Sara Douglass - The Serpent Bride

Trying not to think too much about what he was about to do, Maximilian took a long stick, poked it into the fire, then scraped a goodly quantity of the bright coals over the rings.

They hissed, then hissed again, more violently than previously.

“Tell me what you see,” Maximilian whispered.

For a moment nothing happened, then vision consumed his mind.

He strode through a corridor that appeared as if it stretched into eternity. Its walls glowed turquoise and white.

Behind him, he knew the corridor vanished into the darkness that trailed from his shoulders like a cloak.

Maximilian strode ahead, his steps determined.

He walked the hallways of Elcho Falling.

He turned a corner, and halted, transfixed.

A woman sat in a bath, her back to him, her fair hair caught up about the crown of her head with pins, tipping water from an exquisite goblet encrusted with frogs over her shoulders so that it trickled slowly down her spine.

She turned very slightly as she became aware of his presence.

“My love? Is that you?”

He felt overwhelming grief at the sight of her, and could not understand it, for he knew also that he loved her.

He turned, and resumed his walk down the corridor, brushing irritably at a weight about his brow.

After some time (hours, days perhaps), he became aware that something approached from behind him.

He turned, thinking (hoping) it might be the woman.

Instead, it was something so dark, so terrible, that Maximilian screamed, throwing his arms up about his face.

It was not a creature or person at all. Instead, Maximilian found himself staring into the open doorway of the Twisted Tower, and seeing that it was now entirely empty.

Not a single object remained in any of the chambers.

He had lost everything, every memory, every ritual, every piece of magic, that he needed to resurrect Elcho Falling.

He woke, his heart still thudding, just after dawn.

All he could remember for the moment was the horror of staring into the doorway of the Twisted Tower and realising it was now entirely empty.

Terrified, but knowing he had to do it, Maximilian closed his eyes once more, and called forth the Twisted Tower. Trembling, he laid his hand to the handle of the door and opened it.

The first chamber lay before him, groaning with the weight of its objects.

Relieved beyond measure, Maximilian opened his eyes, looking across once more at the fire.

The rings lay in cold, drifting ash.

Maximilian reached over and picked them up, sliding his own ring on his hand, and slipping the queen’s ring away in his cloak.

What was he supposed to make of what he’d dreamed?

He busied himself with some breakfast, discovering himself starving. He set aside the problem of the dream for the moment, instead concentrating on the simple tasks of breaking camp, grooming and saddling his horse, and riding out.

Towards the end of the day, when he was dismounting from the horse in order to make camp, Maximilian realised that there was something about the vision that he had not been conscious of while he’d been experiencing it, but of which he’d become aware, very gradually, in the past few hours.

As he’d been striding the corridors of Elcho Falling, he’d carried the weight of a crown about his head.

Maximilian had his answer.

Elcho Falling was waking.

He sank to his haunches, absolutely appalled, lowering his face into one hand.

Elcho Falling was waking, and he was the one who would need to assume once again the responsibilities of its crown.

For several minutes he crouched in turmoil, unable to order his thoughts. Finally, however, Maximilian managed a deep breath.

What should he do?

Carry on, put one foot in front of the other, until the way ahead became clear.

Taking another deep breath, Maximilian finally rose to his feet. Perhaps this Ishbel Brunelle would have some answers.

The train of carts and horses and riders wound its slow, miserable way towards the city of Pelemere. Winter had set in and grey sleet drove down over the train, drenching horses and riders and even those Icarii sheltering inside the canvas-covered carts. Everyone huddled as deep as they could within cloaks, heads down against the driving rain, hands almost too cold and stiff to keep grip on reins. Horses plodded forward, heads down, tails plastered to their hind legs, eyes more than half closed against the rain. Mud splattered up from their hooves, coating their underbellies and the legs of their riders.

No one noticed the rider emerge from the shadows of a small wood and attach himself to the rear of the train. Within heartbeats he looked as though he had been there since the train had set out from Margalit weeks previously, face hidden beneath the hood of a sodden cloak, shoulders hunched against the cold.

A deputation from Pelemere met the train some four miles out of the city. It wasn’t a very large deputation, for this was the train only of the possible wife of the rather poor King of Escator (when Maximilian arrived he would rate a slightly more ostentatious welcome), but it was a welcome, and Baron Lixel, riding at the head of the train, was pleased to see them.

If nothing else the deputation meant food and shelter and a warm bed were nigh.

There were a few brief words of welcome, faces from the Pelemere deputation peering through the gloom to nod at the Lady Ishbel sitting her mare five or six riders back, and then everyone headed as fast as they might for Pelemere. No one wanted to remain outside in this weather.

The city had almost entirely shut down for the night, but there was one gate left open and it was through this small, insignificant side gate that the Lady Ishbel Brunelle and her train were escorted to their residence in the eastern quarter of the city. The house was one which the king, Sirus, had lent to Ishbel for the coming weeks as a gesture of goodwill towards Maximilian. It was not particularly large, but it had a covered courtyard, and Ishbel was never so glad of anything as she was of that sudden relief from the wind and rain when she pulled her mare to a stop with cold-numbed hands.

A servant from the house hurried forward to help her to the ground, then left her to aid someone else.

Ishbel stood, alone in the milling activity of the courtyard, wishing only for someone to escort her to a bath and a bed.

For an instant a gap opened in the crowd of horses and riders, and Ishbel saw a heavily cloaked man watching her from the far edge of the courtyard.

There was a moment when Ishbel felt that their eyes met even though his face was hidden beneath the hood of his cloak, and then a horse moved between them, the moment was broken, and Ishbel turned away.