"Elcho Falling," Maximilian said.

"Elcho Falling, then," Abe said. "Well, she's surely an honest boat, and keeled and rigged for speed. If the weather gets rough, then there'll be enough hands on deck to bail her out. Difficult when I'm on my own. And look on the bright side . . . it's not too far to lean over the side when you decide you're going to lose your breakfast."

"We are grateful for any ride," Maximilian said, "for we are heartily sick of using our feet. Sitting down on the journey sounds like heaven to me. Thank you, Abe Wayward. We shall be glad and grateful to accept your aid."

Maximilian stepped forward and offered Abe his hand.

Ishbel, Serge and Doyle all watched, their eyes sharp.

Abe didn't miss their scrutiny. He smiled once again, and grasped Maximilian's hand. "Do I pa.s.s?" he said.

Maximilian gripped the seaman's hand, holding it for a long moment, staring the man in the eyes.

Then he nodded. "You pa.s.s, my friend. I apologise for my suspicion. We have had trials on our journey to meet you."

"Then we shall have much conversation on the way north," Abe said, "between bouts of bailing."

Chapter 23.

The Ice Hex.

Axis dragged Inardle's bloodied corpse through the snow of Eleanon's ice hex. He had his arms wrapped under hers, clutched across her ruined chest, her body held awkwardly to one side as he tried to avoid her dragging wings.

She was almost rock solid both with rigor mortis and with the ice which had formed about her body. Only his Icarii strength meant Axis could keep dragging her like this -- even the strongest human would have collapsed many hours ago.

Axis stared straight ahead, thinking of nothing more than placing one foot before the other, and thus dragging his burden just that bit further forward. He thought he was retracing the same path he'd taken to reach the icy recreation of Carlon, but he wasn't sure. He didn't really care if he wasn't. If he was wrong it meant that he would die cursed inside this hex, but Axis felt that his own heart had gone, along with Inardle's, and right now death felt like a perfectly viable, even preferable, option.

Axis had decided he was very tired of life and of all the horrors it put in his path.

He struggled onward, every muscle in his body screaming in agony, his breath frosting out of his mouth and rasping in his throat, icicles forming in his hair and hanging from his eyebrows and in his re-growing beard.

Inardle was icy cold in his arms. The blood from the wound in her chest had frozen all over her body . . . save in that small area where her body touched Axis' hip. There the constant friction of living flesh against corpse had melted the blood, and Axis could feel it squishing underneath his clothes and trickling slowly down his leg into his boot where it froze all over again, sending splinters of ice into his flesh with every step.

He badly wanted this nightmare to be over.

Axis stopped, eventually, worn almost to complete exhaustion. He stood, his chest heaving, staring ahead, his arms slipping on Inardle's body. He sobbed, fighting to keep hold of her, knowing that if he allowed her to slip into the snow he'd never find the strength to lift her and continue on his way.

It was so silent in this hex. The fog clung to him; he could barely see three paces ahead. If he held his breath, if only for the brief moment he was able, there was utter silence all about him, mocking him.

What if he couldn't find his way out? What if Eleanon was somewhere, right now, laughing at Axis' pain?

It was that thought that galvanised Axis back into movement.

By the stars, Eleanon was going to die for the pain he had caused. Axis felt the beginnings of a deep, cold anger, the kind that never faded, just grew and grew until eventually it needed to be a.s.suaged in the only way possible -- a death. Either Axis', or the one on which the anger focussed.

"I'll kill him for you," Axis whispered, managing to heft Inardle's corpse a little more securely in his arms, and taking a step forward.

"I'll kill him for you."

Another step forward.

"I'll kill him for you."

Another step.

Time pa.s.sed.

Inardle was now a solid block of ice, and Axis' own arms had been so frozen into that ice that he no longer had to spend any strength holding her, just in dragging himself along, and therefore her. Axis had not rested. There was no way he could sit or lie, for to do so would be to kill himself. He had to keep taking step after step, and feeling muscles tear in his chest and shoulders and back every time he did so.

Even his mantra of "I'll kill him for you," had disintegrated into a harsh gargle with each step.

Axis now existed on pure anger and some vague memory of what it meant to cling to life.

And so he took one step, and then another, and then, by some miracle, yet another.

Time pa.s.sed.

Axis was now barely alive himself. His head and shoulders were almost covered in ice, and his upper body had now been completely absorbed into the ice that encased Inardle.

He could barely breathe.

He knew that he would die within the next few minutes.

Three more steps.

Maybe four.

Then he would allow death to claim him, too.

On the third step Axis and Inardle fell right through the icy path and into deep water.

The water was, in fact, very cold, but to Axis it felt like it boiled against his skin, scalding his flesh. He tried to drag in a breath to scream, but the ice constricting his chest wouldn't allow him to do it.

He tried to struggle, but his arms were caught in ice, and he couldn't do that, either.

Oh stars! Stars! He was going to drown!

Still bound to the ice-encased Inardle, Axis began to sink deeper and deeper, dragged ever lower by her weight, water filling his mouth and throat, and he choked, the movement in his chest causing him agonising pain.

He fought desperately, and suddenly he felt the ice about his chest and arms loosen and then crack, and then the ice gave way entirely and he flailed about as the burden of Inardle sank into the depths beneath him and he fought for the surface.

His head broke the surface and he heaved in lungfuls of air. His entire body screamed in pain, but he didn't care, he could breathe, he could breathe .

Axis blinked, his vision blurring and then clearing.

He was floating near the reed banks in the channel that connected Elcho Falling's lake with the sea. Axis turned in the water.

Yes, there was Elcho Falling, glorious in the sunlight.

Axis turned on his back and floated, glorying in the pain as both sun and water ma.s.saged away the ice and stiffness from his limbs and body.

There was a sudden rush of bubbles to one side, and the water erupted as Inardle's corpse broke the surface.

It had defrosted and the water about her was stained with blood and clots from the gaping cavity in her chest.

Inardle.

Axis paddled over to her, once more grasping her under the arms and rolling over on his back so that he supported her body and exposed it to the sky and sunlight, her wings limp and heavy and trailing to either side of Axis' body.

He shook his head, clearing his vision of the final few droplets of water, then he looked up into the blue, empty sky.

"Do it!" Axis screamed. "Do it now!"

For a moment, nothing.

There was a flash high in the sky, and then a black spot, plummeting downward.

Do it! Axis screamed in his mind. Do it!

The black spot fell closer and closer, moving so fast that its form blurred.

It was only just before it hit that Axis could clearly see what it was.

The eagle, bearing Inardle's heart in its talons.

The next instant Axis' world erupted into a cascade of bubbles and boiling water as the eagle's impact, carrying almost more magic than Axis could bear, drove himself and Inardle deep into the water.

Chapter 24.

Elcho Falling.

Ravenna drifted to and from the Dark Spire, midwiving the last of the horrible thing's eggs, and trying very hard not to think about what the One demanded she do for him. She had thought Eleanon a vile taskmaster, but the One . . . Ravenna spent her time wishing she were anywhere but here.

The Land of Dreams, back in the arms of the Lord of Dreams, Drava.

Back in the marshes, in her mother's house.

Ravenna wondered if Drava ever thought of her, or if he remembered her.

She wondered if her mother's house in the marshes had fallen into disrepair and disappeared into the marsh.

But why wonder now, when all this was denied her forever? She had chosen a bad path in life, and it had led her to the very gates of h.e.l.l itself.

Elcho Falling was crowded with soldiers and with many different races. Icarii, Isembaardian, Escatorian, Outlander. All of them hurried and scurried everywhere and their leaders spent much of their time studying, and worrying over, the Dark Spire.

They did not see what Ravenna knew it contained. The One had hidden his presence very well.

He did not need to show his hand. He had Ravenna to do his work for him. Ravenna's only hope lay in wondering if Eleanon would notice that she had slipped beyond his control to that of a new master. But she did not hold out much hope. Eleanon had shown no interest in her once he'd managed to secrete her into Elcho Falling. He would be thinking that the curse he had added to Ishbel's curses would be enough to keep her to her duties.

Even if Eleanon did realise the One's presence (which Ravenna doubted very much) he was highly unlikely to mount a rescue of Ravenna from the One's clutches.

Eleanon did not have the power to confront the One.

So Ravenna went about her task of shifting the eggs, because for the moment this was what the One required of her, no longer doing it for Eleanon's benefit. As she moved within the citadel she noticed its inhabitants also worried and studied a ball of ice in the bowels of the citadel. Ravenna didn't know what it was, but Isaiah and Georgdi, as well as Axis' body servant Yysell, often spent hours in silent vigil, as if waiting for something. Yesterday the thing had blackened, and cracked in half, revealing nothing inside save a little melting ice. There was much consternation.

When it happened, Ravenna had been there placing one of the Dark Spire's eggs in its hiding spot within the walls. She had watched for a moment as Isaiah and Georgdi shouted and then fell into a grave silence. Ravenna had drifted away, uncaring, lost in her own problems.

They had not seen her -- no one ever saw her -- and Ravenna did not care what it was that so concerned them.

They would not have much longer to worry about the broken ice ball as the Dark Spire was now perilously close to breaking into the chamber where, from what Ravenna understood, an underwater tunnel led back into the lake.

On this day Ravenna was, as usual, engaged in her work. She had spent the night huddled in a never-used doorway, dozing off and on, often waking with a jerk thinking she could hear the baby somewhere in the levels far above her and feeling sick to the stomach as she thought about what she had to do for the One.

Now, early in the morning, she took herself down to one of the lower levels from where the Dark Spire twisted its way higher into the citadel.

As usual, there were guards and one or two Enchanters there, but Ravenna took no notice of them. She walked slowly about the base of the spire, looking for any small lumps or protuberances.

Ah! There! Ravenna glanced about to make sure no one was looking directly at her -- they might not see her, but they would see the change in the surface of the spire -- then bent over, her hands working away to release the egg.

It felt loathsome, cool and clammy, and she could feel the One within, watching her, but Ravenna forced herself to ignore it. Her fingers burrowed deeper and deeper until . . . pop! The small jet-black egg popped into her hands.

Ravenna quickly backed away from the spire, her eyes darting to look at the other people in the room, but none had noticed anything. Sighing in relief, she allowed the egg to dictate where it wanted to go.

Up!

Ravenna climbed the main stairwell of Elcho Falling. She shared the stairwell with many others, but none saw her and did not notice even when they occasionally brushed past her. She climbed many levels until the egg urged her toward a chamber on the eastern side of Elcho Falling.

There, at the egg's prompting, she laid it against the stone wall where it met the floor. The egg burrowed its way into the outer wall of Elcho Falling and vanished.

Ravenna had set hundreds of these eggs over the past weeks.

She knew that, one day, they would hatch and create havoc within Elcho Falling.