Part 39 (2/2)

There was no one to stop him now.

Exultation filled Eleanon, and he sprang into the air. He went up and up and up, high into the sky, almost vertically, his powerful wings driving him upward at an extraordinary speed.

Then, when he was a mere speck in the sky, Eleanon flipped over and plunged for the earth, wings left limp to stream behind him, rippling in the force of the downward plunge, feathers ripping out now and again, leaving a haze of soft white to drift down in the wake of his crazy plunge.

He pulled himself up just before he hit the ground, landing breathless before the Lealfast elder, Falayal.

”The One is gone!” Eleanon hissed, his face jubilant. ”Nothing stands in our way now!”

Falayal gaped, trying to find something to say.

”But I can still feel the power of Infinity,” he said finally.

”It is still here. We can still touch Infinity through the Dark Spire. Maximilian must have cut the One off. Ha! The Lord of Elcho Falling may have thought to have done himself a favour, but he has done us an even bigger act of kindness! The pathways to the power of Infinity remain open, yet the One himself has been isolated. Nothing can prevent us taking what we want now, Falayal.”

Falayal looked at Eleanon, then finally, slowly, he smiled.

Maximilian and Ishbel let go of each other's heads, then fell into a tight embrace.

”Thank the G.o.ds,” Ishbel murmured, hugging her husband to her as hard as she dared.

He laughed, kissing her forehead and cheek and mouth. ”What can stop us now?” he said. ”It is home to Elcho Falling for you and me, my darling.”

To one side, Doyle -- his garments a little singed -- and Serge sheathed their swords, grinning at the couple. Then Doyle looked to the left of Maximilian and Ishbel, and frowned.

”The rat and the Book of the Soulenai have vanished,” he said.

The One could not believe it. He was utterly stunned in disbelief.

Tricked.

By something so simple a child should have thought of it.

He stood at the open doorway of the Twisted Tower, one hand resting on the doorframe, staring down what had once been a path but which was now black, empty nothingness. All the One's rage had gone. Emptiness had replaced that, too.

Think. He had to think.

Maximilian and Ishbel had cut the ties from their world to the Twisted Tower. They had destroyed their knowledge of how to tread the path between their world and this tower, and thus cast it adrift.

Where was he? Where was he?

Anxiety now replacing his initial disbelief, the One looked about, sensing empty wilderness. Had his connection to Maximilian's world been lost, too?

Nothing . . . there was nothing?

Now the One had to fight down panic. Surely there must be something . . . some connection remaining?

Nothing. He could sense nothing.

Suddenly the One moved. He took a single step back inside the Twisted Tower, slammed shut the door, and with huge, hungry strides raced up the stairs toward the top chamber.

Chapter 8.

The Central Outlands.

The Skraelings had not actually left the site where they had camped just outside Isaiah's encampment.

They had just slewed slightly through reality. Just as they vanished from the sight of Isaiah and Axis and all who accompanied them, so also Isaiah and his companions and army vanished from the Skraelings' sight. The entire Isembaardian army could have marched through the Skraeling ma.s.s and felt nothing more than the brush of air against their legs, while the Skraelings themselves would not have been aware of them.

They had sequestered themselves from reality in order to debate their future.

The Skraelings were consumed by a welter of emotions. Foremost was anger -- aimed, initially, entirely at Isaiah. Isaiah had turned them from their enchanted, powerful form into these repulsive creatures who had no beauty and no dignity and no power. He had then forgotten them, leaving them to drift for aeons as creatures hated by all other races. Then, having suddenly remembered his oversight, Isaiah had returned to the Skraelings the power to choose their own destiny, the power to return to their form of River Angels, but only via the medium of water, of drowning.

That was, for the Skraelings, the ultimate cruelty. The ultimate spitefulness. Isaiah knew they hated and feared water. He knew it, yet he'd made it a precondition that they embrace this terror if they wanted once again to be River Angels.

And who really knew if this wasn't simply some plan to just slaughter them? Tell them some fabulous tale about long lost mystery forms, convince them that all they had to do to regain this form and mystery was to drown themselves.

Maybe Axis had planned the entire thing.

This stank of the StarMan.

Probably backed up by Inardle. She was a Lealfast. She hated them as much as Axis did.

From their anger at Isaiah the Skraelings morphed seamlessly into hatred of Axis. He was the BattleAxe, the StarMan, he the one who had slaughtered so many of their cousins in Tencendor. He was their implacable enemy.

Why had they not killed him when they had the chance? When he sat among them? Why had they not also killed Isaiah and Inardle when they, too, sat among -- ”Stop,” Ozll said into the maelstrom of rising, black emotion. ”Stop. Isn't this what condemned us in the first instance? Isn't this what we want to discard and leave forever behind us? Or is this what we want to remain, forever? Brothers and sisters, cousins and friends, look at us. Look at us. Then remember what Isaiah showed us. That was not a lie. It was memory. Truth. It was from whence our memories of Veldmr came. Stop. Think. We've allowed our emotions to overcome our intellect.”

He paused, looking at the doubt in all the faces surrounding him. ”Yes,” Ozll said, ”we do have intellect, and we could have pride in ourselves again. But we need to discuss this rationally and we need to come to a decision about what to do from a place of calmness. Not from a state of fear or anger or suspicion. Now, who will speak?”

The ma.s.s was quiet a long time. The Skraelings found it difficult to damp into quiescence their habitual suspicion and fear and anger. All three states were by now so natural to them it was difficult to let go of them.

Finally, a young female Skraeling by the name of Graq spoke. ”What are we now?” she said. ”Do we want to stay this way?”

That was rare straight speaking, and the Skraeling ma.s.s responded by moaning, their bodies weaving to and fro in distress.

”We are hateful,” one among them hissed.

”Ugly,” said another.

”Far uglier now than before,” another said. ”We grow uglier with each day. And more hateful.”

”But don't we like being ugly and hateful?” someone asked. ”All run in fear of us. Don't we like that? Don't we feed from their terror?”

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