Is everyone out?” Maximilian asked Axis as they stood in the inner courtyard.
“Yes, the last horseman left an hour ago.”
“Everyone has taken possessions? Everything they need?”
“Yes, but we could not take much in the way of stores.”
“No matter. Elcho Falling will provide.”
Axis shifted on his feet. He held the reins of his horse, and his unease communicated itself to the stallion, which began to toss its head and pull on the reins.
“Armat is not far distant,” Axis said. “Perhaps six hours. Eight at the most. Maximilian, we are vulnerable outside the mountain. We—”
“Cannot stay inside it, Axis. Where are the mounted men positioned?”
“About a mile back down the road.”
“The Icarii, the Strike Force, and the Lealfast?”
“On the ground, slightly to the north of the mounted men. Maxel, they do not like to be kept to the ground. I would like at least a few scouts in the air with Armat this close.”
“The air will be too dangerous for them. They stay on the ground. Make sure they understand this, Axis.”
Axis nodded. “Georgdi is moving in with his twenty thousand, Maxel. The last I heard he was an hour away.”
Maximilian smiled. “Then he will be here for the entertainment. Twenty thousand, eh? The man is a miracle.”
Axis let his shoulders loosen a little. Maximilian was obviously relaxed—in fact, this was the most unconcerned Axis thought he’d ever seen him.
“How do you feel?” Axis asked. “The rise of Elcho Falling was something you tried to deny for a long time, and it will be a terrible burden, yet you seem so…”
“At peace with myself, Axis, finally. When I first realized that I would be the one to raise Elcho Falling…it was a bleak moment. I did not think I could manage it, or be able to wear the crown without failing.”
“But now?”
“But now…now with Josia’s aid I have virtually rebuilt the Twisted Tower, and together with Ishbel—”
“Ishbel? Maxel, you know you can’t—”
“Axis, listen to me. I will do what I need to in order to ensure the survival of Elcho Falling and of the land. You can advise me, but in the end it is I who will wear the crown of Elcho Falling, and you will need to abide by my decisions.” He gave a small smile to take some of the sting out of his tone and words. “I spent seventeen years crawling about in the blackness, Axis. I have learned some devious means to achieve the end I want.”
Axis regarded him a long moment, then he finally gave a nod. “Have you told Ishbel what Isaiah has said?”
“No, and I ask that you don’t, either. Ever since she was first named as my bride, she has had, at various times, the entire world set against her. She needs what friends and friendship she can, Axis. I don’t want her to know Isaiah’s words. Not just yet. She deserves a little peace herself. Don’t upset it for her.”
That was a clear warning, Axis thought, and some of his unease returned. What was Maximilian planning to do?
“We cannot spend the day chatting,” Maximilian said, his smile widening just a little, “however pleasant that may be. Ride out to my army, Axis, and station yourself at its head. Ishbel and I will be with you within the hour.”
He opened the door to the Reading Room and walked inside. Ishbel was standing in its center, and she gave him a small smile as he entered.
She looked lovely, dressed in a gown of soft, clinging fabric that shimmered turquoise and ivory and silver. Her hair had been loosely dressed with a web of pearls and diamonds wound through its waves.
Maximilian walked over, took her hand, and kissed it. “I asked you to dress as a queen,” he said softly, “and you have given me instead the moon and stars.”
She laughed. “All this courtly speak, Maxel! Is this what I must listen to henceforth?”
“I can assure you, my lady,” Maximilian said very softly, his eyes holding hers, “that I will find much better uses for my mouth later tonight.”
She flushed, and he grinned and let her hand go. “Are we ready to raise Elcho Falling, my lady?”
“Aye,” she said. “Shall I start the cleansing?”
He nodded, and Ishbel looked about, taking a deep breath. “It seems so strange, this mountain so empty of everything but you and me. I can feel its sadness, and yet…”
“You can feel it waiting.”
She nodded, then bent down and picked up a bundle of dried sage-bush twigs. “Wait by the door,” she said, and Maximilian moved out of her way.
Ishbel lit one end of the bundle of twigs. Once it was smoking well, she began a slow, complex dance that started in the center of the Reading Room and gradually wound its way through the entire space. As she danced—very slow, very elegant—she moved the bundle of smoking twigs out at arm’s length, raised it up to shoulder height, then slowly downward in an arc until she almost swept the floor with its burning embers, and then up again.
Maximilian leaned against the door frame, watching her. Ishbel was unwinding the memory and influence of the Coil from the mountain, and when she was done here, she would do the same dance at the main doors that led into the mountain, and then again at the front gates in order to remove the memory and presence of anyone who had entered the mountain since the last time a Lord of Elcho Falling had set foot within.
Maximilian thought he could stand here and watch Ishbel forever. She was so absorbed in what she did that she looked as if she had entirely forgotten his presence.
You have a somewhat unexpected offer of a bride, Vorstus had said to him so long ago, but there is a complication. She is offered to you by the Coil within Serpent’s Nest.
Ishbel was now dancing in the far quadrant of the room, the smoke drifting up from the smoldering twigs to writhe about the domed ceiling. Now and again she scraped the burning ends of the twigs against both floor and wall, leaving curious scorch marks where they had trailed.
The Lady Ishbel is not as virtuous as you had hoped, Maxel, Garth had said to him.
She will bring you nothing but sorrow, Maxel, Ravenna had said.
And, so recently, both Isaiah and Axis warning him against her.
What is it, Maximilian thought, watching Ishbel as she drew closer to him, that makes people fear you so?
He was going to start something today that might well see the destruction of his world. And, once started, he could not walk away from it. It would be a stormy path indeed for the next year, but Maximilian hoped that he and Ishbel would weather it.
If not…
He was her only ally, Maximilian realized. He needed to be her rock, or else she could not endure what awaited them.
Ishbel came to a halt in front of him. Her eyes were downcast to the bundle of twigs she held in her hand, and for a moment she stayed entirely still.
Then with her free hand she plucked one twig from the bundle and cast it into the center of the Reading Room.
Instantly the walls and floor began to smolder.
Maximilian straightened hastily as the door frame grew warm.
“We need to leave, Maxel,” Ishbel said.
Ishbel repeated the same dance by the main doors and then by the front gates. At the doors, as she finished her dance, she tossed in a single smoldering twig, and instantly all the corridors and passages leading back into the mountain began to burn.
As she finished the dance at the front gates, Ishbel tossed the remaining bundle of twigs forward and high into the air, throwing them through the gates so that they scattered far and wide as they fell.
Smoke and tongues of flame began to rise and flicker from every crevice in the mountain.
“Come build me a bed for our marriage tonight,” Ishbel said, looking at Maximilian with such directness and intensity that he would, at her word, have utterly abandoned any attempt to raise Elcho Falling to take her there in the dust before the burning mountain.
“The flames are reflected in your eyes,” he said.
“As they are in yours.”
“Do you have the crown and the goblet?”
“Do you doubt me? Come, my lord, build me a chamber for our marriage.”
He gave a small smile, and held out his hand, and together they walked down the road, the burning mountain at their backs, to where Axis and Maximilian’s army waited.
Far distant, many hours’ ride away, Ravenna pulled her horse to a halt and stared at the mountain on the horizon.
Smoke was rising from its peak and, as she looked, flickering lights, flames, began to work their way up the rocky face of the mountain toward its peak.
“What is happening?” she asked Lister as he reined in his horse beside hers.
“It is beginning,” he said. “Maximilian is raising Elcho Falling.”