They took Axis back to the pit, literally throwing him into it before resealing it with the great logs of wood.
“Axis!” Georgdi helped him to his feet. “Where’s Inardle?”
“Armat…” Axis had to stop and bring his anger under control before he could continue. “Armat tortured her to get information from me, then gave her to Risdon to play with as he wanted.”
“Shit!” Georgdi said. “What—”
“Ravenna and Lister have joined Armat and are aiding him to launch an attack on Elcho Falling.”
“Ravenna I am not surprised at,” Georgdi said, “but Lister?”
“Aye,” Axis said. “Gods, Georgdi, Isaiah is dead, and Lister turned traitor. Maximilian has sore need of good and true friends.”
“And us?” Zeboath said softly into the darkness. “Are we soon to join the list of Maximilian’s once-friends?”
Axis hesitated, then spoke plainly. “He has ordered our execution—at a time of his choosing. No doubt he will let us linger here a while and fear. I am sorry, my friends.”
“This is hardly your fault,” Georgdi said. Then he grinned, his teeth a brief flash in the darkness. “We’ll just have to fight this one out, Axis.”
Axis could not find the heart to smile at the jest. “I fear the odds are a little against us, Georgdi.”
He felt his way over to one of the earthen walls, too dispirited to work the enchantment for light, and sat down, back against the wall.
He stayed like that for hours, staring into the darkness, trying not to think and worry about Inardle, and failing utterly.
Maximilian had pushed the columns hard during the day, determined to reach Elcho Falling as fast as possible, but tonight, instead of resting, he went to Josia in the Twisted Tower. Ishbel did not come with him this time. Tonight, as Maximilian suspected every night for the foreseeable future, would be spent with Josia, learning the objects that had vanished.
“What did you mean about the top chamber?” Maximilian asked Josia as they climbed into the first of the chambers which had items missing. “You said that had I ever looked out the window I would have died.”
“What exists out the window,” said Josia, “requires a Lord of Elcho Falling to be at his full strength and power to view. We will work our way there gradually, item by item, chamber by chamber.”
“Do you know what it is?”
“Yes.”
“Not even a hint?”
Josia laughed. “Not even a hint, Maximilian. Tell me, you said you have been to the top chamber…yet you never looked out the window? Most people would, having climbed all that way. They would think a view recompense for the long climb. Why didn’t you look?”
They had reached the chamber they would be working in tonight and Maximilian stopped, thinking. “I don’t really know, Josia. I certainly looked at the window, and I remember taking a step toward it, but I always turned away.” He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Then you either have good instincts or a good protector, Maximilian Persimius,” said Josia. He leaned back against a wall, crossing his arms, and regarded Maximilian speculatively. “You love Ishbel, yet are not with her. Do you doubt her still?”
“No. I don’t doubt her at all. I am sick of doubting her.”
“Yet others plead with you to forsake her.”
“Ravenna?”
Josia inclined his head. “And others, too, I suspect.”
“I am sick to death of doubting her, Josia. That’s all. I doubted her once, and look what a disordered mess we have found ourselves in.”
“It would be better, for everyone, if you were husband and wife again.”
Maximilian smiled. “At least you do not doubt her. But as to the husband and wife, Josia, that needs to be decided between Ishbel and me.”
“Indeed.” Josia straightened up. “I am going to take up six of your hours tonight, Maximilian. These are six hours when you should be sleeping, but we have little time and much to accomplish.”
“I can doze well enough in the saddle.”
“Good! Then see here, this space between the brass lantern and the egg cup. Can you imagine what should sit here?”
“Something tall and heavy, by the shape of the dust-free area and the scratches on the table surface.”
“Yes. It is in fact a porcelain candlestick. See?”
As Josia spoke, Maximilian saw the air move slightly and a shadow grew in the space of the missing object.
“You need to realize it, not just accept what I say,” Josia said softly, watching Maximilian keenly. “You need to understand not only what the object physically is, but what knowledge it represents.”
“How can I know what knowledge it—”
“Look to the objects surrounding it: the lantern, the egg cup, the folded hessian cloth just behind it. You know the knowledge they represent?”
“Yes. They are all concerning the peak of Elcho Falling, and what it contains.”
“And you know what that is.”
“Yes.”
Now it was Josia who smiled. “So tell me what knowledge this candlestick will contain.”
Maximilian frowned. Surely Josia could just tell him? But then he realized that no, Josia couldn’t “just tell him.” Maximilian had to somehow “remember” it.
He concentrated, looking at the lantern, the egg cup, and the folded hessian cloth, and going over in his mind what knowledge they represented. They were all to do with the mystery at the top of Elcho Falling, and specifically how to access that mystery. Maximilian cast his gaze about the table, going over all the objects, looking for the missing blank in his knowledge of how to access the…
“The candlestick contains the knowledge of the location of the door to the peak of Elcho Falling,” Maximilian said, and as he said the words the candlestick materialized in the space it had once occupied.
“Exactly!” Josia said. “Pick it up now, and learn what you need.”
But Maximilian hesitated. “Josia, I could work that out because of the objects surrounding the candlestick. I could discover what blank I had in my knowledge. But so many chambers are utterly empty. There are no clues. How then can I—”
“By skill and cunning,” said Josia. “But do not worry about it yet. By the time you reach the utterly empty chambers you shall have learned a few new talents. Now, pick up that candlestick and learn the location of the door to the mystery at the peak of Elcho Falling.”
They worked for hours through the night, until Josia called a halt.
“You are tired, Maxel. Return to your bed, and sleep for a few hours.”
They walked to the door, but before he left, Maximilian turned to Josia. “I have a request of you,” he said. “A favor I would ask you grant me.”
“Yes?” said Josia.
Axis supposed that he had slept a few hours, for when he heard his name being hissed through the gaps in the wooden logs which imprisoned them in the pit, he felt groggy and a little stupid, as if he had just woken.
“Axis!”
He blinked, trying to orientate himself.
“Axis!”
He rose to his feet, slipping a little on the damp floor. Stars, he would end up crippled with rheumatism if he had to spend much longer in this hole!
“Axis!”
“Insharah,” Axis said softly. He stretched his back and legs, then jumped up, managing to slip his fingers through the cracks between the logs. He swung his legs up so that his feet pushed against one of the pit walls and, thus propped, firmed his grip on the logs.
“Axis, are you all right?”
Insharah sounded as though he was leaning over the logs, his mouth pressed close to the gap where Axis had his fingers.
“Oh well,” Axis said, “apart from living under a death sentence, and a few scrapes and bruises, I’m perfectly well thank you. You?”
“Axis, I came to explain—”
“I don’t want any explanation of why you deserted Maxel. I do assume, however, that you now live with peace and joy in your heart at discovering such a fine commander to serve.”
Insharah didn’t immediately respond. “Axis, we needed to aid our families and—”
“And you think the fuck Armat is going to do that for you? He is planning on making war on Maximilian at Elcho Falling, my once-reliable friend. Isembaard can go to hell for all he cares.”
Now Insharah was completely silent.
“Look,” Axis said, adjusting his grip with both legs and arms, all of which were beginning to ache. “I think Isembaard is lost anyway. Isaiah is dead, so we believe, and I think all the Lealfast that went south with him are dead as well. Isembaard is lost.”
“Then I might as well stay with Armat. He is what I know.”
“As you wish, Insharah, but there is war coming, and you are going to have to make a final choice. Maximilian or Armat.”
“We’d choose you, StarMan.”
“Oh, fine words, indeed, considering you will not lift a finger to aid me to escape!”
Again Insharah was silent, and Axis sighed. “I know you cannot aid me, Insharah. To do so would be to sign your own death warrant. But I ask you, how can you respect any man who thus imprisons me, and Zeboath, who is also your friend, and so brutalizes a woman? You have heard what happened in Armat’s tent?”
Again silence, but Axis could swear that this time it was far more uncomfortable than previously.
“He tortured her, Insharah, having just murdered a few thousand of her wounded kin. How many of those did you murder, Insharah? How many did—”
“That’s enough, Axis!”
“No, it isn’t, damn it! Is any of this to your liking? If it was, you wouldn’t be here trying to seek absolution.” He paused. “Insharah, is Armat planning on executing Zeboath as well?”
A hesitation. “Yes.”
“Ah, for the stars’ sakes! Zeboath is a physician! Armat doesn’t need a physician?”
“He doesn’t trust him.”
“Then the man is a fool as well as being a bully. What happened to Zeboath’s assistants?”
“They were killed.”
Axis heard Zeboath cry out softly below him, and then a movement, as if the physician had slid to the ground in his distress.
“Insharah, Armat has killed the defenseless and the innocent, and he has given a crippled women to Risdon to rape as he wants! Tell me you respect this man!”
Axis waited a few heartbeats. “Ah,” he said softly, “your silence says it all, eh? Insharah, where has Risdon taken Inardle?”
“His tent is some fifty paces directly east of Armat’s.”
“How does the rest of the army feel about what Armat has done, Insharah?”
“Uneasy, which is why I am here talking to you now, and which is why I can talk to you now without your guards hauling me off to Armat. Axis, I am sorry, but I am afraid that I can do nothing. The world is chaos and I do not know which way to turn.”
“Then dispel some of that chaos by aiding a woman in need, Insharah, if not myself, Zeboath, and Georgdi.”
But there was no answer save the sound of a man rising and taking a step away.
“Insharah?”
The sound of steps stopped.
“Insharah, look after yourself and yours, but when the time comes, make the decision that is right.”
There was no movement for several heartbeats, then the sound of steps resumed.
Axis jumped back down to the floor of the pit, rubbing his fingers.
“Do you think he will help?” Georgdi asked quietly.
“He agonizes within himself,” said Axis, “and maybe one day he will turn against Armat…but not in time to save either our lives, or Inardle’s.”