It hadn"t been there previously.
Now very, very cautious, his every sense alerted, the One stepped down to the corridor and peered along it.
It stretched for about twenty paces before it terminated in a closed door.
The One looked up at the wall closing off the stairwell, then back along the corridor.
Power was at work here.
He made his decision, and walked confidently along the corridor to the door.
He laid a hand to the handle, then opened it.
There was a stone wall behind it.
The One slammed the door shut, cursing. He turned on his heel, meaning to walk back to the stairs, then stopped in his tracks.
There was a strange creature standing halfway between the One and the stairwell. It had the appearance of a tall slim man, wearing simple breeches and a jerkin, but the creature radiated such an aura of otherworldliness about him that he was obviously not human.
"You are a part of Elcho Falling," the One said, realising what the creature was. "Flesh of its flesh."
The creature inclined his head and shoulders in a slight bow. "I am indeed, my lord. I am one of Elcho Falling"s servants."
"Good," said the One. "You may escort me from this maze."
"I am afraid --" the servant began.
"Clear my pa.s.sage!" the One said.
"I may not," said the servant.
"You may not?" the One asked, his voice dangerously quiet. He took a step forward. "You may not? Do you not, as does Elcho Falling, recognise my blood? I am of Elcho Falling itself, of its master"s bloodlines, and I am bound to Elcho Falling in the same way as is its lord. Clear the way before me."
The servant"s expression stayed bland, neutral, even though the One had now advanced within two paces.
"There has recently been some considerable trouble with the Lord of Elcho Falling"s blood," said the servant. "The blood of his child, carried by Ravenna, was used to effect a betrayal of Maximilian and of Elcho Falling. We are now wary of Maximilian"s bloodlines. They have been used for treachery once. They might be so used once more."
The One"s eyes narrowed. "We"? And what in the world did the creature mean about blood effecting a betrayal?
There was a step behind the servant, and the One"s focus shifted.
Maximilian Persimius was walking down the corridor toward the One.
StarHeaven, emotionally and psychologically battered by the events of the past quarter of an hour, spent several heartbeats just staring before she realised what was happening.
It was the Emerald Guard. Hundreds of them had filled the chamber and were attacking the Lealfast. In itself, that was hardly surprising, for Axis or Maximilian would have thrown whatever they could to the Strike Force"s aid, but it was the manner in which the Emerald Guard fought which astonished StarHeaven. There were so many of them filling the floor of the chamber, fighting with the winged creatures in the air above them. By rights it should have been a debacle: guardsmen striking each other as often as they struck a Lealfast; stumbling over and into each other as they fought the enemy above, their arms and shoulders colliding; those who had bows unable to set arrow to string within the jumble of colliding bodies; those with swords unable to swing effectively for a strike; all horribly vulnerable to the marksmen in the air above them. . .
But it was not like that at all.
It was instead supernaturally graceful. Everything about the Emerald Guard"s attack -- their movements, their absolute uncanny certainty about where each of their encircling colleagues was and what he was doing and what he would be doing in two heartbeats time -- was otherworldly. StarHeaven could scarcely credit the skill and coordination of it, and she was quick to realise that a supernatural skill of some kind lay behind it.
No ordinary human could move that instinctively, that surely, with such a degree of foreknowledge of the movements of everyone about him.
The Lealfast still held the advantage -- they were airborne after all, and the Song of Mirrors that had blinded them had finally disintegrated enough that they could see their attackers -- yet even so they could not hold their own against the Emerald Guard. Like the guardsmen, some of the Lealfast fought with the bow, some with the sword, but StarHeaven saw none of their arrows or sword strikes reach their targets.
There were so many Lealfast crowded into the chamber that they filled almost the entire airs.p.a.ce. That meant their lower ranks were within striking distance of the guardsmen"s swords, while arrows shot from within the guardsmen"s ranks reached the Lealfast in higher planes (and those very arrows seemingly shot with foreknowledge of where Lealfast bodies would be at any one instant, flying straight and true to their target through the jumble of bodies in the air).
StarHeaven"s respect for the Emerald Guard, a cohort of men she had previously all but ignored, soared to celestial heights.
"You are amazing," she whispered.
Ishbel had taken Inardle back to the main command chamber. There, while Inardle had sat on a stool, casting occasional glances toward the windows and wondering if she dared make a dash for them, Ishbel had produced a clean gown from one of the antechambers and had re-clothed herself.
Then she sat down opposite Inardle.
"What is happening?" she asked Inardle.
Inardle took a deep breath, now studying her hands fidgeting in her lap.
"The Lealfast are attacking," she said.
"This was always planned?" Ishbel said.
"Yes," Inardle whispered.
"In concert with the One? You have always been in league with the One?"
Inardle"s head came up at that. "No. Not I, nor the Lealfast, not always. They . . . we . . . Ishbel, I did not want to betray Maximilian, or Axis. I did nothing to --"
"You did nothing to warn us."
Inardle dropped her eyes once more.
"Inardle, I do not believe that you actively worked to betray Maxel, or else you would now be spattered with his murdered blood. But your silence itself is a form of betrayal."
Inardle said nothing, still looking down.
"Are you prepared to help us now?" Ishbel said.
"Yes," Inardle said.
"Betray your fellows, your blood, to help us?"
Inardle hesitated for a heartbeat. "Yes."
"I wonder," Ishbel said, "if either Maxel or Axis will believe that, now."
"Was Ravenna part of your machinations against me?" Maximilian said, coming to a halt just behind and to one side of the servant. "Was she your creature? If so, then you miscalculated, my friend. It appears that Elcho Falling has decided it needs to be more cautious of any who claim my blood."
"Is he a traitor, my lord?" the creature said, turning his head a little toward Maximilian, but not moving his eyes from the One.
"Does he wear my murdered blood over his flesh?" Maximilian said in a low tone. "Is not Elcho Falling filled with my murderers?"
The One took another half pace forward, his entire form quivering with power. He raised his hands, preparing to strike, but both Elcho Falling"s servant and Maximilian ignored him.
"Should we --" the creature said.
"Reject them," Maximilian said, one hand now resting on the servant"s shoulder as he stared at the One.
StarHeaven cried out, and even the guardsmen stumbled in surprise, their movements finally crashing into discord.
As one, the Lealfast appeared to have been grasped in a gigantic fist and hurled against the stone walls of the chamber.
There, instead of striking the stone, they vanished, and a heartbeat later StarHeaven heard someone by a window cry out that the Lealfast had reappeared far distant in the sky.
In the stairwell, just below the ground floor of Elcho Falling, Maximilian watched as the One suddenly vanished.
"Where has he gone?" Maximilian murmured.
"A very, very long way away," Elcho Falling replied.
In the very deepest subterranean chamber of Elcho Falling, the Dark Spire that Eleanon had placed there a day or so previously continued to throb with power.
The One was gone, but it was not perturbed. There was another close who could direct the spire and tell it what it needed to accomplish.
Chapter 5.
Elcho Falling and the Twisted Tower.
"What happened?" Axis shouldered his way past the first few guardsmen in the chamber where the Strike Force had been attacked. His jaw tightened as he looked beyond the Lealfast bodies in the centre of the room to the Icarii bodies piled up at the margins of the room.
"I am not sure, StarMan," one of the Emerald Guard said. "We were fighting the Lealfast, then . . . "
"Some power forced the Lealfast out," Egalion said, now pushing his way through to Axis, "but not before we whittled their numbers down satisfactorily. They are outside, now, I believe."
Axis managed to work his way to one of the windows. Egalion followed, muttering orders to the guardsmen that most of them should depart the chamber.
"G.o.ds," Axis muttered as he stared out the window. The Lealfast, some eleven thousand of them, were now riding the winds beyond Elcho Falling. Every so often one or two made a foray closer to the citadel, but some fifty paces out it appeared as if they hit a barrier beyond which they could not fly.
"Elcho Falling has raised its defences," Egalion said.
"And yet the One is inside," said Axis. "Maximilian had gone to deal with him . . . Egalion, I have no idea what is going on. And --"
Axis broke off, muttering a curse.
"What is it?" Egalion said.
"Insharah!" Axis said, suddenly remembering that the Isembaardian army was camped on the sh.o.r.es of Elcho Falling"s lake. He"d heard a whisper that Ishbel had somehow negated the general, Armat, and that Axis" once-friend Insharah now led the army. "Does he know what is happening? And all the Isembaardians . . . they are vulnerable to the Lealfast . . . I have no idea what is happening, Egalion. What did Ishbel do earlier? I know she went to see Armat and Ravenna, and that she did something, but what?"
"Armat and Ravenna are negated," said Ishbel from behind them, making the two men turn to look at her. "Lister is dead. Insharah now controls the Isembaardian army. And you are right, Axis, they are in danger. We need to get them inside Elcho Falling."
Axis"s eyes narrowed in suspicion. Invite them in? Only an hour or two ago the entire Isembaardian army had been their enemy. "We have just repelled one lot of invaders and traitors, Ishbel. I do not want to invite a new lot in. And where is Inardle? Were you not supposed to be guarding her?"
"Do not worry about Inardle," Ishbel said. "She is waiting in the command chamber. She will do no harm for the moment. When this situation is a little settled we all need to speak with her, but there are more important matters to worry us."
"The One," Axis said.
Ishbel"s face relaxed a little. "He is gone. He went at the same time the Lealfast were expelled. Elcho Falling drove them out. The One must have been marked with Maxel"s murdered blood as well as the Lealfast. For the moment those within Elcho Falling are safe, Axis."
"Unless we have further traitors among us," Axis muttered. "Maxel?"
"He is well. He said something about the Twisted Tower and Josia needing to speak to him. I think he has gone there for the moment. You and I, Axis, need to see Insharah and determine what to do about the Isembaardian army."
Axis nodded, but he turned in to the room, now almost emptied of the Emerald Guardsmen save for a score of so standing as sentinels.
For a long moment Axis just stared. It was a disaster. Bodies of Strike Force members, almost their entire number, lay strewn about the edges of the chamber, while in the centre of the chamber lay the bodies of the Lealfast members the guardsmen had struck down. Those Icarii who had survived were struggling to their feet, aided here and there by Emerald Guardsmen; others lay moaning on the floor.
The physicians Garth Baxtor and Zeboath had entered the chamber and were moving among the wounded Icarii, bending down briefly to a.s.sess severity of injury before giving instructions to their a.s.sistants and then moving on, prioritising the injured as quickly as possible.
Lealfast corpses covered the major area of floor. There were, Axis estimated, probably about a thousand dead.
No Emerald Guardsmen lay among the dead or injured.
They had done a remarkable job, Axis thought and, like StarHeaven before him, his estimation of their worth as a fighting force rocketed up to vastly greater heights than previously.
"They came from the Veins," Ishbel murmured at his side. "Who knew what they learned down there? They had to fight with the blackness itself to survive."
"They closed their eyes to fight." It was StarHeaven, moving quietly over to Ishbel and Axis. "They fought instinctively. It was . . . extraordinary."
StarHeaven paused, taking a deep breath that trembled. "They shamed us."
Axis rested a hand on StarHeaven"s shoulder. "You were attacked by those you trusted, and attacked invisibly. You did not for a moment expect that --"
"d.a.m.n it," StarHeaven said, "we should have expected it! And now . . . " She looked about, her eyes glistening with tears. "Now so many are dead, and BroadWing among them."
"You shall need to take command," Axis said.
"No!" StarHeaven said. "I cannot! I am not good enough! I --"
"You are all I have right now," said Axis. "You shall need to be good enough. We can discuss a permanent arrangement later, when we have the luxury of time and breath and the ability to sit down and sort everything out. For now, you take command. Find those who can still fight, and await my orders. Ishbel and I may need the Strike Force against the Lealfast outside. So, gather yourselves together, patch yourselves up and be ready. Yes?"