The disappearance of the rat and the Book of the Soulenai had not worried them overmuch. The book had clearly nothing more for them, as also the rat, and Maximilian and Ishbel decided both had vanished until they were needed again.
But everything else . . . Hairekeep had taught everyone to be careful. The One was finally gone; or so they thought. Maximilian, while optimistic the Twisted Tower was now drifting further and further from their world, was not prepared to depend on that belief totally.
The One had surprised them before.
Maximilian held up his hand, stopping his companions.
They had entered Isembaard’s only eastern port earlier. The small town — little more than a village — was completely deserted. No people, no dogs, no rats.
The Skraelings had been active here.
They had been walking through the abandoned town, looking down every side street and alley, keeping alert for any danger. Now, as they reached the single pier and the crescent of fine sand that defined the beach, Maximilian stopped them, nodding to the middle of the pier.
There sat a man before a metal circular bowl in which smouldered a small fire. He appeared to be toasting a fish over the coals.
“I’ll go ahead,” Maximilian murmured.
“We’ll come with you,” Ishbel and Serge said at the same time, while Doyle nodded his general agreeance with the statement.
“I should —” Maximilian said.
“We’ll come with you,” Ishbel said, “and don’t argue the point, Maxel. We’re all too tired for it.”
Maximilian thought about sighing, but he was too fatigued even to do that, let alone fight with Ishbel. “We’ll need to be careful,” he said.
“Do you sense anything wrong?” Serge said.
“Apart from the fact I can’t see a bloody ship anywhere?” Maximilian said. “No. I sense nothing wrong. Come on, then. Let’s get this over and done with.”
They walked forward, and as their boots struck the timber decking of the pier, the man half turned and saw them.
He did not appear worried, or even particularly surprised, to see the four people walking up the pier toward him. He carefully balanced the stick holding the fish on the side of the brazier, then rose, wiping his hands down his leather trousers.
He was a tall, lean man, dark haired and with the weather-beaten, stubbled face of an experienced seaman. His eyes were bright brown specks almost completely lost behind wrinkles and wreaths of skin, and his teeth were startlingly white and strong when he smiled as the four neared.
“You’re the ride, then,” he said.
“The ride?” Maximilian said, feeling stupid in his weariness.
“The passengers I was sent to pick up,” the man said.
“We were expecting a ship,” Ishbel said.
The man looked at her. “And I was expecting a little courtesy, perhaps.”
“I apologise,” Ishbel said. “My name is Ishbel Persimius, and this is my husband, Maximilian. Our two companions are Doyle and Serge.”
The man nodded at each in turn. “I am Abe Wayward,” he said. “Who do you think sent me to wait for you?”
For a moment Maximilian could make no sense of the question, then he realised Abe was testing them. Maximilian managed a moment of inner humour, thinking that here he’d been, scrying out everything he could about this man, and yet here Abe was, testing them.
“It would have been either Axis SunSoar,” said Maximilian, “or Georgdi, the Outlander general. The message would have originated from Elcho Falling, what you would have known as Serpent’s Nest before .”
“Before everything went awry,” Abe said, and nodded. “Good enough. Georgdi it was. Sit down and we can have a meal of carawait fish before we go. Tide won’t be right for sailing until this evening, anyway.”
“You have a boat?” Ishbel said, hoping her question didn’t sound as desperate as she felt, or that Abe once more decided she was being impolite.
Abe nodded over the side of the pier. “Right there.”
As one the four stepped up to the side of the pier and looked down. Far below, tied to the carbuncled piles of the structure, was a small sailing vessel little bigger than a rowing boat.
None of them knew what to say.
Abe chuckled at the looks on their faces. “The Outlanders are not known for their great fleet, my friends. We have a few fishing boats, but that’s it. For everything else seaworthy, we depend on what the Vilanders supply us. They’re the sailing nation, not us. Georgdi should have asked the Vilanders to send one of their cargo cobs to fetch you, eh? You could all have had individual cabins with velvet curtains, then.”
“It looks an honest boat,” Maximilian said, not knowing what to say.
Now Abe’s chuckle turned into a hearty laugh. “And to think you’re going to have to sit in it all the way north toward Margalit . . . or is it Elcho Falling you want to reach?”
“Elcho Falling,” Maximilian said.
“Elcho Falling, then,” Abe said. “Well, she’s surely an honest boat, and keeled and rigged for speed. If the weather gets rough, then there’ll be enough hands on deck to bail her out. Difficult when I’m on my own. And look on the bright side . . . it’s not too far to lean over the side when you decide you’re going to lose your breakfast.”
“We are grateful for any ride,” Maximilian said, “for we are heartily sick of using our feet. Sitting down on the journey sounds like heaven to me. Thank you, Abe Wayward. We shall be glad and grateful to accept your aid.”
Maximilian stepped forward and offered Abe his hand.
Ishbel, Serge and Doyle all watched, their eyes sharp.
Abe didn’t miss their scrutiny. He smiled once again, and grasped Maximilian’s hand. “Do I pass?” he said.
Maximilian gripped the seaman’s hand, holding it for a long moment, staring the man in the eyes.
Then he nodded. “You pass, my friend. I apologise for my suspicion. We have had trials on our journey to meet you.”
“Then we shall have much conversation on the way north,” Abe said, “between bouts of bailing.”
Chapter 23
The Ice Hex
Axis dragged Inardle’s bloodied corpse through the snow of Eleanon’s ice hex. He had his arms wrapped under hers, clutched across her ruined chest, her body held awkwardly to one side as he tried to avoid her dragging wings.
She was almost rock solid both with rigor mortis and with the ice which had formed about her body. Only his Icarii strength meant Axis could keep dragging her like this — even the strongest human would have collapsed many hours ago.
Axis stared straight ahead, thinking of nothing more than placing one foot before the other, and thus dragging his burden just that bit further forward. He thought he was retracing the same path he’d taken to reach the icy recreation of Carlon, but he wasn’t sure. He didn’t really care if he wasn’t. If he was wrong it meant that he would die cursed inside this hex, but Axis felt that his own heart had gone, along with Inardle’s, and right now death felt like a perfectly viable, even preferable, option.
Axis had decided he was very tired of life and of all the horrors it put in his path.
He struggled onward, every muscle in his body screaming in agony, his breath frosting out of his mouth and rasping in his throat, icicles forming in his hair and hanging from his eyebrows and in his re-growing beard.
Inardle was icy cold in his arms. The blood from the wound in her chest had frozen all over her body . . . save in that small area where her body touched Axis’ hip. There the constant friction of living flesh against corpse had melted the blood, and Axis could feel it squishing underneath his clothes and trickling slowly down his leg into his boot where it froze all over again, sending splinters of ice into his flesh with every step.
He badly wanted this nightmare to be over.
Axis stopped, eventually, worn almost to complete exhaustion. He stood, his chest heaving, staring ahead, his arms slipping on Inardle’s body. He sobbed, fighting to keep hold of her, knowing that if he allowed her to slip into the snow he’d never find the strength to lift her and continue on his way.
It was so silent in this hex. The fog clung to him; he could barely see three paces ahead. If he held his breath, if only for the brief moment he was able, there was utter silence all about him, mocking him.
What if he couldn’t find his way out? What if Eleanon was somewhere, right now, laughing at Axis’ pain?
It was that thought that galvanised Axis back into movement.
By the stars, Eleanon was going to die for the pain he had caused. Axis felt the beginnings of a deep, cold anger, the kind that never faded, just grew and grew until eventually it needed to be assuaged in the only way possible — a death. Either Axis’, or the one on which the anger focussed.