The Infinity Gate: Darkglass Mountain: Book Three - By Sara Douglass Page 0,140

She could feel it playing along her flesh.

Rivers ran wild in her blood, and for a while she lost herself within their rhythm.

Gradually she became aware that she lay on something soft.

Inardle turned her head. Reeds. There were reeds everywhere, and the surface she lay on was undulating, very slightly. She lay in the reed beds. She watched the reeds moving in a gentle breeze.

Their movements mirrored the running of the rivers in her blood.

There were insects crawling up and down the shafts of the reeds, dragonflies here and there among their bushy heads.

It was so pleasant here. She didn’t have to think. She could just lie still.

After a long while, Inardle turned her head in the other direction.

Axis sat, a few paces away, leaning back against a thick stand of reeds. He was naked, his clothes spread out as if drying.

Behind him, in the distance, Elcho Falling.

She looked once more to the sky.

There were several Lealfast above, invisible to most eyes, circling and watching.

Inardle wondered what they made of her lying here so exposed.

Then she thought of Eleanon, and the river within her turned bleak.

Inardle looked back to Axis. He was watching her and gave a small smile at her regard.

Inardle rolled her head again to look at the sky. She lifted a hand, laying it on her sternum between her breasts.

The skin was soft, unbroken, not even by a scar.

“I am sorry,” Axis said, very softly. “It was the only way to escape the hex.”

Inardle gave a nod. “I have been dreaming,” she said.

Axis said nothing, waiting.

“I dreamed I ran with the Skraelings,” she continued.

“Was it reality?” Axis asked.

Inardle gave another nod. “We ran in a strange, strange place. Axis, the Skraelings are in a strange place, both physically and mentally.”

“In what manner?”

“They are going to return to the water, Axis.”

“Here?”

She gave yet another nod.

“When?” Axis said.

She shrugged. “When they wish.”

They fell into silence, and Inardle slept once more.

Isaiah stood with Georgdi on one of the balconies on the eastern wall of Elcho Falling.

“What are they doing?” Georgdi said.

Isaiah didn’t reply immediately. He, as everyone else, had been convinced that Axis and Inardle were lost when the ice hex turned black and crumpled apart, but a few hours ago one of the guards had reported that the pair lay in a small circle of trampled reeds to the east of Elcho Falling.

Isaiah and Georgdi had rushed to see. At first they’d thought one or both might be injured, but now it was apparent both were well enough.

“Gods alone know what they are doing,” Isaiah said. “But Axis is aware of the way into the citadel, and if he chooses not to take it . . . well .” He paused. “I’ll place a lookout here to keep an eye on them, but for the moment, my friend, we have worse things to worry about than when Axis and Inardle might rouse from their stupor long enough to let us know what happened.”

“You can’t contact them?” Georgdi said, knowing of Isaiah’s ability to speak with Axis over considerable distance.

Isaiah gave a little shake of his head. “He’s actually cut himself off. Whatever happened to them has changed both somewhat. I think they are both readjusting to the land of the living. They’re doing it in a bloody dangerous spot, but that’s what I think is happening. They were in there for many, many days, Georgdi.”

Georgdi heaved a theatrical sigh. “These winged races .” he said, then he and Isaiah turned and walked back into Elcho Falling.

When she woke, Axis was still sitting, watching over her.

“It is pleasant here,” Inardle said.

Axis gave a small smile. “Yes. It is. I worry about being so exposed, though. When you feel able, we should move to a place more concealed.”

“There are Lealfast overhead,” she said.

Axis glanced upward, his eyes creasing in worry.

“Don’t worry about them, Axis,” Inardle said.

He looked back to her, his expression still concerned.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said again. “How long have we been here?”

“We returned from the hex yesterday. You have slept through the night and through half of this day.”

Time must have passed, she thought, for Axis was clothed now. His clothes must have dried. “It was a terrible journey out of the hex, Axis.”

“I thought you were dead.”

“I dreamed. I ran with the Skraelings. But I also dreamed of you.”

He shifted slightly. “Inardle, I am sorry for what I did. I —”

“Eleanon made that hex and made those circumstances which meant you needed to kill me. It