They met very late that afternoon for an early supper in the command tent. Maximilian had been out, and arrived in the tent once everyone had gathered. He looked tired and strained, and only nodded in greeting as he entered. Two serving men were still bringing in platters of food, setting them down before those already seated at the table. Maximilian ignored the table, and walked over to join the four men standing at the wine servery.
“Georgdi, Malat,” Maximilian said. “Are you somewhat recovered? Have you slept? How are your peoples?”
“Most are well enough, Maxel,” Malat said. “They are grateful for the shelter and opportunity to rest and eat after so many weeks on the run from the damned Skraelings. But within a day, I think, they shall be rested and fed enough to start worrying about what lies behind them—how much of their homeland remains, and if any of their families survived the Skraelings’ horror. What I will say to them, I cannot think.”
“We can send a scouting party to see what is left,” Maximilian said. “I think—I hope—the Skraelings will stay south of the FarReach Mountains for the time being. I want to know what has happened to Escator. Georgdi?”
“I’d like to know what Isaiah’s…sorry, your army has left of the Outlands, Maximilian,” Georgdi said. “Once my men have rested sufficiently, I shall need to ride east to Margalit. I assume it still stands after Isaiah dragged almost a million soldiers and settlers through it.”
“It still stands,” Maximilian said, “but Isaiah left many thousands of his soldiers there to secure his rear. Wait,” he said, as Georgdi opened his mouth to speak. “I know you want them gone, that you want us gone from the Outlands, but unfortunately this province is likely to become the first to feel the full force of the Skraelings’ push north. I am not going to shift men from the Outlands until I know what is happening.”
“Which is what we need to discuss tonight,” Axis said, standing to Maximilian’s right, with his father StarDrifter SunSoar at his elbow. He handed Maximilian a glass of wine, then nodded at the table. “Shall we sit? The serving men have left us in peace.”
Salome, Ishbel, and Isaiah were already seated and had been conversing in soft tones. Now they fell into a watchful silence as the men approached the table, all eyes on Maximilian.
In his turn, Maximilian watched Ishbel out of the corner of his eye as he took his seat at the head of the table. Of all of them she looked the most rested, and certainly the most collected, and he wondered at the tranquillity she appeared to have acquired after his rejection of her.
He thought of the vision Ravenna had shown him of Ishbel crawling through the gates of Elcho Falling and opening the citadel to the dark invader.
Then he remembered what Axis had said the previous night: I had seen a truth, but I had misinterpreted it, so badly I almost lost the woman without whom…well, without whom I would have accomplished none of what later I managed. Ishbel’s chin rose slightly under Maximilian’s regard. He thought she looked very lovely, with her blue robe and soft fair hair falling over one shoulder, and very noble, with her unexpectedly tranquil and collected demeanor.
She didn’t look to him like a woman who would betray Elcho Falling, but then who was he to judge?
Maximilian gave her a brief nod, then acknowledged Salome and Isaiah.
“What has happened?” said StarDrifter. “Axis said something about Kanubai? That he has…vanished?”
“The sense of threat from Kanubai abruptly ceased late last night,” said Maxel. “Both Isaiah and I, and I assume Lister, could sense Kanubai previously. That sense has vanished.”
“DarkGlass Mountain,” Ishbel said. “It has taken him.”
“We think so,” said Isaiah. “We think—”
“Who else?” said Ishbel.
“You have been in the pyramid, Ishbel,” Maximilian said. “Do you truly think it capable of taking Kanubai?”
She looked at him without hesitation, or embarrassment. “Yes. It hates, Maxel, and that hate is a powerful force.”
Again Maximilian contemplated her. Ishbel conversed easily with him, and he found that remarkable after the way he had treated her the previous night. He had been sure that she’d be awkward and embarrassed, and he had spent much of the time before this meeting trying to think of ways to put her at ease. Now all those strategies were very obviously redundant.
“The glass pyramid is a dangerous enemy,” Ishbel continued. She glanced at Isaiah. “When Isaiah and I entered it…oh, I can’t explain it, but it was almost as if the pyramid lived. It could reach out its walls and touch us. Kanubai might have been powerful, but was he powerful enough to best what he thought was an ally?” she concluded with an expressive shrug.
Maximilian gave her another nod, then looked at Isaiah. “No one knows DarkGlass Mountain as well as you,” he said. “Talk to me. What is it capable of? What will it do?”
Isaiah sighed, rubbing at his eyes and using the movement to buy time to think. What was the glass pyramid capable of?
“It is hugely powerful,” he said finally, “and hugely angry, as Ishbel said. That anger and hate stem from its ancient past, when one of the Magi, Boaz, Ishbel’s ancestor and the nephew of the then Lord of Elcho Falling, caused it to be dismantled. I think, although I have no way of truly knowing, that it wants vengeance.”
“Against whom?” said Maximilian.
“Anyone who stands in its way,” Isaiah said, “but more particularly, against Boaz and Tirzah, who tried to destroy it, and so against all their descendants. Ishbel definitely, but also you, Maximilian, as you are of the same bloodlines and you are powerful enough to threaten it. It may have also inherited Kanubai’s feud with Elcho Falling. I don’t know. I just…I just don’t think it is going to sit there and glow in the sun cheerfully. I think it will act. I think it has acted.”
He paused, the fingers of one hand tapping slowly on the tabletop. “I think that the glass pyramid is the greater danger. Kanubai was known. The pyramid is utterly unknown. Not even the Magi completely understood it or its powers.”
“So even though Kanubai may be dead I cannot go back to Escator, curl up in my bed, pull the covers over my head, and dream of happy hunting parties in the forests north of Ruen?” Maximilian said with a wry twist of his mouth.
Isaiah smiled. “No, Maxel. You cannot. There are still great trials ahead of us. None of us can afford to relax.”
“And so what are you going to do about this?” said Georgdi. The Outlander general looked tense and frustrated. “My homeland has been invaded, and currently all you seem to propose is that your million soldiers and settlers just mill about in confusion. You don’t even have any true or tight control over them! I—”
“I have in no manner proposed we do nothing,” Maximilian snapped. “I am here to consult and to decide, not to dither.”
Georgdi shot him a look, but said nothing.
“The world is torn apart, Maxel,” Malat said. “If you want to ask for the loyalty of every man and woman north of the FarReach Mountains, then you shall need to stitch it back together again. Otherwise no one will fight for you.”
“Malat makes a strong point,” Axis said. “I talked to some of the Isembaardian soldiers today, and there is great restlessness. They may have owed Isaiah their loyalty, but they do not know you, Maxel. Moreover, they are terrified of what happens to their families in Isembaard. Rumors fly, and men talk of aiding their families by themselves if you cannot do it for them.”
“And the generals?” Maximilian said.
“Quiet,” said Axis. “I have seen Ezekiel, and the others rest in their tents. I will talk with them in the morning…but they will take instant advantage of any discontent within the army. We need to decide what to do with them.”
Maximilian grunted. “Isaiah,” he said, “do you know where Lister is?”
“I believe he is moving north from the FarReach Mountains,” Isaiah said. “He will want to join you at Elcho Falling.”
“What he wants is immaterial,” said Maximilian, “particularly with what has happened over the past day. What are these glass pyramids, or spires, that you have used? Axis has told me of them. Do you have one with you?”
“In my pack,” said Isaiah. “Not with me here.”
“Fetch it, if you will,” Maximilian said, and Isaiah rose and left the tent.
“Axis,” Maximilian said, “what do you know of Lister? What did you learn about him while you lived and traveled with Isaiah?”
It was not Axis who answered, but StarDrifter. “If I may,” he said, seeking permission from both Axis and Maximilian to speak, and at their nods continued. “Of Lister I know little, but Axis and I know something of the force that travels with him.”
“Force?” Maximilian said. “I thought he traveled with the Skraelings.”
“He did,” StarDrifter said, “but also traveling with him, and still with him I assume, is a great force of winged people.”
StarDrifter told the group around the table about the ancient history of the Icarii in Tencendor: how, when many generations ago they had escaped from persecution into the Icescarp Alps, a group of Icarii had continued traveling north into the frozen wastes.
“We thought them to have died,” said StarDrifter, “but now Axis and I believe that they survived. They must have traveled deep into the frozen wastes and there, so we think, although we cannot explain why they did this, they interbred with the Skraelings to create a new race. They call themselves the Lealfast, and they command great magic through the Star Dance.”
“I believed the Star Dance had been destroyed,” said Maximilian.
“So did I,” said StarDrifter, “but the glass pyramids that Isaiah and Lister use for communication were made by the Lealfast, and they tap into the power of the Star Dance, although anyone who commands power can use them. I don’t know how, but the Lealfast still use the Star Dance.”
“One of them flew down to Aqhat,” said Axis, “to stage an attempted assassination of Isaiah in order to encourage his push north. He escaped before my eyes, using powerful enchantment. If the rest of the Lealfast command such power, then they may be powerful allies.”
“Or powerful enemies,” said Maximilian.
Isaiah reentered the tent at that moment, and sat down at the table. In one hand he held a glass spire, about the height of a man’s hand, which pulsated with a rosy light. He placed it on the table, then gave it a gentle shove, sending it sliding down the table to Maximilian.
Every eye at the table followed its passage.
Maximilian stopped the spire with one hand. He studied it briefly, then picked it up.
“It is a thing of great beauty,” he said softly. Then he lifted his eyes and looked again at Isaiah. “How does it work?”
“You cannot use it?” Isaiah said, his tone a little challenging.
Maximilian held Isaiah’s gaze for a long moment, then looked back to the spire in his hand.
Everyone at the table watched him, and for several heartbeats nothing happened.
Then, suddenly, the glass glowed through the gaps of Maximilian’s fingers. First pink, then red, then it flared suddenly into a deep gold before muting back to a soft yellow. The ascetic face of a middle-aged man appeared in its depths, his thin mouth curved in a slight smile.
“Lister,” said Maximilian softly. “Well met, at last.”