time a Lord of Elcho Falling had set foot within.
Maximilian thought he could stand here and watch Ishbel forever. She was so absorbed in
what she did that she looked as if she had entirely forgotten his presence.
You have a somewhat unexpected offer of a bride, Vorstus had said to him so long ago,
but there is a complication. She is offered to you by the Coil within Serpent ’s Nest.
Ishbel was now dancing in the far quadrant of the room, the smoke drifting up from the
smoldering twigs to writhe about the domed ceiling. Now and again she scraped the burning ends
of the twigs against both floor and wall, leaving curious scorch marks where they had trailed.
The Lady Ishbel is not as virtuous as you had hoped, Maxel, Garth had said to him.
She will bring you nothing but sorrow, Maxel, Ravenna had said.
And, so recently, both Isaiah and Axis warning him against her.
What is it, Maximilian thought, watching Ishbel as she drew closer to him, that makes
people fear you so?
He was going to start something today that might well see the destruction of his world.
And, once started, he could not walk away from it. It would be a stormy path indeed for the next
year, but Maximilian hoped that he and Ishbel would weather it.
If not…
He was her only ally, Maximilian realized. He needed to be her rock, or else she could
not endure what awaited them.
Ishbel came to a halt in front of him. Her eyes were downcast to the bundle of twigs she
held in her hand, and for a moment she stayed entirely still.
Then with her free hand she plucked one twig from the bundle and cast it into the center
of the Reading Room.
Instantly the walls and floor began to smolder.
Maximilian straightened hastily as the door frame grew warm.
“We need to leave, Maxel,” Ishbel said.
Ishbel repeated the same dance by the main doors and then by the front gates. At the
doors, as she finished her dance, she tossed in a single smoldering twig, and instantly all the
corridors and passages leading back into the mountain began to burn.
As she finished the dance at the front gates, Ishbel tossed the remaining bundle of twigs
forward and high into the air, throwing them through the gates so that they scattered far and wide
as they fell.
Smoke and tongues of flame began to rise and flicker from every crevice in the mountain.
“Come build me a bed for our marriage tonight,” Ishbel said, looking at Maximilian with
such directness and intensity that he would, at her word, have utterly abandoned any attempt to
raise Elcho Falling to take her there in the dust before the burning mountain.
“The flames are reflected in your eyes,” he said.
“As they are in yours.”
“Do you have the crown and the goblet?”
“Do you doubt me? Come, my lord, build me a chamber for our marriage.”
He gave a small smile, and held out his hand, and together they walked down the road,
the burning mountain at their backs, to where Axis and Maximilian”s army waited.
Far distant, many hours” ride away, Ravenna pulled her horse to a halt and stared at the
mountain on the horizon.
Smoke was rising from its peak and, as she looked, flickering lights, flames, began to
work their way up the rocky face of the mountain toward its peak.
“What is happening?” she asked Lister as he reined in his horse beside hers.
“It is beginning,” he said. “Maximilian is raising Elcho Falling.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Elcho Falling
Axis sat his horse, staring beyond Maximilian and Ishbel to the mountain. It was burning
as fiercely as if it had been made of wood.
“What a wonderful beacon for Armat.”
Axis glanced to his left to where Georgdi sat his horse. He”d arrived at the head of his
twenty thousand only half an hour before, just as the first wisps of smoke had started to appear
about Serpent”s Nest. He looked tired, but otherwise well, and his eyes gleamed mischievously.
He said he”d seen the smoke from Armat”s campfires the previous night and had marched
through the night himself to ensure he got here in time.
There had been barely enough time to get Georgdi”s men into position, and to tell him
what news there was, before Maximilian and Ishbel had started on their way down the road.
Axis glanced about him to make sure that everyone else was in position. Maximilian had
asked that Axis, Inardle, StarDrifter, Georgdi, Egalion, and Ezekiel all be positioned at the front
of the ranks.
“What”s he going to do?” said Georgdi as Maximilian and Ishbel drew close.
“I have no idea at all,” Axis said, his eyes fixed on Maximilian”s and Ishbel”s conjoined
hands.
Maximilian saw Georgdi sitting just behind Axis, and gave him a nod. Words could come
later. He and Ishbel came to a halt some ten paces before Axis, who was at the head of the group
of commanders. Behind the commanders ranged Maximilian”s army: Escatorians, Isembaardians, Icarii, and Lealfast, all standing in ordered rank and slightly distanced each from the other.
“Ishbel,” Maximilian murmured, and she nodded, stepping away from him to one side.
“Axis,” Maximilian said, walking closer to him. “Your sword, if you will.”
Axis unsheathed it and handed it to Maximilian hilt first. Maximilian nodded his thanks,
walked back ten paces to where he had originally halted, looked briefly at the burning mountain,
then used the sword to draw three intersecting circles, large enough that he could stand in their
center without touching any of the circles. He dug them deep into the ground, so that each circle
became almost a mini-trench half a finger deep.
Then he walked back up the road three or four paces, and drew a straight, deep line back
down to the intersecting circles.
“Your sword,” he said, handing it back to Axis, who took and sheathed it wordlessly.
Maximilian walked toward Ishbel.
“My lady,” he said softly.
Ishbel took a deep breath.
“First,” she said, “a gift from the past that we may together weld a future.”
Axis frowned at her phraseology, and hoped it was merely metaphorical.
Ishbel went down on one knee on the dusty road as she spoke, holding out her cupped
hands.
Axis gasped, as did everyone else who could see.
As Ishbel bowed her head before Maximilian, the Goblet of the Frogs had appeared
within her cupped hands.
“I had a vision of presenting you this goblet, my lord,” Ishbel murmured, only for
Maximilian”s ears, “that night we first lay together.”
He took the goblet from her, running his fingers over her hands as he did so, then held it
up so that it caught the flickering light of the flames.
It flashed emerald and amber, and the frogs about its sides capered and leaped.
“It is an object of great magic,” Maximilian said, then turned back to the waiting
commanders.
He went to StarDrifter first. “Talon,” he said, “may I have a feather from your wing?”
StarDrifter”s eyes widened a little, but he gave a nod. “You may have a feather from my
wing, my lord,” he said.
Maxel reached out one hand and ran his fingers gently over the curve of one of
StarDrifter”s folded wings. When he withdrew it, he held a white and gold feather between two
of his fingers.
Maximilian dropped it into the goblet, resting his hand over the mouth of the goblet for a
moment, head bowed.
Then he moved to Ezekiel, sitting his horse just to one side of StarDrifter. “General,”
Maximilian said, “I see you wear a chain-mail tunic made of the finest rings of steel. May I have
one of those rings?”
Ezekiel bowed his head. “Of course, my lord,” and Maximilian reached out and ran his
fingers over the skirt of the tunic as it lay over Ezekiel”s thigh, and, as he withdrew the hand, a
steel ring glinted between two of his fingers.
Maximilian dropped that into the goblet as well, resting his hand atop it a moment as he
concentrated, then moved on.
From Egalion, Maximilian took a thread of his emerald tunic, and from Georgdi, a hair
from his horse”s mane. Each of these went, in turn, into the Goblet of the Frogs.
Then Maximilian came to where Inardle sat her horse, to Axis” right.
“I want nothing from you, Inardle,” Maximilian said, “save your passion.”
And with that he ran his fingers lightly down the wrist of Inardle”s left hand where it
rested on her leg, and then over the back of her hand and down her fingers.
She drew in a sharp breath, and frost rose where Maximilian had run his fingers.
Maximilian sent Axis an amused glance, then scooped up the frost on the tip of a finger
and flicked it into the goblet.