Eleanon found himself staring over a landscape of incredible beauty and power—a vast plain of
emerald water, from which rose a magical citadel of such loveliness and power that he felt his
knees weaken with need.
“Elcho Falling,” said the One. “Your home, once I have done with it.”
Eleanon stared, his knees growing even weaker. He could see birdmen and women flying
about the citadel, and sense their joy and power.
They were Lealfast, not Icarii.
And they were whole. Not half of this and half of that, but whole and glorying in that
wholeness.
They are at One with themselves, the One spoke inside Eleanon”s mind.
Yes, Eleanon whispered.
This was not a future in which either the Skraelings or the Icarii had any place.
Moreover, Eleanon could sense truth in the vision. It was not a trick, not a sorcery
constructed to fool him, but it was truth, and it was his future and the future of the Lealfast.
“You can do this,” said Eleanon. “You would give this to us?”
“Yes, and yes,” said the One. “I have no use for Elcho Falling save to remove any threat
it harbors toward me.”
“What threat?” Eleanon said.
“It and its lord seek to subdivide me,” said the One, and now Eleanon could hear hate and
anger in the One”s voice.
“You want us to deliver to you Elcho Falling and Maximilian Persimius,” said Eleanon.
“Yes,” said the One. “I have cursed Maximilian Persimius, but you can be a more
powerful friend to me than that curse can ever be. You will be my door into the citadel.”
“I will be your key,” Eleanon said softly.
“My key. Yes,” said the One.
“Maximilian thinks we are loyal to him,” said Eleanon.
The One smiled.
Eleanon locked eyes with Bingaleal, then took a deep breath, addressing the One. “I will
put this to the Lealfast Nation,” he said, “but they will agree. They know that Maximilian is
weak and cannot deliver to us that which we desire more than anything.”
“Wholeness,” said the One. “Completeness. Your own dignity and destiny. Oneness.”
“Yes,” Eleanon said, and the One had to bite back his smile. The Lealfast would be as
malleable as Ravenna, and as had once been the Magi. “You may take this vision to your Nation
with my blessing,” said the One, “and as my promise to you.”
Eleanon felt a peacefulness infuse his soul—and a certainty that he”d previously been
denied.
It was hope, he realized. Destiny, even.
Once again he made his elegant bow to the One. “Thank you,” he said.
CHAPTER NINE
On the Road to Serpent’s Nest
Axis!” Maximilian leaned over the distance between their horses and clapped Axis on the
shoulder. “You look exhausted!”
“A reflection of you, then,” said Axis. He”d ridden for three days to catch up with
Maximilian, who had obviously pushed his convoy harder than Axis had imagined.
Stars knew how long it would take Inardle to catch up.
But he was here, finally, and gladder than he had thought to see Maximilian again.
“Thank you for sending the Strike Force,” Axis said. “Without them…”
“You should thank your father for loaning them to me,” Maximilian said.
“But you were the one to think of sending them, and for that you do have my thanks.”
“And thus, I hope, your undying gratitude and intention to run yourself into the ground
accomplishing whatever it is I might ask of you.”
“Naturally!”
Both men turned their horses so they rode side by side at the rear of the convoy.
“But seriously,” Axis said, “you look worn out.”
“I have been spending each night in the Twisted Tower,” said Maximilian, “learning
from Josia who was once hidden within the Weeper. You heard how…?”
“How Ishbel freed him, and suffered attack from Ravenna? How Ravenna murdered her
mother? Not all the details, but I have the gist of it.”
“Then the details can wait for the moment when we have more leisure, Axis,”
Maximilian said. “Tell me what you heard and saw in Armat”s camp.”
For the next hour Axis talked in a low tone, telling Maximilian what had happened from
the moment the injured Lealfast started falling out of the sky around him to the time
BroadWing”s Strike Force had saved them. Maximilian listened in silence, not interrupting with
any questions, keeping his eyes on the road ahead.
“Have you seen the Lealfast?” Axis asked.
“No. They must be truly licking their wounds somewhere.”
“I think they will rejoin you at Elcho Falling,” said Axis. “It will take time both for their
wounds and egos to heal. I told Eleanon I didn”t want him rejoining you until he was prepared to
learn under BroadWing. Stars knows when that might be.”
“Axis…why did Ravenna free you?”
“So that I might persuade you against Ishbel, Maxel. She said that she loves you, and that
she is not trying to destroy you. She said that all she wants is for you and this land to survive.
But she says that if you take Ishbel back to your bed then you will fail, and this land will become
a wasteland. She showed me—”
“A vision?” Maximilian said sharply, looking at Axis once more.
“She showed me a wasteland, Maxel. It was a version of the same vision she must have
shown you, but she said it was different. Maxel, instead of some nameless threat, the vision now
very clearly shows that Ishbel aids the walking pyramid. According to the vision, it is DarkGlass
Mountain to whom she will betray Elcho Falling. There, I have said what Ravenna wished.”
Maximilian did not answer, and they rode a while without speaking.
“Maxel,” Axis said eventually, “Ravenna seemed almost reasonable. And she did save
me.”
“Yet she murdered her mother.”
“Yes,” Axis said. “She murdered her mother.” He paused. “Maxel, I do not believe this
will have some happy, magical ending. Either Ishbel or Ravenna will prove your destruction, and
this land”s destruction.”
Maximilian sighed. “Ah, thus speaketh the prophet of doom.”
“Maxel, listen to me. One day you will have to put your sword through one of these
women. Can you do it?”
CHAPTER TEN
Isembaard
Isaiah pulled the horse to a halt in the middle of the afternoon, when they were five or six
days” journey from Hairekeep.
Hereward, who had been dozing against his back, jerked into wakefulness. “Isaiah?”
“Wait there,” Isaiah said, swinging a leg over the stallion”s withers and sliding to the
ground.
Hereward slid off as well, one hand grabbing at the halter and rope that Isaiah had
fashioned out of the harness he had made.
Someone was sitting cross-legged in the sand some twenty paces away, their head bent
over the sword they were honing.
Isaiah was already walking toward the man, but Hereward did not follow.
Whatever waited there looked too dangerous.
Isaiah stopped several paces away.
“Bingaleal,” he said, although he knew that the creature sitting on the ground before him
was not in any manner the Lealfast he had known.
Bingaleal—or whatever he had become—looked up from his task. In features he looked
as Isaiah remembered, but his eyes had been replaced with vivid emerald glass.
“Isaiah,” Bingaleal said, then bent his head back to honing the sword.
“What do you want, Bingaleal?” Isaiah said.
Bingaleal”s right hand moved down the blade of the sword, slowly and rhythmically,
running the whetting stone over the cutting edge of the steel. It made a slow, whispering sound
that grated on Isaiah”s nerves.
“Bingaleal?” Isaiah said.
Bingaleal looked up again, and Isaiah heard Hereward”s very soft gasp as she saw the
creature”s eyes.
“I have a message for you,” said Bingaleal. “From the One.”
“I grow sick of his messages,” Isaiah said. “They prove a heavy burden.”
Bingaleal grinned, and now Isaiah gasped in unison with Hereward.
Within Bingaleal”s mouth there was nothing but blackness, and within that blackness,
hands pressing forth in agony and terror.
“Take a good look at Hairekeep as you pass,” Bingaleal said, “and know what awaits
Elcho Falling should Maximilian think to ignore the One.”
Then he rose, making Isaiah take an involuntary step back, and strode off into the
distance.
When Isaiah returned to Hereward, she looked at him with worried eyes. “Who was
that?” she said.
“Dismay and disaster,” he replied.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
On the Road to Serpent’s Nest
Axis went back to his tent. He knew that his father wanted to see him, but he was too
tired to brave either StarDrifter or Salome and their happy, happy pregnancy.
He didn”t want to be reminded of the family he”d lost.
Yysell, his body servant, was in the tent, setting out a tub of water and a cold meal on a
table to one side. Axis thanked him, then waved him away.
He wanted to be alone.
As soon as the man had gone Axis stripped off his filthy clothing and sank into the hot
tub. He scrubbed his body and hair, combing it out with his fingers, then lay back in the soapy