CHAPTER FOUR

The Dependency of En-Dor, the Tyranny of Isembaard

M aximilian’s party emerged from the FarReach Mountains into the very northern reaches of the Dependency of En-Dor. Here Maximilian and StarDrifter and the rest of their group farewelled BroadWing and the other three Icarii. It was an emotional good-bye, particularly for Maximilian and StarDrifter, but everyone had come to like the Icarii and would miss them.

It was too dangerous for the Icarii to remain with the rest of the party. No one knew what kind of reaction they would elicit in Isembaard, and neither Maximilian nor StarDrifter wanted to risk it, no matter how useful the Icarii would have been.

“We will go north,” BroadWing said, embracing first StarDrifter, then Maximilian, “and wait for news. Be safe, and snatch back that bride of yours, Maxel. Stars, she will be making you a father soon!”

Then he had grinned at StarDrifter and Salome. “And hide those growing hunchbacks of yours under cloaks. The next time I see you, I expect it to be among the clouds.”

Travel through En-Dor was easier than anyone had expected. Maximilian had not exactly known quite what to expect—Isembaard was such an unknown quantity—but the northern parts of the dependency were sparsely populated (indeed, many villages were completely deserted)—and those very few occupied small homesteads they did happen across were relatively friendly.

Language was not a problem. Like the kingdoms north of the FarReach Mountains, the Isembaardians spoke a version of the ancient common trading tongue. They spoke a different dialect, and their intonation was very different, but neither presented an obstacle to understanding.

When they did meet with Isembaardians, Maximilian let Venetia and, to a lesser extent, Serge do the talking. Both were fairly dark, and both had come into contact with Isembaardians in the past: Venetia from her conversations with Isembaardian witch-women she’d met in the borderlands of the Land of Dreams, and Serge in his younger and wilder days, when he’d been an assassin for hire, and had spent time in Isembaard.

Whenever their party neared a homestead, Maximilian sent Venetia and Serge in to buy or barter for food, while the rest of them hung back. Maximilian supposed Venetia used a little of her witch-woman skills in order to obtain the cooperation of the villagers, but he did not inquire too closely, and was grateful for whatever food and information Venetia and Serge brought back with them.

One day, a week after they’d farewelled BroadWing and his companions, Venetia and Serge came back with some disturbing news.

“Isembaard is gearing up for war,” Serge said, sitting down cross-legged at the fire while Venetia, Ravenna, and Salome, who was feeling far less fatigued than she had in the mountains, handed about fresh bread and goat’s cheese. “The tyrant, Isaiah, is marshaling his forces at Sakkuth for a push through the Salamaan Pass into the Outlands. And we’ve learned the reason why this land is so deserted.

Apparently Isaiah wants the people from these parts of his land to resettle in the Outlands. The settlers are gathering with the army near Sakkuth. Isaiah himself is even now, apparently, moving up the Lhyl from his palace in the south toward Sakkuth and is expected there within days.”

Serge paused at that point, and Maximilian looked at him keenly.

“What else have you heard?” Maximilian said. He wondered who this Isaiah was truly. Kanubai?

Already preparing for his push on Elcho Falling? No, surely not…surely not…

Serge and Venetia exchanged a glance, then Serge continued. “Maximilian, the rumor among the Isembaardians, started by soldiers who were recently in this area, is that Isaiah of Isembaard plans to meet with an army of Skraelings that are in the process of swarming south. An army of millions of Skraelings, heading into the Central Kingdoms.”

Everyone stared at Serge, StarDrifter muttering a shocked obscenity.

“No…” Maximilian whispered. “Oh, gods!” To hear this now, when they no longer had the winged Icarii among them who might have been able to warn the Central Kingdoms.

Skraelings? Millions? Maximilian ran a hand over his eyes, aghast.

How?

He did not need to answer that. Kanubai.

Would Escator be safe? Maximilian didn’t know, and he felt physically sick.

“There is yet more news,” Venetia said, very softly, looking at Maximilian.

“Any worse than this I have just heard?” Maximilian said, and Venetia shrugged a little.

“The homesteaders passed on some more gossip they’d heard from Isaiah’s troops,” she said.

“And?” said Maximilian.

“Isaiah has abandoned and forsaken all his eighty-odd former wives,” said Serge, “for a new and Favored Wife, as she is styled. A new bride. Ishbel, former Queen of Escator.”

There was a complete silence about the campfire as everyone fought not to look at Maximilian.

“Then this Isaiah has good taste,” said Maximilian, his voice now very tight, “and poor judgment, to think Ishbel’s Escatorian husband so willing to abandon her.”

“I am sure that Ishbel wouldn’t—” Ravenna began.

“I don’t think any of us can count on what Ishbel would or wouldn’t do,” said Maximilian, very quietly,

“or where her loyalties lie. I just want her and our child. I have not come this far to turn back now.”

No one said anything.

“But, by gods,” Maximilian said, “I cannot wait to quit this land and get back home. Skraelings!

Ah…Serge, do you know how far distant Sakkuth is? And in what direction?”

Serge gave a nod. “It will take us a week to travel there. East, and slightly south. But we will be traveling into a war zone, Maximilian, and life will not be easy for us once we approach Sakkuth…not the least because, according to the villagers, Isaiah has at least half a million men gathering in and about Sakkuth.

And then more, for many of them have their wives and families. Perhaps close to a million people, all to move north.”

Maximilian opened his mouth, then closed it again. It was too much to assimilate all at once: invasion, Skraelings, Ishbel now Isaiah’s “Favored Wife,” and now this.

“Sakkuth it is then,” he said after a moment. “We free Ishbel, then we head home as fast as we may.

Ravenna, Venetia, we will need your skills, as well as my penchant for the shadows, to get us close to this Isaiah.”

He paused. “And then to get us out again.”

Maximilian found it difficult to accept this much abysmal news. He set aside the terrifying news of the Skraeling invasion, and even that of the forces that Isaiah mustered, for at the moment he could do nothing about either.

Instead he thought about Ishbel.

He sat apart from the others for a while, the Weeper in his lap, his fingers gently stroking its cool surface.

He hoped that it might say something to him, impart some understanding, but there was nothing.

Maximilian had once or twice asked his Persimius ring what it knew of the Weeper, and the ring had only replied that the Weeper was very old and very sad and entirely lost without his employment. That last confused Maximilian even more, and the ring steadfastly evaded any attempt to get it to explain itself.

Ishbel. This Isaiah’s Favored Wife.

Maximilian hoped that she’d been taken unwillingly, and that the relationship was purely theater and not actuality. What else? Ishbel was now virtually full-term in her pregnancy and could surely not be sharing her body with this man.

Isaiah…

Maximilian still had the sense that people were being drawn together, all being drawn toward Elcho Falling. Even though he was now desperate to get home to Escator, Maximilian had the powerful sense that he must get to Ishbel first. Perhaps she would know more of what was happening.

Perhaps she might even be prepared, now, to share some truths with him.

A week and he would have more answers.

A week, and perhaps he would have his wife and maybe even a child.

A week, and then he could take his family home to Escator.

“Maxel?” Ravenna sat down next to him in his solitary spot a little distant from the fire. “Such bad news we have heard this day, and poor news regarding Ishbel indeed. I am sorry for the hurt it has caused you.”

Maximilian made a gesture with his hand, not truly wanting to discuss Ishbel with Ravenna.

“Perhaps she is not such a good wife for you, Maxel.”

Maximilian sighed. He set the Weeper to one side and began to strip off his outer coat, then his shirt, meaning to change into something fresher, and hoping that perhaps Ravenna would take the hint and move away. As much as he liked Ravenna, for the moment he just wanted to be alone.

“Maxel, what will you do if she has gone to Isaiah willingly?”

“Ravenna, we will know soon enough. I really do not feel like roaming into conjecture here and now. I just want to get Ishbel and our child, and go home.”

“Of course, Maxel. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have pried.” Ravenna started to rise, then halted, staring at Maximilian’s right biceps.

“Maxel?”

“What is it?”

Ravenna had laid a hand on his shoulder, and Maximilian felt his flesh quiver at its warmth and pressure.

“Your mark…the Manteceros.”

Maximilian twisted his head to look at the bright blue tattoo of the Manteceros, the supernatural creature that was both symbol and protector of Escator, that had been engraved into his skin as a baby.

It had faded into almost nonexistence.

Maximilian went cold. He was being prepared for a greater throne indeed—Escator was literally fading from his grasp.

Perhaps he would never return to Escator…

“What is going on?” Ravenna hissed. “What sorcery erases this mark?”

Maximilian studied her. She both looked and sounded angry, almost affronted. The Manteceros, in his true guise as Drava, Lord of Dreams, had been Ravenna’s lover for many years, and Maximilian supposed that she saw this fading as an affront to Drava himself.

I wonder where your true loyalties lie, my lady, he thought. Are you here for me, or to watch me on behalf of your supernatural lover?

“The world is turning upside down, Ravenna,” he said, shrugging off her hand and pulling on a fresh shirt.

“Perhaps the mark of the Manteceros is being lost in the confusion.”

After she’d left Maximilian, Ravenna went for a walk into the darkness. She was disturbed deeply by the fading of Maximilian’s mark. Everything had gone wrong in Maximilian’s life, and it had all gone wrong from the moment he’d met this woman, Ishbel.

“I do not think I like you, Ishbel,” Ravenna whispered, “but I think you are going to play right into my hands.”