"Oh."
"He didn"t say anything?"
Hereward"s face twisted with bitterness. "He loathes me and suspects me of foulness."
Inardle, who was still standing just inside the tent, not sure if she should progress further, just raised her eyebrows.
"He suspects I harbour the One," Hereward said. "He cannot make up his mind whether to kill me or not."
"Oh," said Inardle, not knowing what to say. Why had Isaiah put her in here? Stars, she"d rather sleep outside in the cold.
"I suppose you want to go, now," Hereward said.
"I think perhaps --"
"I don"t harbour the One!" Hereward said. "Why does he believe it?"
"Why does he believe it?"
"Because the Skraelings insinuated it."
Inardle risked a small smile. "Then perhaps he is a fool for believing the Skraelings before you. Look, Hereward, I am tired and I need to sleep. Do you mind if I rest on the spare bed?"
Hereward shook her head. "The guards let you in?"
Guards? Then Inardle remembered there had been a group of soldiers around a campfire close to the tent. Maybe they were, indeed, guarding it.
That thought made Inardle wonder anew at why Isaiah had put her in here.
"Yes," she said.
"Have you been sent to interrogate me?"
Oh stars, Inardle thought. "No. How do you know Isaiah? What are you doing here?"
Briefly Hereward told Inardle of how she"d escaped Aqhat with her comrades, how she"d watched them being murdered by the Skraelings (which made Inardle wince), met with Isaiah on the banks of the River Lhyl, and their subsequent history.
"You are not an Icarii, are you?" Hereward said as she concluded.
"No," Inardle said, by this time sitting on the spare bed and wishing beyond anything she had never entered this tent. She wasn"t surprised Isaiah had put guards on this woman. "I am a Lealfast. A race from the north." She couldn"t be bothered with the long explanation. "I am tired," she said, lifting her legs onto the bed and lying down on her side, wrapping her wings over her body like a blanket. "I think I will sleep now."
And get up before dawn and beg Isaiah for a different berth for the next night. Or just drift the air in invisible form. Anything but another meeting with Hereward.
"If you see Isaiah tomorrow," Hereward said, "can you please ask if . . . if ."
Her eyes suddenly filled with tears, and Inardle was irritated to feel some sympathy for her.
"Of course," Inardle said, and closed her eyes.
She heard Hereward sigh, then the sound of her lying down as well, and Inardle relaxed. Praise the G.o.ds, the woman was going to go to sleep.
Inardle breathed in deeply and regularly, calming herself, putting the day"s events behind her. She drifted into sleep and broken dreams of drowning in poisonous waters, until she woke abruptly at the sound of Hereward drawing in a shocked, terrified breath, then of scrabbling about on her bed as if she were trying to back away from something.
G.o.ds . . .
Inardle opened her eyes reluctantly, then jerked into full wakefulness.
Ozll was standing just inside the tent flap.
"How did you get past the guards?" Inardle said, sitting up warily. She glanced at Hereward.
The woman was now out of bed and crouched terrified in the back corner of the tent. Given what Hereward had told her earlier of her experiences with Skraelings, Inardle wasn"t surprised.
"I drifted," Ozll said enigmatically, and Inardle didn"t push any further on the issue.
Ozll stood there, his large clawed hands clasped before him, looking uncomfortable.
"What do you want?" Inardle said.
"To talk."
"To me?"
"Of course," said Ozll, looking surprised. "Who else?"
"Not Hereward?"
Ozll"s face creased even deeper in confusion, and Inardle nodded to Hereward crouched and trembling at the back of the tent.
"No," said Ozll. "Why her? I want to talk to you."
Well, thought Inardle, he hasn"t come to chat to the One, then. "What do you want?"
"We are torn," Ozll said. "We thought to ask your advice."
"You must really be torn," Inardle said, "if you have come to me."
"You are not as hateful as Eleanon or Bingaleal," Ozll said.
"Bingaleal is dead."
Ozll"s face creased in a huge smile. "Really?"
"Really." Inardle thought there was something odd, different, about Ozll"s face -- besides the smile. She narrowed her eyes, trying to work it out.
Ah . . . his eyes were now slightly less perpendicular than they had once been. The top one appeared to have shifted slightly toward the centre of his face.
"Is Isaiah trying to trick us?" Ozll said.
"No," Inardle said, "I don"t think so. I think he feels enormous guilt at leaving you for so long. Leaving you to create the havoc you have. He feels for all those you murdered."
"Is that the only reason he feels guilt?"
Inardle shook her head slowly. "He feels it for you, too. That he forgot you. I don"t think he meant to. He just . . . got caught up in other things."
"What do you think of the River Angels?" Ozll said, and Inardle wondered where all this was going.
"That they were very beautiful and very powerful," Inardle said, "and incredibly vile for what they did."
Ozll nodded, deep in thought. Then he sighed. "Thank you," he said to Inardle. His eyes slipped over to Hereward and he snarled, exposing all his terrifying teeth.
Hereward shrieked, Ozll grinned, and then he was gone.
"Go back to sleep," Inardle said to Hereward. "He won"t come back."
"What was he doing here?" Hereward said, still not rising from her defensive crouch.
"He wanted to ask advice on a deal Isaiah had offered the Skraelings earlier this evening."
"But why ask you?" Hereward said, finally starting to unwind herself.
"Because I am half Skraeling," Inardle said and, not able to resist, bared her teeth at Hereward herself.
Chapter 25.
The Outlands.
They met at noon the next day. Isaiah, Axis and Inardle walked out once more to meet the Skraelings. Again they walked into a cleared circle in the heart of the Skraeling ma.s.s where, as before, Ozll, Mallx, and Pannh awaited them.
No one sat this time.
Ozll stepped forward from his two companions, and Inardle noticed that now the more regular alignment of his eyes was far more noticeable. She looked at Mallx and Pannh.
The same thing was happening to them.
"Have you made your decision?" Isaiah asked Ozll.
"Yes," the Skraeling replied. "We choose the third option. Give us the power so that we may return to River Angels as we wish."
Isaiah"s mouth curved in a very small smile. "There is no magical enchantment or spell, Ozll. No giving of "power". It is just a piece of advice, but it does come with one or two cautions."
Ozll frowned. "Advice? Traps?"
"Pieces of advice only, my friend. When you want to return to River Angels, then you must seek a large body of inland water. Not the ocean, but a large body of water bounded by land."
The Skraelings hissed.
"You are creatures of water," Isaiah said. "You will need to confront your fear of it one day."
"Well, then," Ozll said. "What do we do once we find our large body of water?"
"Then, as one -- you must not do this individually -- step into the water, as one, mind you . . . and you drown yourselves."
The Skraelings erupted. The entire ma.s.s seethed forward, clawed hands grabbing, jaws salivating, throats shrieking.
Axis caught hold of Inardle, pulling her against him, reaching for the sword at his hip, but Isaiah stood his ground.
"It is no trick," he said. "In order to return to River Angels you must drown yourselves. You must pa.s.s through death, via water, then you will return in your true form. It was why I made you loathe water, so that you would not return to your true form by accident."
The circle had now contracted about Isaiah, Axis and Inardle until its inner edge was no more than an arm"s length from them.
"Isaiah!" Axis hissed.
Be still, Isaiah said to him. We will be safe.
"It is no trick," Isaiah said, slowly and deliberately, holding Ozll"s furious stare.
"He just wants to murder us en ma.s.se!" Pannh said. "We are not that stupid!"
"If I wanted to destroy you I would only need to lift this finger," Isaiah held up the middle finger of his right hand, "and it would be done. I wouldn"t bother trying to persuade you to drown. I don"t have the time to waste on such entertainment."
Ozll stared at Isaiah. "I don"t believe you," he said, but his voice was unsure and he shuffled his feet.
"You wanted control, yourself," Isaiah said. "Now you have it. It isn"t easy, but then you chose the least easy of all the options."
"Maybe we"d prefer option two, after all," Mallx said. "You change us, here and now."
"Too late," Isaiah said. "You have made your choice."
He paused, looking about the close circle of still hissing and muttering Skraelings, catching every silvery-orbed eye he could. "I am telling you the truth. You now have the knowledge to return yourselves to River Angel form if you so desire. But it will be your choice on the where and the when, and I am going to emphasise again what I said -- you need to do this en ma.s.se. As a group you must step into the water. Otherwise it will fail and you will all just die."
"We will all just die anyway," a Skraeling muttered behind them.
Axis stepped forward. "Look at me," he said. "I have been through death and back again. You can do it, too. It takes courage and resolve, but you can do it. And think what will happen if you do," he said. He dropped his voice a little, emphasising each of his following words carefully. "And if you do discover courage and resolve within you, then look at what you might become."
Axis lifted a hand, indicating Inardle. "But you will become more than her. Far more. More beautiful, more powerful. Nothing that splendid comes easy. I had to fight for everything I became. So will you. Have the courage to accept the future you have always wanted. You will need no power to l.u.s.t after, for you will have power. You will need no lord to cower before, for you will be lords yourselves. No one will ever again regard you with revulsion."
He paused. "Not even me. Not even the Icarii. You will be princes within the circle of princes."
The Skraeling were quite silent, staring entranced at Axis.