The Infinity Gate Part 60

"You have been changed," Ozll said once again. "We want to know what happened. How it felt. What it has done to you. We are curious."

"First," Inardle said, "let me show you." She stood, stretched her arms up above her head, looking skyward . . . from the tips of her fingers and progressively down her body she turned into a beautiful column of green water. She had a basic form of arms, head and body, but the only clear, visible facial features were her eyes. Everything else was . . . liquid, virtually formless.

The Skraelings gasped and hissed, then murmured in a swell of sound as Inardle returned to her Lealfast form and sat once more.

"You are River Angel," Ozll said, his voice soft.

"When I wish," Inardle said.

"Tell us how you drowned," Ozll said. "Did it hurt? Were you scared of the water?"

"I was not killed by water," Inardle said, "but rather by Axis' blade when he tore my living heart from my breast."

The Skraelings had been fascinated by Inardle before this statement. Now they were spellbound.

Inardle explained how she and Axis had been trapped in the ice hex constructed by Eleanon, and how the only way for him to get her out was to murder her, then drag her back to the waters surrounding Elcho Falling.

"He bathed my torn, cold corpse in the lake of Elcho Falling," she said, "knowing the properties it contained for one with blood such as mine, and from the sky he commanded down an eagle who bore my heart back into my breast. It was ." she paused, remembering, "such power as you cannot imagine. Terrible. Painful. Beyond any words of mine to describe. But, in coming back to life, I was reborn with my River Angel potential awoken within me."

"So," Ozll said, "this is not something the ma.s.s of Lealfast could do? Jump into the waters of Elcho Falling and . . . transform?"

"No," said Inardle. "I don't think so. It was a combination of Axis' magic and my blood that worked my transformation."

All the Skraelings relaxed, many smiling, and Inardle realised they'd been worried that the Lealfast, too, might transform into River Angels. "You knew I'd changed," she said.

"Yes," Ozll replied. "Thus we came to find you. Inardle, we need to know, what have you become now you are a River Angel?"

Inardle frowned, puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"Inardle, have you murdered since you were reborn?"

Inardle didn't know what to say. "Um . . . yes . . . several Lealfast. They attacked myself and Axis, and so I was forced to --"

She stopped, shocked by the look in the Skraelings' eyes.

They looked sad, almost as if they were disappointed in her, and it was such a strange expression for them to a.s.sume that Inardle simply didn't know what to think.

"You have killed," Ozll said. "Did you a.s.sume the form of a River Angel to kill?"

"Yes," Inardle whispered.

"Thank you, Inardle," Ozll said, rising, and bringing to their feet the a.s.sembled millions of Skraelings with him. "That was what we needed to know."

He began to turn, and Inardle called out to him, holding out a hand.

"Wait! Ozll, I -- all at Elcho Falling -- need to know what you intend to do! Will you --"

"Goodbye, River Angel," Ozll said, and before Inardle could answer, the congregation of Skraelings vanished, millions upon millions of them, and she was left standing alone in the vast plains of the Outlands, holding out her hand imploringly to a people who no longer wanted to know her.

Chapter 9.

Elcho Falling.

Elcho Falling was a nightmare to clean up. Everything inside had been water damaged, and close to half of the furniture and bedding had been rendered unusable.

Worse, scores of people had died, drowned or battered to death in the torrents of water that swept down staircases or filled lower chambers.

Among those who had died were the three Enchanters who'd been in the lower bas.e.m.e.nt chamber with the Dark Spire. No one knew if the Dark Spire had killed them, or if they had drowned when the lower chambers had filled with water, but any knowledge they may have had about the cause of the mayhem moving inside had died with them.

Maximilian was furious at the intrusion of the mayhem into Elcho Falling. He knew he shouldn't be. He knew that neither Isaiah nor Axis could possibly have predicted this, but still he was angry. He knew this was likely a product of his frustration more than anything else, but it didn't stop him spending a good few long minutes shouting at both Axis and Isaiah before he finally quietened, and apologised.

"The mayhem destroyed all the work Ishbel and I had done on cataloguing the items in the Twisted Tower," he said. "We'll need to start all over again."

"I'm sorry, Maxel," Isaiah said.

Maximilian gave a little shrug of his shoulders, accepting the apology. They were standing on the largest landing of the main staircase, backs against a wall as scores of people hurried past carting bedding and clothes to windows and balconies to be draped out in the open air. Ropes had been strung between many of the balconies to hang sheets and blankets. Maximilian thought that from a distance Elcho Falling must look like a laundress' tower.

"Can it happen again?" Axis said. "I mean, can Eleanon now direct anything we do outside of Elcho Falling, inside Elcho Falling. If I direct a soldier to shoot an arrow at a pa.s.sing Lealfast, will Elcho Falling then be filled with thousands of arrows bouncing about?"

Maximilian gave a small shake of his head. "I talked to Elcho Falling before I came down here, worried about the same thing. Apparently what Eleanon did was take the enchantment of the mayhem and reflect it inside via the Dark Spire. Neither Elcho Falling nor myself believe that an ordinary occurrence -- a non-magical occurrence -- can be reflected the same way. But it does dampen your use of the Star Dance, Axis, as it does whatever you can summon, Isaiah. Be careful."

Georgdi approached them, climbing the stairs. "The lower chambers have been drained of their water," he said. "The Dark Spire . . . you need to see the Dark Spire, Maximilian."

Maximilian began the walk down the stairs.

Axis could barely believe it. Maximilian had told them that eventually the Dark Spire would recreate Elcho Falling within itself, but this .

Since the mayhem the spire had grown, pus.h.i.+ng through three more levels (and into the chamber that had held the pool leading to the tunnel to the lake); detritus from the broken floors lay scattered about the chambers the spire had grown through, making walking difficult. But, more than its growth, it was the change in the spire's appearance that shocked everyone.

It was developing balconies and windows.

As yet these were mere b.u.mps and depressions in the outer skin of the spire, but their overall pattern clearly revealed what one day they would become.

"Worse news," said StarDrifter, coming down the stairs behind them. "The Lealfast have returned."

Axis and Isaiah stood on one of the eastern balconies, looking out to where the Lealfast had recommenced their slow flying in of boulders to dam off the lake about Elcho Falling. Maximilian had returned to his eyrie, to Ishbel and their task of finding a way to remember all the objects in the Twisted Tower, and StarDrifter and Georgdi were occupied inside, supervising repairs. Axis had warned StarDrifter about using the Star Dance, and asked him to spread the word among the remaining Enchanters.

Stars . . . 'remaining Enchanters'. At this rate StarDrifter would be Talon of nothing but memories.

"Have you heard any word from Inardle?" Isaiah said.

"No."

"I wish I knew what was happening with those d.a.m.n Skraelings," Isaiah said. "They have the power to completely destroy us if they decide to combine with their old allies the Lealfast and attack."

"She will contact us as soon as she can," Axis said.

"We don't even know if she escaped," Isaiah said.

Axis repressed a sigh. "If she escaped, and once she has news, then she will contact us as soon as she can."

They watched for a few more minutes as two more pairs of Lealfast flew in and dropped their boulders into the channel. Axis and Isaiah could make out the shadows of the submerged boulders now -- they were only just under the surface. In only a few hours the lake would be dammed completely.

"Why do they want that ribbon of land surrounding Elcho Falling's lake?" Axis muttered. "For what purpose are they going to use it?"

"Well, I, for one, have had enough of this standing about uselessly," Isaiah said. He stepped to the door leading inside Elcho Falling and shouted for a couple of bowmen.

"Stars, Isaiah," Axis said as two Isembaardian bowmen hurried out onto the balcony. "Be careful."

"Maximilian said this would not harm us," Isaiah said, and Axis wondered if Maximilian had any idea, really. He wanted to ask Isaiah to wait a few minutes just to warn the people inside Elcho Falling, but Isaiah was not in any mood to wait.

"Shoot those two Lealfast," Isaiah said to the bowmen, indicating a pair of Lealfast flying in with a boulder in a sling between them. "Can your arrows reach that distance?"

"Easily, Excellency," said one of the men, and without further hesitation they raised their bows, fitted their arrows, and let fly.

The arrows flew straight and true, arching high over the lake before beginning their descent toward the Lealfast.

"They are flying true!" Isaiah said, but, no sooner were the words out of his mouth than the waters of the lake erupted and twin black tendrils reached into the sky, s.n.a.t.c.hing the arrows as they fell and bearing them back underwater.

The four men on the balcony stood in silence, shocked.

"A volley," Isaiah snapped. "Shoot a volley."

The bowmen again raised their bows and, their movements honed by years of practice, shot a volley of arrows into the air toward the Lealfast. These -- because of the speed at which they were delivered, as many as six per breath between the two men -- were not so accurately aimed, yet nonetheless they flew toward the Lealfast.

A score of black tendrils erupted from the lake, s.n.a.t.c.hing the arrows from the sky.

"Shetzah!" Isaiah cursed.

The Lealfast continued to drop the boulders. They had not once glanced toward the arrows.

Chapter 10.

The Outlands.

The Skraelings hovered, partway between full reality and their dream state.

Their meeting with Inardle had confused and upset them. They had almost agreed among themselves that they would become River Angels, that they did have the courage to step into the water and drown, but Inardle's news . . . that she had killed . . . had deeply upset the Skraelings.

At some point in both their physical and mental journey from who they had been toward who they might be, the Skraelings had developed a deep antipathy to killing. They had spent their entire lives killing; their culture and very sense of self worth had been largely based on slaughter, yet now . . . now the idea that they might lay hand to another and tear them apart, caused the Skraelings to feel deep abhorrence.

As they sat, considering, they were unaware that their talons were receding, and their over-sized jaws finally shrinking to normal size, and their teeth turning from fangs to grinding molars.

Isaiah the Water G.o.d had set them on a course that, whether or not it ended in their becoming River Angels, would change their lives forever.

Knowledge of their beginnings and contemplation of their own nature had done within a few short weeks what no army had ever been able to do in decades of trying: destroyed forever the threat of the Skraeling.

"What do we want to do?" Ozll asked into this grey sea of contemplation. "Who do we want to be?"

"Not a River Angel if the first thing Inardle did in her new form was to embark on murder," said Mallx.

"But the life of the River Angel is so compelling," the female Graq said. "It calls to me. It runs in my blood."

Ozll nodded, and there was a murmur of a.s.sent among the great herd.

"But --" Mallx said.

"I know," Ozll interrupted. "We all sway toward the life of the River Angel, but we wonder if it might be viler than our current incarnation."

He paused. "I have an idea, strange as it may be to you."

"I think I know what it might be," Graq murmured, and Ozll looked at her, and nodded.

Chapter 11.

Elcho Falling.

Eleanon stood in the pre-dawn, looking at Elcho Falling glimmer in the last light of the full moon.

A week, no more, and it would be his.

Seven days.

"The magic is all worked?" Falayal said quietly at Eleanon's side.