“You want me to look for StarDrifter’s baby?” Inardle said. “How would he feel about that?”
“Profoundly grateful, if you found his son,” Axis said.
Inardle shot Axis a cynical look, but inclined her head. “Very well. Can you show me the chamber from which he was taken?”
The One has cursed you and you shall be forced to kill me? StarDancer said to Ravenna.
“Aye. I can delay,” Ravenna said, “but eventually I will kill you. I cannot help it. I will dash you from one of the high windows. I am sorry. I do not really wish to do it.”
Ravenna, who else has cursed you? I can sense that Ishbel has placed three tight and binding curses about you, but there is one other besides that of the One . . .
“Eleanon, the Lealfast who has besieged Elcho Falling, placed a curse on me as well, warped in with Ishbel’s. It conceals me from the regard of others in Elcho Falling, and it forced me to do his bidding.”
Which was . . . ?
“Which was to midwive the Dark Spire’s terrible eggs and place them within the walls of Elcho Falling. I do not know what they do there. StarDancer, I am sorry.” Ravenna rose, not understanding why she was telling StarDancer this much. Perhaps she owed him some kind of explanation. “The urge to kill you now is overwhelming. I can delay no longer.”
I can remove the One’s curse from you, as well as Eleanon’s.
“ What?” Ravenna, who had taken several paces already, now stopped dead. “How is that possible?”
I am very powerful.. I can do this. I could also remove Ishbel’s curses, but I do not dare that far. I like and respect Ishbel and would not undo her work without permission. I can remove both the One’s and Eleanon’s curses and then it will be your own decision whether or not you kill me.
“You can remove the One’s and Eleanon’s curses?”
Yes.
“But you are just a mere baby!”
No mere baby. Again StarDancer’s mouth curved in a tiny smile. I am the most powerful Enchanter the Icarii have ever known. More powerful even than the great WolfStar, whom my father has told me about. More powerful than my brother and able to manipulate the Star Dance as easily as he. I am no “mere baby”. I can sing an enchantment, Ravenna, that will rid you of two of your three curses. Would you like me to do that?
“Yes,” Ravenna whispered. “Yes.”
Imagine, StarDancer said, what I will be like as a full adult, if I can do this much as a baby.
StarDrifter was unhappy about involving Inardle in the search. He paced the chamber he shared with Salome and, until so very recently, his son, and sent dark looks shooting between Axis and Inardle.
Salome stood to one side, her face pale with anxiety, her eyes reddened from weeping.
She did not look at Inardle.
Inardle did not appear to notice either of them. She walked over to the cot where StarDancer had been sleeping and traced her fingers over its contours.
“Who here has worried about their child recently?” she said.
Everyone in the room — Isaiah, Axis, Garth, StarDrifter and Salome — looked between themselves.
“ I have worried about a child recently!” StarDrifter grated.
“Not you,” Inardle said. “Someone else has been here, desperately worried about a child.”
“You can feel that from the cot?” Garth said.
“Yes,” Inardle said. “You might, too, if you lay your fingers on it. Could your Touch feel it?”
Garth walked over and lay his hand on the cot. He was quiet, then he looked up. “Yes,” he said. “Ravenna.”
“Ravenna is worried about StarDancer?” StarDrifter said.
“She was pregnant with Maximilian’s child,” Garth said, “and Ishbel cursed it . . . perhaps Ravenna worries about its health. Whatever, Ravenna has been here, and there is deep worry associated with her presence. Regret. Sorrow. Fear for the future. So much bad feeling.”
“So now we must find Ravenna,” Inardle said, all practicality.
“Can you see her?” Salome said, speaking for the first time since Isaiah had brought Axis and Inardle to the chamber.
Inardle gave a slight shrug and StarDrifter lost his temper completely.
“You don’t give a damn, do you? This is my son, and he has been stolen from me, and you don’t give a single damn where he is. I —”
“StarDrifter,” Axis said, trying to reach out to his father.
“You have every reason to hate me and the Icarii,” StarDrifter snarled at Inardle, “and you see this as your chance to gloat that —”
“StarDrifter,” Isaiah said, “shut up now or by the gods I will stand down every one of the search parties and send them off for a well-earned meal and a rest. Yes, you have lost your son, but, damn it, StarDrifter, everyone is trying to help you!”
StarDrifter glared at Isaiah and sent another simmering look of ill will toward Inardle. He folded his arms and turned away.
Axis closed his eyes briefly, then looked at Inardle. “Inardle?”
She was still affecting cool indifference. “This way, perhaps,” she said, indicating the door to the external corridor.
“Oh, brilliant deduction,” StarDrifter muttered.
“If you want,” Inardle said, “I will stop right now.”
“No,” Axis said, literally stepping to stand between the two of them. “Inardle, please, do it for me.”
She looked at him, and Axis could see a glint of humour in her eyes.
She was enjoying herself.
Inardle, he said. Please.
Her mouth curved, then she turned and walked for the door. “Ravenna has left a clear enough trail,” she said. “For mypowers to pick up, at least.”
There, StarDancer said. Does that feel better?
Ravenna could not answer immediately. She sat, cradling StarDancer in her arms, tears running down her cheeks.
Ishbel’s curse remained, but to be freed of the two hateful and dark-fingered powers of Eleanon and the One. Oh gods . . . oh gods .
No doubt the One will be raging within the Dark Spire.
Ravenna managed a smile through her tears. “Good.” Her smile slipped a little: “He cannot reach me now?”
No.
Ravenna relaxed. Freed of the One’s power, and of Eleanon’s. This child was remarkable and, even more remarkable, what he had done had not even hurt her. Ravenna had forgotten what it was like not to be hurt and humiliated by another.
I have a favour to ask of you.
Now Ravenna tensed. So there was to be a price paid, after all.
I am not going to plead for my life — that is your decision truly. But before you decide, can you tell me about the powers you had as a marsh witch? And of this Land of Nightmares which exists beyond the Land of Dreams? Can you explain to me its parameters and meanings?
“Why?” Ravenna said.
To sate my curiosity.
Ravenna shrugged. So far as prices went, this was but a mild one. “As you wish.”
Inardle led them through Elcho Falling, down the main staircase, along a corridor some eight or nine levels above ground level, then up a smaller service stairwell for another five or six levels. Here, on a small landing where small hallways led deeper into Elcho Falling, she called everyone to a halt.
“I will go on alone from here,” she said. “Ravenna is close.”
“I should come with you,” Garth said.
Inardle considered him, then nodded. “Very well.”
They walked along one of the hallways, leaving behind a group of restless and variously suspicious people.
“Do you know where we are?” Inardle asked Garth.
“This place is too huge for me to have been through it completely,” Garth said, “but these levels are generally storage levels. Dormitories, command chambers, living quarters and so forth are much higher in the citadel.”
“There is something bleak ahead.”
Garth caught at Inardle’s elbow, stopping her. “I
nardle . . . Ravenna has done much damage, and she is a changed woman since I first met her . . . but she has also done good and came originally from a good place. I’ve heard a little of what you are now. Please . . . ” He stopped, not knowing how to continue.
To his surprise Inardle gave a small smile and squeezed his hand reassuringly. “I have more sympathy for her than you might believe,” she said, and with that they walked on.
Inardle led them eventually to a chamber stacked to its ceiling with what looked like boxes of blankets and pillows. There was a small space between the boxes, and Inardle, Garth directly behind her, threaded her way through.
Inardle stopped, holding up a hand to silence Garth. She looked back at him, then pointed ahead and moved her finger, indicating something about the curve in the narrow passageway.
Garth nodded his understanding.
They moved forward, slowly and carefully.
Inardle hesitated just at the curve of the passageway between the piled-high boxes, then she stepped around it.
“Hello, Ravenna,” she said.
Garth was directly behind Inardle, and he looked over her shoulder.
His first thought was that he was surprised that he could actually see Ravenna, the second was horror at her appearance. She was skeletally thin, her skin almost grey, her general appearance unkempt and ill.
He looked at her belly. She still appeared to be pregnant, but she was in such a poor condition, he wouldn’t gamble on the health of the baby.
Ravenna held a baby in her arms: StarDancer.
“Ravenna?” Garth said softly.
Ravenna looked up, her eyes filled with tears. “I was to kill him,” she said. “I couldn’t do it.”
Much later, when Isaiah had caused Ravenna to be locked in a comfortable yet secure room, he met with StarDrifter, Salome, Axis and Garth in the Talon’s chamber. StarDrifter sat with his son held tight in his arms and Isaiah did not think he was going to let him go any time soon.
“StarDancer is well?” he asked the boy’s parents, relieved that Inardle was not present.
“Yes, thank the Stars,” StarDrifter said, his face still drawn and tense.
“And Ravenna?” Isaiah asked Garth, knowing the physician had been to see her.
“She has been very unwell,” Garth said, “but should grow better with rest and good food.” He paused. “The child she carries is not doing well, though, and there is a danger Ravenna will miscarry it. Hopefully as Ravenna improves, so will her child.”
“She is a great danger to us,” said Salome, “and should be murdered herself.”
She has come to regret her actions, StarDancer said, his words clear in the minds of all in the room. She did not kill me.
He paused, and when he spoke again his mind-voice was heavy with power and concern.
The One is here.
“What?” everyone else said simultaneously.
In the Dark Spire.
“But none of us —” Isaiah began.
He has concealed himself well. None of you could spot him. I could not even discern his presence. But he is here, have no doubt.
“So that is he of whom you dreamed,” StarDrifter said. “We should have listened to you.”
Yes.
“Shetzah!” Isaiah cursed. “We must —”
Nothing you can do shall repel him, StarDancer said. He is too powerful. Not even Maximilian can match him now.
Axis looked at his brother, wondering that none of them questioned what StarDancer said.
Stars, the child commanded everyone in this room!
Axis felt a stab of resentment, both at StarDancer’s power and at the unquestioning acceptance of it by everyone, including himself.
But there is something that can be done.
“What?” Isaiah said.
It needs to wait until the Lord of Elcho Falling has returned, StarDancer said. But until then, Ravenna needs to be kept well and safe. She must not be murdered.
Part Four
Chapter 1
The Twisted Tower, and the Coast of the Outlands
Inardle’s attack on himself and his companions had shocked Eleanon. Not just the attack, but her chilling murderousness with it.
That hadn’t been the Inardle Eleanon had known.
What had happened to her? Had the ice hex somehow changed her? Eleanon didn’t know how Axis had managed to get her out, or how he had managed to restore her life (for Axis would have needed to kill Inardle to escape Borneheld).
But most of all, Eleanon could not comprehend what Inardle had become and he feared that it was somehow his ice hex that had caused the transformation. If so, that hex had been a critical mistake.
The thought that he may have made a critical mistake unsettled and frightened Eleanon.
In order to distract himself, Eleanon concentrated on fine-tuning the training the Lealfast Nation needed for the final confrontation that would see Axis and Inardle and all others within Elcho Falling dead, and the citadel his.
The Lealfast Nation had settled on the gentle slopes and meadows just below the Sky Peaks, far to the north-west of Elcho Falling. Here Eleanon could train the Lealfast with no one watching . . . although had they seen, Eleanon did not think they could have made any sense of what happened.
Today, as in the many days before, Eleanon stood in the centre of a large meadow.
About him the Lealfast Nation had arrayed themselves in ten gigantic circles that rotated about Eleanon. Each alternate circle moved either sunwise or anti-sunwise, and they moved slowly and deliberately to the beat that Eleanon clapped out with his hands. Occasionally Eleanon shouted instruction to this circle or that, keeping them in step with all the other Lealfast.
When Eleanon was satisfied, he quickened the beat of his hands. The circles began to move faster, although still deliberately, a stunningly choreographed dance with every single one of the Lealfast keeping place and pace perfect. And they were perfectly in step. Every one put their right foot down with everyone else’s right foot, and thus with their left foot.
Eleanon himself, in the centre of the circles, began to move, looking this way and that, his body trembling with the vibrations caused by the hundreds of thousands of feet placed perfectly in time to the beat of the dance.
He staggered slightly, losing his footing as the earth shook beneath him, and then Eleanon lifted into the sky, still clapping. As he lifted, he shouted, and so all the Lealfast, a quarter million of them arranged in concentric circles, raised their faces to the sky and shouted and clapped their hands.
The earth in the centre of the circle shuddered violently, then lifted, dirt spraying everywhere within a radius of fifty paces.
Eleanon, hovering in the sky, gave a small smile of satisfaction.
It would be good.
“Maxel?” Ishbel said, half rising from where she’d been dozing in the belly of Abe Wayward’s boat. Abe was forward, checking the rigging, Doyle was still fast sleep in the prow and Serge was manning the tiller, apparently sent into a catatonic state by the gentle rhythmic lull of the waves.
But Maximilian . . . Maximilian was sitting bolt upright just down from the tiller.
“Maxel?”
Maximilian smiled. “Look, sweetheart, you have dozed away all this time and missed the view to the north.”
Ishbel frowned at him, then swivelled so she could look forward.
“Oh!” she gasped.
Elcho Falling rose on the horizon, the three rings of its crowns turning lazily in the brilliant sun, sending glints of gold scattering over the sea.
Chapter 2
Elcho Falling
They were tacking slowly up the channel that ran from the Infinity Sea to the lake that surrounded the citadel.
Everything was very quiet.
The citadel appeared to be intact, but there were no Icarii in the sky, no Lealfast, and no armies in the surrounding landscape. Maximilian was not sure what he’d expected, but somehow it was not this.
r /> “Perhaps they’re all still abed,” Doyle remarked.
Maximilian exchanged an anxious glance with Ishbel, then touched Abe on the arm.
“Slower, if you can,” he said.
“I’m tacking as slow as possible,” Abe replied. “To go slower I’d need to take down the sail and allow us to drift. But that would leave us without any options should danger threaten.”
Did danger threaten? Maximilian wondered. What in the gods’ names was going on?
“Have you tried to contact anyone in —” Ishbel began to say, then gave a shriek of surprise as a column of water reared up from the channel behind her and crashed into the boat.
They all jumped a little and Serge and Doyle reached for their swords. Before anyone could take any further action the column of water resolved itself into a dripping wet and very naked Inardle.
She grinned at the startled expressions on everyone’s faces. “Did I surprise you? I do apologise. Put those swords away. I am of no harm to you.”
Neither Serge nor Doyle sheathed their swords, but Inardle took no notice. She reached over the side of the small boat, scooping up a handful of water and tossing it into the air in a spray of emerald and silver droplets. At the height of their arc, the droplets shimmered and transformed into a length of blue-green material which Inardle snatched out of the air then wrapped about her body, clothing herself in a matter of moments.
Her smile widened. “I have been learning new tricks,” she said. “Maximilian, all inside Elcho Falling will be more than pleased to see you. Look .”
She pointed at a balcony about halfway up the citadel.
Black dots stood there waving.
“Isaiah,” Inardle said, “and Axis and Georgdi. Happy to see you home and to hand over all their unsolvable problems.”
Maximilian gave a half-hearted wave to the distant balcony, but quickly centred all his attention on Inardle.
“What did you just do? The water . . . ” he said.
“Ah, who and what I am now is a matter for discussion over a glass of wine,” she said. “You are all well?”
“Yes,” Maximilian said. “But —”
“Isaiah and Axis asked me to come greet you and see you inside Elcho Falling,” Inardle said. “Most of the news can wait until then, Maxel, both yours and ours.”