Axis thought the Skraeling boggled so hard at Isaiah that his silver orbs would actually detach themselves from their sockets and fall to the ground.
Who was Veldmr? Axis wondered.
“It . . . ” the Skraeling whispered. “It is . . . ”
“Yes?” Isaiah said.
“It is .” The Skraeling glanced at Axis and Inardle.
“Neither Axis nor Inardle will speak it without my permission,” Isaiah said. “Tell me.”
“It is Ozll,” the Skraeling whispered, and Isaiah smiled.
“Friend Ozll, then. We shall meet this evening, when I have eaten and refreshed myself. I am sure we shall have much to discuss.”
Without another word, or even a glance at the Skraeling standing staring at him, Isaiah waved for Axis and Inardle to follow him, then kicked his horse toward his army.
“What is this mystery name thing?” Axis said to Inardle as he pushed their horse after Isaiah.
“All the Skraelings have what they call mystery names,” she said. “They never told them to the Lealfast and, frankly, I thought it was just some means they had dreamed up to make themselves feel important. Every time they wanted to appear enigmatic and self-important, they’d carry on about their ’mystery names’. I have no idea how Isaiah knew about them. I also had no idea the damned creatures actually did have them.”
“Maybe friend Ozll made it up on the spot.”
“Maybe,” Inardle said, her voice doubtful.
They rode another few minutes, then Axis began to chuckle. “By the stars, Inardle, look what Isaiah has collected about himself. Such flummery!”
“What are they?”
“Juit birds,” Axis said. “I remember them from the time when Isaiah pulled me from the Otherworld. Not everything, but I do remember those birds.” He chuckled again. “Stars alone knows what they are doing keeping company with Isaiah, but suddenly I feel a great deal more cheerful.”
Ozll stood and watched them ride away, his mind and heart in turmoil.
Why had the water god wanted to know his mystery name?
Ozll quite suddenly felt they’d made a major mistake in not simply overwhelming the Isembaardian force and eating them to the ground before carrying on to Elcho Falling and whatever awaited there.
It had been a bad miscalculation to worry that the One might have secreted himself within the army. If the One had been within the Isembaardian army, then he would have made himself known to the Skraelings by now.
Nonetheless, when Ozll returned to his comrades, and they asked him what was happening, he replied simply, “Isaiah will speak with us this evening.”
He did not tell them that Isaiah had asked his mystery name, nor that Isaiah had invoked the name of Veldmr. None of the Skraelings could remember quite who Veldmr was, only that he was a great and revered figure from their past.
A past, some among the Skraeling whispered, that had had some beauty and power to it.
A past of mystery.
Chapter 22
The Outlands
That evening, Isaiah, Axis and Inardle gathered at the boundary of the Isembaardian camp. Isaiah had been busy all day and neither of the other two had had a chance to talk with him. Now they were full of questions.
“Enough!” Isaiah said, raising his hands in self-defence. He was looking his majestic best. His long black hair had been washed and rebraided with hundreds of glittering crystal beads (it would not have surprised Axis to have learned they were diamonds) that jingled whenever he moved his head. He had abandoned his usual riding attire of leather trousers and jerkin for an all-black close-fitting ensemble that highlighted his musculature and strength.
From somewhere, possibly Lamiah who may have liberated it from one of Isaiah’s original invading supply wagons, Isaiah had found one of his extraordinary jewelled collars. It hung about his upper chest and draped over his shoulders in a blaze of diamonds, sapphires and emeralds, which, along with the jewels in his braids, caught every glint of light.
Axis thought the Skraelings would be salivating in envy.
Isaiah sighed, thinking about what he could, or wanted, to say. “All I want to say for now is that when we talk with the Skraelings, I will probably take us back to almost the beginning of time when this world was very new. I lived then, as did Lister, and we each had many adventures and made many decisions that have long, long been forgotten.
“At least, I thought they had been forgotten. When I touched you yesterday, Inardle, one of those decisions, one of my ancient secrets, reared up and told me in no uncertain tones that it still lived, and that the consequences of a rash action tens of thousands of years ago have now come back to haunt me.” He paused. “As they have haunted you, Axis, and this land. I made a grave mistake many, many aeons ago, and I had no idea . . . no idea at all .”
He managed a small smile. “Perhaps that mistake can be revealed, and maybe I can have a chance to make right for the future a wrong that is anciently old. Maybe the Skraelings can have a chance, too. And, Axis,” Isaiah’s smile grew a little broader, a little more genuine, “maybe you will understand why the Skraelings loathe water so much. Gods, that alone should have given it away to me . . . oh, well, no matter now. Are you ready?”
That little speech hadn’t enlightened either Axis or Inardle, and it had made Axis feel a great deal more uneasy. He wasn’t happy at all about walking toward a throng of millions of Skraelings, even with Isaiah at his side, and from what Isaiah was saying .
“Come, Axis,” Isaiah said. “It will be an adventure, and you like adventures.”
“I gave up admiring adventures a long time ago,” Axis muttered, but Isaiah pretended not to hear him, and together the three began the journey across the no-man’s land between the two armies.
The juit birds had preferred to make their roost elsewhere this night.
They walked in silence toward the Skraeling mass which opened up as they approached, forming an avenue toward their centre.
Axis began to feel very nervous . . . he had expected to meet with a delegation somewhere other than surrounded by several million Skraelings.
It will be all right, Axis, Isaiah said, and with that Axis had to content himself.
He glanced at Inardle. She was walking to his side, outwardly calm, but he could tell by the way she held her wings and the tight skin about her eyes that she was also very tense.
Isaiah strode without hesitation into the midst of the Skraelings, Axis and Inardle a half step behind him.
None of the Skraeling had eyes for any other than Isaiah, and Axis thought that whatever Isaiah had said to Ozll earlier had so impressed or otherwise astounded the Skraelings they could now completely ignore the fact the StarMan walked within their midst.
Under any other circumstances Axis thought they would not have hesitated to tear him to pieces.
The entire mass was utterly silent, staring at Isaiah.
The man glittered as he walked. Axis had to admire his sense of style — something Axis had never really exploited when he was StarMan. Isaiah strode forth as if he owned the very ground on which he walked, radiating majesty and serenity and confidence, and everyone either stared silently or followed meekly.
Eventually Isaiah, Axis and Inardle came to a small circular area, delineated by the standing, crammed Skraelings. In the centre of this circle stood Ozll and two other Skraelings, both as hideously malformed as Ozll.
Isaiah walked to within three paces of them, then sat cross-legged in one graceful, elegant move.
He gestured to Axis and Inardle to do likewise (who managed it smoothly if not with as much elegance as Isaiah), then spoke to the Skraelings. “You may sit, also.”
He had, in an instant, taken total command of the meeting.
“You know me as Isaiah,” he said, “and you likely all know my companion, Axis SunSoar, StarMan, and perhaps even Inardle, who as a Lealfast has been a companion to many of you. I know I address Ozll, but I wonder who else sits with you, Ozll. How may I call them?”
Ozll hesitated.
“Their mystery names, I think,” Isaiah said, “for this grand parley.”
Another slight hesitation, then the two Skraeling spoke in turn.
“Mallx,” said one.
“Pannh,” said the other. Then, “How did you know of Veldmr?”
“The question is,” Isaiah said, “how do you know of him? But, we’ll get to that. May I begin? There are many things we need to discuss, and the night promises to be cold, and I and my friends would like to return to my campfire as soon as we may.
“Now, here is the situation as I understand it. I am leading this army toward Elcho Falling so that I may assist my friends within to dislodge their besiegers, the Lealfast led by Eleanon. Eleanon may or may not — I have no intelligence on this — be allied with my former general, Kezial, and his army. You, on the other hand, are allied with the One, and are marching behind us with an uncertain purpose in mind. I don’t suppose you would care to elaborate?”