We have found it, StarMan. It stands in the lowest bas.e.m.e.nt of Elcho Falling. And . . .

And?

And . . . it has grown.

Chapter 11.

Elcho Falling.

"StarHeaven has found the spire," Axis said, interrupting Maximilian, who had been about to speak. "Where?" several people said at once.

"In a chamber in the lowest bas.e.m.e.nt level," Axis said. "Wait, there is more . . . let me speak with her."

The others waited, shifting impatiently on chairs and exchanging glances, before Axis spoke again.

"It has grown," he said. "It now stands just above the height of a man. And StarHeaven says it has set roots into Elcho Falling. She won't go closer to it than the head of the steps which lead down into the chamber where it rests . . . even now she waits several levels above it. Maxel, you can't leave. Not with this."

"I must," Maximilian said. "Avaldamon says that Ishbel and I have but one chance at DarkGla.s.s Mountain and it must be soon. Today, or tomorrow at the latest."

"Oh, rubbish," Axis said. "It's been standing there for millennia and I am sure it can --"

"It is not so much DarkGla.s.s Mountain," Avaldamon said, "but what it hides within the Infinity Chamber. When I first travelled from Elcho Falling to Ashdod to marry my princess, I brought with me one of Elcho Falling's greatest treasures, the Book of the Soulenai. I died, and Boaz -- thank every G.o.d in existence -- actually kept it, and it has rested within the land of Ashdod, now Isembaard, ever since. It has fallen into the hands of the One, who understands its power if not its purpose, and he left it in the Infinity Chamber. Maximilian and Ishbel need to get to it before the One storms back there and either destroys it, or uses it himself. Axis, they, as I, need to go soon. We have no real idea where the One is, although all three of us sense that he is not at DarkGla.s.s Mountain. Yet."

"For the moment, Axis," Maximilian said, "I must leave Elcho Falling in your hands. I am sorry, but this cannot wait."

Axis rose, intending to argue the matter, but Maximilian ignored him, rising to his feet himself and holding out a hand for Ishbel.

"Come," Maximilian said. "We need to see this Dark Spire."

They gathered where StarHeaven waited, in the third lowest of the nine bas.e.m.e.nt levels. Georgdi was there, as well as Egalion.

Everyone from the command chamber had come down, including Inardle.

"I can feel it," Ishbel said, rubbing her shoulders as if she were cold.

Most of the others murmured a.s.sent. The air was cold here, as you might expect so far below ground, but there was something else. Axis thought it an otherworldly chill. He looked at his father, seeing the strain on his face.

He shifted his gaze to Inardle. She stood slightly apart from the rest of the group, her wings close to her side as if she tried to shelter within them.

Stars, she had betrayed them all . . . whimpering about her injuries when she could have healed them herself within an instant, playing on all their sympathies and emotions, reporting to her brothers his every move and thought .

I never did that, Axis, she said to him, holding his eyes, although with some apparent effort. I did not betray -- He turned his back and walked over to Maximilian who was standing at the steps leading down.

"What do you feel?" he asked Maximilian.

"Enough to know I should have picked up something else was in Elcho Falling," Maximilian said. "But with everything that has been happening, its 'wrongness' was lost amid the turmoil."

He stepped down, then turned and looked around. "Ishbel, Avaldamon, Axis, StarDrifter, Inardle . . . if you please."

And with that he was running lightly down the steps.

Axis let the others go down before him, then he brought up the rear.

He wanted to keep a close eye on Inardle.

They stopped halfway down the stairs into the chamber in the lowest bas.e.m.e.nt, staring at the corkscrewed dark spire in the centre of the floor.

"Inardle?" Maximilian said. "How greatly has it changed?"

"Hugely so, my lord," she said softly, coming down to stand beside him. "It has grown. Previously I could hold it easily in my hands. Now ."

Now the spire stood well above the height of a man. It was not perceptibly throbbing or moving, but everyone who looked upon it could sense that it lived. No one had any doubt that if they stepped up and laid a hand to it, the spire would be warm to the touch.

No one wanted to test this belief.

It was dark, as Inardle had said, almost black, but shot through with lines of bright blue and a dark red. Its corkscrews twisted wildly, asymmetrically, to the point of the spire which looked wickedly sharp.

At its base, thick roots had grown into the stone flooring, twisting and upsetting the flagging across virtually the entire bas.e.m.e.nt. A tip of one root had crawled up the lowest stair, sitting there as if to survey the journey upward but also as if to trip up any who were foolhardy enough to try to approach the spire.

As they watched, the tip of the root waggled slightly, searching about for a crack to invade.

"Can anyone here understand it?" StarDrifter said, standing by his son. "I cannot . . . it is entirely foreign to me."

"As it is to me," said Axis. "Avaldamon? Maxel? Ishbel?"

"It feeds from the cold winds of Infinity," said Avaldamon. "That I can sense and only because I spent time with the Magi who worshipped the One, who used its power. I'll wager some of those roots touch Infinity itself. It sends a chill down my spine."

Maximilian looked at Inardle, and raised an eyebrow. "Tell us everything you know about it, Inardle."

She sighed, wrapping her arms about her shoulders as Ishbel had earlier.

"It was made with the aid of the original Magi who had come north from Ashdod," she said. "They had knowledge that we didn't. Not at that stage. They said it was a gift to us. Who knows. Maybe the One suggested its crafting."

Not at that stage, Axis thought, and shuddered at the remembrance of sharing his bed and body with this bleak witch.

"You used no Star Dance in its making?" StarDrifter said, and Inardle glanced at him as she replied.

"A little, I believe," she said. "The Lealfast who sat with the Magi and who helped in its construction drew on the power of the Star Dance to create the Dark Spire, but the Star Dance did not go into the Dark Spire's flesh, as it were. That was all the power of Infinity."

"Do you know how to use it, how to negate it?" Axis asked.

"Not really," Inardle replied, and Axis made a noise of disbelief.

"You cannot expect us to believe that!" Axis said. "You --"

"Only those Lealfast completely indoctrinated into the highest levels of the Magi could use it properly," Inardle said. "And among the Lealfast now living, that was only Eleanon and Bingaleal. I would help on those few occasions we used it, but that was merely a courtesy on their part. They did not truly need me, nor any of my power."

"You are a Magus?" Ishbel asked.

"I have been trained in some aspects of a Magus," Inardle said, "but never truly accepted into its brotherhood. The Magi can only be a brotherhood. Women corrupt the One by subdividing it, by carrying within them the potential to give birth . . . it is amazing that Eleanon and Bingaleal allowed me even a glimpse into the arts of the One."

"And they did that because .?" Axis said.

Again she met his eyes. "Because, at times in the past, I have been the lover of both of them. There was affection and respect between us, and thus they drew me a little distance into the way of the One."

"Inardle," Maximilian asked, "what can we do about this?" He waved a hand at the Dark Spire.

"I don't know," she said softly, and Axis made another impatient noise.

"The rose spires," he said. "They were made by your people as well. Surely they can be used in some manner to understand or affect their dark brother?"

Inardle shook her head. "They are foreign to each other, Axis. I am sorry. The rose spires are of no use against this."

"What exactly can this Dark Spire do?" Ishbel asked.

"It channels the power of Infinity," said Inardle. "This," now it was she who waved a hand at the spire, "is like nothing I could have accomplished. This is the touch of Infinity."

She paused, thinking. "It is a cancer at the very heart of Elcho Falling. I do not know if it can destroy the citadel completely. But it can aid the One, and Eleanon and Bingaleal, in whatever they plan. And no," she glanced at Axis, "I do not know what that might be."

"Well," said Maximilian, "whatever that might be, I am afraid you will need to deal with it for the moment, Axis. I leave you in complete charge of Elcho Falling. You may do whatever you need to in order to ensure --"

"I cannot believe this!" Axis said, almost shouting. "How dare you just wander off! I don't care how important DarkGla.s.s Mountain is . . . this, Elcho Falling, is vastly more important! Have you no sense of duty? Of responsibility? Do you think you can just walk away from this utter mess? Do you think that --"

"Axis," Maximilian said.

"-- you have any right to just walk away and --"

"Axis!"

Axis stopped, half turning away from Maximilian in his anger.

"Axis, I am sorry, but Ishbel and I must go. We --"

"You abandon every kingdom you inherit," Axis said. "Escator and now Elcho Falling. The responsibility is obviously far too much for you."

That stung, and Maximilian flushed. Ishbel moved closer to him, placing a hand on his shoulder, but before she could speak she was forestalled by Georgdi who, accompanied by Insharah, had walked down the steps and now stood just behind Axis and StarDrifter.

"I think I speak for most of the people sequestered within Elcho Falling," Georgdi said, "when I say that we would all prefer that Axis led us through this time of crisis than Maximilian. We wish you well, Maximilian, Ishbel, but the disaster that Elcho Falling now finds itself in requires a war leader and that you are not. It is my country, the Outlands, which is overrun by armies of every ilk and by ghostly monsters now surging up from the south. You are a good man, Maximilian, but I want Axis, not you. Safe travelling."

Axis opened his mouth, then shut it again, not sure what to say.

Maximilian stared at Georgdi a moment, then laughed softly. "You say it bluntly, Georgdi, but you say it well . . . as did Axis. I am not the man Elcho Falling or this land needs in this moment. That man is Axis. Elcho Falling was never a mountain of war, and its lords not trained in the arts of war or defence or strategy. Ishbel and I can close off, we hope, the main gateway into Infinity, but that may not do a d.a.m.n thing to save Elcho Falling from its current crisis."

He smiled then, his charming, infectious smile. "I am sorry, Axis. You must rue the day that Isaiah dragged you back from the Otherworld. Hopefully he shall be here soon enough, and safely enough, for you to tell him so yourself. But . . . please, Axis, I beg you, do this, if not for me, for all those who want to live."

Axis rubbed a hand over his eyes, his shoulders tensing as if he tried to force all the tightness out of them.

"And to think," he muttered, "that I had been foolhardy enough to once thank the stars that it was not meant to be me to save everyone this time. Fool that I am, I spoke far too soon."

Chapter 12.

Elcho Falling.

"I am sorry, Axis," Maximilian said. "You of all people do not need this thrust upon you. But --"

"I am not ready to hear the 'but' yet," Axis said.

They sat alone in the command chamber, everyone else gone to s.n.a.t.c.h a few hours sleep, a meal, or to check on defences. Maximilian had left some of the Emerald Guard minding the Dark Spire; there was little else he could do about it at this stage.

"There is no one else, Axis," Maximilian said.

Axis did not reply. He was staring toward the windows, his face lined with exhaustion, his skin almost grey.

"You are the best --"

"Don't," Axis said, and Maximilian sighed and studied his hands. He didn't blame Axis for being angry, but at the same time he was growing tired of it. Axis was still furious at Inardle and was projecting that fury on to everything and everyone else.

"I will keep in contact," Maximilian said.

"How?" Axis said, looking at Maximilian for the first time. "DarkGla.s.s Mountain is far, far away. Do either of us have enough power to communicate over that distance?"

Maximilian nodded at the window, and Axis looked that way once again. He straightened in his chair in surprise, then rose. "Who is that?"

"Josia," Maximilian said, walking with Axis to the window.

Instead of s.p.a.ce and sky beyond the balcony, there appeared another window some two or three paces away. In that window stood a young, dark-haired man.

Josia Persimius, the soul who had inhabited the Weeper, and who now existed only within the Twisted Tower.

"Josia," Axis said.

Josia made a small bow of respect from his window. "Axis SunSoar. Maxel suggested you use me as a go-between. Maxel can access the Twisted Tower from anywhere. I can speak to you from my window at the top of the tower. If you need to speak to me, just call my name and go to the nearest window."