Maximilian began the walk down the stairs.
Axis could barely believe it. Maximilian had told them that eventually the Dark Spire would recreate Elcho Falling within itself, but this .
Since the mayhem the spire had grown, pushing through three more levels (and into the chamber that had held the pool leading to the tunnel to the lake); detritus from the broken floors lay scattered about the chambers the spire had grown through, making walking difficult. But, more than its growth, it was the change in the spire’s appearance that shocked everyone.
It was developing balconies and windows.
As yet these were mere bumps and depressions in the outer skin of the spire, but their overall pattern clearly revealed what one day they would become.
“Worse news,” said StarDrifter, coming down the stairs behind them. “The Lealfast have returned.”
Axis and Isaiah stood on one of the eastern balconies, looking out to where the Lealfast had recommenced their slow flying in of boulders to dam off the lake about Elcho Falling. Maximilian had returned to his eyrie, to Ishbel and their task of finding a way to remember all the objects in the Twisted Tower, and StarDrifter and Georgdi were occupied inside, supervising repairs. Axis had warned StarDrifter about using the Star Dance, and asked him to spread the word among the remaining Enchanters.
Stars . . . ’remaining Enchanters’. At this rate StarDrifter would be Talon of nothing but memories.
“Have you heard any word from Inardle?” Isaiah said.
“No.”
“I wish I knew what was happening with those damn Skraelings,” Isaiah said. “They have the power to completely destroy us if they decide to combine with their old allies the Lealfast and attack.”
“She will contact us as soon as she can,” Axis said.
“We don’t even know if she escaped,” Isaiah said.
Axis repressed a sigh. “If she escaped, and once she has news, then she will contact us as soon as she can.”
They watched for a few more minutes as two more pairs of Lealfast flew in and dropped their boulders into the channel. Axis and Isaiah could make out the shadows of the submerged boulders now — they were only just under the surface. In only a few hours the lake would be dammed completely.
“Why do they want that ribbon of land surrounding Elcho Falling’s lake?” Axis muttered. “For what purpose are they going to use it?”
“Well, I, for one, have had enough of this standing about uselessly,” Isaiah said. He stepped to the door leading inside Elcho Falling and shouted for a couple of bowmen.
“Stars, Isaiah,” Axis said as two Isembaardian bowmen hurried out onto the balcony. “Be careful.”
“Maximilian said this would not harm us,” Isaiah said, and Axis wondered if Maximilian had any idea, really. He wanted to ask Isaiah to wait a few minutes just to warn the people inside Elcho Falling, but Isaiah was not in any mood to wait.
“Shoot those two Lealfast,” Isaiah said to the bowmen, indicating a pair of Lealfast flying in with a boulder in a sling between them. “Can your arrows reach that distance?”
“Easily, Excellency,” said one of the men, and without further hesitation they raised their bows, fitted their arrows, and let fly.
The arrows flew straight and true, arching high over the lake before beginning their descent toward the Lealfast.
“They are flying true!” Isaiah said, but, no sooner were the words out of his mouth than the waters of the lake erupted and twin black tendrils reached into the sky, snatching the arrows as they fell and bearing them back underwater.
The four men on the balcony stood in silence, shocked.
“A volley,” Isaiah snapped. “Shoot a volley.”
The bowmen again raised their bows and, their movements honed by years of practice, shot a volley of arrows into the air toward the Lealfast. These — because of the speed at which they were delivered, as many as six per breath between the two men — were not so accurately aimed, yet nonetheless they flew toward the Lealfast.
A score of black tendrils erupted from the lake, snatching the arrows from the sky.
“Shetzah!” Isaiah cursed.
The Lealfast continued to drop the boulders. They had not once glanced toward the arrows.
Chapter 10
The Outlands
The Skraelings hovered, partway between full reality and their dream state.
Their meeting with Inardle had confused and upset them. They had almost agreed among themselves that they would become River Angels, that they did have the courage to step into the water and drown, but Inardle’s news . . . that she had killed . . . had deeply upset the Skraelings.
At some point in both their physical and mental journey from who they had been toward who they might be, the Skraelings had developed a deep antipathy to killing. They had spent their entire lives killing; their culture and very sense of self worth had been largely based on slaughter, yet now . . . now the idea that they might lay hand to another and tear them apart, caused the Skraelings to feel deep abhorrence.
As they sat, considering, they were unaware that their talons were receding, and their over-sized jaws finally shrinking to normal size, and their teeth turning from fangs to grinding molars.
Isaiah the Water God had set them on a course that, whether or not it ended in their becoming River Angels, would change their lives forever.
Knowledge of their beginnings and contemplation of their own nature had done within a few short weeks what no army had ever been able to do in decades of trying: destroyed forever the threat of the Skraeling.
“What do we want to do?” Ozll asked into this grey sea of contemplation. “Who do we want to be?”
“Not a River Angel if the first thing Inardle did in her new form was to embark on murder,” said Mallx.
“But the life of the River Angel is so compelling,” the female Graq said. “It calls to me. It runs in my blood.”
Ozll nodded, and there was a murmur of assent among the great herd.
“But —” Mallx said.
“I know,” Ozll interrupted. “We all sway toward the life of the River Angel, but we wonder if it might be viler than our current incarnation.”
He paused. “I have an idea, strange as it may be to you.”
“I think I know what it might be,” Graq murmured, and Ozll looked at her, and nodded.
Chapter 11
Elcho Falling
Eleanon stood in the pre-dawn, looking at Elcho Falling glimmer in the last light of the full moon.
A week, no more, and it would be his.
Seven days.
“The magic is all worked?” Falayal said quietly at Eleanon’s side.
Eleanon gave a terse nod.
“And the One? He absolutely is vanished? You are certain?”
“The Twisted Tower now drifts many lifetimes away from this world,” Eleanon said. “The One is,” his mouth lifted slightly at the pun, “quite out of the equation now, Falayal. Is everyone ready?”
“Yes,” Falayal said, “and anxious and excited all at the same time. You are sure this will —”
“It will work!” Eleanon said fiercely. He took a calming breath. “Everyone knows what to do?”
“Yes. When will we start?”
“In an hour. When the light is good. If anyone trips over a shadowed pebble then the day’s work is lost. Falayal . . . I need a little peace and quiet. I need to touch the Dark Spire.”
Falayal bent his head in respect, moving away into the dim light. Eleanon stood a few minutes longer, staring at Elcho Falling, waiting for Falayal to make his way back to the nearest Lealfast camp, then he took a deep breath, then another, then closed his eyes.
Friend, he called, and the Dark Spire responded.
An hour after dawn the Lealfast moved. They gathered first in massive groups in a clear space just beyond each of their twelve encampments. Everyone save the infirm, the youngest children, and the disabled. They did not speak; they kept their eyes downcast; they seemed unaware of each other.
Eleanon stood on a small rise to the north, perhaps fifty paces away. Once all the Lealfast had gathered into twelve huge groups, and were still, Eleanon raised his hands, paused, then gave a resounding clap.
The Lealfast began to move, very slowly, but with precision and purpose. Long lines of Lealfast wound out of the twelve groups, some moving in lines westward about the lake, some in lines going eastward. As they moved, Eleanon kept up a slow, rhythmic clapping, and all the Lealfast moved in time to his beat.
As they marched, they kept their eyes turned downward.
Line after line emerged from the twelve camps until, well over an hour later, the lake was encircled by twelve concentric lines of Lealfast, alternate lines moving in different directions.
As soon as the lines had formed, Eleanon stopped his clapping, and the lines fell still.