Isaiah’s sense of unease had been growing all day. For most of the day, into the early evening, that had been attributable to the approaching threat of the Skraelings, but now Isaiah believed there was something else happening.
He had not been this nervous and this jumpy, well . . . not in his very considerable life span thus far.
Something bad was happening.
Or maybe good. Isaiah simply could not decide.
Hereward looked over the fire at him, then cleared her throat to say something.
Before she could speak, however, she suddenly gasped, her eyes wide, and clamped both hands to her throat.
Blood was pumping forth, drenching the front of her robe.
Maximilian was still pacing when, in one startling, stunning moment, he found himself being driven down through water.
For a moment he was so stunned he could not react, then he was trying to fight his way up through the water, struggling with the sudden, terrifying current, desperate for breath. Something seemed to be keeping him down; he didn’t know what it was, but it was starting to panic him.
Then suddenly he was free of whatever force held him and he was gasping for breath at the surface.
The Lhyl had returned to water.
The current was fierce, fiercer than Maximilian expected, and he wondered if the sudden release of the water meant it flowed far more violently than usual. He started to swim for the eastern shore, desperate to get to land and look back to see what had become of the pyramid, when he became aware that a rat was swimming in circles about him.
Watch out, said the rat, and suddenly Maximilian was hit from below by a large, solid object. It grabbed at his legs, then his hips, pulling him under, and as Maximilian sank yet once more, he found himself staring through the water into Ishbel’s eyes.
One more time, Isaiah found himself leaping about a fire and clamping his hands about Hereward’s neck.
What the fuck is happening?
She stared at him with wild eyes, her expression half of bewilderment and half of deep anger.
“Stay away from me!” she hissed, managing to get to her feet, both her hands still held tight against the spot where, many months ago, the Skraeling had dug its claw deep into her flesh.
“Stay away!” she said once more, then stumbled away from Isaiah forcing him to release his hold.
Lamiah and the other men were on their feet by this stage.
“What —” Lamiah began.
“I have no idea,” Isaiah said, his eyes following Hereward as she walked unsteadily away into the night. “I have no idea at all.”
“Grab my hands!” Avaldamon shouted, and Maximilian and Ishbel spat out water, shaking their heads, reaching for Avaldamon’s, and Serge’s and Doyle’s, hands.
“The river!” Ishbel said as she managed to find firm footing.
“Ishbel!” Maximilian said, and wrapped his wife in an embrace so tight that she laughed in protest.
Everyone was laughing and hugging each other.
“You did it!” Avaldamon said, trying to prise Ishbel away from Maximilian and not succeeding. “The pyramid is gone . . . gone!”
They all turned to look over the river. There was nothing where DarkGlass Mountain had been save a low cloud of drifting dust. No stones, no glass.
Nothing.
“Are you all right, Ishbel?” Maximilian said. “You’re bruised . . . and cut .”
“I am well enough,” she said. “They are just scrapes. Oh, I have so much to tell you!”
“The One?” Maximilian said.
“Gone, I think,” Ishbel said. “I saw him crumble before my eyes. He tried to use the power of Infinity within the very machinery of DarkGlass Mountain and it only accelerated his own destruction. Can you feel him? Avaldamon?”
Both men shook their heads.
“Nothing,” Maximilian said. “What did —”
“Look!” Ishbel said, laughing anew. She reached into the water, searching with her hands, then she straightened, holding up the Book of the Soulenai. It dripped water everywhere, but looked otherwise undamaged.
“I am well, the Book is returned, the river is made water once more, the pyramid is destroyed, and the One with it,” Ishbel said. She grinned wildly, looking about the group. “Is this it? Can we go home now? Are we done?”
Maximilian kissed her. “We are done, Ishbel. We can go home.”
Neither of them saw the shadow of worry in Avaldamon’s eyes, but he smiled when they turned to him, and nodded.
“Yes, we can go home.”
In the Outlands, the Skraeling surge northward faltered suddenly.
The One’s presence had abruptly faded.
I think, said the leader among them, that we ought to proceed with a little more caution. Just until we hear from the One again.
Part Two
Chapter 1
The Outlands
Isaiah walked through the camp, looking for Hereward, when suddenly he stopped. His eyes stared, his mouth opened. He felt . . .
Whole.
He bent over, resting his hands on his knees.
His power was filtering back!
Isaiah could hardly believe it. He had thought he was reconciled to a mortal life without power, but now .
Was this a trick of the One?
Taking a deep breath and straightening up, Isaiah tested himself (hardly daring to, in case it was a trick!) by sending out a probe, trying to scry out the One.
His power worked perfectly, but he could feel nothing of the One. Nothing.
Nothing.
And the river was back! Isaiah could sense it flowing in delight, full of life as it swept down from the FarReach Mountains toward Lake Juit.
The River Lhyl flowed again.
Isaiah sank down and sat in the dirt. All about him the camp was rousing for the day, but he just sat there in the dirt, his eyes gleaming, ignoring the curious looks sent his way.
The water was back.
His power was back.
He was whole.
The river was back.
He was whole.
DarkGlass Mountain was gone. Every sense of it had vanished. It was gone.
And the One . . . Isaiah could not feel him at all.
He, too, was gone.
Isaiah gave himself one moment of sheer happiness, then he rose to his feet. It must have been Maximilian or Ishbel, or both. Nothing else could have managed the destruction of the One or of DarkGlass Mountain.
Isaiah chuckled. “I had not thought either of you capable of managing it,” he said softly, “but I am more than glad to be proved wrong.”
He couldn’t decide what to do next. Talk to Hereward? To Lamiah? To the damned juit birds and find out why they were here and what they knew? Try to communicate with Axis, or Maximilian, or Ishbel?
Out of all those possibilities, Hereward was coming a distant last, but as he turned to retrace his steps Isaiah saw her tent and decided he might as well speak with her while he was here.
Besides, she would be pleased to learn he had his power back.
Smiling happily (and drawing strange looks from the soldiers for that smile), Isaiah walked over to Hereward’s tent.
“Hereward?” Isaiah lifted the flap and looked inside.
Hereward was sitting on her camp bed and looked at him irritably when he came in.
“I do not need you,” she said.
“Nonetheless,” Isaiah said. He came over and sat down beside her, then carefully lifted away the linen she had pressed against her neck.
“Be careful!” she snapped.
“I will be careful,” Isaiah said. The wound had started to coagulate — it had not been as bad or as deep as the original had been, although frightening enough — and was only seeping a pinkish fluid now.
Isaiah wondered why it had reopened. What did it signify? Was it just another effect of the destruction of the pyramid and the One, and the rebirth of the River Lhyl?
Or was there some darker mystery behind it?
His fingers probed at Hereward’s neck and she hissed at him, making Isaiah look at her sharply.
“Don’t touch it, Isaiah,” she said. “There is nothing you can do to —”
Isaiah’s fingers ran over the soft scab, just lightly, and suddenly it was healed, completely sealed over.
Hereward twisted her face about to stare at him. She lifted her own fingers to her neck, and her eyes widened. “What did you do? How .?”
“I have my power back, Hereward. I am whole.”
Hereward stared at him uncomprehendingly. “Whole?”
Isaiah laughed, softly at first, then louder in sheer joy. “The river god is back, Hereward. What say you?”
“That I preferred the man,” she said, and her tone was so dismissive that Isaiah’s laughter died, and he rose and left the tent.
Isaiah walked to the edge of the encampment, irritated at Hereward. Once again he thought how good it would be to leave her behind.
Or to hand her over to her father Ezekiel at Elcho Falling.
“She has never been anything but trouble,” Isaiah muttered to himself.