by Sara Douglas
Her heart almost stopped. Maximilian looked as lost as he had when she and Garth rescued him from the Veins.
Ravenna walked over to sit beside him. Now that she was closer she could smell the wine on him.
"Maxel," she said softly, and he tipped his head and looked at her.
"Oh, Maxel," she said, appalled at the haggard lines running down from eyes and nose, and the tears in his eyes.
He sighed, picking up one of her hands. "I was unutterably cruel to her, Ravenna. I couldn't help myself.
What is it, then, about the human spirit that makes us act so?"
"I wish I had left the Lord of Dreams earlier," she said, "and married you myself, Maxel. I would never have left you."
He laughed, softly, and a little bitterly. "Marsh women marry no men, Ravenna. And they stay with men even less time than Ishbel stayed with me. They need men to sire their babies, and then they abandon the men who love them and take their babies with them. How much better are you than Ishbel, Ravenna?"
She froze, appalled at being compared to Ishbel even more than the personal attack.
"Oh, gods, I am sorry, Ravenna. You of all people did not deserve me to say that to you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Don't go. Please, don't go."
She relaxed a little. "Ishbel has hurt you, Maxel."
"And I have hurt her, and now you. I have come out of this night the worse, I think."
They sat silently a little while, their hands still loosely interlinked.
"Are Serge and Doyle here? And your mother?" Maximilian said eventually.
"Yes. They are settled outside, all nervy at the thought of being ensconced in Isaiah's palace."
Maximilian smiled a fraction at that.
"StarDrifter and Salome are here, too, and settled in their own quarters."
"Was Axis happy to see his father?"
"I have never seen two men happier to see each other."
"Then I am glad some joy has come out of this day."
"Well..." Ravenna smiled. "Now StarDrifter has the task of explaining to Axis how he managed to sire Salome's mother on Axis' old lover."
Maximilian managed a more genuine smile. "Ah, those SunSoars. I hope they manage to somehow complicate Isaiah's life, as they complicate everyone else's. That might be some small punishment for him for stealing away my wife."
"Maxel, what are you going to do?"
"I don't know, Ravenna. I just don't know. Here I sit, huddled on the floor of the palace of the man who is about to invade the Northern Kingdoms. I don't even know what is happening in Escator. What the fuck am I doing, Ravenna? I--"
"You are doing the best you can, Maxel."
"Oh, don't try to placate me, please. If only...if only I'd not dreamed of a family. If only I'd not set out on a quest for a dammed, damned bride. If only..."
"And that is futile, stupid talk. But you are tired, and tonight has not been pleasant for you, and so I shall forgive you."
Maximilian chuckled. "Did you treat the Lord of Dreams with this much contempt, Ravenna?"
"Yes. He grew tired of me and asked me to leave."
"And that I do not believe." He squeezed her hand, turning his head once more so he could look at her directly. "He would have gone down on his knees and begged you to stay."
She smiled, hesitated, then leaned forward and kissed him softly on his forehead.
"Ravenna..."
"Let me stay with you tonight, Maxel."
"I would be poor company for you, my sweet marsh woman. My breath stinks of wine, and my heart aches for--"
"Don't say her name again, not tonight." Ravenna kissed him again, this time softly, on the mouth.
There was a part of Maximilian that knew he should pull back. He understood that tonight, blackened as it was by strong, bitter emotion, and by the shock of meeting directly with the embodiment of Water, was the worst time of all to succumb to Ravenna's seductions.
But then there was also a part of him that thought that, as Ishbel had abandoned him for another, while he had abandoned a kingdom for her, then perhaps he should no longer deny himself the comfort that Ravenna offered.
Surely he should be allowed a little revenge. Just this once.
Her fingers and mouth were trailing over his face and neck now, and Maximilian allowed himself to sink into their promises and comforts.
"Skip, trip, my pretty man," she murmured in his ear, recalling the song she had once used to summon the Lord of Dreams to her side. "Skip, trip, into my hand."
He shuddered, and took her shoulders in his hands, and kissed the angle of her jaw, and used the wine as an excuse for what he was doing.
Skip, trip, into my heart.
Isaiah went straight to the apartment he shared with Ishbel.
She sat on the floor, against the wall, arms about knees, unwittingly echoing Maximilian's distress.
"Did you know Maximilian was coming for me?" she asked quietly.
"Yes," Isaiah said.
She raised her head and looked at him, her eyes full of black bitterness. "How can I ever trust you again?"
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sakkuth, Isembaard
Axis was sitting on a wooden chair at the table in StarDrifter's and Salome's apartment. He'd tipped the chair back, balancing himself with one foot, and was now staring aghast between Salome and his father as StarDrifter finished his tale of who Salome was, and how she'd come to be with him now and bearing his child.
"Embeth," Axis finally managed. "Oh, stars, I'd never thought of her once I'd married Azhure. She is as much my guilt as yours, StarDrifter. I hadn't even realized she was your lover at Carlon. And to think that she bore a child, and died in the doing...
"Salome," he continued, "you have been cruelly treated by the SunSoars indeed. I am sorry for it, for the loss of your grandmother and for that of your son particularly. We are not an easy family."
She sighed, looking down at her hands interlaced over her stomach. "These past few months have been like a dream, Axis. I never wanted to leave Coroleas. I loved my life there." She paused. "At least, I
thought I did. Now it seems so far distant. A dream. I still wake at night crying for Ezra. His loss is real enough, but as for my life in Yoyette...I am not sure I want this in its place, though."
She indicated her back, although Axis was aware she meant her sudden inclusion into the Icarii race and the SunSoar fold. He knew how she felt--he'd had enough problems coming to terms with his Icarii heritage when first he'd learned of it.
"Can I have a look?" Axis said, nodding at her back. "Or my father's, if you'd prefer me not to--"
"I don't care," Salome said with a slight shrug, and unfolded the robe she wore, revealing not only her back, but her breasts as well.
Axis repressed a smile, glancing at his father as he rose and walked about the table to where Salome sat.
SunSoar blood.
And he could feel it, as soon as he got to within a pace of her. The pull that all SunSoars exerted each to the other. No wonder she and his father...Axis saw StarDrifter glaring and he grinned at him, and concentrated on the matter at hand.
Salome's back both repelled and excited him. It looked horrendous, with twin massive cartilaginous ridges protruding from either side of her spine. They were barely covered with skin, and Axis realized that very soon the wings would break free. Very gently he ran his fingers down one of the ridges, feeling the wing within folded back on itself.
It felt hot, and Axis knew it must be very painful.
"Is it worse, StarDrifter," he said, "now, than when you were a child?" Icarii children generally developed their wings when they were five or six, and apart from some grumbling and whining about the ache, as when they'd teethed earlier in childhood, they generally did not suffer much pain.
"Yes," StarDrifter said, "much worse. Our bones are set now, and our muscles and bodies complain about the growth. I will be glad once they have broken free, and can grow beyond the confines of our backs."
; "Salome?" Axis asked.
"It is agony," she said, "and all for something I don't want."
"I will remind you of that remark one day," Axis said, "when you have returned flushed of cheek and exhilarated of spirit after soaring a league into the sky."
He lifted the robe over her back again, then stood looking at her.
"Yes?" she said.
"Sorry," Axis said. "You have been reminding me of someone, and I have only just remembered." He looked at his father. "You don't see it?"
"No. Who?"
"There are none so blind," Axis murmured. Then said, louder, "Salome, you are the spitting image of my grandmother, your great-grandmother and StarDrifter's mother--MorningStar SunSoar. Not only in features, but you have something of her flair and directness as well. I remember the day she tried to seduce me--"
"My mother tried to seduce you?" StarDrifter said.
Axis laughed. "And you seduced your granddaughter, StarDrifter. Perhaps we can lay the blame for this entire grandparent-grandchild attraction at her feet, eh? Now, let me look at your back."
If anything, his father's back looked even worse than Salome's. "Gods, StarDrifter..."
"I don't complain," StarDrifter said. "I rejoice in every twinge."
"I am sure you do," Axis said, knowing how his father must have hated living flightless. "But I don't understand, how is it that you are growing your wings? I have never heard of anything like this before."
"I told you that I'd seduced Salome in an effort to steal the deity known as the Weeper," StarDrifter said.
Axis nodded.
"Well," StarDrifter continued, "Maxel thinks, and I agree with him, that the Weeper has done this. It is the only possibility I can think of."
"Is the Weeper the bundle you carried from the bakery?" Axis said.
"Yes," said StarDrifter. "Usually only Maximilian carries the Weeper, but for the journey from the bakery it accepted me as an old friend, if only because I would return it to Maxel's side."
"Salome," Axis said, "what is the Weeper? I mean, what soul went into its creation? It must have been powerful indeed."
"All I know," said Salome, "is what legend tells us: the man who gave his soul into the deity was a man from a distant land, and very, very powerful. Stunningly so." She gave a slight shrug. "That would explain the power of the Weeper, of course."
"I think the Weeper has only ever wanted to get to Maximilian," StarDrifter said. "These"--he indicated his back and Salome's--"are thank-you gifts to Salome and myself."
"But Ba'al'uz knew about the Weeper," said Axis, "or, at the least, he knew about its power. He abandoned his quest of chaos in the Northern Kingdoms, and abandoned Ishbel, to retrieve the Weeper.
So perhaps the Weeper has some connection with Isembaard."
"Perhaps this DarkGlass Mountain told Ba'al'uz to fetch the Weeper," StarDrifter said.
He leaned forward a little, looking keenly at Axis. "Axis, one of the things that made me agree to do what Ba'al'uz wished, apart, that is"--he glanced at Salome--"from the opportunity to sleep with the lovely Duchess of Sidon, and the fact you were in Isembaard, was that he said DarkGlass Mountain could reconnect us with the Star Dance. Do you know anything about--"
"Ha," said Axis. "I have been in this DarkGlass Mountain, StarDrifter, and, yes, the possibility exists that it could connect us back to the Star Dance."
"But..."
"But to do so would be to invite catastrophe. DarkGlass Mountain is death itself. I think that if the Star Dance filtered through DarkGlass Mountain then the Dance would be contaminated with such horror...so, not DarkGlass Mountain, StarDrifter, but I think maybe something else."
StarDrifter leaned forward, eyes gleaming. "What?"
Axis told StarDrifter and Salome about the glass pyramid he'd taken from the packs of Ba'al'uz' men. "I
will show it to you later," he concluded. "Tomorrow, perhaps, when we are rested. Isaiah has one of these glass pyramids, and this strange Lord of the Skraelings as well, Lister. Recently I touched Isaiah's while it was active, and again felt the Star Dance through it. Faintly, and not enough for me to catch. But it was there."
"But how?" said StarDrifter. "Where do these glass pyramids come from? Who made them? Axis?"
Axis would have smiled at his father's eagerness if he didn't understand the desperate longing that lay behind it. How must his father feel, to be so close to the two things he'd missed desperately?
"Lister, this Lord of the Skraelings, has some interesting creatures as his allies," Axis said. "A few short weeks ago he sent one of them to stage an assassination attempt on Isaiah to push him forward in his invasion plans. They are Icarii...and yet not Icarii."
"In what way?" said StarDrifter.
"This assassin looked like an Icarii--features, wings, bearing, elegance, arrogance, everything. But...ah,
I can't explain it. There was something about him, an air...and he escaped a rain of spears and arrows when he simply should not have done. He attacked Isaiah in a hall crammed with marksmen. Wings or not, he should not have been able to get away. But he did. He vanished."
"He used the Star Dance?" StarDrifter said.
Axis gave a slight shrug. "Perhaps, although if he did, then I did not feel it. I just don't know who or what he could be. There are no other winged races you know of, StarDrifter? Nothing from legend? No cousin race to the Icarii?"
"No," said StarDrifter. "There's nothing that..." He stopped suddenly.
"And then again, perhaps there is," said Salome, looking at him carefully.
"During the initial Wars of the Axe," StarDrifter said, speaking slowly, thinking as he went, "when the Icarii were being pushed back into the Icescarp Alps, there was a conflict among the Icarii leadership."
"And?" said Axis.
"Some among the Icarii thought that the Icescarp Alps would not be enough to keep the Acharites at bay. There were some families, led by a senior Icarii, who fled still further north. Perhaps fifty or sixty Icarii all told."
"They fled into the frozen wastelands?" Axis said. "They must have been terrified, indeed."
"Yes. I think everyone assumed they had died--we never heard from them again, and the frozen wastelands were so inhospitable, and populated with Skraelings, and--"
Axis swore, making his father stop and raise a disapproving eyebrow.
"Of course!" Axis said. "Of course! There we have it! The assassin, the almost but not quite Icarii, was sent by Lister, the Lord of the Skraelings, Isaiah's `ally.' StarDrifter, you never heard from the Icarii families again because they traveled far further than anyone had thought--right across the ice bridge between Tencendor and this continent, which also has a massive Skraeling population in its extreme frozen north. That's where they survived."
"But why did you sense a difference in the assassin?" said StarDrifter.
Axis hesitated a long moment before he responded.
"Because over the past few thousand years," he said eventually, "they interbred with the Skraelings.
That's the only reason they survived. They interbred with the Skraelings."
Axis had gone, and StarDrifter and Salome were alone in their apartment.
They had bathed, and now sat on the bed, both naked in the early dawn light.
StarDrifter was rubbing an unguent that Venetia had given them into Salome's back, and she was sighing in pleasure at the relief it brought from the ache of the emerging wings.
"Tell me," she said, "that these wings are going to be worth the pain and disfigurement they bring me now."
StarDrifter thought of how lovely she had been in Yoyette, how lithe and graceful, how sensual and beautiful. Now her back humped in ghastly forms, red and angry with the inflammation caused by the growing bones and sinews of her wings.
"The world will be at your feet," he said. "Literally. Salome, you have no idea how wonderful it will be to fly."
His hand slipped from her back and under her arms to her collarbones, their outer edges
lightly resting on the swell of her breasts.
"You shall have to tone these muscles, though," he said. "It will likely take you many weeks before you are able to lift more than a pace or so off the ground."
"And I thought I should be soaring to the sun within moments of combing flat my feathers!"
StarDrifter wondered what he should say. He opened his mouth, and then realized she was teasing him.
He smiled, and very softly kissed her shoulder. They had not made love at all since Coroleas. There had been no opportunity on the journey through the FarReach Mountains, and both had been either so weary, or in such pain, or still so emotionally drained after that day they'd met at the foot of the mountains, that neither had felt the desire.
And he hadn't known what he had wanted. Nor what she wanted.
Now...
Now they were warm from their shared bath, and, due both to the hot soak and to Venetia's unguent,
their backs felt better than they had in weeks.
Now there was both the opportunity and, certainly on StarDrifter's part, the desire.
But he didn't know Salome well enough, or feel sure enough of her, to know what she felt at this stage.
His hands slowly moved down over her breasts--he felt her shudder, and knew that she felt desire, at least--and then to her very softly rounded belly. Like most Icarii, Salome would not grow very large with her pregnancy. Icarii babies were healthy and strong at birth, but smaller than human babies.
She leaned back against him, turning slightly so that her cumbersome back slid to one side.
"Tell me about the baby," she said.
"He is safe and very warm and comfortable," said StarDrifter. "He loves you, and is also glad I am near.
He knows your wings grow, and is curious, but saddened by your pain."
"If we made love, would he know?"
StarDrifter kissed her shoulder again, more firmly this time, and his hands moved back to her breasts.
"Yes."
"Would it trouble him?"
StarDrifter smiled against her flesh. "He is an Icarii. It will not trouble him at all. He will merely dream more deeply of us later, when he sleeps."
"StarDrifter, I hated you so much."