“Have you been talking with the Lealfast?” the Skraeling said.
“And if I have?” the One said.
“You should not trust them,” said the Skraeling. “We are their fathers, yet they affect to
despise us.”
The One did not find that very surprising. He would expect nothing less than that his
Magi should despise creatures such as these.
“One day,” said the Skraeling, “they may affect to despise you, too. They have no great
sense of loyalty. Unlike us. We are your true servants.”
“And you have my gratitude for that,” the One said, loathing them, and hoping that they
did not intend to whine at him for hours. He waited, expecting the Skraeling to drift away, but it
still stood there, clasping its claws in anxiety and looking at him with those disconcerting watery
silver orbs.
By Infinity, they were disgusting!
“Was there anything else?” said the One.
“We are hungry.”
“Hungry.” The One pondered this. What was hunger?
“We need to eat, please. We”ve come a long way. You said you”d feed us.”
“Kanubai said he would feed you. I am the One. I am not Kanubai. I am perfection
incarnate.”
“We still need to eat.”
“You may not eat me! ” the One roared.
“Of course not!” said the Skraeling, springing back to what it hoped was a safe distance.
“We”d like to eat flesh, please.”
“That is such a weakness, your need for flesh.”
“Nonetheless…”
“Well,” said the One, trying to work out what the Skraeling wanted him to do about this
apparently overwhelming hunger—by Infinity itself, the whole horde of them appeared to be
slavering! “Can”t you find some flesh around and about to sate your hunger?” He waved a glassy
hand about vaguely. “Does not flesh populate this land? I have been aware of much flesh these
past few thousand years. Much and very annoying flesh.”
Like Boaz, who had once worshipped him, but who had then presumed to plot to destroy
him.
“Yes,” said the Skraeling, who had now crept back a little closer, “once flesh did walk
this land. But the land on this side of the river,” the Skraeling”s face twisted with fear as it said
the word “river,” “has curiously little flesh about it. We think the man Isaiah—”
Now the One”s thoughts coalesced about the man who had spent hours sitting in the
Infinity Chamber— Isaiah—and some of the hate that the One felt for Boaz managed to transfer
itself to Isaiah.
Isaiah was trouble, too, and Isaiah was still alive, which was worse.
“—emptied the land this side of the river before we came,” the Skraeling continued.
“Nasty man. Now we”re hungry, and we think that there is much flesh, much vulnerable flesh,
waiting over the river.”
As if to underscore the point, the Skraeling turned its head and looked longingly over the
River Lhyl where stood the palace of Aqhat.
“It looks fairly empty to me,” said the One.
“It was full when first we arrived,” said the Skraeling, “but it has been days now, days
and days and days since we arrived, and in that time people have been escaping east and north
and south and we haven’t been able to chase them!”
“Why not?”
The Skraeling hung its head. “We”re afraid of water.”
The One smiled. “What water?”
The Skraeling frowned, then looked again at the river.
It was gone, replaced by a glassy surface, rippled in patches where the water had
struggled against its death.
The Skraeling drew a deep breath, then moved so fast its form almost blurred.
As it moved, so did its millions of comrades, and within a heartbeat the rigid river was
lost beneath an undulating tide of gray wraiths.
The destruction of Isembaard had begun.
The One crossed the glassy Lhyl several hours later, once the initial fuss was over. The
Skraelings had mobbed the palace of Aqhat, finding little save one old bedridden man whom the
fleeing servants had forgotten, rats, a score of dogs, and a few cats.
From Aqhat they swarmed eastward, fanning out over the countryside, the leaders
running with their noses close to the ground, sniffing out the trails of the people who had fled as
soon as they”d seen the Skraelings appear on the other side of the river.
The One knew he”d have to call them back eventually, but he was coming to understand
the need to feed, and so for the time being he would let them roam.
It wouldn”t do any harm.
There were still a few score Skraelings snuffling around the reed beds of the Lhyl,
perhaps hoping for a river lizard or two, and for a time the One stopped and watched them.
They were truly horrid creatures, but they would serve his purpose well.
There was a sudden commotion within the reeds, and the One strolled over to see what
was happening. Had the Skraelings found a water lizard after all?
No, as it transpired. They had found a cat with a litter of kittens.
The mother cat had tried desperately to defend her litter, but in vain. She was now dead,
torn between two of the Skraelings and ingested. The litter had consisted of seven kittens, but in
the moments it had taken the One to walk over, the Skraelings had devoured six of them, leaving
only one blood-spattered corpse which, just as the One stopped, one of the Skraelings reached
for.
“Stop,” said the One. He was curious about this creature, and picked up the bloodied
corpse himself.
It lay in the palm of his hand, limp, damp with blood…and then it suddenly moved, and
sank its teeth (or at least, it attempted to sink its teeth) into the meaty flesh at the base of the
One”s thumb.
The One jumped in surprise, almost dropping the kitten. He steadied, raising his hand so
that he might study the creature more carefully.
Skraelings surrounded the One, wailing in frustration at the scent of blood and flesh so
close.
The kitten rose on its paws, hissing at the One.
The One hissed back instinctively, but there was no malice in it. Instead he found himself
confused by a strange sensation that began in his belly and rose into his chest.
It was…emotion, he realized, but he could not identify it.
“I might keep it,” the One said of the kitten. “It requires further study.”
As one, the Skraelings hissed in frustration.
“It was not dead at all,” said the One, “merely covered with the blood of its siblings. Now
all that remains from the litter is the one.” His mouth curved and his eyes glinted as he realized
the significance. “The one…”
The One studied the kitten more closely and noticed, as it flattened its ears and hissed at
him again, that its teeth were tiny replicas of the ones the Skraeling had crowding their mouths.
“It must eat flesh, too,” said the One. He lifted his free hand, pointed it at one of the
Skraelings, and the next instant the Skraeling dissolved into finely shredded strips of meat.
The One bent down, retrieved a strip, and dangled it over the kitten.
The kitten”s ears quivered, then pricked forward, and it reached for the meat.
The One smiled.
CHAPTER TWO
The Sky Peaks Pass
Maximilian walked toward his command tent. Behind him came Axis, Ezekiel, Ishbel,
and three of the Lealfast: Eleanon, another male Lealfast, and a lovely woman, whom Axis found
himself glancing at far more frequently than the two males. They had come here straight from
the gathering about the hill, Maximilian asking that StarDrifter, Georgdi, and Malat meet him in
the morning.
StarDrifter had not been pleased. He had wanted to speak with the Lealfast, but had
eventually acquiesced to Maximilian”s suggestion that that be left for the next day.
The walk from the hill had not been accomplished without some tension between the
Lealfast and Axis. The Lealfast walked to one side of Maximilian, Axis a few paces to the other
side with Ishbel and Ezekiel, and Maximilian thought he would have been skewered a thousand
times had the looks they”d shot each other been daggers.
He repressed a sigh. More Icarii could be expected to fly in to join StarDrifter now that
word was filtering out that once again there was a Talon of their people, and Maximilian had no
idea how well the two winged peoples would get on.
Badly, if this was any indication.
He was glad he”d asked StarDrifter to stay away.
Serge was waiting by the tent flap and opened it as Maximilian approached.
“Isaiah is inside,” Serge murmured. “And with bad news, I think.”
Maximilian nodded. “Isaiah?” he said as he stepped into the tent.
“Maxel,” Isaiah said, rising from his chair, “I am sorry I did not attend your gathering.
There is more bad news from Isembaard.”
Maximilian wished now that Ezekiel wasn”t with him, but the Isembaardian general was
already inside the tent, together with the others, and would have heard what Isaiah had said.