is that it is foulness incarnate. It feels to me like a cancer, but one with direction and purpose. It is growing into something, but I can’t tell what? You?”
Isaiah turned his eyes back to the spire, studying it. “It is a nightmare from another time and place. It is Infinity itself stepped into this world. It is coldness and darkness and hatefulness, and, as you say, Garth, all with a purpose and direction. I do not know if anyone can truly control what this is, or will become. I think this, right here, is Maximilian’s worst enemy.”
Axis sat on his reed bed, disconsolately pulling on his clothes and wishing he’d just braved the mayhem and got into Elcho Falling via the front door. The back door didn’t sound like any fun at all. He was just about to slip into the water when one of the juit birds swam up to him and looked him in the eyes in that uncomfortably direct manner of the juit.
StarMan.
My friend juit. What may I do for you?
We have discovered something, StarMan. We think you need to see it.
Axis repressed a sigh. What manner of thing?
Something left by the Lealfast.
His interest pricked, Axis nodded for the juit bird to lead on as he entered the water.
Damn, it was cold!
The bird led him part way round the northern shores of the lake which surrounded Elcho Falling, and nodded at the reed banks there.
Axis, who had decided he was thoroughly sick of swimming and of pushing through juit birds while he was doing so, as also of being constantly wet and cold, heaved himself into the squelchy reed banks and began poking amongst them. For a few minutes he found nothing and was thinking longingly of hot food and a warm dry bed nestled within Elcho Falling, when suddenly he bent back a tangle of reeds and stilled.
It took Axis a moment to realise what it was . . . a dome of ice bobbing among the reeds that looked like it extended into the water, forming a ball.
He pushed away the reeds that clung to the top curve of the ball like wet, bedraggled hair.
Axis froze as his hand parted the final few strands.
Inardle’s face, warped by the ice, stared back at him.
Chapter 14
The Central Outlands
The Skraelings remained lost in their reflections and choices, completely unaware of what happened in the world. They had the ability to turn themselves back into River Angels if they so chose, and they could do this freely now they found themselves masterless with the mysterious disappearance of the One.
Would they like to change? Did they want to take this opportunity?
They could become creatures of beauty and of astounding power. Fairy-like creatures of water. Consideration of water gave the Skraelings pause, particularly as attaining their River Angel form meant drowning themselves in its vileness, but for the moment they passed over it and thought only of the beauty and power of the River Angels as Isaiah had showed them.
“But of course,” Ozll said into the Skraelings’ reflection, “the River Angels were not just beauty and power, were they?”
The Skraelings considered this also, and took pause to resent Ozll a little, for he’d begun to sound as if he were their conscience, and that they did not like.
“They were quite murderous,” said the female, Graq. “They were vile, too. Isaiah showed us that. Do we want to be that?”
One of the nearby Skraelings opened his mouth to say “Yes!” then shut it again without speaking. A puzzled look came into his eyes.
“We don’t want to think of that,” said another Skraeling. “We want to be River Angels. They were beautiful and powerful and . . . we would have no lords other than ourselves!”
“But do we want to be lords like those?” Graq said, earning herself many resentful looks, although none spoke against her.
“These reflections are truly painful,” Ozll said, “and they make me want to curl up and cry.”
At that almost childish admission, all the Skraelings relaxed. He remained one of them, after all.
“If we return to the form of River Angels,” said Ozll, “then we would return to being beautiful and powerful, but infinitely murderous because of that. We were once murderous as River Angels, we remained murderous as Skraelings. Do we want to return to that? Do we want to remain that?”
His voice was genuinely bewildered and emotional, and all the Skraelings listening curled their toes and dropped their eyes.
“Would a touch of beauty and a bit