perhaps fifty years without his wife kept Axis awake throughout the night.
“Damn you, Isaiah,” Axis muttered as the dawn light slowly filtered into his chamber, but there was no anger in his voice, only an infinite sadness.
PALACE OF AQHAT, TYRANNY OF ISEMBAARD
Isaiah did not go back to his private quarters after talking with Axis. Instead, restless and uncertain, he went down to the dark stables, saddled a horse (waving back to their beds the four or five grooms who hurried sleepy-eyed to serve their master), and rode the horse to the Lhyl.
He pushed the horse across the river, then rode south along the river road to where rose the great glass pyramid called DarkGlass Mountain. Isaiah did not once raise his eyes to look at it, but rode directly to a small door in its northern face where he hobbled the horse, and entered.
He walked through the black glass tunnels of the pyramid to its very heart — a golden-glassed chamber known as the Infinity Chamber.
Here Isaiah sat cross-legged in its very centre and meditated.
Kanubai — trapped deep beneath DarkGlass Mountain — and he were enemies. Bitter, terrible, lifetime enemies. Isaiah came here to expose himself to the beast, not only to test his own strength and resolve, but also to sense out his enemy and divine his strengths and weaknesses.
Time was when Kanubai’s weaknesses outnumbered his strengths.
Now, the strengths were gaining.
Isaiah visualised the abyss that sank into the very heart of the world. He concentrated on that abyss until it formed his entire consciousness, until he knew nothing but the abyss.
Then, gathering his courage, he cast his eyes down into the darkness.
When he had first started doing this, he had seen nothing, although he had felt the horror that lurked in the pit of the abyss.
Kanubai, cast down an infinity of ages ago.
But over the past few years Isaiah had started to see as well as sense Kanubai. The gleam of an eye.
Or perhaps a tooth.
The wetness of a tongue.
Now, as he had over the past year, Isaiah’s gaze managed to discern a blackened shape huddled against the walls of the abyss.
Kanubai was rising closer.
He was still far, far below, but every time Isaiah came here he could see that Kanubai was a little nearer.
Thin black fingers suckered into tiny cracks in the abyss.
A darkened face, staring upwards, feeling the weight of Isaiah’s regard.
Kanubai had once been stoppered tight in his abyss, but was no longer. Those ancient cursed Magi who had built the glass pyramid, and then opened it into Infinity, had unwittingly cracked open the stopper Isaiah and Lister had placed over the abyss.
Kanubai had been inching his way through that crack ever since.
Hello, Isaiah.
Isaiah fought down his nausea. Kanubai had been whispering to him for many years now. At first nothing but unintelligible thick mutterings, but now almost every word was clear.
What do you, Isaiah?
Isaiah never replied. The last thing he wanted was to get into conversation with the beast.
Do you know what I will do to your river, Isaiah, when I rise?
Isaiah knew he had to break the connection. He had spent too long in here. He had to leave now before —
He went cold.
In his vision of Kanubai, Isaiah thought he had seen, just for a moment, something clinging to Kanubai’s back.
Or something in his hands, perhaps.
Isaiah opened his eyes, then rose to his feet, stumbling a little in his foreboding as he made for the doorway out of the Infinity Chamber.
Something else rose with Kanubai.
THE ROYAL PALACE, RUEN, ESCATOR
Maximilian stepped into the chamber where he met with his Council of Friends and saw that for once he was the last to arrive.
Egalion, Garth and Vorstus regarded him a little warily. Egalion and Garth had been well aware of the tension between Maximilian and Vorstus, but had no idea of the cause. Both Garth and Egalion had, at different times, approached Maximilian cautiously, wondering what the problem might be, but Maximilian had waved away their gentle queries, saying there was nothing wrong save that he was suffering pre-wedding nerves.
Maximilian did not think Vorstus would be any more forthcoming with the two men if they were also to approach him.
Maximilian did not take his seat, but walked over to a window and leaned on the sill, looking out. “I have decided to depart for Pelemere, there to meet with the Lady Ishbel,” he said. “Within the week.”
Egalion and Garth looked at each other, but it was Vorstus who answered.
“But we have not yet heard if the negotiations StarWeb is conducting with the Lady Ishbel on your behalf have been successful.”
“Oh,” said Maximilian, turning about and looking Vorstus in the eye, “I am sure they will be successful, don’t you?”
Vorstus said nothing, holding Maximilian’s eyes easily.
“Maxel,” Garth said carefully, “how can you know?”
“Because I feel it in my bones,” Maximilian said, but mildly enough. The serpent — Light — had sent Ishbel to him. Maximilian had no real idea why, but he hoped it was because Light had decided only that the Persimius line needed a bit of strengthening and the Lady Ishbel’s bloodlines would do nicely. Perhaps she might have some memories with which to re-furniture his Twisted Tower.
The offer of this bride did not have to mean that Elcho Falling was needed.
“Besides,” Maximilian continued, putting a disarming smile on his face, “I grow restless sitting here in Ruen. I want to be doing something, and even if the Lady Ishbel takes one look at my face and decides she’d rather marry a —”
Frog.
“— toad, then at least we’ll have had the joy of
