Part 5 (2/2)
”We are safe enough for the moment,” Maximilian said, ”although I cannot guarantee the morrow.” He gave a brief smile. ”The moment shall have to do for now. There is something I need to tell you, but first, perhaps, we need to review what has happened here. Georgdi, Egalion, how stands security within Elcho Falling?”
”Good, so far as I can tell,” Georgdi said. ”But who is to know what other traitors lurk in the shadows?” He glanced at Inardle as he spoke.
”Everyone who has entered Elcho Falling has been a.s.signed quarters,” Egalion said. ”Garth and Zeboath are attending the wounded as best they can, but many more will die from their wounds.”
”For your part this night,” Maximilian said, ”I need to thank you, Egalion, and your guardsmen. We may all have been lost, had it not been for you.”
Egalion nodded, like so many others, too tired to waste energy on unnecessary words.
”What other threats lurk, Axis?” Maximilian said.
”The Skraelings are coming,” Axis said, rubbing at his eyes with one hand, ”and they will be here as soon as they may. Eleanon has been reinforced with Bingaleal and his twenty thousand.” Axis sighed, thinking. ”Kezial and some few score thousand Isembaardian soldiers are roaming the Outlands somewhere, but who knows if they are a threat or if they'll be overwhelmed by the approaching tide of the Skraelings. But who am I to talk of what threats and treacheries we face? For that we have Inardle to ask.”
He looked at her then and she raised her eyes and caught his gaze. Inardle's eyes were distraught, and Axis thought her a most talented actor. He hoped everyone else in the chamber saw through to the treacherous soul that she tried to hide.
”I will speak here,” Ishbel said. ”Inardle is no traitor, not to Elcho Falling. If she had been, she would have been spattered with the blood -- the blood of murdered Maxel -- that I cast from the Goblet of the Frogs. It did not stick to her. She did not betray Elcho Falling.”
Axis banged his fist on the table, his exhaustion forgotten. ”What? Have you not seen the murdered bodies of the Strike Force, Ishbel? Did you not see Isembaardian after Isembaardian cast down into death from the causeway? Could you walk the few paces to the window and look out on the waters which surround us and not see the corpses floating so thick the water is hid? Is Inardle not responsible for all --”
”No,” Ishbel said.
”She knew this was going to happen!” Axis shouted as he rose to his feet, now joined by StarDrifter, who had leapt to his feet also, sending Inardle a look of implacable hatred as he did so.
”She knew it,” Axis said, ”and she said nothing.”
”She was torn by twin loyalties,” Ishbel said. ”She was --”
”Sent here to betray us,” StarDrifter said, ”and this she did perfectly.”
”Sit down, StarDrifter,” Maximilian said, his tone moderate. ”Both of you. And Axis, take a deep breath and calm yourself. I understand your anger, everyone here does --”
”Don't patronise me,” Axis snapped, remaining on his feet.
”I am not patronising you!” Maximilian said. ”I just want you to calm down so that we can hear what Inardle has to say! None of us has the energy to deflect such bitter anger, Axis. Please, just calm down and let myself and Ishbel talk to Inardle.”
”I am not allowed to challenge her?” Axis said, his eyebrows raising.
”Not in the mood you are in now,” Maximilian said. ”Be quiet for the moment, Axis.”
Axis hesitated, then gave a curt nod, sitting down and gesturing to his father to do the same.
”I think Inardle has a great deal to tell us,” Ishbel said, ”and I think she will. Inardle, you must have felt yourself in an impossible position.”
Inardle looked at Ishbel, fighting back the tears. That single phrase of sympathetic understanding on Ishbel's part almost undid her. She had kept herself under such tight control from the moment she'd seen Axis walk into the chamber . . .
”Inardle?” Ishbel prompted.
”I was sent by Eleanon and Bingaleal to spy on Axis,” Inardle said, her voice brittle and hard as she tried to stop herself from weeping.
”You put yourself through the horror at Armat's camp deliberately?” Axis said. ”You allowed Armat to cripple you, and Risdon to rape you . . . all to get into my bed and my trust?”
Inardle could not look at him. She swallowed, then gave a tight nod.
”And look at her now,” Axis said, his voice hard with hatred. ”Her wings healed perfectly. Doubtless she could have healed herself any time she wanted, but no, she played the cripple well enough to engage our sympathies, and played BroadWing so that I would trust her above him. You are loathsome to me, Inardle.”
She flushed and her entire body tensed.
”Leave it for the time being, Axis,” Maximilian said. ”For now it is information we need, not recrimination.”
Axis grunted in disagreement, but he leaned back a little in his chair and stared studiously at the far wall, and the mood in the chamber eased a fraction.
”The Lealfast always meant to betray Axis, and Maximilian?” Ishbel said to Inardle.
”No,” Inardle said, then cleared her throat to speak more clearly. ”No. We were always undecided whether to offer our loyalty to you, Maximilian Persimius, as Lord of Elcho Falling, or to the One in DarkGla.s.s Mountain.”
”You knew of the One,” Maximilian said.
”Yes,” Inardle said. ”Always. We have known of the pyramid since the Magi first began its construction.”
At the back of the room the dark, handsome man who Axis had noticed earlier, leaned forward very slightly, his eyes intense.
”We, the Lealfast,” Inardle continued, ”wanted power and we did not know who could best offer us that.”
”Just power?” Maximilian said.
”We wanted also, want also, more than anything else, to be free of our half and half heritage,” Inardle said. ”Always we were half Skraeling and half Icarii, and both the Skraelings and the Icarii loathed us for it. We wanted our own ident.i.ty and purpose, not our half and half hatefulness. We wanted our own home, far away from the frozen northern wastes. We did not know who could best offer us all that we wished, Maximilian or the One.”
”How did you know of the pyramid, and the One?” Ishbel asked.
”Two thousand years ago, give or take,” Inardle said, ”the pyramid known as Threshold, which you know today as DarkGla.s.s Mountain, was dismantled under the orders of the Magus Boaz and his half-brother Chad Zabryze, ruler of Ashdod. The gla.s.s was taken from its surface, the Infinity Chamber dismantled. Everything was buried, even the stone carca.s.s of the pyramid itself. Wors.h.i.+p of the One was forbidden and his Magi were disbanded. The libraries of the Magi were burned.”
Inardle's voice strengthened, and she looked about the room with far more courage than previously.
”But not everything in the libraries was burned and not all former Magi forgot their loyalty to the One, nor their learning and training. Five escaped northward. They travelled fast, and they travelled far, fearful always that somehow the soldiers of Zabryze would find them, or cause others to apprehend them.
”With them they carried the few scrolls and books pertaining to the One and Infinity that they had managed to save from the hateful fires of Boaz and his brother.”
”I am descended from Boaz,” said Ishbel. ”You know this, yes?”
”I know this,” Inardle said. ”We were always wary of you.”
”The Magi travelled northward,” said the handsome stranger, ”to your frozen wastelands? To the Lealfast?”
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