to help them reach the Lost Chasm.”
Isaiah spent a few minutes giving Bingaleal some idea of the route the refugees would be
taking, and the path they”d need to take to reach the Lost Chasm.
“I wish your Lealfast great luck down south,” Isaiah finished. “The Skraelings will be
thick on the ground there, and your comrades shall need to be careful not to be outnumbered if
they get into battle.”
“That won”t happen,” Bingaleal said.
Isaiah frowned, not understanding. “They won”t be outnumbered?”
“The Lealfast will never attack the Skraelings,” said Bingaleal. “Not under any
circumstances.”
“What? For all the gods” sakes, Bingaleal, why can”t you—”
“They are our kin. We will not harm them.”
“Then what good are you? My people need the aid of swords! ”
Bingaleal gave Isaiah an inscrutable look at that, but did not otherwise answer.
“Shetzah!” Isaiah muttered, turning aside in order to quell his frustration.
“We will do what we can,” said Bingaleal, “but we will not attack our kin.”
“Then if you can perhaps ask them nicely to stand aside,” Isaiah ground out, “and allow
my people passage to safety, then I would be most profoundly grateful.”
“We will do what we can,” Bingaleal repeated.
“Does Maximilian know this piece of information?”
Bingaleal shrugged.
Isaiah barely restrained himself from hitting the birdman. He gave Bingaleal a long stare,
then walked away, fuming.
The next day, Isaiah took a small bag of supplies and a sword and set off by himself for
the west. There was little he could do for the refugees, and he was still so angry with the Lealfast
he wanted to spend as little time with them as possible. Once he reached the River Lhyl (or
whatever was left of it) he would follow it south to DarkGlass Mountain.
Perhaps he could do something, if not the cursed Lealfast.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
On the Road to Serpent’s Nest
Several days passed. The great convoy continued to inch its way toward Elcho Falling.
Maximilian called to him five senior Isembaardian officers and made them commanders within
the force, answerable only to Insharah and himself.
The men seemed pleased and gratified at Maximilian”s trust, but he could still sense their
disquiet beneath their smiles, and he wondered what they found to talk about at night, around
their fires.
At night, the dreams continued for the Isembaardians.
Ishbel had kept mainly to herself since the convoy had begun its journey east. Some
hours each day she rode with Salome, who insisted on keeping to horseback despite her
advanced pregnancy. Ishbel enjoyed Salome”s company, but she also spent much of the day
riding alone, slightly apart from everyone else. She used the time to think: about going home to
Serpent”s Nest, or, as it soon would be called, Elcho Falling, and what might await her there;
about Isaiah, and what was happening to him in Isembaard; and about Maximilian, and the
Twisted Tower.
She had not seen Maximilian privately since that night he”d taken her into the Twisted
Tower. They sometimes passed on horseback during the day, and exchanged a nod or a few
words. Ishbel had on two occasions shared an evening meal with Maximilian and his
commanders in his tent, but had left for her own tent without speaking to him alone. Although
either brief, or in the company of others, the time they had spent together had been marked by a
new easiness in the other”s presence.
It was indeed, Ishbel mused, as if that terrible scene in the snow where Maximilian had
turned his back on her had been so cathartic that it had been a cleansing—if terribly
painful—experience for them both.
Twice in the evening, once more alone in her tent, she had sat in a chair close by the
brazier and had traveled back to the Twisted Tower. The first time, Ishbel had been nervous that
she either would not be able to reach the Twisted Tower, or that she would not find her way
home. But she found recalling how to twist her consciousness into the Twisted Tower”s reality
easy, almost as if, like the memories contained within each of the objects within the tower, it was
already a part of her blood.
Ishbel had not spent long either time within the Twisted Tower. She”d felt a little as if she
were intruding, and she kept turning about, half expecting to see Maximilian.
But he was never there.
Ishbel spent a fair bit of her time thinking about Maximilian. It still angered her that he
had set Ravenna to one side not an hour after he”d told her that he had to cleave to Ravenna,
now. All that pain, all those tears, and he”d walked into the night with Ravenna and said, I am not so sure I really want you, either.
What did Maximilian want from her? She wasn”t sure, and that unsettled Ishbel.
She wasn”t sure what she wanted, either, and that unsettled her even further.
It might have been better, she thought, easier, had they remained utterly estranged.
Ishbel went to Maximilian”s command tent on the fourth night of their march. She had
waited until Madarin told her he was alone, and then gathered her courage and her cloak and set
off, winding her way through the horse lines and rows of tents until she reached Maximilian”s
tent.
Serge and Doyle were standing outside, talking, and both nodded her through when
Ishbel raised her eyebrows at them.
“Ishbel.” Maximilian had been sitting at a side table, reading some reports, and he rose as
she walked into the tent.
“I owe you these.” Ishbel placed on the table two tiny clover flowers. “It was all I could
find. I am sorry.”
Maximilian picked them up, held them a moment, then slid them into the inside upper
pocket of his jacket. “You did not stay long, either time.”
“You could feel me inside the Twisted Tower? I have no secrets from you.”
Maximilian gave a small smile. “You still have a few. How far did you go inside the
tower?”
“No higher than the third chamber. I still feel as if I am intruding.”
“You are not intruding. How many objects did you pick up?”
“Only a few each time.”
“And their memories?”
“One or two I found easy to retrieve, others more difficult.”
“Maybe you need me with you.”
“Maybe.”
“Ishbel, sit down, there are a couple of things I need to talk about with you.”
He nodded at two chairs by the brazier, and they sat down. Doyle entered, bearing a tray
with two steaming mugs on it.
“My lady,” Doyle said, presenting the tray to Ishbel, “my lord usually has some hot tea at
this time of the evening, and I thought that you, too, might like a mug.”
Ishbel thanked him and took a mug, and they both waited silently until Doyle left the tent.
“The army is splintering,” Maximilian said, smiling a little as he looked into his steaming
mug. “It will not hold together.”
“You do not sound very worried.”
He gave a little laugh. “Oh, I worry. I worry if I am doing the right thing. I worry that I
might create a nightmare that will turn and bite me. I worry…”
“Maxel?”
Maximilian sighed. “Ravenna is aiding the generals with her magics. She denies it, but I
am almost certain.”
Ishbel didn”t know what to say. This conversation had very suddenly skidded onto thin
ice, and she was terrified that she”d fall through as soon as she opened her mouth.
“Ravenna has been a great mistake on my part,” Maximilian said.
Ishbel carefully slid her mug of tea onto the table. She didn”t trust herself to hold it
anymore.
The silence strung out, and eventually Ishbel had to speak. “What do you want me to say,
Maxel?”
He made a helpless gesture with a hand. “I just wanted to tell you.”
“Why?”
Maximilian avoided the question. “Do you see Ravenna about the camp?”
“From time to time. She and her mother travel much further back in the column. You can
understand, perhaps, that I would wish to avoid her.”
“Yes. I can understand that. Ishbel, a few nights ago Drava, who is the Lord of Dreams
and Ravenna”s former lover, appeared to me. He warned me about her.”
“He left it a little late.”
Maximilian chuckled. “Yes. He did at that.”
“And did he warn you about me?”
“No. He is, indeed, one of the few who have not.”
Now it was Ishbel”s turn to smile.
“Ishbel,” Maximilian said, “you and I—”
“Don”t.”
“Our lives, yours and mine, have become such a mess, Ishbel.”
“They are perfectly delineated to me at the moment, Maximilian.”
He chuckled again, although not with such amusement this time. “Very well, Ishbel. As
you wish.”
He rose, and Ishbel looked at him a little warily.
“There is something you need to see, Ishbel.”
“Oh, the Weeper. I almost forgot.”
Maximilian, who had been reaching into his pack, looked up and almost smiled at the