relief in her voice. “Yes, the Weeper.”
He drew the cloth-swathed bundle from the pack and unwrapped it.
“This has caused so many people so much trouble,” he said. “What do you know of it,
Ishbel?”
“That in Coroleas it was revered as the most powerful deity their god priests had ever
made. That the soul of a very powerful man had gone into its creation. That it moved heaven and
earth, and created a few storms along the way, to get to you. That people have died to lay their
hands on it.”
“Aye.” Maximilian had uncovered the Weeper now, and it lay in his hands, a beautifully
formed bronze likeness of a man. “It has been whispering your name for a while now, Ishbel.”
He held it out to her. “Beware, if you touch it, for it may speak to you.”
Ishbel ignored his last comment and took the Weeper into her hands.
Ishbel, the Weeper said to her as soon as she took its full weight. I have waited so long
for you. So long…
Maximilian sat watching Ishbel in silence. He was grateful to the Weeper if only for the
reason that her study of it gave him the opportunity to watch her.
Of all the things he had got wrong, how could he have mismanaged Ishbel so badly?
She looked up, eventually.
“Maxel?”
“Yes?”
She hesitated. “There is a dark and very complex sorcery that has bound this man”s soul
deep within the statue.”
“But…”
“I can unwind it. If you like.”
Maximilian”s heart suddenly pounded so hard he thought it literally had broken out of his
chest cavity and into his throat. “You can unwind it?”
“Yes. I can free the man”s soul. Do you want me to do it?”
“Yes, oh gods, yes! ”
“Now?”
Maximilian almost said Yes! again, but stopped just as the word leapt into his throat.
“Ishbel,” he said, “how much danger will that cause you?”
She took a deep breath. “Some. The workings of the Corolean God Priests are intricate,
and I am certain they have left traps. I am certain, however, that I can evade them.”
“It will be dangerous.”
“Yes.”
Maximilian sat thinking a few moments. “Perhaps we can leave it until we get to Elcho
Falling…you would be safer there. Elcho Falling can itself grant you some protection.”
“As you wish.”
“Ishbel?”
“Yes?”
“Can you tell who the Weeper is? What he might be?”
Ishbel gave a soft shake of her head. “I”m sorry, Maxel. That I will only know when I
reach out my hand to touch his soul.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
On the Road to Serpent’s Nest
On the sixth day since he had been named as Axis” replacement, Insharah was riding
about midway down the column when several men rode to join him. They were longtime friends
and comrades, and Insharah greeted them with a smile and a nod for each man.
“How should we call you now, Insharah,” joked a man named Rimmert. “My lord? Sir?
Excellency?”
Insharah grinned. “Insharah will suffice as well as before, Rimmert.”
The men laughed, and for a few minutes there was jocular chatter.
Then the mood sobered.
“There has been talk,” said a man called Olam.
“There is always talk,” Insharah said.
“Many among the men,” Rimmert said, “have been voicing their concerns about the
dreams that we have all been having. Don”t deny it, Insharah. I have no doubt that you have been tossing and mumbling in your sleep.”
Insharah said nothing, keeping his eyes ahead on the trail.
“They are but dreams,” Rimmert continued, “but they do reflect the men”s inner fears.
What is happening to our families? Is Isaiah and this army of winged ghost men actually going to help?”
Insharah”s face went expressionless.
“Moreover,” said another man, Glimpel, “a man standing guard outside Maximilian”s
command tent heard Isaiah say that the River Lhyl had been turned to stone, or some such. The
water is no more. We all know what that means.”
Again Insharah did not respond, but, yes, he knew what that meant.
The refugees from the Central Kingdoms had been with the Isembaardians long enough
to tell the southerners what they knew about the Skraelings.
How they butchered every person they came upon, and ate them.
How there was only one thing that held them back—water.
And how there was only one person who”d ever had any success against them, and that
was Axis SunSoar.
But Axis SunSoar was still in the Outlands, not south in Isembaard, where he might be
saving their families.
“Damn it,” Glimpel said quietly, edging his horse closer to Insharah”s. “Everyone likes
this Maximilian. He”s a good man. I”m sure he”s been very nice to you. But what in all the gods”
names are we doing trudging along this slushy trail toward some mountain called Elcho Falling
when our families are dying down south?”
“Insharah,” said Olam, who had been watching his commander”s face carefully, “what do
you know?”
Insharah did not reply, staring ahead.
“Insharah?” Rimmert hissed.
“The Lealfast will do nothing against the Skraelings,” Insharah said. “They will not fight
them. They are kin.”
“Shetzah!” Rimmert and Olam exclaimed together.
“But Maximilian said they would help!” Olam said. “Gods, Insharah…this is
unbelievable! What the fuck are we still doing here?”
“What are you suggesting, Glimpel?” Insharah said.
Glimpel exchanged a glance with Rimmert, Olam, and the others.
“We would do better south, Insharah,” Glimpel said. “Tell me, where did you leave your
wife and children?”
Insharah sent him a stricken look.
“Ah,” said Glimpel, “they”re in Aqhat, aren”t they? So is my wife, as also Rimmert”s.”
“And if they”re in Aqhat,” said Olam, “then they”re already—”
“Silence!” Insharah said. “Enough of this talk, you understand? Do you really suggest
that we ride south? We”d not get there for weeks at best, and in that time…”
“Better that than sitting on our arses trailing along behind some man to whom we owe no
allegiance, with whom we share no common cause,” snapped Rimmert, “and who has sent
uselessness to „save” our families!”
With that, he jerked his horse”s head to the side, peeling away from Insharah, the others
following him within a heartbeat.
Insharah rode in silence for some time, brooding over what he”d heard from his
companions and how he felt about it. He was jerked from his reverie by the galloping hooves of
a horse and rider coming from the rear of the column.
He pulled his own horse out to intercept the rider.
“What is it?” he barked.
“There are soldiers approaching from the rear,” the man said.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Isembaard
Isaiah moved rapidly through the north of Isembaard. He had his own methods of
speeding travel; none so impressive as that used by the Lealfast, but good enough that he covered
more territory per day than other men could.
He met no one. By this point anyone who had been in the extreme north of Isembaard had
already traveled into the Salamaan Pass. In any case, this part of his tyranny had always been
sparsely populated.
The soil was poor this close to the FarReach Mountains, unable to sustain any farming
communities, and the only inhabitants had been goat herders and peddlers, traders and soldiers
moving through in order to reach somewhere else.
Isaiah could feel a presence to the south. He couldn”t define it any more than that, but it
was very keen and he knew that it knew he was here.
It wasn”t Kanubai, although Isaiah could sense some shadow of Kanubai hanging about
it.
Kanubai was dead. Eaten.
On the third day after he left Bingaleal and the Lealfast, Isaiah came upon what was left
of the River Lhyl.
His feet slowed as he approached, his heart thumping. Its wrongness leapt out at him,
even from a great distance, and that sense grew stronger as he approached.
The river suffered. It still lived, but under such a burden of powerful and dark
enchantment that its entire existence had become a torment. Here, where the Lhyl emerged from
the FarReach Mountains, it should have been a narrow torrent of foam and joy, but all Isaiah
could see was a jumbled morass of dulled, fractured glass.
He dropped to his knees on the riverbank, staring.
There was nothing but the glass. Isaiah had wondered if only the surface had been
affected by the enchantment, and had hoped that beneath this horror the water still flowed, but
every single drop of water down to the riverbed had been turned to glass.
Glass. The pyramid.
A tiny green frog crept from Isaiah”s hand and inched its way to the river”s edge. It
reached out a pad and touched a glassy wave hesitantly.
It sprang back immediately, and hid once more within Isaiah”s flesh.
Isaiah stood, and turned south.
He could feel the presence in the south watching him ever more closely.
“What do you want?” whispered Isaiah.
The One stared north. About him Skraelings milled, begging favors, but he ignored them.