"Who took your Sunstone?" asked Crow.
"I do not know," replied Lokar. "Someone who could pass the barriers and the bells of the Tower. Someone with ancient knowledge, a true adept of Light magic."
"The Dark Vizier?" asked Tal. "Sushin?"
"Sushin is the Dark Vizier?" asked Lokar, obviously startled. "I did not think… surely the Empress would not appoint someone like him… What is happening in the Castle?"
"There's no time to talk about that," Crow interrupted. "Can I take the Keystone out of here?"
"Yes," said Lokar. "But it needs to be here to power the veil. It might be lost or destroyed outside the Tower. Leave it here and find my Sunstone."
"I don't take orders from the Chosen," said Crow. He shifted his weight again, and reached between the silver hands to take the Keystone.
"No!" shouted Tal. "Leave it!"
Crow ignored him. As he lifted the Keystone free, the silver hands opened, palms up.
Crow lost his balance. Desperately, he clutched at the plinth with his knees and tried to keep hold of the Keystone as well.
He failed. One foot slid down the plinth and pressed hard on a red tile.
Tal saw it about to happen and jumped at the branch that held the appropriate bell. Or what he thought was the right bell. But it was the wrong branch and even as Tal grabbed the wire, another bell sounded only half a stretch away.
The bell jangled discordantly, the sound echoing throughout the room. Then the bell next to it started to sound, and the next. Within a few seconds every bell in the tree was ringing furiously, save the one Tal had in his grip.
He let it go, hung from his hands, and jumped down. Crow was already running to the walkway, the Keystone in his hand. Tal followed him. They would have to climb down as quickly as they could, before whatever was alerted by the bell came up the stairs.
Adras had clearly been asleep as they burst out of the archway. The Spiritshadow was lying on the floor of the walkway like a thick blanket of shadow fog, and it took him a few seconds to pull himself together.
"What's happening?" he boomed.
Tal ignored him and rushed to the rail, ready to climb over. Crow was already there, but he had stopped and was staring down.
Tal looked.
His heart seemed to stop.
Light was pouring out of every window, stark shafts of light spreading in all directions. It grew brighter as he watched, as Sunstones inside the Tower activated.
It was not the light that scared Tal.
It was the shadows.
Hundreds of Spiritshadows were issuing out of the windows. All kinds of Spiritshadows, all manner of Aeniran beasts. Most of them were creatures Tal had never seen before outside of a game of
Beastmaker, and they were certainly not companions of Chosen.
Tal couldn't believe his eyes. The Red Tower was housing Free Shadows, Aeniran creatures that should not have been there, but were.
Now they were all swarming up in answer to the tree of bells.
Tal shouted, "Adras!" ready to order the Spiritshadow to fly them across and away. But the command died on his lips as he saw two Waspwyrm shadows launch themselves out of a window and up.
There would be no escape by flying.
They were trapped.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Everything happened very quickly for Milla once the Crones came to their decision. She was cut free from the chair, but told to stay sitting there. Odris was ordered to stand behind her.
Then the Crones quickly moved to form a circle around them both. Milla tried looking out at them, but all the strange eyes focused on her were too much and she had to look down.
When the circle was complete, the Crone Mother of the Ruin Ship slowly raised one scarred, pallid hand.
A wind rose with her hand, though this was unnatural inside the Ship. It grew stronger as the hand rose.
A whistling, howling wind circled all around Milla, coming from no single direction. It was strangely cold and hot by turns, unlike any breeze Milla had ever felt upon the Ice.
Milla looked up and saw that the Crones were whistling, their lips pursed, their glowing eyes all centered on her.
Somehow they had called up the wind.
The wind grew stronger, and the lanterns blew out.
The Crones' eyes kept glowing in the darkness. Then they all spoke together, in a giant voice that was even louder than the wind.
"Milla of the Far-Raiders," roared the collective voice. "For the first time, you are cast out!"
Milla felt the wind pick her up, out of the chair. She was hurled high into the air, above the Crones, almost to the ceiling. Her clothes were stripped from her body, and she flew naked through the air.
The wind took her toward the far wall, and for a moment Milla thought she would smash into it. At the last moment, the wind dropped and she was hurled through a fur-curtained doorway instead, into a corridor.
Still the wind carried her, and the Crones came in a great mass behind, filling the corridor.
"Milla of the Far-Raiders!" shouted the vast voice again. "For the second time, you are cast out!"
Milla was hurled through another doorway. She felt the wind that carried her meet another, more natural breeze, and for a moment she hovered as the two forces of air did battle. But the Crones' gale was stronger, and Milla was pushed on again.
She came to another doorway closed by hung furs. The Ice lay outside, Milla could feel.
"Milla of the Far-Raiders! For the third time, you are cast out!"
The wind cast Milla out through the door, and left her. She catapulted through the air and came crashing down into a deep snowdrift.
The shock of the sudden cold knocked the breath out of her. She lay in the snow, the natural wind spraying ice crystals through her hair. Her skin burned with the cold, and a deep pain stabbed her through the deep Merwin-horn scar on her stomach.
Her heart seemed to slow down and she felt the blood pumping deep in her ears. It grew slower and slower, but she wasn't frightened or worried. Whatever was happening now, this is what was meant to be. Here, out on the Ice.
Milla's heart stopped.
All was silent. She could no longer hear even the wind.
The silence continued for one second. Two seconds. Three seconds.
Then the Crones spoke again.
"Milla of the Ruin Ship, come to your clan!" Milla's heart restarted with a shiver she felt from the top of her head to her toes.
Hands delved into the snow and gripped Milla, pulling her from the snow. Her arms were put through a coat of silver Ursek fur one fit for a Sword-Thane of legend--and it was pulled over her head.
Ice crystals were brushed from her hair and a circlet of Selski bone set there, even as she was momentarily lifted up so her feet could be put into thick boots of fur-lined hide. A belt was tied around her waist, silver and black, with a golden buckle in the shape of a leaping Merwin.
Still dazed, Milla was rushed back inside in the middle of a great crowd of Crones. She felt curiously light, almost as if the wind that had carried her was still doing so. The weight of her past worries had disappeared. She no longer felt that she should go to the Ice and die for her misdeeds.
Back in the judging chamber, Odris rushed to meet her, the Spiritshadow babbling with relief.
"What happened, Milla? I felt you… disappear
… and then you were back. I don't like it here. When can we go back to Aenir? It's better there, for both of us…"
"Hush, Odris," said Milla calmly. "We are not finished here. Come stand by me."
She walked to the chair and sat upon it. But in her silver fur and bone circlet, with the Talon of Danir shining on her finger, she did not look like someone come for judgment.
"Welcome, Milla of the Ruin Ship," said the Mother Crone. "We have a heavy responsibility to lay upon you. Do you accept it, for you and your shadow?"
"I do," answered Milla regally. She raised her hand to quiet Odris,
who was about to speak.
"Then we shall speak the Prayer of Asteyr to bind you to it," announced the Mother Crone.
Again, the Crones spoke together as a single, giant voice.
A woman's voice.
The power of the voice overwhelmed Milla and Odris, so that after the first few words they did not hear them, but rather felt themselves being caught up in a poem or song, one that reached into their very bones, real and shadow.
With the prayer came a deep instruction, one that they could never break. It spoke of absolute loyalty to the Icecarl people, a loyalty that would be defined by the voice of the Icecarls.
The Crones. They would speak together in their silent way, and make their decisions in the great mind they shared. Whatever decisions they made would be laid upon Milla, and she must obey, as must the shadow that was bound to her.
The Prayer changed, and the voice grew quieter. Finally only the Mother Crone of the Ruin Ship spoke. Even alone, her voice was binding.
"Three things we lay upon you," said the Mother Crone. "The first is your life-name, so I call you Milla Talon-Hand. The second is the office I have held before you, that of the Living Sword of Asteyr. The third is a title and a responsibility that no Icecarl has borne for two thousand circlings."
She paused and took a deep breath before continuing.
"Milla Talon-Hand, we name you War-Chief of the Icecarls, and charge you to finish what was begun long ago. We charge you to secure our world forever from the Shadows of Aenir."
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Tal looked at the great tide of Spiritshadows rising toward them. They only had a few minutes before they would swarm over him.