“If it is Ishbel’s rat,” Doyle said, “then perhaps it is showing us where they are.”
“Or perhaps it is a trick of the One, luring us to our deaths.”
“If the One had wanted us dead he would have killed us when the tower disintegrated.”
“Maybe he is just toying with us,” Serge said.
“Then stay here,” said Doyle, “while I go look.”
He began slipping and sliding up the mass of bodies, and after a moment Serge followed him.
By the time they got to the place where the rat had been, it had vanished, but there was a tremble of movement in the bones and flesh covering the spot and Doyle and Serge began to dig furiously.
It was foul work, but perhaps half a man’s height down they saw a hand waggling at them.
It was Maximilian’s hand, and the two men dug all the faster, eventually pulling Maximilian free and Ishbel a moment after him.
Both were in a terrible state, covered in rotting slime and almost unrecognisable, gasping and heaving for breath, but they were alive.
The One stood staring out of the Twisted Tower, leaning on one hand as it rested against the side of the window.
Before him he could just make out Maximilian and Ishbel scrambling from the filth that had once been Hairekeep.
He was cold with fury and frustration.
He had come so close.
His hand trembled and he had to stand, clenching his fists to stop himself shaking.
So close .
The One should have attacked them while he had them both in the Twisted Tower, but he had been too wary of their combined power, and he did not know if the Twisted Tower was capable of aiding them as Elcho Falling had.
Three hours later the four had reached land free of human flesh and bone, but they didn’t camp until they had put some distance between themselves and the last remains of horror.
Doyle set a fire and the four sat in silence cleaning themselves as best they could with cloth strips from a shirt out of the packs Serge and Doyle had retrieved before they’d begun their wade eastward through the tides of death.
On the walk out of the nightmare each pair had told the other what they’d seen and heard, sharing information. Now they were content to just sit, rest, and come to terms with what they’d all experienced.
“What now, boss?” Serge said after a time.
Maximilian didn’t know what to say. He was exhausted, almost too fatigued to think. He felt deep guilt at what had happened at Hairekeep . . . surely he could have foreseen that disaster?
Avaldamon had needed to die in order to save Maximilian and Ishbel from their pride and stupidity.
“I think we need sleep,” Ishbel said, knowing how Maximilian felt. She, too, couldn’t believe they’d managed to be fooled so easily and that Avaldamon had given his life for them. “We’re all tired and overwrought.”
“No,” Maximilian said, “we need to think. We just can’t pick up our bags and continue on as if nothing has happened.” He looked back to where he could just see, faintly, the end of the area covered in bones and flesh. Even at this distance, if the breeze gusted the right way, he could smell the stink of putrefaction.
“Josia,” he continued. “Josia .”
“We couldn’t have known —” Ishbel began.
“I should have thought!” Maximilian snapped.
Ishbel wet her lips, not knowing quite what to say. “Maxel, we need to get to Elcho Falling and warn —”
“We can’t leave it that long!” Maximilian said, then apologised to Ishbel for his tone. “I’m sorry. I just .”
“I know,” she said, as gently as she could.
Maximilian sighed, bringing his emotions under control. “We can’t leave it that long. The One is not going to rest in his Josia existence and just wait for us to arrive at Elcho Falling. I gave Axis and through him, Georgdi and Insharah, and gods alone know who else at Elcho Falling, the means to communicate with Josia. Except it isn’t Josia they are communicating with, is it? It is the One, and the possibilities for deception are boundless.”
“He’s going to be even more pissed now he failed to kill you and Ishbel in Hairekeep,” Serge remarked.
“Thank you for that observation, Serge,” Maximilian said. He rubbed his face with a hand, trying to dredge up the energy he needed to think.
“I have heard a little of Josia and the Twisted Tower,” Doyle said. “Maximilian, he can’t leave the Twisted Tower, can he?”
“No,” Maximilian said, “not if he has inhabited Josia’s fleshless existence. He is as trapped in the Twisted Tower as was Josia.”
“He needs flesh?” Doyle said.
Maximilian nodded. “In order to leave the Twisted Tower, yes, although I have no idea where the One might find it. He had to wait until Kanubai took corporeal form before he could make the jump into it. Taking ‘flesh’ is not an easy thing to accomplish if you are not born into it.”
“What real damage can he do from the Twisted Tower, then?” Serge said.
Ishbel winced.
“That much fucking damage!” Maximilian hissed, waving a hand at the slaughter they’d just taken three hours to walk out of.
No one said anything for a long minute.
“Is it possible to block off the Twisted Tower?” Ishbel said eventually. “Block it off completely from the world of the living?”
“Yes,” Maximilian said, “I’ve been sitting here thinking about it. It can be done, but .”
“It is dangerous,” Ishbel said.
Maximilian gave her a small, bleak smile.
“What do you need to do?” Ishbel said.
“The actual process is simplicity itself,” Maximilian said, “and it reflects somewhat the action Avaldamon took in order to save us.”
“The path .” Ishbel said.
“Aye, the path that connects this world to that of the Twisted Tower. The path is important . . . it must be negotiated exactly each time — which is the weakness Avaldamon exploited to save us. And if it is not whole, if it is not complete, then no one can enter or leave. The One’s connection to this world would be lost.”
“He couldn’t use the window?” Ishbel said. “He, as Josia, used it to communicate with Elcho Falling.”
“No,” said Maximilian, “The important connection is that path. When that is disrupted, even the window will be useless.”
“Are you certain?” Serge said.
“I am really reconsidering the wisdom of travelling with you,” Maximilian said, but this time there was no rancour in his voice.
Serge gave a small tip of his head in apology.
“You said it was dangerous,” Ishbel broke in, “and yet you also said it was simplicity itself.”
“All I need do is lift the initial stepping stone on the path,” Maximilian said. “Take away that first stone, that first step, and that will break the connection completely. But . . . while bending down and lifting a slab of stone is not too difficult, if the One knows I am there, and I can’t imagine he won’t feel it at all, then . . . all he need do is open the door to the Twisted Tower and, while he can’t actually walk out, he can unleash his power down the path. He could kill me right then and there. I don’t think he’d miss an opportunity like that, Ishbel.”
“So .” Ishbel said. “He needs to be distracted. At the window.”
“Yes,” Maximilian said. “If he is distracted at the window, and if he is not made suspicious by that distraction, then I might have a chance.”
“How can we distract him?” Ishbel said.
“We’ can’t do it,” Maximilian said. “It needs to be whoever he usually talks to within Elcho Falling. Hopefully, that will not arouse his suspicion.”
“How do we contact Elcho Falling to arrange that?” Ishbel said.
Maximilian gave her a weak and melancholy smile. “That’s what I have been worrying about. It will take us weeks to reach Elcho Falling, at best. I can’t leave it that long.”
“Maxel?” Ishbel said.
“I can’t leave it that long, Ishbel, it wouldn’t be —”
“Maxel, it is the rat.”
Everyone turned and looked to where she pointed.
There, trundling along as if nothing worrisome had perturbed its day, was Ishbel’s rat. It wandered to and fro at the edge of the circle for a bit then, having accepted a scratch of his whiskers from Ishbel’s fingers, he settled down on the pack which contained the Book of the Soulenai.
“If it wasn’t for him,” Doyle said, “we wouldn’t have found you.”
“Then he is welcome enough to the warmth of the fire,” said Maximilian.
Chapter 4
Isembaard, and the Outlands
Maximilian slept that night, so deeply he might almost have been dead, and while he slept, he visited with the dead. Once again he travelled into the Otherworld, feeling someone’s desperate need to meet with him.