maximilian was
once again left alone in the center of the hollow.
“That is my past,” he said to the crowd, then smiled suddenly. “Thank the gods!”
Axis grinned, as did most people he could see. Maximilian had certainly managed to
create some empathy.
“This,” Maximilian said, raising a hand into the sky, “is my future.”
Axis, as everyone else, looked up and gasped in wonder.
The snowflakes—both those snowflakes that were Lealfast fighters, as well as every
normal snowflake, which Axis assumed the Lealfast were somehow controlling—were arranging
themselves in the sky in patterns. They changed every heartbeat or so, swirling into new and
even more fantastical arrangements of coils and whirls that twisted far into the sky until they
vanished into the clouds.
Axis stared, his initial wonderment being replaced now by an urgent sense that he should
understand something about what he was seeing…something about the patterns… something so
important about the patterns…
“This,” said Maximilian, “is where I am going and what I will become. This is Elcho
Falling.”
Once more the snowflakes rearranged themselves, but now instead of forming abstract
patterns, they formed the outline of a citadel, an incredible fortress of twisted spires and great
peaks that reared far into the sky.
A massive crown of three entwined rings enclosed the peak of the very highest tower.
The citadel hung over the entire army, revolving very slowly so that all could see every
aspect
It was stunning, awe-inspiring.
Axis stared. The sense that there was something he should be understanding about what
he was seeing—apart from the skill of the Lealfast in forming this representation—was now so
all-consuming that he could barely breathe.
There was something…something…
“Oh gods…” Axis muttered, staggering a little on his feet with the depth of his emotion.
Oh gods…he understood suddenly just how it was that the Lealfast could touch the Star
Dance.
Almost frantically he looked about, this way and that, Ishbel watching him carefully as if
she thought he had been caught in a sudden fit of insanity.
Axis didn”t care. He turned, his eyes almost starting from his head, as if searching out a
ghost within the air.
And then, with incredible sweetness, the Star Dance filtered through his body, and Axis
was whole once more.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Sky Peaks Pass
Maximilian knew. He stared at Axis, and gave him the ghost of a smile, then raised his
hand in the air to attract the attention of the massed soldiers.
“Behold,” he said, and he waved his hand.
Then, before the startled eyes of the watching tens of thousands, the representation of
Elcho Falling blurred, then fell apart. Most of the snowflakes tumbled to the ground, coating the
heads and shoulders of the army below, but many thousands of them remained hovering in the
air.
There was a long moment when they just hung there, quivering slightly in the faint wind,
and then the snowflakes transformed into the indescribably beautiful frosted outlines of winged
men and women.
Axis had never seen anything like it; the sight eclipsed, for the moment, his joy at being
able to once again touch the Star Dance. The sky filled with the creatures, light glinting and
shimmering off their wings and the outline of their bodies. They rose into the air, higher and
higher, a great cloud of glimmering lights, a tangle of wings and outflung arms and the curve
here and there of a back, or a shoulder, or a cheek.
Axis dragged his eyes away to look at his father. StarDrifter was staring upward,
transfixed, his mouth open.
It was a similar reaction all about. Men stood, utterly still, staring upward, mouths
hanging open.
“These are the Lealfast,” said Maximilian, his even voice carrying across the entire
assembly. “You do not need to fear them. They have pledged themselves to me, the first to do so
with their entire hearts and loyalties.”
Maximilian opened both arms, his face now looking up at the Lealfast hanging in the sky
far above him.
“My friends!” he called. “Will you inhabit the winds for a time, while I speak to this
great crowd?”
As one, every Lealfast in the sky bowed—with exquisite gracefulness—then wheeled
away to the north.
In five heartbeats they were gone, and Axis felt a breath go through the mass, as if of
disappointment.
“The Lealfast,” Maximilian said again, “are the first peoples to pledge themselves to me.
Others may follow.” He paused. “I do not command you by any right, nor by any heritage. I am
the Lord of Elcho Falling only, not of the world. But the doors of Elcho Falling are open to any
who wish to join with me, or have like cause with me. Isaiah has handed command of you into
my hands, but I cannot command the same loyalty that you owed Isaiah, nor should I try to do
so.
“That loyalty is something you must give me freely.”
Again Maximilian paused. “Some among you have chosen a different path to mine.
Kezial, Lamiah, and Armat, three of Isaiah”s generals, as well as some of their confidantes, have
fled, preferring lonelier campfires to those here.”
Stars, thought Axis, be careful with this, Maxel. He wondered if he should use the Star Dance somehow, to aid Maximilian, then realized that Maximilian would hate that.
Axis almost smiled. He was looking for an excuse now, any excuse, to use the Star
Dance.
Despite his concern, Axis was glad that Maximilian had mentioned the generals”
desertion openly. The fact of that desertion would be widely known within the Isembaardian
army.
“Many of you are worried about what has happened to your homes and families in
Isembaard,” Maximilian continued. “I know that, and I sympathize with it.
“I can do a little about it. Tomorrow I am sending your once-Tyrant, Isaiah, back to
Isembaard. Accompanying him shall be twenty thousand or so of the Lealfast fighters.”
Axis hoped that Maximilian had already mentioned this to Eleanon.
“Your loyalty,” Maximilian said to the Isembaardians, “you need to give to me freely. I
shall not seek to force it.”
He took a deep breath and gave a nod, and dismissed the gathering with that simple
action.
Maximilian turned to step down from the top of the hill, but as he did so three Lealfast
materialized above his head, and descended before him. As they landed, they attained full flesh,
although their forms still shimmered with a semitransparency and frost still rimed the ridges of
their features.
They bowed to Maximilian, spreading their wings out behind them in the same manner as
the Icarii when paying someone their respects.
“Lord of Elcho Falling,” said one of them, a bold, handsome man, “my name is Eleanon,
and I speak for all the Lealfast. We have waited thousands of years for you, Maximilian
Persimius, and our lives are now yours to command as you will.”
Then Eleanon rose and, just before Maximilian addressed him, shot Axis a look of
chilling triumph.
[ Part Two ]
CHAPTER ONE
DarkGlass Mountain
By the end of the third day, the One had completed his restoration work within the
Infinity Chamber. Once more it glowed with light, and once more the power of Infinity powered
the One”s soul.
He exulted, then left the pyramid.
This was an adventure for the One, and a revelation.
He strode along the internal corridors of the pyramid, his green glassy form reflecting
shadows from the fused black glass which lined the corridors, and gloried in the physicality of
movement.
Then he emerged from the pyramid, and discovered the warmth of the sun, and color,
sound, scent, and wind. For a moment all these different sensations threatened to overwhelm the
One, but he took a deep breath ( feel the warm, scented air fill his lungs! ) and he absorbed these varied sensations, and they became at one with him.
He turned slightly, enough so he could see the pyramid rising high above him. This was a
strange feeling, to look back on that which had contained him, which had literally been him, for so many thousands of years. He reached out a hand, touching a plate of green glass.
His hand blended with it ( into it) perfectly.
Feel how smooth, how warm.
“Master?”
The One blinked, momentarily angered by the intrusion. He blinked again, and saw that it
was a Skraeling.
He didn’t like the Skraelings. But they were necessary, and they would prove useful.
Behind this single Skraeling the One could see many of the creatures, almost an infinity
of them, stretching along the riverbank beyond the pyramid.
“Master?” the Skraeling said again.
“Yes?”
“It is good to see you again. We thought you had forgotten us, crouched so deep within
your glass mountain.”
The One thought this was presumptuous of the Skraeling, and did not deign to answer.