Aziel drew the crimson hood of his robe over his head so that it shadowed his face, then picked up the reins and urged his horse forward.
The gelding managed to break into a slow amble, but Aziel didn’t have the heart to push it to any greater exertion.
Besides, it would allow him to savor his remaining few minutes at Serpent’s Nest.
The horse strolled through the open gates and down the road that sloped down to the plain. It was early morning, only an hour or so after dawn, and the low light illuminated the surrounding countryside in a soft, rosy glow.
It caught at the spears and shields and stirrup irons of the army spread out on the plains below Serpent’s Nest. The army was arrayed in columns and units, each clearly defined and well ordered, everyone horsed and weaponed. High above circled units of the Icarii Strike Force.
It was, Aziel thought as the horse made its unhurried way down the road, a salutary lesson in the unpredictability of life and the foolishness of mortals who thought to influence it. It was almost two years now since he had farewelled Ishbel for her marriage to Maximilian, King of Escator. Now, here she was again, probably one of the as yet tiny figures sitting their horses in a group just ahead of the first units of the army. There was a winged man standing slightly to one side of those three—his wings glinting gold now and again as he moved in the sunlight—and Aziel supposed he commanded the Icarii in the sky.
It was ironic, he thought. He’d sent Ishbel to marry this man, Maximilian, in the hope that it would prevent disaster befalling the Coil and Serpent’s Nest. He’d promised her she would return, and that all would be well.
Ishbel had indeed returned, but Aziel doubted very much that all would be well. The Coil was disbanded, fallen into irrelevancy as their Serpent god revealed his true self and abandoned them, and Serpent’s Nest was now to fall to Maximilian, no longer of Escator, but of Elcho Falling.
Ishbel had returned, but she’d brought the destruction of Aziel’s life with her.
But, oh, he could not wait to see her face again. Aziel had sent a repressed, uncertain woman away to Maximilian, and he wondered now what he would find at her return.
The horse had by now ambled its way to the foot of the mountain road and had picked up its pace slightly as it saw the horsemen waiting a few minutes away.
Fool horse, thought Aziel. Why rush away from the only home you have ever known?
He swiveled about in the saddle at that, looking one last time on the place he’d called home for over thirty-five years. Tears filmed his eyes, and he blinked them away before he turned back and prepared to face the Lord of Elcho Falling.
Maximilian watched the crimson-cloaked man ride slowly toward him. Serpent’s Nest rose behind him, a great blue-tinged granite massif that reached forever into the sky, and Maximilian found it difficult to keep his eyes on the man despite the fact that he’d spent most of the night standing, silent, studying the mountain.
But he needed to concentrate on Aziel at the moment. He was the last remnant of Ishbel’s life as Archpriestess of the Coil, and Maximilian wondered how Ishbel was feeling. He glanced at her—she was pale, all her attention on the man riding toward them.
Maximilian looked back to Aziel. He was impatient to kick his horse up that rising road and actually enter the mountain—he’d been unable to eat this morning for his combined excitement and nerves—but Aziel deserved the respect of his attention, if only for the next few minutes.
Axis had eyes only for the mountain. He’d heard enough about Aziel to know that the man was not likely to be harboring a concealed weapon or any ill-intent toward Maximilian, so he felt free to study Serpent’s Nest itself.
Serpent’s Nest…Elcho Falling.
It was huge, easily as big as Talon Spike had been, and unusual in that it rose precipitously out of relatively flat plains. There were no foothills, no surrounding mountains.
Just this one great peak. Blue-hued and slab-faced, great granite cliffs and turrets projecting forever into the sky and backed, in the east, by a vast gray ocean rolling away into infinity.
The Mountain at the Edge of the World.
It reeked of magic. Axis could feel it stirring the hairs at the back of his neck and trailing soft fingers down his spine. It wasn’t overt, but Axis had known magic much of his life, and had wielded enough of it, to be able to sense its presence.
Stars, he thought, what will this place be like when Maximilian awakes the Elcho Falling within?
He glanced above, and could see that the Icarii wheeling overhead had their eyes firmly fixed on the mountain.
He wondered if they thought the mountain would prove home for them.
Ishbel could scarcely contain her emotions. Aziel was close enough now that she could see every feature of his face. He’d aged, she thought, since last she’d seen him. His face was more lined, his eyes more pouched, and he wore an air of fatigue that generally only the very elderly shouldered.
His eyes were locked on her, and for the first time Ishbel realized that Aziel had loved her, probably since she’d been a girl, and that sending her away to another man must have been a nightmare for him.
What a fool I was then, she thought, and tried to smile for Aziel, and failed, miserably.
Josia stood in the top chamber of the Twisted Tower at the window. From his vantage point he could see Maximilian’s combined forces arrayed before him, the pitiful figure of Aziel on his horse approaching them, and beyond that the rising bulk of Elcho Falling.
But Josia had no eyes for Maximilian and his forces, or for Aziel, or even for the mountain.
Instead his eyes were fixed on the rolling gray seas beyond.
Aziel pulled his horse to a stop a few paces from Maximilian’s.
“Maximilian Persimius,” Aziel said. “Welcome…I suppose.”
That drew a small smile from Maximilian. “We have disturbed you from your home,” he said. “I am sorry, Aziel. It was not my intent. There was no reason for the members of your Coil to have left. I am sure there would have been room within the mountain for all.”
“That is kind of you,” Aziel said, “but none of us could stay. Our god is gone, our purpose destroyed, and our lodgings are about to become the home of something much greater than we ever could have been.”
“Aziel,” Ishbel said, edging her horse a little closer to Maximilian’s. “Stay, please. Don’t go.”
Aziel looked at her. Ishbel was almost unrecognizable from the woman he’d sent away. That woman had been repressed and unhappy, a complete naïf in the ways of the world and of her own heart. Now she looked very different. She affected clothes and a hairstyle that flattered and accentuated her natural beauty, and she held herself with both confidence and dignity.
Ishbel had grown up.
He realized he was staring, and he smiled for her, and inclined his head. “I can’t stay, Ishbel. I am sorry. I do not think Maximilian can have his new home soiled by the remaining presence of members of the Coil.”
“He will not mind!” Ishbel said.
Aziel looked back at Maximilian. Yes, he would mind. Very much.
“I will be staying,” said Ishbel, “and if I stay, then I cannot see why—”
“You are so far removed from what you once were,” said Aziel, “that no stain of the Coil remains about you. Ishbel, I need to go. Besides, I fancy seeing my home again.”
“Aziel, the world is at war! Armies gather about us, and to the south—”
“Let him go, Ishbel,” Maximilian said quietly.
She stared at Maximilian, her face stricken, but she fell silent, and eventually dropped her eyes to her hands gripping the reins of her horse.
“There are servants within the mountain,” Aziel said, addressing Maximilian once more. “They are not associated with the Coil. We have made as much as possible comfortable for you, but we had few hands for the task, and there was no means possible to prepare chambers and beds for your entire force. I am afraid that while there will be space and chambers enough for them, they may have to make their own beds.”
“I am grateful for what you have done, Aziel, thank you,” Maximilian said.
Aziel looked at Axis. “You are Axis SunSoar, I believe?”
Maximilian apologized for not introducing Axis and StarDrifter, and made good his error.
“Such legends,” Aziel said, smiling and nodding his head at both men. Then he addressed Ishbel once more.
“I loved you, Ishbel. I needed to say that. I love you still—all the more reason, I think, for Maximilian to want me gone.” His eyes were twinkling merrily now. “Be happy, Ishbel, and don’t revert to the woman you once were—too scared to take life in both hands…and too scared to love.”
He gathered the reins of his horse. “Maximilian,” he said, “the mountain is yours. Raise its ghosts, people its corridors with memory, and unwind its terror into the sky. And respect it, for without that, the mountain will murder you.”
Without waiting for a response, Aziel pushed the dozing horse into a walk and turned its head for the road westward.
“Aziel!” Ishbel called, but she made no attempt to move to his side, and Aziel rode on through the ranks of silent armed horsemen, until eventually he reached empty road.