The Titan of Twilight

17

The battle roar continued to ring in Brianna’s ears long after the portico had come crashing down, so she did not hear the scuttling boots until the walker had already crossed most of the fume-choked antechamber. The steps were ponderous and slow, not loud enough to be the titan’s, but too heavy to be man or ’kin.

Brianna slipped off the plinth where she had been sitting and rushed to place herself between the entrance and Kaedlaw, who remained wailing upon the floor. She did not try to take her child into her arms. It would have been easier to grab a cloud. No matter how closely she approached before kneeling beside her son, the queen always found herself beyond arm’s length. She removed Hiatea’s talisman from her neck and pulled a sliver of broken mirror from her cloak pocket, determined that if she could not touch the child, neither would anyone else.

While the battle raged outside, Brianna had stayed in the throne hall with Kaedlaw, so she could only guess who, or what, was coming after her son now. By the sound of his shuffling gait, he was large, patient, and either wounded or exhausted-possibly both. He also had to be someone of incredible power; no one else could have survived the harrowing battle that had shaken Bleak Palace for the last ten minutes. The queen half-expected to see a god’s avatar stepping out of the fumes to claim her son.

It hardly mattered to Brianna. She would attack, and without fear. The queen had long since worried herself into such an emotional frenzy that she could no longer feel anything except a seething, mindless anger: at Lanaxis for leaving her unable to defend her child, at Tavis for failing to stop the titan at Wynn Castle, and, most of all, at herself for drinking a spy’s drug and allowing an ettin to get a child on her. Whoever was coming did not realize it, but he was doing her a favor. She would fight him to the end. She could no longer bear to watch her child suffer, and death was the only escape left to either of them.

A large, stooped shape shambled into the smoky doorway, the silhouette of a great axe clutched in his hands. Brianna silently called upon her goddess’s magic and felt the talisman growing warm. When she uttered her spell incantation, the sliver vanished. A silvery light flashed from her hand and bounced off the throne room walls, returning in the form of a thousand long, gleaming needles. The queen pointed at the gray figure, and the silvery darts hissed toward him in a deadly stream.

A weary groan rose from the newcomer’s throat. The torrent of needles suddenly parted and tinkled off the floor around him, changing into harmless sparkles of light. Brianna cursed and reached for her knife.

“Brianna?”

The voice was a reasonable imitation of Tavis’s, save that it quivered like an old man’s and was far too deep. She hurled her dagger at the doorway. The weapon flew as level and true as any throwing blade, for she had enchanted it with a feather from the shadowroc’s wing.

Again, the stranger groaned. The knife veered off course and shattered against an unseen pillar. The fellow let the axe head drop to the floor, and he leaned on the heft.

“Stop that.” He sounded even older than before. “I can’t stand more of this.”

Brianna pulled a ball of candle wax from her pocket. “Imposter!”

“That was Julien, not me.” The stranger shuffled into the hall, moving with the weary steps of an old man. “And what he did doesn’t matter. Remember what I said when he claimed to have gotten a child on you? It’s still true today: ‘I believe you. I always have.’ ”

Brianna returned the wax ball to her pocket. “Tavis? It’s really you?”

“None other,” replied the ancient voice. “I’m sorry I took so long, milady.”

The newcomer-Tavis-stepped out of the smoke, revealing a beardless, elderly firbolg who would have stood as tall as a small hill giant, if not for the hunch in his back. His hair had turned as silver as a coin, a blue haze hung over the pupils of his ice-colored eyes, and his wrinkled skin was so thin and translucent that Brianna could see through it to the stringy muscles beneath. In his liver-spotted hands, he held a huge axe with an obsidian head and a wondrously decorated ivory shaft.

Tavis squinted around the room for a moment, then finally seemed to find Brianna. He smiled. “I hope you can do something about my eyes.” He shuffled toward her. “Fighting Lanaxis is hard enough when I can see.”

“Tavis!” Brianna screamed again. She couldn’t quite believe he had really come, or comprehend what she was seeing. “Has it really been so long? How can it have taken you a lifetime to find me? Kaedlaw has aged only a month!”

The high scout glanced down at himself, then chuckled grimly, almost madly. “It has been a lifetime-but not the way you mean. My age is Sky Cleaver’s doing.”

Tavis raised the great axe in his hands, and a wave of heated nausea rushed over Brianna. She had experienced such feelings before. They were premonitions sent by her goddess to warn her of some terrible danger, but the sensations had never been this strong.

The queen backed away. “Don’t come any closer.”

The high scout frowned, but stopped. “What’s wrong?”

“You tell me,” Brianna said. “Put that axe down.”

Tavis’s eyes narrowed. “What for?” He did not lower the weapon. “It’s mine. I won’t let you steal it.”

Brianna slipped her hand into her pocket and rolled the wax between her fingers, suspecting it would do her no good even if she had to use it.

“You don’t sound like Tavis Burdun,” she said. “The lord high scout would never disobey his queen’s order.”

An angry light flashed in Tavis’s eyes. “As you command, milady.” He laboriously stooped down to place the axe at his feet. “But I must warn you, Sky Cleaver’s hold on me is great. If you try to steal it, I-”

“Steal it!” Brianna scoffed. She was beginning to understand her premonitions of danger. It was not her husband that was dangerous, but the weapon’s hold over him. “What would I want with an axe so large I could not pick it up?”

Tavis’s gaze remained suspicious for only a moment, then he blushed in shame. “Forgive me, Brianna. It seems my heart is not as pure as yours.”

Brianna shook her head, relieved. “We both know that can’t be. It’s just that I’m more accustomed to dark temptations.”

The queen had almost decided it was safe to embrace her husband when she heard the distant clamor of more ’kin clambering across the rubble-strewn portico. She positioned herself between her wailing son and the doorway, clutching her goddess’s talisman in one hand and dipping the other into her cloak pocket.

“Valorous Hiatea-”

“There’s no need for that.” Tavis raised a silencing hand. “That would be Basil and Galgadayle. They won’t harm Kaedlaw.”

“How can you say that?” Brianna demanded. “Galgadayle wants him dead!”

“Perhaps, but he’s pledged not to kill the child himself.”

“What? He would never make such a pledge, unless you…” A chill crept down Brianna’s spine. “And what did you promise, Tavis?”

“We can decide what to do about Kaedlaw’s destiny later, after we’ve had time to think,” the high scout replied, in the same breath both answering and avoiding the queen’s question. “At the moment, we’d better prepare ourselves. I only wounded Lanaxis, and twilight is not so far away.”

The slap, slap of Basil’s flat feet rang off the walls of the antechamber, with the thud of Galgadayle’s boots close behind. Tavis’s baggy eyes grew narrow and wary, and he stooped over to retrieve Sky Cleaver. An instant later, the two ’kin raced into the throne room. They appeared as battered and exhausted as the high scout, if much younger.

Basil threw his arms wide and rushed Brianna. “Majesty, you’re well!”

The queen started to back away, saying, “Stay where you-”

Basil gathered her up and embraced her for a long moment. Finally, he seemed to hear Kaedlaw’s wail and put her down, then knelt beside the child. His heavy lips cracked a delicate grin, and his ice-crusted eyebrows slowly formed an awestruck arch.

“What a handsome child!” he exclaimed. “He looks just like his father!”

Brianna felt someone peering over her shoulder and glanced back to find Galgadayle standing behind her. Though the seer remained silent, the disdainful sneer beneath his beard made it clear that he wondered which father Basil meant. The queen found the differing reactions of the two ’kin surprising. Kaedlaw might look as handsome as Tavis one moment and as sinister as the ettin the next, but she had never seen both faces at the same time.

Basil turned to the queen. “Far be it from me to criticize, but I thought only verbeegs let crying infants lie. Don’t human mothers comfort their children?”

“Don’t you think I’ve tried?” Brianna was filled with such a sense of shame that she could barely whisper the admission. She knew that the affliction was no fault of hers, but that did not prevent her from feeling like a failure. “I can’t do it.”

“You don’t have to keep him quiet,” Galgadayle said. “I doubt Lanaxis can hear him anyway. But we really must hurry if we are to leave this place.”

Brianna whirled on the seer, her frustration and fear pouring from her mouth in a tempest of angry words. “Why, so Tavis can commit your murder for you?”

The queen had no defense left except her rage. Her magic would not work against her husband, and she could not best a trio of giant-kin-even ’kin as old as these three-with her bare hands.

She cast an accusatory glare at Tavis. “If you have come to keep your vow, do it now, Husband!”

Tavis’s cloudy eyes turned as soft as water. “I have come to keep my vow,” he allowed. “But not by killing you or Kaedlaw.”

“Tavis, must I remind you of our agreement?” Galgadayle demanded. “You promised-”

“I know what I promised!” The high scout’s head swiveled toward the seer, anger flashing like lightning behind his cloudy eyes. When Galgadayle voiced no more objections, Tavis exhaled slowly, then stepped over to Brianna. “Milady, do you trust me?”

Brianna started to ask what he meant, but then she heard Avner’s voice ringing inside her head: Tavis will see what you see… It’s your only hope.’ The young scout had spoken those words less than a day before his death, but the queen seemed to hear him now more clearly than ever. Whatever her husband intended to do, it would be the right thing. It simply was not in his nature to do anything else.

Brianna nodded. “Yes, Tavis. I trust you completely.”

The high scout stroked her cheek with a huge, wrinkled finger, then stepped around her and knelt beside Kaedlaw. He scooped the child up in his palm and studied him for a moment, a broad smile creeping across his cracked lips.

Kaedlaw’s wails began to subside, and Tavis said, “You’re right, Basil. He is handsome-and he has my eyes.”

Galgadayle brushed past Brianna to peer at the infant “I don’t see that, not at all,” the seer said. “To me, he’s as ugly as a troll. Use the axe.”

Now that Kaedlaw was growing quiet, his face had once again assumed a handsome and loving aspect in Brianna’s eyes. Her deepest instincts urged her to leap forward and snatch her child from Tavis’s palm. She desperately wanted to know the truth about her son and just as desperately wanted to remain ignorant. It was the conflict between those two emotions more than her willpower that kept her standing fast as her husband covered her helpless child with the flat of Sky Cleaver’s obsidian blade.

Tavis spoke a word in the same ancient tongue the titan used to cast spells. He grimaced with pain, and the last of the color faded from his pale skin. Even his muscles turned partially translucent, so that beneath the stringy cords of sinew, Brianna could see the yellow outlines of bone and the more nebulous shapes of internal organs.

Kaedlaw’s growls gave way to a muffled chortling.

The high scout took Sky Cleaver’s blade away. In his palm lay a rather plain-looking baby, neither as handsome as Tavis, nor as hideous as the ettin. The infant had a rather cherubic face with pudgy jowls, rosy cheeks, and twinkling eyes as gray as steel. Brianna could see her husband’s influence in the child’s straight nose and even features, while the ettin’s could be seen in the cleft chin and dark, curly hair.

“He’s not handsome any more!” Basil gasped. “He just looks normal!”

Tavis’s smile broadened. “He’s always looked that way,” he said. “But we couldn’t see it.”

Galgadayle frowned. “What? I know what I saw before. It was as plain-”

“Of course it was!” interrupted Basil, growing more excited by the moment. “Kaedlaw is no different than any child. We see in him what we expect to see-isn’t that what the axe showed you?”

“More or less,” Tavis answered. “Like any child, Kaedlaw has the capacity for both good and evil. How we rear him will decide which comes to dominate.”

“That is the more,” said Galgadayle. “What is the less?”

Tavis cast an uneasy glance at Brianna, and the queen felt a cold dread seeping into her heart. She began to fear that Galgadayle’s prophecy had been right, after all. Whether Kaedlaw grew up good or evil, he would lead the giants against the rest of the northlands.

When her husband still did not speak, Brianna said, “Tell me.”

Tavis took a deep breath. “Kaedlaw has two fathers,” he said. “I’m sorry, milady. Please forgive me for allowing it.”

Brianna hardly heard the apology. She felt no need of one, and there were other, more pressing matters on her mind. The queen took a tentative step toward her son.

“What of his future?”

Tavis shrugged. “No one can say. Ifs impossible to tell the future-at least Kaedlaw’s.”

Galgadayle shook his head violently. “What of my dreams?” he demanded. “You’re lying!”

Brianna swept Kaedlaw from Tavis’s hand, then whirled on the seer. “Don’t be ridiculous.” She was almost laughing. “Firbolgs can’t lie!”

“Then what of my dreams?” the seer demanded. “They have always come true!”

“Have they really?” Basil’s tone was more one of curiosity than debate. “Has anything ever happened exactly as you saw it?”

“Of course!” the seer replied. “A landslide swept Orisino’s village away, just as I dreamed.”

“In your dream, what happened to Orisino’s tribe?”

“They were buried.”

Basil smirked. “Obviously, your dream was inaccurate. We both know you warned Orisino in time to save his tribe.”

Galgadayle furrowed his brow.

“The same thing happened with the fomorians, I presume,” the runecaster continued. “You dreamed they would drown, then saved the entire tribe by warning Ror of their danger.”

The seer’s face grew almost as pale as Tavis’s, then he fell on his knees before Brianna. “By the gods, I have made a terrible mistake!” he cried. “How can I earn your forgiveness?”

There was a time when Brianna would have turned the firbolg away in contempt, perhaps even struck him, but the joy she felt now was more powerful than any fear he had ever inspired. She could not condemn the seer for what had been an act of conscience-and ultimately one of kindness and concern as well.

Brianna took Galgadayle’s hand and urged him to his feet. “There’s nothing to forgive. You may have frightened me half to death in the silver mines, but it was better that you were chasing us than the fire giants-and they would not have been so kind to their prisoners,” she said. “Fate has a way of pursuing its own course; all you or I can do is follow our consciences and hope for the best”

“You are more generous than I deserve,” Galgadayle replied. “But I thank you.”

Basil cleared his throat. “Now that all’s forgiven, perhaps we should turn our thoughts to leaving before Lanaxis comes back. As bad as he’s wounded, I doubt the titan has given up.”

Brianna felt her joy changing to hot tears. “That’s what I was trying to tell you earlier! I can’t leave the palace. The titan’s magic is too strong!”

“By my brush!” Basil gasped. “That’s what he meant!”

“What?” Tavis asked. “He said something?”

“As he was slipping down the hole into Twilight,” Galgadayle confirmed. “I believe it was, This is not done, not done at all.’ ”

“It doesn’t matter,” Tavis said. “I can cleave even the titan’s magic.”

“But I can already see your bones!” Basil objected. “At most, you can use the axe twice before it destroys you-perhaps only once.”

“I’ll have to take that chance,” Tavis said. “And if I fade, Galgadayle can… he can always…”

“What’s wrong?” Brianna asked.

Tavis stepped toward the seer and raised his axe menacingly. Galgadayle wisely lowered his gaze and retreated.

“He can’t have Sky Cleaver!” Tavis shouted. “I’ll never give it up! I’m the One Wielder!”

“Of course you are,” the queen replied. She stepped back and motioned for Basil to do the same. “We all know that.”

This seemed to calm Tavis, and they all stood in silence, considering their options.

At last, Brianna said, “Running won’t do us any good. One way or another, we’re going to end this thing tonight.”

Tavis shook his head. “We’ll lose. I can’t beat Lanaxis-and the rest of you can’t even touch him.”

“Don’t worry about your sight,” Brianna said. “The goddess still favors me. I can repair your eyes, at least.”

“My eyes aren’t the problem!”

Brianna frowned. “What’s wrong? I know your concern can’t be for yourself.”

“Oh, I’m frightened enough for myself.” Though Tavis’s skin was so transparent that it was difficult to tell his expression, he seemed unable to raise his cloudy gaze from the floor. “But my first concern is still for you and Kaedlaw. I’m just not strong enough to best Lanaxis.”

“Perhaps you could go into Twilight and slay him while he rests,” suggested Galgadayle.

“He’ll expect that,” Brianna said. “Besides, the only time I’ve ever seen him rest was when he got caught in daylight. Twilight restores his strength.”

“Then it’s better to wait for him here,” Basil said.

Tavis clutched the axe to his chest. “He’ll steal it from me!”

“Steal it?” asked Galgadayle. “If Lanaxis gets close enough to grab it-”

“Not grab-call,” Tavis said. “How do you expect me to outshout a titan? He almost stole it before!”

“That makes no sense,” said Basil. “The bond between Sky Cleaver and its wielder is an emotional one. Even Lanaxis shouldn’t be able to call it simply by shouting.”

“Of course he should!” Brianna said. “Lanaxis is mad with power-lust. Tavis’s anger is no match for that.”

Galgadayle sighed heavily. “Then we are finished.”

Brianna shook her head. “Perhaps not. There are plenty of emotions mightier than power-lust.” She turned to Tavis. “When Lanaxis tries to call Sky Cleaver away, fight him with a stronger emotion. Call it back with compassion in your heart, and you will win.”

Basil shook his head. “That won’t work. How can Tavis fight while he’s trying to be compassionate?” the runecaster demanded. “He’ll never kill the titan that way!”

Brianna let her eyes drop to her son’s cherubic face. “Of course not, Basil.” She kissed Kaedlaw on the brow. “We can’t defeat Lanaxis by killing him.”

Fools. Watch this.

A gloomy hand appeared first, as they knew it would, rising from the pit as the ashen afternoon darkened into twilight. Tavis stood on the boulder, Sky Cleaver in hand, with Basil and Galgadayle to either side of him. Brianna, unable to leave Bleak Palace, stood beside Kaedlaw at the end of the demolished portico.

Waiting was the hardest part. The queen’s plan called for the One Wielder to attack last, but he wanted nothing more than to leap now and finish the battle. They had made their plans and completed all their preparations. He felt as though the combat had been fought already and they were only awaiting news of the victor.

The arm climbed slowly, filling the pit so completely that it seemed to drag the edges of the hole up with it. The limb continued to rise until it loomed above the boulder to twice Tavis’s height, then tipped toward Bleak Palace and lay flat as a fallen tower. The hand wedged its fingers into the broken plain and pulled. An enormous, gloom-cloaked shoulder appeared in the hole.

“Now, Galgadayle!” Tavis urged. “Before he can call to Sky Cleaver.”

The seer stepped forward and threw a glowing dagger. The blade sank deep into the titan’s flesh, illuminating his shoulder in a brilliant halo of light.

If Lanaxis felt the weapon’s sting, he showed no sign.

Basil attacked next, rushing forward with a javelin-sized knife stolen from the palace kitchen. For once, his flat feet made no sound as they slapped the ground, for he had painted runes of silence upon his boots. The runecaster lowered his weapon as though it were a lance and drove the point deep into the titan’s clavicle.

Basil’s legs were still pumping when the tenebrous arm abruptly dissolved into wisps of purple murk. He plunged forward. The verbeeg’s mouth opened in a silent scream. He flailed his arms, dropping his weapon into the dark pit where the titan’s shoulder had been a moment earlier.

Tavis leapt off the boulder and grabbed Basil’s arm, pulling him away from the hole before he followed his knife into what remained of the Twilight Vale.

“It was an illusion!” Galgadayle continued to stare into the pit as he spoke.

“Then he’ll be returning from someplace else.” Tavis spun toward Bleak Palace, expecting to see the titan’s looming figure charging across the demolished portico.

There was only Brianna, standing at the edge of the lowest step, with twilight rising around her like a ground fog. Tavis turned slowly and saw the purple gloom seeping up all across the plain.

No, not across the entire plain. To the east, a blanket of damson light was falling from the sky to cover the ashen snows. Twilight did not rise from the ground, not on a tableland as vast as the Bleak Plain.

“Watch yourselves!” the high scout yelled. “He’s coming up under-”

Four purple talons burst from the ground and seized Tavis, crushing his arms to his sides. Sky Cleaver popped free and tumbled away. The shadowroc’s foot closed only tightly enough to hold the high scout motionless, as though the bird thought he still had the axe and feared squeezing too tightly would trigger the weapon’s defenses.

The shadowroc was emerging upside down. As its enormous breast rose from the plain, both Sky Cleaver and Basil tumbled off. The runecaster hit first, with the axe’s enormous heft falling across his chest.

The verbeeg’s baggy eyes grew as round as plates. His thick-lipped mouth fell open, and he glanced up at Tavis. When he found the high scout still locked helplessly in the raptor’s enormous claw, he raised his sagacious eyebrows in apology. He looked away and wrapped both arms around Sky Cleaver’s ivory handle.

Tavis felt the syllables of the axe’s ancient summons rise spontaneously in his chest, but he could not force so many strange words past his trammeled ribs. An unreasoning panic welled up inside him, not because he was caught in the titan’s grasp, but because he had lost Sky Cleaver.

As the shadowroc’s enormous wings and tail rose from beneath the plain, Basil rolled onto his stomach and covered Sky Cleaver. The runecaster murmured something, then he began to pale-hair, flesh, even his clothes.

A shrill screech erupted from the shadowroc’s throat as it broke completely free of the ground. Tavis felt himself whirl. The enormous bird rolled off its back, and then the air throbbed beneath the force of its great wings. Basil’s figure, already as translucent as alabaster and still paling, began to recede. The raptor beat its wings again. The plain spread out beneath Tavis like a milky-blue sea. In the center lay a dark island of shattered ground, the ruins of Bleak Palace.

There was nothing above save the shadowroc’s umbral torso, a ceiling of purple feathers as vast as a cloud. Every few seconds, the bird’s distant wingtips dipped below its gloomy abdomen, lifting them ever higher into the sky. Perhaps twenty paces away, the sticklike stump of a severed leg dangled beneath the fan of a monstrous tail.

Tavis began to work his pinned arms back and forth. Though it required only a few moments to free an arm, by the time he succeeded the shadowroc had carried him so high he could have looked down on the moon. The immensity of Bleak Palace was a mere dot in the milky snows below. He could look across the Endless Ice Sea to where it spilled off the northern edge of the world, and in the opposite direction he saw the dark valleys of Hartsvale lying beyond the white teeth of the Ice Spires North.

The shadowroc leveled off. Tavis wrapped his free arm around a talon toe and jerked back as hard as he could. There was a muffled crack, and the bird opened its claw. The high scout dangled for an instant, then pulled himself up to wrap his free arm around the raptor’s ankle. He shimmied up the tarsus as fast as he could, trying to reach the jungle of feathers overhead.

The shadowroc’s ebony beak darted back beneath its breast, a blue tongue fluttering in its gaping maw.

Tavis grabbed a handful of feather vanes and pulled himself into the dark thicket that covered the bird’s meaty thigh, barely escaping the hooked mandible that came scraping across the tarsus below.

Suddenly, the high scout’s legs began to rise, as though floating, and his entire body followed, straining away from the shadowroc’s thigh. The vast expanse of the Endless Ice Sea flashed past his eyes, then the starlit sky, the jagged Ice Spires, and finally the creamy snows of the Bleak Plain. Tavis pulled himself deeper into the feathers and held on for his life, trying to keep from being thrown clear as the raptor tumbled. Again, the Ice Sea flickered past, followed so quickly by the stars and distant mountains that the sky and ground blurred into a kaleidoscope.

The shadowroc pulled a beakful of feathers from its thigh and tossed them to the wind. Tavis could not tell how far the bird had already fallen, but he felt certain those hooked mandibles would find him long before the raptor crashed itself into the ground. Nor could he climb to a safer hiding place. It was all he could do to keep from being flung off the tumbling creature. He realized now why the titan had attacked in this form. As long as they were in the air, Lanaxis was the master; even if the high scout had been holding Sky Cleaver, he could not have killed his foe without sending himself plummeting toward the wasteland below.

For the next several seconds, the shadowroc struggled against the force of its wild fall to bring its beak to bear. Then, with the ground so close that Tavis could see his friends standing on Bleak Palace’s shattered portico, the raptor’s beak closed around the feathers to which he was clinging.

Tavis thrust one hand into a nostril. The air inside was as bitter and cold as ice. He grabbed hold of a jagged edge and clung tight as the shadowroc flicked its head to rip the feathers from its thigh. The high scout felt his feet swing around and sink into the soft tissue of the bird’s eye. It squawked in shock, then whipped its head in the opposite direction. Tavis slammed against the side of its beak and reached over the top, sticking his hand into the other nostril.

“Try to get rid of me now!”

The high scout had barely growled the challenge before he floated into the air, remaining connected to the beak only by the strength of his trembling old hands. The shadowroc’s enormous wings spread out to both sides of its body. The bird swept low over the ground, and the kaleidoscope of their long, tumbling fall abruptly gave way to the milky snows of the Bleak Plain.

They glided toward Lanaxis’s palace, flying no higher than the cupola. Basil was standing on the portico, supporting his ancient frame on Sky Cleaver’s heft. Already, the runecaster’s organs and most of his bones showed through his transparent skin.

“Throw it, Basil!” The cry was not so much a command as a prayer, for not even Basil had believed he would have the strength to part with Sky Cleaver once he touched it. “Now!”

As they passed by, Tavis kept his gaze fixed on the palace. To his amazement, Basil grasped Sky Cleaver’s heft and began to spin like a hammer-hurler. The shadowroc dipped a wing and wheeled around. Tavis lost sight of the verbeeg, then felt a sudden rush of wind as Lanaxis drew a deep breath through the cavernous bird nostrils.

The high scout whipped his head back around in time to see Basil releasing the axe. In the same instant, the shadowroc voiced the terrible screech Brianna had warned them about. An anguished ringing erupted in Tavis’s ears, and his entire body stung from the powerful vibrations that reverberated through the bird’s beak. The cry swept Basil from his feet and hurled him across the portico into Galgadayle and Brianna.

Sky Cleaver dropped toward the ground.

Tavis pulled one hand from the shadowroc’s nostril and stretched it toward the axe. “In the name of Skoreaus Stonebones, Your Maker-” The high scout’s ears were ringing so painfully he could not be certain he was uttering the syllables correctly, but the axe began to rise into the air. “O Sky Cleaver, do I summon you-”

The shadowroc screeched again, and wheeled around so violently that Tavis slammed against the side of its head. As they turned, the high scout glimpsed the axe sailing after them. He finished the last part of the command, unable to hear his own words:

“Into the service of my hand.”

Sky Cleaver flew to Tavis, turning its heft toward his outstretched palm. The shadowroc flapped its wings madly. Once more the vibrations of its deafening screech racked the high scout’s body; then he felt the axe’s ivory handle in his palm.

The bird flung its head wildly, trying to throw its passenger away before he could strike. Tavis glimpsed the moonlit snows a thousand feet below. He knew Sky Cleaver would save him even if he destroyed the shadowroc, but Brianna had warned him against thinking he could kill the titan so easily. He would have to defeat Lanaxis another way.

Tavis waited and hung on, more for his son’s sake than his own. When at last he felt himself bouncing toward the shadowroc’s face, he struck not with the edge of the axe blade, but with the flat.

“Cleave!” he commanded. “Sunder this madness!”

Tavis could never speak of what happened next, not even to Brianna. He remembered a wind that shined like light and a radiance that boomed like thunder. He stood on the whirling emptiness between the stars, with the titan kneeling at his side, head bowed toward a majestic figure that resembled the smell of freshly cut spruce and the sizzle of lightning and the howl of a lonely wind sweeping over an endless glacier. A voice like oak coursed through the high scout’s body and, he supposed, through Lanaxis’s as well.

“I can return, but why?” demanded the majestic figure. “You poisoned your brothers. You destroyed Ostoria. You cannot raise it again.”

“But the voices, Father!” Lanaxis seemed as young as the day he had walked from Othea’s birthing caves, with a strapping lean body, curly brown hair, and a brow unfurrowed by centuries of worry. Only his eyes, as deep and sad as twilight, betrayed his timeless remorse. “I have listened to them-I have studied them-for decades of centuries. You want me to rebuild Ostoria. The message is clear!”

“Message? There is no message! The time of giants has passed without notice on Toril, and that is your doing. The voices are punishment, nothing more.”

A sob of boundless anguish rose from Lanaxis’s throat. “No, Father!”

“Your punishment is not eternal, Lanaxis.” The god’s voice had grown so hard that it scraped along Tavis’s bones like a rasp. “After all, you are a mortal now.”

Lanaxis gave a cry, then suddenly dropped through the whirling emptiness and vanished from sight. The high scout prepared himself to follow, but instead felt Annam’s voice, as supple as a chamois brushing over his skin.

“You have something of mine,” the god said. “Return it, and I shall return what is yours.”

Tavis held Sky Cleaver out at arm’s length. “Take your axe, please. It has no place on Toril.”

“That shall be for you to decide,” Annam replied. “I know you mortals. It is easy enough for you to behave when you are frightened, but you do tend to change your minds at the last moment.”

Tavis felt himself sinking through the emptiness. He tried to toss Sky Cleaver toward the god, but the ivory handle would not leave his palms.

“Wait! How do I-”

He emerged above the Bleak Plain, with Lanaxis’s palace below. He was in exactly the same place as when he had cleaved the titan’s madness, but the shadowroc was no longer there. Tavis clutched Sky Cleaver to his breast, waiting for the familiar cold tingle that would mean the weapon was saving him.

The high scout continued to fall, the cold wind whistling past his ears ever faster. He started to cry out for the weapon to work its magic, then remembered Annam’s comment about mortals. He drew his arm back and tossed the axe into the sky.

“Take it!”

Tavis never saw what happened to Sky Cleaver. He had hardly released the handle before the shadowroc swooped down between them, obscuring his view of the weapon. The bird’s powerful claw closed around his body, bringing his fall to an abrupt end.

The great raptor wheeled on its wingtip and dived toward Bleak Palace, where Brianna and the two ’kin still stood on the ruined portico, staring into the sky. For a moment, Tavis thought the bird actually meant to rescue him. Then its claw bore down, squeezing the air from his lungs. His bones began to pop and groan under the terrible pressure, and he felt a talon slip between his ribs.

The shadowroc swooped low over the palace cupola, then beat the air with its great wings. It came to a near stop over the shattered portico and started to drop, sending Brianna and the others scrambling for weapons and cover. Then, just when the high scout thought his captor meant to land, the bird beat its wings again. Its claw opened, dropping Tavis on the rubble-strewn portico.

Brianna was on him almost before the pain. “Where does it hurt? Can you feel…” The queen’s mouth fell open, and she gasped, “In the name of Hiatea!”

Tavis peered to the suddenly empty sky. He pushed himself upright, expecting to feel the anguish of some gruesome injury. Instead, he seemed amazingly well, save for a few bruises from his fall and the talon wound in his torso. The high scout raised his hand and saw that not only had his flesh returned to its normal ruddy complexion, it was no longer wrinkled or spotted with age.

“You’re young again!” Brianna cried.

“For the most part, anyway.” Galgadayle stepped over to the scout’s side and fingered a lock of gray hair. “I doubt this will ever be bronze again.”

“I’ll settle for gray.” Tavis stood up and looked from Brianna’s empty arms to Galgadayle’s. “Now where’s my son?”

“Be patient,” growled Basil. “We’re coming.”

The runecaster sounded older and more tired than ever. Tavis turned to see a disconcerting figure tottering toward him. Unlike the high scout, Basil had not recovered from Sky Cleaver’s effects. His face was a mask of yellow bone set with moving eyes and a few translucent strings of muscle. The runecaster’s body was worse; it looked as though he had somehow survived being flayed by fomorian hunters.

Basil passed Kaedlaw into Tavis’s arms. “What happened to Sky Cleaver?”

“I gave it back… I’m sorry.”

The verbeeg looked down at his translucent body, then shrugged. “It’s not your fault. Even knowing the cost, I’d do the same again. I had to know.”

“What?” Brianna stepped to Tavis’s side and took his hand. “What did you have to know?”

Basil’s mouth twisted into an ecstatic, if particularly gruesome, smile. “Everything,” he answered. “Everything that matters.”

An uneasy chill ran down Tavis’s spine, though he could not say whether it was because of the runecaster’s reply or the eerie keen he heard building across the plain. The high scout turned to face the noise. He saw the shadowroc’s silhouette wheel high in the sky, then dive toward the western horizon. The screech arrived a moment later. At such a distance, it was hardly powerful enough to knock anyone off his feet, but the skirl set their ears to ringing and caused Kaedlaw to start crying.

“Ssssshh.” Brianna stood on her toes, holding Tavis’s arm while she comforted their son. “The titan can’t hurt you. Your father’s here.”