him.
Some of Maximilian’s enjoyment began to pall as they drew closer to Pelemere. Ishbel was near, an equal distance to the east of Pelemere, according to the report of a passing Icarii, as he was to the west and now all of Maximilian’s attention was focused on their meeting.
What would she truly be like, this serpent bride? What was her purpose: to become his wife and bear his children, or to deliver a darker message into his life?
Together with his increasing anxiety about Ishbel, Maximilian was also growing a little irritable with the constant company. Garth and Egalion were his close friends, and he knew the men of the Emerald Guard intimately. While he enjoyed their company, Maximilian was so solitary by nature, a trait exacerbated by his seventeen-year imprisonment, that he found the constant company trying. He found himself dreaming about pushing his horse into a gallop across a vast plain, seeing nothing but the gently rolling grasslands ahead of him, enjoying no company save that of his horse, having to respond to nothing more than the sun on his face and the wind in his hair.
And soon he would have a wife.
Six days out of Pelemere, Maximilian’s rising anxiety and irritation combined to push him to a sudden decision.
“Egalion,” he said, as they dismounted for the evening, “I am going to take a few stores, and a bedding roll, and ride off by myself for a few days.”
“Maximilian —”
“I need to get away, Egalion. Just by myself. Just for a few days. You know how …”
Maximilian’s voice drifted away, and Egalion nodded. Yes, he knew “how”. Maximilian had spent seventeen years chained to a gang of men, and Egalion knew that sometimes it seemed to Maximilian as if those chains had never vanished.
“You need to keep safe,” Egalion said.
“I don’t need a guard.” Maximilian’s voice was sharp.
“I won’t send men to shadow you, Maximilian. But keep safe.”
Maximilian tried a small smile, which didn’t quite manage to warm into life. “What part of the world can be more boring, more safe, than the western plains of Pelemere, my friend?”
Garth had wandered over and had heard enough of the conversation to know what was happening. “Maxel?”
“The hanging wall,” Maximilian said, referring to the ceiling of rock that had hung over him for so much of his life, “is bearing down on me, just a little too much. Let me go, Garth.”
Garth and Egalion exchanged a glance, then Garth nodded. “Keep safe, Maxel.”
“I will rejoin you a day outside of Pelemere.”
Maximilian stepped back, his eyes holding those of Egalion and Garth for just a moment, then he vanished into the gloom of dusk.
Maximilian pushed his horse for five hours into the night, angling a little north-east of the route Egalion, Garth and the Emerald Guard would take, until the animal was almost dropping from weariness. He halted in the shelter of a small grove, made his horse comfortable, then gathered enough dry wood for a fire.
Maximilian felt exhausted himself, but he knew he would not sleep.
There was something he wanted to do.
He just didn’t know what Ishbel represented. Contentment, or the ruination of peace? Maximilian wasn’t even sure that meeting her would solve the puzzle: Ishbel was likely to be an enigma not easily explained within the first five minutes of acquaintance.
Once the fire was blazing, Maximilian set out some food … then ignored it.
He would eat once he was finished.
Pushing the food to one side, he slid the Persimius ring from his left hand, then took the queen’s ring from his cloak pocket. Holding them loosely in his hand for a moment, Maximilian took a deep breath, then set them down, slightly apart from each other, before the fire. The Whispering Rings could do more than just set his day on edge with their irritating chat.
Trying not to think too much about what he was about to do, Maximilian took a long stick, poked it into the fire, then scraped a goodly quantity of the bright coals over the rings.
They hissed, then hissed again, more violently than previously.
“Tell me what you see,” Maximilian whispered.
For a moment nothing happened, then vision consumed his mind.
He strode through a corridor that appeared as if it stretched into eternity. Its walls glowed turquoise and white.
Behind him, he knew the corridor vanished into the darkness that trailed from his shoulders like a cloak.
Maximilian strode ahead, his steps determined.
He walked the hallways of Elcho Falling.
He turned a corner, and halted, transfixed.
A woman sat in a bath, her back to him, her fair hair caught up about the crown of her head with pins, tipping water from an exquisite goblet encrusted with frogs over her shoulders so that it trickled slowly down her spine.
She turned very slightly as she became aware of his presence.
“My love? Is that you?”
He felt overwhelming grief at the sight of her, and could not understand it, for he knew also that he loved her.
He turned, and resumed his walk down the corridor, brushing irritably at a weight about his brow.
After some time (hours, days perhaps), he became aware that something approached from behind him.
He turned, thinking (hoping) it might be the woman.
Instead, it was something so dark, so terrible, that Maximilian screamed, throwing his arms up about his face.
It was not a creature or person at all. Instead, Maximilian found himself staring into the open doorway of the Twisted Tower, and seeing that it was now entirely empty.
Not a single object remained in any of the chambers.
He had lost everything, every memory, every ritual, every piece of magic, that he needed to resurrect Elcho Falling.
He woke, his heart still thudding, just after dawn.
All he could remember for the moment was the horror of staring into the doorway of the Twisted Tower and realising it was now entirely empty.
Terrified, but knowing he had to do it, Maximilian closed his eyes once more, and called forth the Twisted Tower. Trembling, he laid his hand to the handle
